Eastern Catholicism and liturgical reform

[TimSpalding]

Can someone thumbnail the reception of Vatican II’s teaching on the liturgy (e.g, Sacrosanctum Concilium, etc.) in Eastern Catholicism?

 

[ConstantineTG]

Can someone thumbnail the reception of Vatican II’s teaching on the liturgy (e.g, Sacrosanctum Concilium, etc.) in Eastern Catholicism?

That has no effect on, at least, the Byzantine Rite Divine Liturgy which has been consistently used in its current form since the early Second Millennium.

 

[Denho]

Can someone thumbnail the reception of Vatican II’s teaching on the liturgy (e.g, Sacrosanctum Concilium, etc.) in Eastern Catholicism?

It depends on the Church. Some have completed amazing restorations of authentic Eastern/Oriental liturgy - the Chaldeans for example… well, in theory. Others have followed the path of Rome and completely dismantled their liturgies - the Maronites. And others have done very little.

I am fond of a fun little conspiracy theory that H.B. Maximos, the Melkite Patriarch at Vatican II, encouraged the Latins to dive head first into their liturgical experimentation as revenge for hundreds of years of maltreatment and latinization of the East. That may be completely untrue, but it sounds fun at least.

 

[TimSpalding]

That has no effect on, at least, the Byzantine Rite Divine Liturgy which has been consistently used in its current form since the early Second Millennium.

Always in the original medieval Greek, not in modern Greek or in the local language?

 

[Aramis]

Always in the original medieval Greek, not in modern Greek or in the local language?

Con is, in this case, dead wrong…

The liturgical directives to the Eastern Churches are all contained in directives specfically to the Eastern Churches.

The Maronites appear to have taken the cue from Rome to reexamine their liturgy - the nature of their latinizations apparently changed, and vs Populem has become common (but not normative).

Many Byzantine Churches have revised their liturgies to remove latinizations, most especially the Ukrainian and Ruthenian churches.

Note that the vernacular has been the tradition of the Byzantine rite since the 4th century; the slavic uses reintroduced the use of a liturgical language - Church Slavonic - which is still used… its relationship to modern slavic tongues is extremely close. Comparable to italian vs latin, but closer still. And, note that in the US, the Ruthenians started allowing vernacular again as a norm at or before 1965, with the version by Msgr. Levkulic.

 

[TimSpalding]

Note that the vernacular has been the tradition of the Byzantine rite since the 4th century; the slavic uses reintroduced the use of a liturgical language

How about Greek? Does the service have to be in Byzantine—really Late Antique—Greek, or can it be in Demotiki?

Church Slavonic - which is still used… its relationship to modern slavic tongues is extremely close. Comparable to italian vs latin, but closer still.

I can’t speak with authority here, as I don’t speak either language. (I once traded Greek lessons for Russian with an exceptionally cute Russian girl. We ended up going to movies together instead.) But Googling around I find many native speakers of Slavic languages, and especially Russian, saying that comprehension of Church Slavonic among modern speakers who haven’t been specially trained is quite low. (This seems reasonable to me given that Church Slavonic comes from a different branch of the Slavic family, has seven, not six, cases, uses the dual, etc.) Italian and Latin are close to a linguist, and a big help to me when I’m in Italy. But very few even educated Italians understand Latin, although quite a few of them had it in school. An uneducated Italian has no hope of it, thought they might be able to know “where they were” in the mass somewhat better than if it were in Chinese.

 

[Aramis]

How about Greek? Does the service have to be in Byzantine—really Late Antique—Greek, or can it be in Demotiki?

I can’t speak with authority here, as I don’t speak either language. (I once traded Greek lessons for Russian with an exceptionally cute Russian girl. We ended up going to movies together instead.) But Googling around I find many native speakers of Slavic languages, and especially Russian, saying that comprehension of Church Slavonic among modern speakers who haven’t been specially trained is quite low. (This seems reasonable to me given that Church Slavonic comes from a different branch of the Slavic family, has seven, not six, cases, uses the dual, etc.) Italian and Latin are close to a linguist, and a big help to me when I’m in Italy. But very few even educated Italians understand Latin, although quite a few of them had it in school. An uneducated Italian has no hope of it, thought they might be able to know “where they were” in the mass somewhat better than if it were in Chinese.

