Saturday, March 5, 2016

Fixing the Divine Liturgy I: The Call to Reform

The following article did not appear in the Orthodox liturgical journal Axios:

"It's a dreadful mess," said Fr. Roberto Enojado, a convert from a Papist background. "When I first found Holy Orthodoxy I was moved by the profoundly spiritual meaning of the liturgy in contrast to the pathetic reforms of the Romans. Now I see a congregation that is clearly as bored as I am."

Fr. Enojado is not the only priest in Orthodoxy to realize that the static nature of the Divine Liturgy has bled the Church's membership. Although sacred in every way the Divine Liturgy is brimming with empty action actions often mistaken as symbols by those who lack specialized knowledge.

Many of the actions in the liturgy are "incomprehensible" according to Sr. Vassa Larin, a professor of Catholic Theology at the University of Vienna. Gestures that the faithful interpret as mystical symbols are in fact practical measures that succeeding centuries since the Fall of Constantinople and the beginning of the Great Captivity have rendered antiquated.

Uniate Fr. Robert Taft, SJ has taught innumerable Orthodox students, among them Roberto Enojado, who are expected to be on the liturgical committee for the next Great and Holy Synod of 2024, which may or may not be an ecumenical council this time. Taft emphasizes that while past generations clung to stability in their ignorance, young people today are educated and desperate for constant change. "The unchangable nature of the liturgy is driving millennials from the Church," said Enojado.

Enojado is a young priest for a parish in Los Angeles and figures to be one of two or three members of the liturgical commission with pastoral experience, the remaining seventy-two all academics and seminary instructors. "Every Sunday it's nothing but troparia about the Resurrection," he says. "There is nothing instructive in the Divine Liturgy anymore, nothing about the mystery of the Church as there was before the Hesychasts."

Some quiet reformers are calling for a face lift of the Divine Liturgy along Roman lines. Fr. Dcn. Scholasticos of St. Wonkion Monastery goes as far as to call for the removal of the icon screen and more popular involvement along the lines of Paul VI's intervention into the Roman liturgy. His teacher, Fr. Taft, reminds us that the Roman renewal was an "overwhelming success."

Fr. Enojado is less enthusiastic about what he describes as a protestantization of the Roman liturgy. Instead he says "We want to re-upholster an existing piece of furniture, not create a new chair."

Still, a reform has not been thoroughly considered by static Church leaders, but is an urgent matter. Larin warns that "people currently think the Apostles celebrated the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom. That clearly wasn't the case."

One potential obstacle to renewal in the Divine Liturgy is the question of direction. All commentators agree that the Church must do whatever the Fathers did, but evidence is actually quite scant as to what exactly they did. "What psalms and troparia did they sing before the monastics came to New Rome? No one knows," says Scholasticos. His solution is to return to the spirit of the Early Church and improvise texts. "Someone made up the Thrice Holy Hymn, not an angel. Why can we not do the same?"

Questions abound heading into the Great and Holy Synod of 2024 as the Church looks to understand its identity in post-Christian society. Enojado thinks that fixing the liturgical problem is a necessary step in that process. "People were not this liturgically rigid in ancient Constantinople, or even in Moscow. Would the Church not loosen up if its liturgy loosened up today?"


"Part II: Committee Meetings" to come! This is a a series inspired by a previous post and is purely speculative in nature.

Aside: posts will become more infrequent this month. I have a 90 minute commute each way to my office and I am moving at the end of the month.

15 comments:

  1. Interesting. I hope to live to see what they have envisioned.

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  2. This has got to be fake... The sentiments within it, and some of the characters mentioned, are real, but it seems like a joke. Is there really a major call by academics within World Orthodoxy to modernize the Liturgy in line with Vatican II?

    Call me what you will but I shudder to imagine what the mostly convert academics would do to the Divine Liturgy should they get their way! Please, no more academic pretensions about returning " ad fontes" or about knowing better than the saints and millions of simple laity just because you have a handful of degrees from prestigious universities. Please do not put Father Taft, S.J., Kalistos Ware, Sister Vassa Larin or anyone from the Institute of St Sergius or St. Vladimirs Seminary in charge of anything of this nature.

    Roman Catholicism has been thoroughly wrecked by academics, let it not happen to the Orthodox!

    Should this happen sacramental Christianity would have been pretty much completely leveled externally by Western academics both in its Eastern and Western forms.

    The only plus is that unlike Rome with its top down corporate approach the Orthodox do not have a Pope to just push reforms and require obedience. I don't think ROCOR or the Moscow Patriarchate or some of the Old Calendarists will ever allow Kalistos Ware or the protégés of St Vlads touch their ecclesial life.

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    1. All,

      Please read the first sentence of this post carefully. I sense a few have missed one key word.

      As I said, this series is speculative, but it is worth reading the linked prior post, which explains my inspiration for writing this.

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  3. Obviously satire. Enojado means "stuck up" in spanish

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  4. It is worth noting that by Amalarius’s life, the Roman liturgy was already far removed from the days gestures had a known and specific meaning, whether that be practical or otherwise. The signs of the cross and their great number, even over the consecrated elements, are the chief example of such a thing.

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  6. I hope that folks like Fr. Taft play no role when it comes to the liturgical course of the East.

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  7. OFF-TOPIC: What would be the Ideal Liturgical Movement for Today? In My Opinion,there would be emphasis on access to a devout and public recitation of the Complete Divine Office with the(Pontifical) Solemn High Mass.

    As for the Eastern Catholic Rites: Restore them in it's Pre-Vatican II customs and ceremonies and let Romans immerse themselves with a Missalete.

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    1. Depends on the Eastern Rites/Churches. For many of the Syriac ones, the best move would be to restore the liturgies to pre-Latinization times to the best of our ability.

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  8. "Although sacred in every way the Divine Liturgy is brimming with empty action actions often mistaken as symbols by those who lack specialized knowledge."

    That reminds me... On a trip to Transylvania last year, a dear friend unexpectedly gifted me a 1933 Hungarian-Latin hand missal, which includes extensive and very rich commentaries on various aspects of the liturgy, liturgical history, etc.

    In a section about the Papal Mass, it notes that a special unique feature is the sacristan publicly consuming two of three hosts during the Offertory, as well as tasting the wine to be consecrated, and states matter-of-factly that this is a legacy of the "sad times when Popes were not infrequently poisoned by their rivals, and precautions had to be taken."

    I was both edified, and struck by the matter-of-fact Roman sobriety with which the missal shared this historical tidbit. No pious pussyfooting there!

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    1. On the other hand, there is something good to be said for spiritualizing things when the original meaning was lost. It also isn’t as if you can easily spiritualize the praegustatio.

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  9. Some quiet reformers are calling for a face lift of the Divine Liturgy along Roman lines.

    "It became necessary to destroy the town to save it."

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  10. Fr Taft and his school of thought were deeply involved in the recent reform of the Divine Liturgy in the Byzantine Ruthenian Metropolia. The end result is not pleasing to anyone with any knowledge of the tradition.

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    1. Look here for a full discussion of the reform controversy:

      http://www.byzcath.org/forums/ubbthreads.php/forums/15/1/The_Revised_Divine_Liturgy

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