THE MASS - A Study of the Roman Liturgy by Rev. Dr. Adrian Fortescue
(you can get it
here from
Angelus Press)
Adrian Fortescue from what I understand was one of the important liturgical scholars in the early 20th century, a part of what many now (with much lamentation) the "legitimate liturgical movement."
As well as providing his own conclusions regarding the history of the Roman Mass, the author also provides brief accounts of the history of other "liturgical families", and other (sometimes contradictory) scholarly opinions.
What I found most interesting, is that the work seems to unintentionally be an apologia for the antiquity of the "distinctives" found in the normative Orthodox Liturgy as it now comes to us, in particularly in so far as they are
contrary to those that were to develop in the Roman liturgy.
Some examples...
- It would seem likely that at one point the Eucharistic Liturgy used throughout the Christian world was basically the same, and probably reflected what we find in
Book Eight of the "
Apostolic Constitutions". This form of liturgy is "closer" to what one finds amongst the Orthodox and the Non-Chalcedonians, than it is to the form of Roman liturgy which survives to this day (the "Tridentine" Missal). The Roman Mass in many cases, sticks specific prayers used by all of the various liturgical traditions in unique places shared by no one else (placement of the "Our Father", Creed, etc.)
- On the whole, the opinions reflected in this book support the idea (and I think quite persuasively) that the Roman Missal at one time
did have an
Epiklesis after the reading of the "words of institution" ("Take eat..." "Take drink..."). This certainly was the case of other western liturgies, like those of the
Gallican tradition.
- The removal of the
Epiklesis was the result of both the re-shuffling of the Roman Canon and the rise of a peculiarly Roman belief that if there was one part of the Anaphora which effected the "transformation" of the gifts of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of our Lord, it was "the words of institution."
- It would
seem to be the case that prior to this time, few were attempting to narrow things down like "specific point of consecration", with the assumption being that the entirity of the Anaphora/Canon was somehow "consecratory", or at least no one was quite splitting hairs like this. However, in kind, the other Orthodox Churches would say that if there was any "one point" where the gifts were transformed, it was during the "
Epiklesis", if only because it was the summit of the consecration prayers, and would have made little sense otherwise if we were to believe "
the consecration" had occured earlier.
- The use of azymes (unleavened bread) in the Eucharist is quite late in the west, the earliest isolated cases of this perhaps being in the 700's A.D., and it did not effectively become a universal western practice until the closing of the first millenia A.D.
- In the west, the practice of the Divine Liturgy changing significantly throughout the year, while certainly quite old (likely from the fourth century onward, at least in Rome), does not reflect the earlier practice of westerners, whether in Rome or without; that is to say, the practice one finds in the Christian East of a more or less "fixed" Eucharistic Liturgy used throughout the year.
- While it started as a result of changing linguistic demographics (being a tongue understood by many westerners in many places), the insistance upon Latin (first as an attempt to universalize and harmonize liturgical practice throughout the west amongst those under the Pope of Old Rome, then later as a sort of "sacred tongue" of Christians, like Hebrew is to the Jews, or Arabic to the Muslims) was late in coming, and probably until the mid third century
Greek was being used in the liturgical cycle of Rome, and the principle in favour of vernacular tongues being used for Divine services was shared by the Christian west.
It would seem to me that a lot of these curious liturgical oddities (many of them begining in Rome and spreading from there throughout the western Churches, or as the case became increasingly western "Church", administratively singular), along with theological peculiarities (and in some cases, eventually, heresies) were the result of the increasing isolation of the western Christians from the rest of Christendom, whether it be in the East, Northern Africa, etc. While some of the "peculiar" practices are pretty old, and perhaps in principle not reall
that controversial, they are nonetheless symptoms of a gradual growing a part by the Latins from the rest of Christendom.
This is why I'm persuaded to think that any real re-union of Rome (and those with her) with Holy Orthodoxy, is going to require some recognition that the estragement (theologically and liturgically) was much more "long in coming". It was not as if one day in 1054 A.D. everything suddenly fell apart. Indeed, such thinking actually betrays an ignorance of the fact that there had already been a serious break between Rome and Constantinople before, during the days of St.Photios the Great, which itself was a test case for Papal self aggrandizement spreading eastward (not to mention that the Pope's name had already been dropped from the Diptychs in Constantinople decades before 1054, during the time of Pope Benedict VIII, who became Pope in 1012 A.D.)
This is not to say that everything "different" is equally intolerable (or necessarily "bad" at all, for that matter). However, I think at the very least (and certainly post-schism anathemas of the Orthodox Church would require this) an explicit
Epiklesis would need to find it's way back into the Divine Liturgy of a restored Latin (Orthodox) Church, the "
filioque clause" would
have to be dropped from the recitation of "the Creed", and the use of normal "artos" (leavened bread) would have to be restored to the Roman Mass.
