Are the liturgies of the Maronites and Syriac Orthodox compatible?

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EphelDuath

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I saw a wealth of resources for the Syriac Orthodox in English on this website: sor.cua.edu/index.html

Are their (your, for those here :)) liturgies and Divine Office the same or mostly the same as the Maronite Catholic’s? What are the differences? All I know is that both are Syro-Antiochene Rite.

God bless 🙂
 
Oh my.

So, I will give two answers.

Traditionally, kind of. The structure of our anaphorae (with the exception of one) are mostly identical (some noticeable differences in the Fraction Rite and in the Communion of the Priest). The first half of the Liturgy differs a bit more but has some common threads that are staples of the West Syriac liturgy - Hoosoyo, etc which occur at different times than the SOC but they are present. Our liturgy has a few more, what you could call, East Syriac tendencies, in grammar and our hymnody, for a number of reasons that are too complicated to go into here.

I am sure one of my brethren can be a bit more helpful with the Offices.

In contemporary usage? No, not really. The liturgy has been so deformed and corrupted that you have to strain to see any connection to our true Maronite liturgy let alone the Syriac Orthodox.
 
Well our current offices, like our liturgy, do not reflect our traditional offices. They’ve been abbreviated and the traditional structure has been removed (not to mention certain pointless changes like separating the song verses from the psalms, which were traditionally done in rotation).

Anyway, comparing the traditional Maronite and Syriac Orthodox offices, I’d say they’re pretty similar; Syriac Orthodox have a tendency to do multiple offices consecutively though.
 
It would be a practical impossibility to do a side-by-side comparison of either the Offices or Mass, but I’ll offer a few general comments anyway.

The Office in both is similar, but by no means identical: each has its own particular features. Unfortunately, as [post=11399898]MorEphrem[/post] said earlier, that which is in current use in the Maronite Church has been “revised” (and we all know what that means), although it does maintain the same general structure as was traditional.

The Order of Mass is a bit more complicated, partially because of latinizations introduced mainly beginning in the late 16th Century. One thing that I must emphasize here is that those latinizations were primarily of a rubrical nature, and while there are a few exceptions, didn’t much affect the text or structure.

Both traditionally share the Rite of Preparation in nearly the same way (although there are certain peculiarities to each), but what I will call the Fore-Mass (sometimes referred to by the post-conciliar moniker “Liturgy of the Word” which I will not use) is noticeably different. In the Maronite Tradition, the structure thereof is basically the same that of a Canonical Hour, but this is not the case with the SOC or SCC. What is currently in use in the Maronite Church has all but obliterated the Rite of Preparation, and in total amounts to a hybrid of some traditional elements along with a good amount of Novus Ordo-inspired neo-latinization thrown in for good measure. :mad:

The Anaphora itself is, (with the exception of one particular Anaphora that is unique to the Maronite Church and is structurally similar to that of the Chaldeans), structurally identical to those of the SOC/SCC. That said, however, there are noticeable differences in the thakso (Order of Mass), meaning the structure of the common prayers (i.e, those which are not proper to a specific Anaphora).

Unfortunately, as [post=11399763]Denho[/post] mentioned earlier, the current Maronite usage has been so severely affected (deformed is a probably a better word) by Novus Ordo-inspired neo-latinizations as to be nearly unrecognizable. And that is true of the Anaphora, the prayers and structure of which have been tampered with, as well as in the thakso, where again, the structure has been adulterated and the uniquely Maronite elements have been relegated to the dustbin. :mad:
 
While Malphono is right that it’s basically impossible to do a side-by-side comparison of the two, um…I’m doing it anyway in this post. Haha. Or rather I’m lazy and just put in “Maronite liturgy” and “Syriac Orthodox liturgy” into Youtube in Arabic and will let the videos speak for themselves. Our Syriac friends may comment on particular usage, but on the ground…wow…I’m not any kind of Syriac, and while the Maronite example is far from the worst I’ve ever heard, it’s hard to miss their differences.

Maronite liturgy: youtube.com/watch?v=07JYo7cs9Vg
Syriac Orthodox liturgy: youtube.com/watch?v=PFBpORLFnHI

It may be interesting to note that the Syriac Orthodox liturgy is prayed by SOC Metropolitan of Beirut and Zahle, Mor Athanasios Aphram Barsoum, so both liturgies are technically “Lebanese”. I mention this because I have seen some other Oriental Catholic liturgies that were very different and, well, wrong (if the Oriental Catholics are supposed to mirror their Orthodox counterparts) which were excused/explained away by people on this very board who happen to belong to that particular Oriental Catholic church by reference to the fact that they were held in Lebanon, as though Lebanon is some black hole of liturgical aberrations for every church that dare venture onto that land. It doesn’t have to be that way…take for instance, Mor Dionysius Behnam Jajjawi, SOC Metropolitan of Lebanon in the 1950s or 1960s…that man is so Orthodox, he even sounds Syriac when singing in Arabic! 😃
 
dzheremi said:
While Malphono is right that it’s basically impossible to do a side-by-side comparison of the two, um…I’m doing it anyway in this post. Haha. Or rather I’m lazy and just put in “Maronite liturgy” and “Syriac Orthodox liturgy” into Youtube in Arabic and will let the videos speak for themselves. Our Syriac friends may comment on particular usage, but on the ground…wow…I’m not any kind of Syriac, and while the Maronite example is far from the worst I’ve ever heard, it’s hard to miss their differences.

