Western Orthodox Saints
by Newnameelizabeth
It had been Archbishop [St.] John’s [Maximovich of San Francisco] work with the Orthodox Church of France that had originally evoked the fathers’ interest in ancient Gaul. After the Archbishop’s repose, the fathers remembered his love for Western Orthodox Saints, his work to spread their veneration among Orthodox Christians and his last words to them about the veneration of St. Alban of Britain – and they saw this as his testament to their Brotherhood: a call to honor and make known the Saints of the West. In fulfillment of this testament, they published material about Gallic Saints in The Orthodox Word as early as 1969: a Life of St. John Cassian by Ivan Kontzevitch, followed by an article on “The Foundation of Orthodox Monasticism in the West by Fr. Seraphim. This was a subject which until that time had not been broached by Orthodox writers in the English language. As a result, the fathers’ efforts did not go without some surprised and even indignant response. When they were working in their bookstore only a few months before their move to the wilderness, a young “traditionalist” Orthodox scholar came in and began disparaging the new issue of The Orthodox Word. On the cover of this issue was a photograph of the monastic isle of Lerins and the words “St. John Cassian and Western Orthodox Monasticism.”
“There is no such thing as ‘Western Orthodox Monasticism,'” the college student objected vehemently, and began expounding his “traditionalist” Eastern Orthodox point of view. Fr. Seraphim listened politely to the arguments, but they appeared rather adolescent in his eyes. He had no part in such an anti-Western bias – the same bias which provoked others to disparage Blessed Augustine at every opportunity. It was spiritually debilitating, he knew, for Westerners to cut off their native roots for the sake of an artificial “Eastern” purism. From Archbishop John he had been given the task of restoring Western Christians to their own Orthodox heritage, and this he intended to do whatever his detractors might say. (Father Seraphim Rose, His Life and Works by Hieromonk Damascene p. 703,4)
I have not read many Saints, eastern or western, except for little excerpts, mostly of their lives, available here and there. I know that there are legitimately Orthodox Saints in the west, such as St. Patrick of Ireland, and other popular ones like St. Brigidh of Kildaire, but I am still worried about Blessed Augustine. Mostly what I’ve read is secondary reviews about his Platonism and speculations, but the snippets I’ve read from him personally bother me, and I don’t think it’s just because I’m biased against Calvinism. I can’t dig up the passages I’m remembering right now, and I do intend to read more for myself, as well as Fr. Seraphim’s more specific review on him in another book, but he seems to have a punishing view of sin, and too much of a distinction between righteous people and unrighteous ones that seems too black and white and condemning. Nothing I’ve read draws me to read more. I have the same feeling about Dante and Milton. The little bits I know of bother me concerning misogyny, courtly love, and punishment rather than self-imposed consequences. But every educated person needs to read them and that is my main motivation. Meanwhile though, Dostoevsky is higher on my list. And Bleak House by Charles Dickens.
Words 
While St. Augustine’s theological works are mostly at odds with Orthodox teaching, I don’t know whether there are many books I could recommend as highly as his Confessions. It really is quite a beautiful work.
I chose my particular blogging moniker almost three years ago owing to my appreciation for the budding phenomenon of Western Rite Orthodoxy. Since that time, I’ve grown dubious about whether a Western Rite makes sense.
The Western Rite question is not so different a question as whether certain Westerners are appropriately venerated as Orthodox Saints. Orthodoxy is a cultural phenomenon. The Mind of the Church is our culture. The catechumenate is the period during which the catechumen acquires the Mind of the Church–not simply facts and dates and ethnic mannerisms–from the instructors. In fact, the quality and extent of one’s conversion is properly measured by how completely one has acquired that Mind.
The fact that Westerners are accepted as converts–and potential saints–demonstrates to me that the possibility of Western Saints isn’t inherently foreign to Orthodoxy.
Let’s circle back to the Western Rite. Have Western Riters converted to Orthodoxy, or are they simply dressing up their old habituations with Orthodox colors?
You really should read Fr Seraphim’s book on St Augustine, and the Confessions too, of course. Did you see the lengthy passage I recently quoted from the latter?
Visibilium –
“Let’s circle back to the Western Rite. Have Western Riters converted to Orthodoxy, or are they simply dressing up their old habituations with Orthodox colors?”
As a parishioner at a Western Rite parish, I recognize that the answer to your question is rather complex. Some people are effectively still Anglican (for instance)—they have not had a “conversion of the heart”, as I have heard it called. Others, however, are as Orthodox as the Pope is Catholic (my Godfather, for instance)! Converts at parishes practicing the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, however, sometimes do not have a “conversion of the heart”, so I wonder how much of the problem can really be localized to the Western Rite. As I see it, the problem is really a problem common to all conversion, and so the solution is likely to be found in the pastoral realm, rather than the liturgical.
Can you tell I haven’t thought about this much? ;}
Aaron,
Yes I read the beautiful quote about St. Monica. The thing I appreciate most about it is the effectiveness of her prayers for his conversion.
And I see his point about ascending from appreciation of creation to contemplating God Himself, which is very beautifully put.