Some may view this as "Byzantization" of the Roman Mass, but this is as unfair an appraisal as it is a useless one. It is "unfair" because not one of the things that would need to be corrected is in fact "Byzantine", but are elements common to all ancient eucharistic liturgies, including the Roman/Western ones. And it is a "useless" criticism, since it would only hold water for those who believe we are "
all correct" - a conclusion which history and Orthodox dogmatics simply do not allow for. While one can be diplomatic and say there were many things done by "both sides" which aggrivated things and resulted in a permanent schism, the truth of the matter is that it was Latin innovation and arrogance which are ultimatly to blame for the schism we now all live with. We would not be talking about this, had the Popes not begun to sincerely believe they had "universal juristiction" and beyond, or had the Latins not begun adopting strange customs contrary to the usages of both their forefathers and other Christians throughout the world. Thus, it is those things which need to be "fixed."
However, I have my doubts that at this point there will ever be a corporate re-union of any sort. On one hand there has simply been too much water under the bridge. On the other hand, the contemporary RCC, at least as an administrative entity (and also in terms of much of it's flock, particularly in the first world) is simply too decadent to have any meaningful interest in becoming an integral part of the Orthodox Church. The "We are Church" types and rainbow sash wearing perverts have even
less of a place in Holy Orthodoxy than they do contemporary Roman Catholicism - I also don't see the host of German hierarchs who are not even sure that Christ actually rose from the dead, being that enthused about entering a Church where so much "quaint superstition" is viewed with the reverence of being dogmatic fact.
And perhaps more importantly, it goes without saying that the "New Mass" as commonly used by westerners is unacceptable. While there were a few elements of the modern "liturgical reform" which
in theory were good ideas and moved Latin practice closer to that of the Orthodox world (concelebration of Mass, encouragement of standing as a normal liturgical posture, communion under "both kinds", etc.), these have been lost in an ocean of stupidity and imprudence on the part of these same modern liturgists and their bishops/episcopal conferences. Things like...
- "altar girls"
- abolishing of minor orders
- purile/protestant-content liturgical hymns, "folk Masses", etc. (this one particularly irritates me, given the rich, beautiful, and entirely "big O" Orthodox musical heritage which is "Gregorian Chant")
- "communion in the hand" (which in principle is not impossible, but simply horribly imprudent given our social context; we're not a few catacombniks, living in a time when only those who were going to receive holy communion were allowed to stay for the Holy Sacrifice - the rest had to beat it at the dismissal of the catechumen, or if penitents or pagans, were not allowed into the Church at all.)
- Priests not facing the same direction as their congregants in prayer (saying "priest with his back to the people" is just so typically whiney and egocentric that it's a phrase I refuse to use - I'd rather say "priest with his back to God" to describe the modern practice, if we must indulge such phrases).
- tasteful liturgical vestments and church architecture.
In other words, keep the few good things (like the standing, so long as you scrap the pews as well), and get rid of the Vatican II/"Liturgical Commission" changes.
On a practical note, while I'm all in favour (as were modern Saints like Sts.Tikhon and John Maximovitch, as was the Russian Holy Synod prior to the god-fighting revolution) of having "western rite Churches" as a means to receive westerners into Holy Orthodoxy, I'm disinclined to believe they are really
that necessary. This is particularly so, if one gets really rigorous and insists that a "western rite" Church be not simply a "corrected" liturgy in some of the key respects, but reflect the usages of the pre-schism West; in which case you'll be using a Liturgy which is probably as alien to what modern westerners are used to, as would be the normative Orthodox Liturgy (Liturgy of St.John Chrysostom.) I've also noticed a tendency (though I may be only taking note of isolated cases that I've either encountered, or were encountered by others I've known of; one of them being a former western-rite Priest my own parish Priest knows, who for reasons like this decided to eventually become a standard "Byzantine Rite" Orthodox Priest), for the "western rites" to
sometimes become a ghetto for latent heterodoxy - meaning that people who go over to it from a heterodox western confession,
may be doing so
only because they're ticked off at the liberalization of their former church, and not because they subscribe to the spiritual patrimony and dogmas of the Orthodox Church.
Rather, I think a "Byzantine-Rite" Orthodox Church, with a real heart for preaching to and converting westerners, that uses vernacular in it's services, and makes a point of venerating
all of the Church's Saints (in particular those familiar to westerners, like Sts.Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine, Patrick, Leo, Gregory, etc.), will do quite well for those coming from western backgrounds; without the "need" for a special liturgical rite.
If some form of "western rite" is being allowed though, I think it requires some special and very well informed supervision by those hierarchs who have such in their diocese, to guard against the danger that I've mentioned (and have observed in action.)
