This will be in the running for one of the longest, if not the longest of all, posts I've written. Forgive the length, as it's addressed both to buzuxi and to Suaiden.
Thus liturgy has gotten named after the saint in the 1970's, he has nothing to do with it. For starters this liturgy denies the ever virginity of Mary simply refering to her as 'Blessed Mary".
Bull. She is blessed, is she not? This simply does not
refer to her ever-virginity, one way or another. The East had a sort of "liturgical reaction" to many things that were challenged there that weren't ever challenged in the West (the divinity of Christ, icons, the ever-virginity of Mary). Consequently our eastern liturgies stress those theological points much more often and much more explicitly than the Roman and British rites
ever have ("Christ our God," for example, is said over and over in our liturgies while it's not a phrase of like prominence in the western liturgies -- surely you're not saying that they therefore deny the divinity of Christ, are you??).
It was also a service meant for those that deny the real Prescense, and even with the Orthodox interpolations and added epiklesis, this aspect of denying the actual body and blood still comes through.
More bull. Prove it. Christ Himself told us to do this "in memory" of Him, but we know memory to be more participatory than a simple memorial meal. It seems you want there to be some low-church, non-sacramental meaning in the WR liturgies' phraseology so that you can reject it outright, but you have no cause to do so legitimately.
"We beseech thee also so to direct and dispose the hearts of ALL CHRISTIAN RULERS, that they may truly and impartially administer justice, to the punishment of wickedness and vice and to the maintenance of thy TRUE RELIGION. Give grace o heavenly Father to all bishops and OTHER ministers... ( WRV has interpolated the names of the patriarch and bishop after the phrase, "OTHER MINISTERS"). Even before this verse the reference to "Universal Church' taken in context (which i havent quoted), is intended for those that understand the church as part of the branch theory. From an Orthodox pov this prayer is very awkward.
Quote the context. "Other ministers" could be priests, deacons, bishops, etc. "Universal Church" may have been "intended" for certain groups several hundred years ago, but
now it means "the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church": the Orthodox Church. We've taken something and confessed it with the correct meaning behind it. Not a problem now.
Later on in the Prayer of Thanksgiving, it says this: "...And that we are very members INCORPORATE in the mystical body of thy Son, which is the blessed company of all faithful people...." (these branch theorists dont even want to use the word 'baptised into' and substitute 'incorporate', regardless we can see the theological errors which alludes to the branch theory in this phrase)
If we've been baptized into Christ, we've been incorporated into His body, become members of it (Eph. 4:25; 5:30). You're grasping at straws and semantics, sir. Your case is very shaky. Our faith is not based on a one-to-one word/definition equivalent. Your treating it as though it were is almost insulting to anyone who can say the same thing with different words.
In the consecration we see that this liturgy was originally for those that denied the real prescense:
And now it's for those who don't, those who can understand those (biblical) terms correctly.
After the words of institution are read they end with the phrase, "in remembrance of me" (as the protestants understand it as seen in the previous quote).
I couldn't care less how
some protestants understand those words; what I am so grateful for is that my Western Rite brethren understand them correctly.
This liturgy (if it can be called that) is not theologically correct nor is it pre-schism...
You've offered no substantial evidence as to it's theological incorrectness. As to it's being pre-schism, well, you're right; it was understood from the start to be an adaptation of the 1928 BCP. St. Tikhon knew this. It was never an attempt to use the Sarum Rite.
I will insert this here, though:
As much as I support the AWRV (and I'm a reader in the OCA), I would prefer to see the use of the Sarum Rite, as I think it is naturally more compatible with the pre-schism British use. I think the ROCOR has the better idea. That having been said, though, I don't think the AWRV is wrong, heretical, heterodox or anything else for using the Rite of St. Tikhon, just that they're using something that isn't as "home grown" as Sarum is. St. Tikhon's Mass was compiled, largely, outside our communion, but it's not something I'm uncomfortable in the slightest with praying, theologically or liturgically speaking.
Amen. There are enough translations of the Sarum for them to adopt. They are purposely ignoring the real Western Orthodox tradition to defend their father, Thomas Cranmer.
Libel. Prove this is their motive.
The denial is here...: "....for that thou, of thy tender mercy, didst give thine only Son Jesus Christ to suffer death upon the Cross for our redemption; who made there (by his one oblation of himself once offered) a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction, for the sins of the whole world; and did institute, and in his holy Gospel command us to continue, a perpetual memory of that his precious the death and sacrifice, until his coming again".