Maybe it’s my dialectic with Protestants about veneration of the Saints and icons though that makes me feel defensive when he categorizes creation as contemptible,
“If then having uttered this, they too should be hushed, having roused only our ears to Him who made them, and He alone speak, not by them, but by Himself, that we may hear His Word, not through any tongue of flesh, nor Angel’s voice, nor sound of thunder, nor in the dark riddle of a similitude, but might hear Whom in these things we love, might hear His Very Self without these (as we two now strained ourselves, and in swift thought touched on that Eternal Wisdom which abideth over all);—could this be continued on, and other visions of kind far unlike be withdrawn, and this one ravish, and absorb, and wrap up its beholder amid these inward joys, so that life might be for ever like that one moment of understanding which now we sighed after; were not this, Enter into thy Master’s joy? And when shall that be? When we shall all rise again, though we shall not all be changed?
Such things was I speaking, and even if not in this very manner, and these same words, yet, Lord, Thou knowest that in that day when we were speaking of these things, and this world with all its delights became, as we spake, contemptible to us,”
I do not know what theosis is like, but I think I understand that we will enjoy other people and things in heaven as deified creations. Granted on Mt. Tabor the light engulfed Moses and Elijah, but still…
The Platonic system is more binary where it’s God and nothing. The above reference to “God alone” also reminds me of the Westminster Confession.
As for Dante and Milton, it’s true that their theology is occasionally troubling (although I don’t recall anything I would call misogynistic), but I would argue they should be read, not only because they are ‘important literature’, but because their poems are beautiful. With Dante, one of the things I precisely enjoyed about The Divine Commedy was seeing him try to operate within the constraints of his theology, and still manage to produce something which, while it may not be Orthodox, is still moving and in many ways rather beautiful. Milton is certainly the less Orthodox of the two, but even he has such shining moments of power and loveliness, where the language itself becomes the stuff of enchantment, that I can forgive many sins.
I got the idea of Milton’s misogyny pretty quickly when I read the Wikipedia article on Paradise Lost. My University of Dallas son just finished reading it and there where many protestations from the girls in his class while the guys all laughed at how Eve was portrayed.
I struggle with thinking I should be more forgiving when reading these people, but it really does ruin most of the beauty for me. I don’t think we’ve comfortably figured out woman’s place in our culture yet, and until then, we females will probably be defensive about these things.
I tend to be half artistic and half scientific, so that probably narrows down what I can appreciate – beautiful and idealogically correct! So I’m stuck with the Church and nothing – sigh. Which is why I read Orthodox Fr. Seraphim (even though he likes [Blessed] Augustine) and [other open-minded] Orthodox people like you, and I’ll probably pick up Dr. Hart again sometime.
I [edited] my last comment.
I think the humility of God does not allow for His creation to be obliterated. We contemplate Him and His presence, and then, to use Visibilium’s words, He “circles back” to putting others on our minds, at least while they need it.
p.s. I’m also liking the exchange between Vis and Zakk.
Yes, I can tell from your answer that you’ve thought about it once or twice. Or thrice. Or more.
At least the incompletely converted converts within the regular Orthodox parishes are constrained by a proven liturgy and practice. As St. Paul tells us somewhere, actions are an essential companion to beliefs. The self-help groups paraphrase him “fake it ’til you make it”. Humans are body and soul–thinking and acting. The question surrounding conversion within the Western Rite pertains mainly to whether the Western liturgy provides the necessary physical context within which Orthodox actions and beliefs tend to be produced. The symbolic nature of the Liturgy resides in the actions.
Western Rite defenders tend to focus on whether the words used during their Masses are Orthodox, since activities tend to be harder to pin down. Of course the words are Orthodox–Moscow and Antioch made sure of that. What about the actions?
Ever the experimenter, I went to youtube today, and played a couple Tridentine-style Mass videos. There’s no doubt that such masses are beautiful. Everyone loves the colors, the movements, and the music. I sang along with the Gregorian chants, and enjoyed the Renaissance-era organ preludes.
The only problem is that it isn’t Orthodox. It’s streamlined and impersonal. The statues are cold and lifeless.
I saw a God who is transcendent, but not immanent. Where are God’s energies? Where is God’s personal concern for each believer? Where’s the personality?
Zed- You’re on line with Fr. Seraphim in your admiration for Bl. Augustine’s “Confessions”.
Visibilium- The miracle continues; I actually agree with your first comment on this strand, except that I think the question of the veneration of Western Orthodox Saints is different from the question of whether the Western Rites can or should be revived. Accepting the veneration of Orthodox figures in the West simply involves the recognition of true sanctity in a Saint of Western Europe; reviving disused liturgical practices, let alone inventing new ones as in “Salibadoxy”, does not sufficiently recognize the importance of continuity. A liturgy develops in the context of a praying people; to think one can just revive something like that whenever the need arises is like saying of a dead body, “Well, it used to be alive; let’s just prop it up and put it in a nice suit and see what happens”. A good deal of the sawdust has been leaking out of the Western Rite movement, despite the best efforts of the Episcopal taxidermists.