Maronite liturgy: youtube.com/watch?v=07JYo7cs9Vg
Syriac Orthodox liturgy: youtube.com/watch?v=PFBpORLFnHI
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In olden times (read: pre-conciliar) one would have noticed differences, as I mentioned earlier, but nothing like what exists now. :mad: I wish it weren’t true, but those audio files are testament to what I was saying. 😦
dzheremi said:
It may be interesting to note that the Syriac Orthodox liturgy is prayed by SOC Metropolitan of Beirut and Zahle, Mor Athanasios Aphram Barsoum, so both liturgies are technically “Lebanese”. I mention this because I have seen some other Oriental Catholic liturgies that were very different and, well, wrong (if the Oriental Catholics are supposed to mirror their Orthodox counterparts) which were excused/explained away by people on this very board who happen to belong to that particular Oriental Catholic church by reference to the fact that they were held in Lebanon, as though Lebanon is some black hole of liturgical aberrations for every church that dare venture onto that land.
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Of course not “every Church” … Lebanon is a liturgical black hole only for those Churches (including the Coptic) in union with Rome. 😉 The Orthodox (both OO and EO, and including the ACoE), are quite authentic there.
dzheremi said:
It doesn’t have to be that way…take for instance, Mor Dionysius Behnam Jajjawi, SOC Metropolitan of Lebanon in the 1950s or 1960s…that man is so Orthodox, he even sounds Syriac when singing in Arabic! 😃
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I recall the blessed memories of several Maronite priests who were just the same. The thoughts of what was and what is depress me to tears. 😦
 
malphono said:
Of course not “every Church” … Lebanon is a liturgical black hole only for those Churches (including the Coptic) in union with Rome. 😉 The Orthodox (both OO and EO, and including the ACoE), are quite authentic there.
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I’d have to say that at least one of those statements is wrong, since we Melkites (in communion with Rome) have pretty much the same liturgy of the Antiochian Orthodox.
 
Peter_J said:
I’d have to say that at least one of those statements is wrong, since we Melkites (in communion with Rome) have pretty much the same liturgy of the Antiochian Orthodox.
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Sorry, Peter, it’s not wrong. Apparently you haven’t seen the broadcasts I and others have mentioned in the past: Melkites using a versus populum table, non-Byzantine modern music, not even a portable iconostatis, etc, etc. Something like what apparently goes on with Melkites in Venezuela. I’m not saying that every Melkite Liturgy in Lebanon is like that, but they do exist and are not all that unusual. The Roum Orthodoxe in Lebanon, as far as I’ve seen and herd, keep pretty much to the straight and narrow.
 
^^ That’s certainly possible; I confess I don’t know a whole lot about the Melkite in Venezuela. 😦
 
It’s not only Venezuela. Have a look at [thread=732403]this thread[/thread] for example. For another try [thread=785146]here[/thread]. There are others, BTW. 😉
 
Not trying to derail the thread, but it was mentioned.

The Anaphora of Sharar (Peter III) has always interested me, especially its resemblance to Mari and Addai.

Bishop Sarhad Jammo in the USA draws upon studies from various sources (including Rahmani) to suggest that neither Sharar nor A&M were actually the originals, and that both were derived from a previous version. If Mar Jammo is correct, then what Sharar seems to suggest is a common heritage for both the East and West Syriac traditions.
 
Are there any Eastern Catholic Churches that have a super-traditional (i.e. the equivalent of the Tridentine Mass for the Roman rite) Western Syrian/Antiochean liturgy like the Syriac Orthodox do?
 
Are there any Eastern Catholic Churches that have a super-traditional (i.e. the equivalent of the Tridentine Mass for the Roman rite) Western Syrian/Antiochean liturgy like the Syriac Orthodox do?
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Syro-Malankara Catholics.
 
shlomo3amrooh said:
Not trying to derail the thread, but it was mentioned.

The Anaphora of Sharar (Peter III) has always interested me, especially its resemblance to Mari and Addai.

Bishop Sarhad Jammo in the USA draws upon studies from various sources (including Rahmani) to suggest that neither Sharar nor A&M were actually the originals, and that both were derived from a previous version. If Mar Jammo is correct, then what Sharar seems to suggest is a common heritage for both the East and West Syriac traditions.
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Whether Mar Sarhad is correct about the “two-branches from one original” theory, or if both Peter III and Addai & Mari were simply composed independently according to the same structure, really doesn’t matter. What does matter, though, is that the Eastern & Western Syriac Churches most definitely DO have a common root, and that root is the School of Edessa. Despite the Antiochene influence, in the Western Syriac Churches, the shared origin is evident in various subtle ways. It is most evident in the Maronite Church, to which Peter III is unique.
 
EphelDuath said:
I thought your liturgy was distinct from Western Syrian-Antiochian, which includes the Maronites, Syriac Catholics, and Syriac Orthodox?
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No. It’s essentially identical to that of the SOC, at least insofar as that is mirrored by both the Jacobite Syrian Orthodox and Malankara Orthodox Churches of Kerala. Which is to say, it’s nearly identical.
 
EphelDuath said:
Are there any Eastern Catholic Churches that have a super-traditional (i.e. the equivalent of the Tridentine Mass for the Roman rite) Western Syrian/Antiochean liturgy like the Syriac Orthodox do?
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In some places in Iraq and Syria the Syriac Catholic Church is identical to the Syriac Orthodox Church. Even to the extent that believers in the city do not identify as Catholic or Orthodox. But simply go to the Church that is closest to them.

In some case it is even more tradition. Eg the use of the one-cross Eskimo rather than the 12-cross Alexandrian version, the use of the seven volume Mosul Fenqitho rather than the shhimo,
 
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