Please show me the unbiblical and heterodox part of the above. I don't think it's there.
The Eucharist, according to Orthodox Church teaching, is a perpetual sacrifice; somewhat different from the Roman teaching, but far removed from the idea that the Eucharist was a memorial meal. Certainly the text does not outright say that; it would have permanently cemented the divisions between the Anglicans as to whether they believed in the real presence.
Glad you can at least admit what I boldfaced. As to the Orthodox teaching, Christ was offered once for all, period. Christ is not eternally or perpetually sacrificed. His one sacrifice is made imminently present at every Eucharist, but He is not "being crucified anew" or "still being crucified" when this happens.
The one that looks *Orthodox* is kind of obvious.
To
you. The synod of Russia disagreed with you several times over, as does the synod of the AOAA.
As to whether or not they're trying to pass of St. Tikhon's Mass as an old western Orthodox mass, first you say the following:
In other words, are they saying that these rites are not the Western rites of the old Orthodox West? Or are they saying that they are, even while having to admit the reality? I answer the latter in the affirmative.
You quote Fr. Patrick MacCauley as proving your point, which he does at first, though he later down says that "More precisely, the Western Rite, as approved by the Antiochian Archdiocese is a theologically corrected form of worship formerly used by either the Roman Catholic Church or the Anglican Communion." So no, Fr. Patrick is not passing these off as the old rites; he's just not writing precisely.
Then you quote (and even emphasize!) Fr. Schneirla as saying:
"At the turn of the ccntury, the only Orthodox bishop in North America, the later Russian Patriarch Tikhon (Belavin) was approached by a group of Episcopalians, who asked to be allowed to continue the use of the American Book of Common Prayer rather than the Byzantine rite. Bishop Tikhon petitioned the Holy Synod of Moscow and a commission of theologians was directed to provide a detailed examination and revision of the Prayer Book to be approved for the converts...."
You emphasize that Fr John Charles Connely says that St. Mark's uses, according to Fr. John, "the finest form of the English Liturgy," but Fr. John is quite clear in saying that that is not a pre-schism liturgy but rather the "1928 Book of Common Prayer, by which we meant the old religion of the Christian West, and its traditional liturgy....." Now, you may disagree (as I do) with his calling it the finest form of the English liturgy, as well as the old religion of the Christian West (I disagree with this in part), but he can hardly be said to be calling this the exact rite used by pre-schism Christians. Rather, he's acknowledging this to be a direct and recognizeable descendant thereof, as you can read
HERE.
Two things are clear:
1) The ancient Orthodox ritual of the West was NOT either of the liturgies mentioned. (Proof? See Fr Paul Schneirla's statement).
Agreed.
2) The above and others will continue freely to present it as such, and dishonestly.
Wrong, as I showed above.
Its no secret that the WRV has its critics especially amongst the episcopal ranks. The Liturgy of St Tikhon will always recieve the most critcism because its simply not Orthodox, I'm not the first to point this out nor the last.
It will receive criticism because there will (I fear) always be people who squirm at the reality of vast liturgical diversity within the Church from its earliest days. Lectionaries, fasting rules, prayer rules, Eucharists, vestment styles, chant styles, rubrics, etc...all this has varied wildly throughout Christendom; it's only relatively recently that such a liturgical standardization has been the norm. It most certainly is not a
sine qua non of genuine Orthodoxy.
The Body of Christ is made of baptised christians, both saints and sinners. It is not the "company of all faithful people" it is an exclusive company of baptized people of whom not all are entirely faithful but some are wretched sinners.
You are aware, are you not, of our Lord's parable of the wheat and the tares? There are wheat grains and there are tares, but though all may be visibly in the "field" of the Church, those who are truly Christ's within His Church are the "faithful people." Some may be baptized, but their hearts are not Christ's. They are not truly of the Body, though they appear so. We all pray that we are one of those who has been incorporated into that Body which will ever be faithful, without spot or blemish, to our Lord in His Church.
Secondly the term "incorporate" is completely false, we are not incorporated into the Body, but through baptism we are the Body.
As scripture says, "For by One Spirit we were all baptized into One Body"....(1COR 12.13)
"For as many of you have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ."(Gal3.27)
If we've been baptized into Christ, we've been incorporated into His body, become members of it (Eph. 4:25; 5:30). We've been grafted in. Different ways of saying
the same thing.