Andrea- I think we should remember that Bl. Augustine lived a very worldly life as a young man. Sometimes, when this is the case, it causes a sort of revulsion in one, and you react against the world because you have been seeking fulfillment in the world, and it has left you empty. The fullness of your knowledge that what you seek is not here produces a sort of singlemindedness in seeking beyond; though Bl. Augustine did flirt with Manichaeism for a time, which did truly abhor matter, in his maturity I think his position of Worldly renunciation would be best expressed as “If I gain the World and lose You, I have nothing; if I gain You despite the World, I have everything”. Those who don’t abuse the World to that extent may possibly be able to be led to God by good things.
Having been disappointed with worldly fulfillment, I can see your/his point, but I still think it is taken too far. It’s like despising all men because a youthful experience gives one the heebie jeebies (aka heebee jeebees). One has to relearn how to properly relate.
I guess it’s the difference between creation and the world in the unbalanced, fleshly sense. The Incarnation unites heaven and earth in the only way that we can be saved. We can’t be saved without His flesh and blood.
But I do see the point of renouncing the world and going to the desert to discipline one’s passions. It’s my fault, not creation’s though.
The two questions are subtly related. Are Western saints who existed during the first millennium automatically Orthodox Saints? Nope, as demonstrated by the absence of Charlemagne in the Orthodox calendar. Only those Western Saints who conformed to the Church’s Mind are canonized. Likewise, the Western Rite isn’t Orthodox just because folks used it during the first millennium. The Rite must conform to the ontological reality in which the Church participates during the Orthodox Liturgy.
I can’t see any actions that appreciably differentiate the Western Rite from heterodox Western liturgies. Therefore, the ontologies are identical, although the verbal descriptions of those ontologies differ (e.g., no filioque and stronger epiclesis). I’m not even going to begin to discuss the problems with Sacred Heart, Rosary, Miraculous Medal, overly-romanticized crucifixes, etc. Ugh.
Ok, since we agree on everything, how about I throw in a zinger:
Was the Western liturgy ever Orthodox, except in words? Do we know?
It gets kind of messy sorting out western saints since Charlemagne was pre-Schism. Many say the west was Orthodox before the schism, but he is an important exception.
Wasn’t the Latin Rite practiced in the west before 1054 considered Orthodox at the time, at least pre-filioque? I don’t know when the other things like the Sacred Heart were introduced. I also don’t have the impression that Western Rite Orthodox Churches employ those things. Maybe someone can enlighten me.
I also think it is going too far to say that the Western Rite Orthodox Churches aren’t Orthodox. It doesn’t just depend on individual piety either. I believe that God has used the western rite as an entrance into Orthodoxy for some people, including for me on one Sunday. But I also have the opinion that it is an intermediary step that will eventually leave people wanting more.
The question of veneration is complicated, as many saints are venerated locally that are not on the universal calendar, and the fact that they are not venerated universally does not necessarily mean that anyone disputes their sainthood. Also, sometimes a figure is inserted into the rotation at a much later date; I don’t know when the Latins began venerating Charlemange, but it may not have been until after the rise of the Holy Roman Empire and the completion of the Germanizing of the Western Church. At any rate, that’s when Charlemange’s Filioque clause became finally the doctrine of the West.
Rome was a bright spot of Orthodoxy in what was mainly a German sea of half-converted Paganism many years before Charlemange, which suggests the wisdom of testing the credentials, at least, of any Western Saints of only local veneration; nevertheless, there are many great Saints of unimpeachable orthodoxy in the West before the Schism, largely in the monastic centers.
We can’t know, of course, but I believe that when the Western liturgies were practiced by those who were fully participant in the spirit of Orthodoxy that those rites then partook fully of the savor of true Orthodox worship; what we are looking at is the corpse, not the man.
If anything purporting to be an Orthodox service has anything to do with the veneration of sacred hearts, lungs, livers, what have you, by that alone is it identified as something absolutely foreign to true Orthodox spirituality.
I’ve just posted some comments from Fr Placide (Deseille) that I thought highly relevant to this liturgy discussion.
Here is the URL: http://logismoitouaaron.blogspot.com/2009/05/fr-placide-on-liturgy-east-west.html
Perhaps I should add that I completely agree with Maxim on the ‘Sacred Heart’. And although I don’t know about the Sacred Heart specifically (concerning which it is fairly clear from the article in the original Catholic Encyclopedia that it is not found in anything like its current form until the visions of a Visitandine nun in the 1670’s), I regret to say that some of the other later devotions of the post-Schism Catholic church are indeed perpetuated in some WR parishes, mainly it seems of the Antiochian WR Vicariate. Thus, one can see the rosary, the Stations of the Cross, the Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, and even the veneration of post-Schism saints at some of these parishes or among their faithful.
While Sacred Heart devotion is largely a post-Reformation development (promoted by the Jesuits to counter Jansenism), it does have late-medieval (and – I cringe!- Cistercian) roots. In the same article of Fr Placide Deseille that Aaron quotes from he argues that the fundamental shift in the West took place between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries.
