From an outside perspective, is the Latin Rite OF closer to the earliest liturgies than the EF?

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I hear this claim a lot, and I have no way to evaluate it, so I thought perhaps if the Eastern Rites have remained more in touch with the earliest liturgies, Eastern Catholics might have an informed opinion about this. Thanks.
 
As someone who has celebrated the EF dozens of times and has served as a deacon and a subdeacon in a Solemn Mass, I have to disagree here. The structure of the EF is far closer to the Eastern liturgies. Look at what the priest does in the Byzantine Divine Liturgy versus what he does in the EF Solemn Mass. The role is virtually identical. And in both, the deacon and subdeacon direct all the action, even prompting the priest to act at certain points. The OF reduces the role of the deacon, has no role for the subdeacon (since the subdiaconate was unceremoniously suppressed after Vatican II), and has the priest driving all the action. The action of the EF centers around the priest offering the sacrifice, but is driven mainly by the deacon. The action of the OF is nearly entirely prompted by the priest.

-Fr ACEGC
 
Yes, I shouldn’t have made my statement on the OF and EF. I, not being a priest cannot say I am as knowledgeable as you at all, but I think that the OF Mass can be very beautiful.

Thank you for your (name removed by moderator)ut, Father.
 
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edward_george1 said:
The action of the EF centers around the priest offering the sacrifice, but is driven mainly by the deacon.
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Out of interest, what happens if the EF Mass is celebrated by a priest with only a server present? Does the priest then also assume the role of deacon?
 
The low Mass was never meant to be the ideal… a solemn high Mass was the traditional “ideal”.
 
Yes, in that he reads the Gospel and prepares the chalice on his own. But as @twf rightly points out, Low Mass was not meant as the ideal, but rather Solemn Mass was. This doesn’t mean Low Mass was somehow wrong or deficient, just that the model of liturgical expression was Solemn Mass with the full complement of personnel.

-Fr ACEGC
 
snarflemike said:
I hear this claim a lot, and I have no way to evaluate it, so I thought perhaps if the Eastern Rites have remained more in touch with the earliest liturgies, Eastern Catholics might have an informed opinion about this. Thanks.
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From about the fourth century our knowledge of the Liturgy increases enormously. We are no longer dependent on casual references to it: we have definite rites fully developed. The more or less uniform type of Liturgy used everywhere before crystallized into four parent rites from which all others are derived. The four are the old Liturgies of Antioch, Alexandria, Rome, and Gaul. Each is described in a special article. It will be enough here to trace an outline of their general evolution. … Only Gaul and northwest Europe generally, though part of the Roman Patriarchate, kept its own rite till the seventh and eighth centuries.
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Fortescue, A. (1910). Liturgy. In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09306a.htm

From a poster at ByzCath:
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You are assuming that the eastern liturgy is close to the liturgy in apostolic times, which isn’t necessarily true and needs an argument on its own.
 
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I misread this at first as asking whether the OF or the EF is closer to the Eastern liturgies, not the earliest. I’m thinking this should be in the “Traditional” or “Liturgy/Sacraments” thread.

That being said, liturgical scholars have demonstrated that the Roman Canon (now Eucharistic Prayer I) is one of the oldest Eucharistic prayers in the Church and predates the controversies that raged in the East over the nature of the Holy Spirit (leading eventually to the explicit and highly developed epicleses that we now find in all the anaphorae of the Eastern churches).

From the (admittedly limited - I’m no expert) studies that I’ve done, the OF was intended to restore the Roman Mass to an earlier and “more pristine” form. Whether the restoration was successful or not is a matter for historians and liturgical scholars to decide… I know that the late Fr. Robert Taft believed that the liturgical restoration of the West under Pope St. Paul VI was highly successful overall. But even Fr. Taft was quick to admit that no liturgical reform is perfect because the liturgy on earth is itself an imperfect reflection of the liturgy of heaven.
 
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Yes. But it’s traditionally called, simply, “the Roman Canon.”
 
AlbMagno said:
You are assuming that the eastern liturgy is close to the liturgy in apostolic times, which isn’t necessarily true and needs an argument on its own.
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I am assuming this as a possibility, not a fact, and I am assuming that the more liturgical “samples” that can be observed, the better the data to make comparisons. Come to think of it, if all of the other rites’ liturgies have changed substantially, that rather defeats the whole argument that celebrating the liturgy as was done in the early Church is something to be sought after.
 
I just wanted to correct what was probably a typo on your part, since the text for EPIV is quite different from the Roman Canon.
 
Oh good heavens! Thank you… That was a typo on my part… :crazy_face:
 
Phillip_Rolfes said:
I misread this at first as asking whether the OF or the EF is closer to the Eastern liturgies, not the earliest. I’m thinking this should be in the “Traditional” or “Liturgy/Sacraments” thread.
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I thought maybe I would get a more objective answer here, one less tainted by the Latin Rite liturgy wars.
 
We in the East have our own liturgy wars. We’re not immune from them. Our liturgy wars are present, but different from those in the West.
 
I too hear this claim made often in defense of the liturgical changes to the mass. However, my understanding is that this claim is not true and there is no evidence that supports such an idea.

The early Church was forced to celebrate mass in hiding out of fear of persecution and death. So the Masses that were celebrated during this time period probably bared very little resemblance to what gradually developed over the centuries.
 
I’d be very interested in any links that discuss Eastern “liturgical wars”.
 
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