Sts. Tikhon & John of San Francisco on the Western Rite

[Maria]

While I can certainly understand a resistance to the forms of the western rite such as those used by the Antiochians, I am unsure how the pre schism rites cannot be considered orthodox.
While it is true that innovations began to appear in some parts of the west around the 6th century that does not invalidate the entire western church or the liturgical rites that it used from that time forward. For instance the filioque was not used in Rome until the 11th century and a western rite monastery existed on Athos from the 9th-12th century.
All of the errors that you mentioned, as far as I know, are absent in the pre schism rites. Perhaps you could point to something more specific in their usage that makes them heretical?

Do you also find those who lived post 6th century in the west and that are venerated as saints by the church to be heterodox?

I do not believe in the Light-Switch theory of grace.

Look at the holiness of St. Dominic Guzman, a post-schism Roman Catholic saint. Like St. Seraphim of Sarov, St. Dominic's face glowed with heavenly uncreated light and love. This is why he is depicted with a star over his head. He died on August 6, 1221, at Bologna, Italy. When his tomb was opened, people from miles around were drawn to the church by the heavenly odor which emanated from his relics. By his life of continuous prayer, love, and preaching, he hoped and prayed that heresies and schism would be healed. In fact, members of his Dominican Order were sent into Georgia and to Constantinople in order to understand Orthodoxy and try to resolve any theologican disputes. However, both Priories, which were established in those two countries, ended up converting to Orthodoxy, and the poor monks living a live of voluntary poverty were allowed to continue wearing the white habit, so that they were called the "White Monks." Many people do not realize that St. Seraphim of Sarov wore white, but the white Dominican habit signified angelic purity and virginity, a life which both Sts. Dominic and Seraphim lived from their youths.

You have got be kidding. Dominic is not a saint. He is not "depicted" in any way. It is not appropriate to compare him to a true Orthodox Saint, Seraphim.
Go ask your GOC Bishop what he thinks of Dominic, the Dominican Friars, and The Rosary. :ohvey:

While I do not personally venerate him as a Saint, I am not going to deny that he was a righteous man.
Again, I do not believe in the Light Switch theory of grace.
Not all men and women were cut off from God's grace just as the clock ticked: 1054.

Nevertheless, I do not venerate any post-schism Roman Catholic saints.

Furthermore, as time went on, we can see the result of schism and heresy in Roman Catholicism with the Protestant Reformation, which quickly evolved into hundreds or even thousands of different denominations and cults. Thus, today's Dominicans are heretical and schismatic.

Incidentally, years ago, I left a Dominican Monastery because of these heresies. They were learning Buddhist prayers from the apostate Father Thomas Merton.

So, to get back to the topic on hand, I cannot accept the Western Rite from schismatic and heretical churches, whether that Western Rite is derived and modified from the Anglican Church's Common Prayer, which the Antiochians are using for their Western Rite, or from the Roman Catholic Church, from which the Gregorian or Sarum rite are derived.

[Holdfast]

Philaret,
Your argument seems to cut both ways. Had all existing manuscripts of these rites been lost I may be inclined to agree with your assertion. However, they have been preserved, perhaps by providence.
I don't believe, to my knowledge, that they have been edited in the ways that Maria suspects. However I am not a member of a western rite parish and have only a passing familiarity.
These rites were used by the orthodox within the church. Even though their usage ceased for a period this does not make them any less a part of orthodox history or tradition. They are not being grafted to the church. They were created in the church, for the church by the church and are part of it.
Does your argument of use it or lose it only apply to the liturgies? What about the hours or other prayers that have fallen out of use? Is it improper to use them as well?

[Maria]

The Church is living. Why try to graft a dead branch (Mass) back onto a living tree?

The Sarum Rite was in Latin, wasn't it? Was it ever in Old English?

If the Sarum Rite were in Latin, then it would have had to be translated into English for American or British usage. Otherwise, where are these English translations coming from? Note that meanings and nuances are often lost in translations.