I don’t think one can get a true picture of Milton’s “Paradise Lost” by looking at a summarization in an encyclopedia article. It’s not that I’m a great fan of “Paradise Lost” either; I disagree with Lewis in my belief that Milton’s Arianism is pretty clearly found in “Paradise Lost”. Milton is a great poet and a great scholar, but he presents a very different view of God and the World than that of any Patristic Cosmology. That said, I don’t think Milton should be accused of misogyny; contemporary scholarship likes to wrench particular passages out of their meaningful context and present it to students as a smoking gun proving that author’s sexism, racism, etc., and that is pretty much the only use they have for traditional authors. If one interprets as misogyny any portrayal of Men and Women in traditional relational patterns, (which is pretty widely done) then I guess I would have to say that Milton is guilty as charged, but I don’t think we, charred to a crisp as we are by the contemporary holocaust of the vanities, have much right to judge the societal patterns of traditional societies; maybe when we have perpetuated a pattern of relations between Men and Women which results over time in stable families and social harmony instead of the current conditions of relational chaos and the open warfare of the sexes we will be able to meet the Men and Women of the past on the field as equals, and compare fairly our system to theirs. Till then, I think we must defer to our betters.
Aaron, thanks for posting those words. Fr. Placide makes me want to know the Latin Rite better. However it struck me that he considers the Latin rite more Biblical than the Byzantine rite. I have been told that 95% of the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom is Scripture. His description of the Eastern Liturgy’s incorporating the Fathers also makes me appreciate it more. It can sound like he chose the Fathers over the Bible, but we know that doesn’t have to be the case.
I also appreciate the other helpful information contributed. I am curious how Sr. Macrina (or any other female, or a male who agrees that it displays misogynist tendencies) takes Paradise Lost though. I feel I can’t say much more since I haven’t read it entirely. I don’t have as much background with pre-19th C literature, so I can’t speak to women’s roles before then. I’m also wondering if Maxim finds 19th C women’s roles happily traditional or constraining.
It seems like two (or three) topics, but I feel that the Schism with the west which has roots before 1054, affected lots of things in society. Sainthood depicts a person’s relationship with God, which is informed and fed by Liturgy, and women’s roles affects our relationships with men, so it’s love of God and neighbor that we’re talking about.
And along those lines, I think we can narrow it down even more to the nature of authority in general. I have heard in other places that eastern theology promotes freedom through proper understanding of God and man. Western theology seems to be a bit more authoritarian in a despotic sense, though that has apparently relaxed since Vatican II. One could say that eastern women haven’t been that free until recent times, as Dostoevsky describes the plight of peasant women in Russia, but Saint stories from the first Millennium offer a different view of educated and “outspoken” women. Maybe the Schism/western influence, or Muslim or Tartar/Mongolian influence, hurt women across the border too.
Just some thoughts. I don’t mean to be controversial or judgmental of men or westerners, but investigational and honest.
The situation with the Latin liturgy is much more complex than I think many people know. Neither of the liturgies included in the Western Rite Service Book date historically to any time or place that was Orthodox in the West. The “Divine Liturgy of St Tikhon” is a slight reworking of the Anglican Liturgy from the Book of Common Prayer, and not historically Orthoodox at all, rather having its roots in the Protestantism of the English Reformation. The “Divine Liturgy of St Gregory” is a reworking of an English translation of the Roman Liturgy established by Pope Pius V at the Council of Trent, imposed universally on all following the Roman Rite in 1570. The reason for this liturgy’s composition and standardization was the replacement of too bewildering a variety of local liturgies and variations. Only those local rites which could provide documentation that they were in use in 1000 AD were permitted to remain in use (only the Mozarabic Rite and the Ambrosian Rite were able to provide such evidence). The Sarum Rite in England may perhaps have qualified, had England not gone Protestant already and squandered its heritage. However, even the pre-Protestant Sarum Rite was based on Norman usage, and not an organic product of Anglo-Saxon Orthodoxy in England, which latter might truly be called an Orthodox Western Rite. The Anglo-Saxon rite is only spottily preserved, however. The Sarum rite was much more influenced by Rome in its development, being the rite of France, “firstborn daughter of the Roman church” as they used to say, but it still has better claim as an immediate descendant of a Western Orthodox Rite than do the liturgies of Trent or Westminster, which are the liturgies, oddly enough, approved for such usage in Western Rite-amenable parishes.
And then there’s the example of the Divine Liturgy of St John Chrysostom. In a manner analogous to that of the Tridentine Mass, this Liturgy displaced all other local liturgies as the primary Liturgy, though organically and not by conciliar or imperial fiat. Labeling the Divine Liturgy of St John Chrysostom as solely a Byzantine liturgy attached to Constantinople is thus a mischaracterization. It has for well over a millennium been the de facto (if not de jure) universal liturgy of the Church, tied to no particular place or language or rite. That needs to be considered in any realistic approach to the question of “Western Rite” usage.
I think what Fr Placide is saying is that the Latin liturgy is mainly unadorned biblical quotations while the Byzantine one is biblical quotations plus the elaborate hymnography of the Fathers. The latter has a sort of built-in patristic commentary, while the former must be supplemented with outside reading to be properly understood in a patristic way. This certainly seems to be the case in my experience.
As for Milton, I really think you (and anyone else for that matter) would benefit from a reading of Lewis’s Preface to Paradise Lost, although I probably agree with Maxim that Arianism is not as negligible in the poem as CSL supposes. Certainly, on the subject of the portrayal of Adam and Eve and the relationship between them, I think Lewis has some very enlightening things to say. Some of the same ideas can be found in his own ‘Paradise Lost’ as well: the sci-fi novel Perelandra. Of course, neither of these should substitute for the poem itself, but they can certainly be a useful propaideutic.