Russian is the most divergent. It’s intelligible - the root words are mostly the same.

The problem is, every slavic language uses different conjugational endings. And that can render some dubious meanings. Plus, there are now 3 different sets of Church Slavonic - The russian version is highly stilted, and pronounced differently (as if written in Russian) rather than the more western slavic languages (Czech, Slovak, Ukrainian). And borrowed words are starting to displace many of the slavonic core words.

You have to also understand: Old Slavonic was a distillation of a half dozen balkan-slavic languages into a common language. Most Italians can only get the gist of Latin, I’ve been told. French, Spanish, Italian and Portugese are all barely cross intelligible, but latin is equidistant from them all.

Really, tho, only in the slavo-byzantines is there really a “Liturgical language” and its time was closing anyway. The others are pretty much vernacular. Modern greeks can make out Koine, which is still liturgical Greek, but lose the subtleties and idiomatic expressions. Much the same as Modern English and pre-shakespearian era “modern english”.

 

[annastasia75]

Russian is the most divergent. It’s intelligible - the root words are mostly the same.

The problem is, every slavic language uses different conjugational endings. And that can render some dubious meanings. Plus, there are now 3 different sets of Church Slavonic - The russian version is highly stilted, and pronounced differently (as if written in Russian) rather than the more western slavic languages (Czech, Slovak, Ukrainian). And borrowed words are starting to displace many of the slavonic core words.

You have to also understand: Old Slavonic was a distillation of a half dozen balkan-slavic languages into a common language. Most Italians can only get the gist of Latin, I’ve been told. French, Spanish, Italian and Portugese are all barely cross intelligible, but latin is equidistant from them all.

Really, tho, only in the slavo-byzantines is there really a “Liturgical language” and its time was closing anyway. The others are pretty much vernacular. Modern greeks can make out Koine, which is still liturgical Greek, but lose the subtleties and idiomatic expressions. Much the same as Modern English and pre-shakespearian era “modern english”.

I had always assumed theChurch Slovanic we used was as you described. Sadly, in my opinion, our church is phasing out our Slovanic Liturgies when I was child /young adult one of our
Sunday Liturgies was in Slovanic, then some of the Liturgy was in Engilsh and some in Slovanic, at one point we actually got to vote on if and how much we wanted in the Liturgy, now our Liturgy is in English and we sing some of our hymns such as “Christ is RIsen!” in Slovanic.

 

[Sophronius]

How is the Coptic Catholic Liturgy?

I was aghast to see the dreaded handshake of peace in one once.

 

[newlywed8]

Con is, in this case, dead wrong…

The liturgical directives to the Eastern Churches are all contained in directives specfically to the Eastern Churches.

The Maronites appear to have taken the cue from Rome to reexamine their liturgy - the nature of their latinizations apparently changed, and vs Populem has become common (but not normative).

Many Byzantine Churches have revised their liturgies to remove latinizations, most especially the Ukrainian and Ruthenian churches.

Note that the vernacular has been the tradition of the Byzantine rite since the 4th century; the slavic uses reintroduced the use of a liturgical language - Church Slavonic - which is still used… its relationship to modern slavic tongues is extremely close. Comparable to italian vs latin, but closer still. And, note that in the US, the Ruthenians started allowing vernacular again as a norm at or before 1965, with the version by Msgr. Levkulic.

I wouldn’t say he was dead wrong… the directives re: the Eastern churches were much different than those given to the west. The west completely revised their liturgy. The directives in the east in that sense didn’t ‘change’ or ‘modify’ the liturgy. The east was directed to return to what the liturgy once was, what it was supposed to be, which is the way it had been celebrated for already several hundred years.