When I was an inquirer many years ago into the Antiochians, I visited their Orthodox Western Rite parish, where they used a modified Anglican Rite (Book of Common Prayers). I felt very uncomfortable, not only with the Western Rite usage, but also with the way they adapted the communion. They added to the Anaphora to include the epiclesis and changed words to make it more appropriate. For communion, first the priest would give people the consecrated host in their hands as they knelt at the communion rail, next he went back to the altar and returned with the chalice. Then he would take the host that each person was holding, dip it into the chalice, and then place it on each person's tongue. It was just plain weird. If they had a deacon or second priest, then the other cleric would hold the chalice so that the host could be dipped and then given to the person.

Instead of using unleavened bread (another modification) in the Orthodox Western Rite, they used specially made hosts that looked like unleavened bread but were actually leavened bread. These were thin and easily fractured like the hosts used in Anglican and Roman Catholic Churches.

More importantly, the way we pray is the way we believe. Lex orandi, lex credendi.
The Western Rite Antiochian priests taught about venial vs. mortal sins vs. faults in a retreat I attended there.
They also taught other strange if not heretical ideas that were taught by Latins.

[Isaakos]

Philaret,
Your argument seems to cut both ways. Had all existing manuscripts of these rites been lost I may be inclined to agree with your assertion. However, they have been preserved, perhaps by providence.
I don't believe, to my knowledge, that they have been edited in the ways that Maria suspects. However I am not a member of a western rite parish and have only a passing familiarity.
These rites were used by the orthodox within the church. Even though their usage ceased for a period this does not make them any less a part of orthodox history or tradition. They are not being grafted to the church. They were created in the church, for the church by the church and are part of it.
Does your argument of use it or lose it only apply to the liturgies? What about the hours or other prayers that have fallen out of use? Is it improper to use them as well?

Because the Church is living we must consider that which was stolen and passed beyond its canonical borders as dead.

There is a difference between the Living Continuity preserved by the LIfE of the Church and Archaeology. That which is not lived is dead. The question is whether it is appropriate to try to breathe life back into dead rites. There is no real point and no spiritual benefit. It is primarily so that western converts don't feel alienated from their past. If your past is so valuable to you that you can't enter into the Norm in terms of lived out Orthodoxy, you need to spend a longer amount of time as a catechumen.

[Maria]

Philaret,
Your argument seems to cut both ways. Had all existing manuscripts of these rites been lost I may be inclined to agree with your assertion. However, they have been preserved, perhaps by providence.
I don't believe, to my knowledge, that they have been edited in the ways that Maria suspects. However I am not a member of a western rite parish and have only a passing familiarity.
These rites were used by the orthodox within the church. Even though their usage ceased for a period this does not make them any less a part of orthodox history or tradition. They are not being grafted to the church. They were created in the church, for the church by the church and are part of it.
Does your argument of use it or lose it only apply to the liturgies? What about the hours or other prayers that have fallen out of use? Is it improper to use them as well?

Because the Church is living we must consider that which was stolen and passed beyond its canonical borders as dead.

There is a difference between the Living Continuity preserved by the LIfE of the Church and Archaeology. That which is not lived is dead. The question is whether it is appropriate to try to breathe life back into dead rites. There is no real point and no spiritual benefit. It is primarily so that western converts don't feel alienated from their past. If your past is so valuable to you that you can't enter into the Norm in terms of lived out Orthodoxy, you need to spend a longer amount of time as a catechumen.

True, we are not to look back as did Lot's wife.

[Lydia]

There are Pre-schism western rites that are still performed today, such as The Mozarabic-Visigothic. Could these not be "adjusted?'
The arguments in favor of Western Rites that I have heard are to make the liturgy more comfortable for converts. My experience has been that it is not the Divine Liturgy that is a difficulty but rather, the use of languages like Slavonic or Ancient Greek (rather than native languages.)

[Holdfast]

There is no real point and no spiritual benefit.

Is it your position that the pre schism liturgies are ineffective in either the worship of our creator, the sanctification of the gifts or both?
I would tend to think that it is not our continued use of a rite that gives it life but rather it is the grace of God that he bestows upon us during worship and the mysteries that is life creating.
I would agree with you that if the sole reason in reestablishing these rites were to make papist converts feel more comfortable that reasoning is flawed. However, I have never heard that used as a justification for the WR, at least not within the TOC.