Kevin, Very interesting. I posted earlier an excerpt from Father Seraphim Rose, His Life and Works describing St. John Maximovich’s work reinstating the ancient French Liturgy in France. I’d intended to post today another excerpt describing Fr. Seraphim Rose’s investigation of the Saints on pre-Schism Gaul, which I don’t think I’m going to get to.
Aaron, I’ve got Lewis’ Preface and was very intrigued by the preface to the Preface! I’ll bump it up on my stack. And I have read Perelandra, my least favorite of the Trilogy! My impressions are under the category “C.S. Lewis”, and were posted last year. Now to look up “propaideutic”. 🙂
It is very interesting, isn’t it? To add another pile of pages to your reading stack, I will recommend Dom Gregory Dix, The Shape of the Liturgy, which describes the development of the Eucharistic liturgy up to the Tridentine and Cranmerian liturgies. The focus is on the Eucharist proper, the core of all the liturgies, but there’s much discussion of other changes going on, with an emphasis on developments in the West, probably because more early manuscripts are preserved from there.
It looks like there’s a new edition of 2005 out, with a new introduction from someone named Simon Jones; I doubt it’s worth the price. I’d recommend the old edition, the dustcover of which doesn’t display a ghastly post-Vatican II cope or whatever that thing is.
In the near future, I’ll be posting a bunch of stuff on the development of the Byzantine and other liturgies that a very kind reader, the well-known liturgist Byron Stuhlman, sent my way. I’m in the midst of organizing it. I’ll keep you posted.
That’s not a simple question. For one thing, the idea people generally have of conditions in the 19th century is one heavily influenced by the straw man Feminists have constructed, one weighted, of course, to the advantage of their own interests. Chesterton, writing toward the beginning of Women’s Liberation, wrote that the picture usually painted of the Victorian Woman is one of a debased slave, while the Man is presented as Absolute Lord and Master, but the literature of the period usually has the Lord and Master cowering under the bed for fear of the wrath of the debased slave. The other thing is that the society of the time was heavily under the influence of industrialism, so that, while the traditional societal roles were preserved, they became more and more artificial. To say that conditions at any time were entirely happy and idealistic is impossible in a fallen world; to say that they are constraining is simply to admit that life is constraining. I don’t think that people in our time are as happily independent as they like to think, either, though they have been freed from many responsibilities by being made less free, and have thereby been rendered more happy by being freed from the immediate necessity of considering the many things for which they are morally responsible. I think, if it is O.K. with you, that I will defer further comment on the issue until I am able to write a post I’m planning on my blog on “Gender”. That way, you’ll be able to have a fuller account of my thoughts on the issue and the context in which they have arisen. Milton, of course, was before 19th century. It does have to do with the question of authority generally, with which we as modern people are uncomfortable; maybe I’ll write a post on authority first.
Kevin P.: Is the Sarum rite the same as the Gallican Liturgy?
Aaron: Perhaps Lewis found the title “Paradise Almost Lost” unwieldy? I, too, had to look “propaideutic” up. That’s why I like reading David B. Hart; he gives me plenty of exercise with the dictionary.
I’ve officially decided to let Maxim address the chronological snobbery of the ‘misogyny’ issue, as he is expressing it much better than I could!
Sorry about ‘propaideutic’ guys! At some point it became so much a part of my vocabulary that I’ve even forgotten where and when I first read it. It’s an important word in my thesis. To be fair, the prefix and root should be a little bit transparent, right? 😉
Maxim> What is your blog’s URL?
I forgot what URL means; search “Earl Donald the Bewildered”. Andrea has it listed as “Maxim”. It’s really not very active anymore, but I am having a brief flurry.
Perhaps part of the problem in the warfare of the sexes is from too broad generalizations from both sides.
Maxim, yes, very nearly. The Sarum is a version of the Gallican Rite established by the Normans in England in 1066 and developing independently afterward. Initially, they were almost identical. “Sarum” is only used for this English version, however.
Well, get ready for a general broadside or two when I fire off my post.
Kevin P: Why would not the earlier Gallican rite have qualified as an authentic Orthodox Liturgy? What kind of Liturgy was in use in England before the Normans established the Sarum rite?
Uh-oh, look out.
Kevin,
Aren’t you distinguishing between Roman Rite and older Orthodox Rite? Wikipedia says that there is a large Latin influence in St. Patrick. But I have also heard that monastics arriving from north Egypt influenced Celtic Christianity a lot.
Wow. I let this conversation get away from me!
I guess I’ll just make a general comment.
Kevin Edgecomb’s first comment on this post pinpoints my precise concerns and discomforts with the Western Rite—and, thus, the reasons I’m glad to be moving to an area where I must attend a parish celebrating the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom. The non-historical nature of the WR liturgies, in particular, freaks me out a bit. Also, I feel that, while I cannot pin down the precise ways this is so, it has been my experience that Visibilium’s point about the lack of concrete contact with God in the WR liturgy is quite true—and potentially damning.
And, Visibilium—I really hadn’t made a concerted effort at thinking about this before, so I meant my closing statement to be a self-deprecating joke, rather than the boast it may have sounded like.
Without affirming or denying the existence of problems within any rite… I certainly wonder how our good bishops missed all this? or are we suggesting that their motivations… well… I think the whole of this is simply unworthy of someone who suggests they absorbed “the mind of the church” in the few weeks of catechesis. But the truth is… if this actually done… I’m, very much ashamed. I’m far, far from that level of holiness. I might comprehend a bit, but certainly not the whole. Indeed, I was given to understand even the saints made progress on this only through the whole of their lives… rather than in a matter of weeks. But no matter.
For my part, the truth is that I love both liturgies. They don’t make us Orthodox… what makes us Orthodox is the seal and the gift of the Holy Spirit in our hearts… and in our nous… and the synergy between man and God then only begun at our Chrismation. But the truth is that there are saints and sinners who worship in both liturgies… and only one Orthodox faith.
Might we not consider that if ever the East and West manage a rapprochement, there will be a Western liturgy? It’s worth a thought gents. It may look different (see better discussions on Monachos.net under Matthew Steenberg), but it would be there all the same. My guess is that if we aren’t big enough to accept this, we have more problems than I think.
Frankly, the whole East vs. West liturgy thing seems to me to be a cunnard., a convert’s equivalent of phyletism as if having been somehow deprived of the virtures of squabbling jurisdictionalism… we have to re-invent its equivalent here. I’m not sure this is a fruitful exercise until the bishops decide otherwise. And yet I’d note that Met Jonah and numerous others seem to be moving in a different direction than this discusion.
Now having said my piece there, I will say that I would tend to agree that there appear to be virtues for catechism in the liturgy of St. John that are not easily matched within the liturgy of St. Gregory at this time. WIll that change? I don’t know. What I do know is that thirty years ago Fr. Pat Reardon attests… the same lack of information would have held for the liturgy of St. John.
Would I suggest we judge the people in the WR on this basis? No. Does my worship there affect my suggestion? Probably. I’m in the WR. Shoot me. Judge away if you wish. Your damning my parish and all that lie there simply helps our ascesis. LOL.
Forgive me.
On the other hand, the fact is that I think we are mistaken to judge anyone… let alone suggest “damnation”… on the basis of their rite…. whether in or out of the Orthodox Church. Think of the tailor St. Anthony was sent to visit.. when he was told there was one who far exceeded him in viirtue.. who told him that all the others were going to heaven… but he would go to hell.
If that’s good enough for St. Anthony to figure he was less than that man, then I’m happy with your consigning me to hell. Really, I’m fine with that. I never figured for much better anyway. Okay. Maybe rung one. But my life is short from here on in. There’s not much time to get it right.
So the best i can ask is that you pray for me. Believe me… I’m weak. I need it. I’m in the WR… need I say more?
James, I don’t think anyone is judging anyone in the respective rites, except for evaluating the canonized Saints of the west by the west. As for who is Orthodox enough to do that, I don’t know. It would take a Saint to officially do that, and none of the rest of us are as far as I know. Meanwhile, I think we are all adult enough to be allowed to think through these issues as we are presented with more scholarship, and some of us like to think out loud on blogs.
Like I’ve said before, I am comfortable enough with the fact that the powers that be have authorized a Western Rite. But we all in the west are sort of in a state of flux, and that breeds opinion-laden conversations.
James> I’m with Andrea Elizabeth. I don’t for a minute think Visibilium was suggesting that he had absorbed ‘the mind of the Church’ but only that this was part of the purpose of catechesis, nor that Ø was trying to say those who belonged to WR parishes were damned but only that Visibilium’s point was a damning one for the WR itself, i.e., the RITE, not the faithful who participate in it. I really think you need to read more carefully–and charitably–before firing off a response.
Finally, the fact that bishops, whether Antiochian or ROCOR, have blessed the use of the WR does not entirely preclude rational discussions of pros and cons to it among the laity. No one here is suggesting our bishops have no idea what they’re doing or that they have questionable motives. As for your comment about Fr Reardon, I have no idea what you mean. Are you saying that he claims that the text of the Divine Liturgy of St John Chrysostom has changed in the last thirty years, making it more catechetical?
Forgive my misreading.
If I may suggest, we need to have our facts right… and the fact is that whether we like it or not, the Liturgy of St. Tikkon tracks rather closely to the Liturgy of St. Gregory… both of which I am told are firmly rooted and pre-date the Liturgy of St. John by about 300 years. Note also that the so-called WR Service Book has never been an authorized document of the Church… and is a misrepresentation of an early and very incomplete draft. There are few who debate this. Some don’t like it, some detractors call it Tridentine… and they are entitled to their opinions. I’d simply refer folks to Deacon Matthew Steenberg’s notes on Monachos.net… he’s not a fan, but at least his criticism is well grounded.
Equally, I am sympathetic to the suggestion of focus on the synergy between words and actions. Yet I’m not sure whether we need to adopt the same practices, however, so long as we reach the same goal. For as Lossky noted, the East and West differed from the beginning but still ended in the same faith… for a thousand years. And unlike some… I have no baggage that causes me to seriously question this… Okay… maybe a small handbag. But I think that if we want both approaches as incorporating the whole of mankind… and cover all approaches rather than just one path to God, then perhaps there is a case for the WR. And if people do tend to be either more oriented towards subjective or objective, more intuitive or rational in their thinking, and so we too may need more than one approach to God to truly maintain our balance. I don’t think this is an East-West thing per se… but only that it happened that way owing to political history. And I do find that as errant as Western theology and ecclesiology and other elements may have become, there are places where the West still excels and the East has been historically weak. Charity and evangelism would be two places I’d start in terms of the synergy between words and behavior. And I’m weak on both so I’m one to talk.
That said, I share many of the preferences that stem from familiarity with the Liturgy of St. John… and my “two bits” would be to try to shoehorn more of it into the WR… beginning with folding more of the lives of the saints from the Divine Office into the liturgy itself, but also shifting the entire lexicon of epistle and gospel readings and calendar to follow the Eastern practice. I think we can all be glad I don’t have that authority, and the Church in her wisdom is far more conservative in its approach to changing traditions. On the other hand, my ears tend to prefer the psalms in the measured melodious tones of Gregorian chant rather than the Fedex speed reading I’ve experienced in places in the ER. Most of the time…. I’m just not in a rush to get through a service… and the Liturgy of St. John otherwise seems paced about right. Remember…. I’m in the WR by accidental slouching…. oh and on account of a good priest.
Maybe all of this makes me a rather poor Orthodox. We gotta start somewhere.
I would caution that one could wonder about a lot of defects in our behavior as christians… but I’m not sure it would be fair to lay these off as matters of failed catechesis or defective liturgies rather than just defects in our persons. I’m really okay with working on it from that angle… as it gives me something I can do… while the other way round… it’s left up to the bishops… and seems to claim a “pass”.
But at the same time, I’d acknowledge a lot of WR parishes are recent converts… and in some cases, their services may suffer as still works in process. Give them time. Defects in our pious practices may be fair to lay here…. but I’d note equally that defects in our English translations of the Gospel play a role as well given that we simply fail to capture in the word “worship” the repeated references in Greek and Slavic to falling down on one’s knees in adoration/veneration/obeisance. I’ve only heard this pointed out in Bible study and seen it noted in one translation. Are there more of these? Sure.
But more to the point in my view, the WR suffers less from all of these, than from the problem that it has been in the Church for such a short time that there appear to be very, very few “cradle” Orthodox to balance our converts. So I would again wonder whether the observation or reservations have less to do with the rite and more to do with the nature of all-convert parishes. The defects may be the same. Further, it seems fair to wonder whether “cradle” Orthodox will join a WR parish. I understand this has been the case in the Denver area… but probably less so elsewhere.
To be clear about my Fr. Pat comment, he hasn’t suggested change of the liturgy. Rather in the podcasts from the Anglican conference in Detroit, he suggested that when he first converted there were virtually no materials in English for catechesis. The point I tried to make is that the situation has changed dramatically, but for the WR… still holds: There still is virtually nothing written in terms of catechesis for the Western Rite… from an Orthodox perspective, and this makes the process of seeing Orthodoxy within it something that I and many others in our parish have found easier to work the other way round – learning first in the Liturgy of St. John.
Where does that leave the WR and where does it leave me? Mixed bag.
“Would I suggest we judge the people in the WR on this basis? No. Does my worship there affect my suggestion? Probably. I’m in the WR. Shoot me. Judge away if you wish. Your damning my parish and all that lie there simply helps our ascesis. LOL. ”
For goodness’s sake, James. I’m in the WR—and I’ve said so before—so any indictment I make, if I were to make any, affects me before all others. Being worried about things doesn’t mean I think the bishops are idiots, or that WR parishes aren’t Orthodox. Similarly to the hierarchical situation in the US, I am concerned about what is going on, and I am interested in having a conversation about particular problems and solutions in order to gain understanding—but none of that implies that I am casting judgment unto damnation.
Maxim and Andrea Elizabeth,
There was an Anglo-Saxon liturgy in use in England before the imposition of the Sarum rite by the Norman conquerors in 1066. As far as I know, outside of the liturgy itself, not much is preserved (meaning the various other services, vespers, etc, and ancillary texts). I don’t know what the connection with the Celtic rites would have been, if any. Everything certainly would have been in Latin, of course. But the origins of the native liturgies dated back to times of Roman orthodoxy. I suppose it’s really a case of six of one, half dozen the other, to decide whether the Sarum or the earlier British rites are the more amenable to Orthodoxy. The churches that produced both were under the influence of Roman pretensions for the several centuries leading up to the Roman schism, and the theology of Rome made its inroads in all those lands. I do remember reading that before 1066 England had not broken communion with the East as Rome did. If that’s truly the case, then the Anglo-Saxon would have been the last native English Orthodox liturgy in use. This is analogous to the Gallican situation, where the classical Gallican rite of the 5th-6th century develops into the precursor of the Sarum, completely under the heel of Rome, so to speak, from about 700 onward. I think it’s fair to say that from that point, it’s no longer strictly Orthodox.
These are merely historical observations. I mention them not to denigrate the liturgies involved, but to show that there are certainly better candidates for an authentic Western Orthodox liturgy than the reworked 16th century Catholic and Anglican ones. Their choice is somewhat peculiar, and obviously not historically motivated. The choice is rather motivated by pastoral concerns. For those who need them, they have them. That’s a good thing. But I don’t think anyone should be kidding themselves in a kind of historical revisionism that these are some remnant of ancient Orthodox practice in the West. They are not that.
We are one body. The Bishops are the Head; they have the authority, but it has always been a recipe for disaster for everyone to be uninvolved and just let the Bishops do their thing. There has never been Episcopal infallibility in the Church, and we certainly don’t have it now. Changes in ritual always breed turbulence; we need to have patience, and give the Church time to thoroughly taste the quality of these things, in order to separate the wheat from the chaff. Discussions such as this are simply part of that process.
Kevin P: That’s why William of Normandy marched under the Papal banner as a Crusader, to subvert the erring English Church to the Papal will.
Aaron: Those of us addressing the misogyny issue need as much support as we can get. It’s a hostile environment, and the natives are closing in. The drums…The drums….
1) I don’t have too much hope that the pre-Hastings English liturgy deviated awfully much from contemporary Roman practice since the Latin usages were affirmed at Whitby over Celtic practices. The dispute was personified by Colman and Wilfrid.
2) The same Pope Gregory who created one of the WR liturgies also created the Presanctified Liturgy that the Orthodox mainstream faithfully uses on Lenten weekdays. What’s up with this combination?
3) No one is disputing the full Orthodoxy of Western Riters. I think this discussion may be more favorably viewed as a pastoral concern. The
dissonance of faith and actions in the WR means that the Western Riters have to work harder to adhere to Orthodoxy. We Easterners have an easier job since we’re shrouded in a consistent context at our Liturgy. This is a pastoral concern, not a dogmatic one.
4) Despite the limited support for WR, most of American Orthodoxy views it unfavorably. I’m talking here about the GOA/OCA “great middle” mainstream. As long as we’re talking about Bishops, let me relate this story about a Bishop who cut off my question so quickly, I thought he was redefining the speed of light. My question pertained to the WR, and the Bishop cut me off with a curt, negative comment and passed me off to a French priest who enthusiastically told me why the WR was a bad idea and that the Antiochians were characteristically too hasty in adopting it.
Visibilium:
Perfect. Thank you.
Visibilium, the “Divine Liturgy of St Gregory” is inaccurately named. It is directly based on the liturgy established by Pope Pius V in 1570, and not any liturgy by St Gregory the Dialogist of a thousand years before. It would be vastly different were it truly from St Gregory and an exemplar of the 6th century Roman liturgy! I don’t know who stuck the name “St Gregory” on that liturgy, but it’s misleading.
James, the Liturgy of St. John isn’t supposed to be rushed, that’s due to the influence of people who want to regularly be out of church by 11:30; it’s upsetting to me, too, to be in a service where the atmosphere is one of “Let’s get this over with as quickly as possible”.
I think that the Tridentine use continues to include Gregory’s Canon, but largely, you’re correct, of course.
[…] Church. Kevin Edgecomb of Biblicalia had explained the history of the Sarum Rite in my post on Western Saints, which was inspired by Fr. Seraphim Rose’s continuing St. John Maximovich’s […]
[…] Andrea has an interesting discussion about Western v. Eastern Rite going here. […]
I would suggest that the changes between the words to the gallo-romano liturgies and proper chants (if we dont include tropes) between 1066 to 1570 was not that very much. The differences in rubrics and actions in that 600 year period would probably be only around %10 to %20. A significant percentage, yes but nothing we cant revive. My suggestion is to use in the Antiochian Western Rite Vicariate a %100 11th century liturgy, along the lines of the “synod of milan”, with the inclusion of the litany around the kyrie/christe eleison so you don’t have responses going to nowhere (as it is shown that originally it had almost the same litany we have at the beginning of byzantine liturgies gradually eliminated due to reasons I dont remember).
Than if we also bring back the approximately 40 Sequence Prose/Hymns that came to exist in most of the Gallo-Romano Liturgies by the year 900
and supplement then with the hundreds more sequences coming to exist by 1200 we have a rich source hymnody by Blessed Notker Balbullus and others easily comparable to anything St Cosmas or St Romanos the Melodist ever wrote in their kontokia/troparia/hymns.
We can even have the blessings of the water and salt as was preserved on the 5th of January Theophany in the Roman Divine Office before and in combination with Epiphany so we have both John the Baptist and Magi seeing God’s manifestation. (see book “The blessing of the waters on the eve of the Epiphany” by John Bute/E.A. Budge for latin version)
Statues and humanist scholastic modern “sacred art” that is closer to secular art ought to be suppressed as much as possible.
We really do want the western rite most likely as it was before 1300-1200.
But what I’m trying to say is that there is no reason why the western rite can not exist, simply because it has had a poor job handling it and having it be something harmonious with early christianity/orthodox christianity does not mean it can not be done. I myself am working to see this realized. What we see today in it will not be what we see in another decade.
Christ the King Feast (instituted in 1925 by Pope Pius XI) will not remain a western rite feast. It will not be the tridentine and anglican liturgies with as little changed as possible. Eventually it will look, feel, act and be confused as Orthodox in every sense you can imagine.