The Unfulfilled Injunction of Metropolitan Platon (On the History of Western Rite Orthodoxy)

A.A. Kostryukov

Associate Professor at St. Tikhon’s Orthodox University, Lecturer at Perervinsky Theological Seminary

 

 

One of the achievements of Metropolitan Platon (Levshin) of Moscow [+1812] is rightly considered to be the establishment of Edinoverie [i.e., Old Rite parishes within the canonical Russian Church]. Accommodating the Old Believers who wished to unite with the Church, Metropolitan Platon disregarded differences in rites, which are not of fundamental importance for our salvation. There can be no doubt that Metropolitan Platon would also have approved of another project that emerged more than a hundred years after his repose. This project was Western (Gallican) Rite Orthodoxy. The principle underlying this movement was Orthodox dogmatic teaching combined with the preservation of the rites and traditions accepted in the West. At present, Western Rite Orthodoxy does not play a significant role, although in the 1920s–1960s this project appeared promising. It may be said that the establishment of this movement represented the fulfillment of Metropolitan Platon’s injunction—an injunction which, unfortunately, was never fully carried out.

The beginnings of the Western Rite in Orthodoxy date back to the 1930s, when Ludovic Joseph Marie Charles Winnaert (or, in abbreviated form, Louis Charles Winnaert) [1] decided to enter the Orthodox Church. He was born in 1880, was baptized in the Roman Catholic Church, and was ordained a priest in 1905. In 1918, Winnaert joined the Old Catholic movement and entered into communion with the marginal “Liberal Catholic Church,” where he was consecrated a “bishop.” In 1922, Winnaert established his own “Evangelical Catholic Church” [2] and broke off relations with the “Liberal Catholic Church,” having discovered elements of Theosophy in its teachings. [3] At the age of fifty, Winnaert married, which led to a schism within his community. [4] By the mid-1930s, Winnaert had decided to convert to Orthodoxy. He categorically rejected the Roman innovations concerning the Filioque, purgatory, the Immaculate Conception of the Mother of God, and others. However, he did not wish to change the liturgical rite to which he was accustomed. The pastor attempted to place himself under the jurisdiction of the Russian Exarchate of Western Europe, headed by Metropolitan Evlogy (Georgievsky), but soon abandoned this idea because he found the conditions imposed upon him unacceptable. [5] Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky) was more favorably disposed toward Winnaert. The confession of faith submitted by the head of the “Evangelical Catholic Church” was recognized as Orthodox. The question of rites, however, was more complicated: the Moscow Patriarchate feared that permitting Winnaert to use the Western Rite might lead to conflict with the other Local Churches.

Since the Orthodox Church did not recognize Old Catholic ordinations, Winnaert could not be received as a bishop. His marriage after ordination was also a problem. [6] Although Winnaert should have been deprived of his clerical rank, the authorities in Moscow reasoned that he had “entered into marriage outside the Church while wandering in the space between Churches.” It was decided to make an exception for Winnaert in accordance with Canon 3 of the Council in Trullo, under which those who had married after ordination before January 15, 691, and had violated the law through ignorance were permitted to retain their clerical ranks, on condition that they divorce and without any prospect of advancement to a higher rank of the priesthood. [7]

On June 16, 1936, Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky) of Moscow issued Decree No. 1249, according to which Winnaert’s group was received under the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate as the Western Orthodox Church.

The following conditions were imposed upon it:

Winnaert was to be received in the rank of presbyter, but on the indispensable condition that his marriage be dissolved and without any prospect of elevation to the episcopate. Upon fulfilling this condition, Winnaert could remain administrator of his parishes under the authority of the hierarch of Western Europe.

Clergy and laity who had received valid confirmation were to be received through repentance, while those who had not were to be received through chrismation. Upon entering the clergy, Winnaert’s followers were to be received in their existing clerical ranks if they had been lawfully ordained in the Roman Catholic Church.

The community being received was required to adhere to Orthodox doctrine.

The community being reunited was required to include in its liturgical calendar all the saints venerated in the East, but, among Western saints, only those who had been glorified “before the separation of Rome from the Orthodox Church.”

Only leavened bread was to be used in the Liturgy. The invocation of the Holy Spirit and the consecration of the Gifts were to be placed not before, but after the Words of Institution (“Take, eat…”). The laity were to receive Communion under both kinds by means of the communion spoon. As a sign of canonical unity, the Liturgy was to be celebrated on an antimension consecrated and issued by the hierarch administering the churches of the Moscow Patriarchate in Western Europe, namely, Metropolitan Eleutherius (Bogoyavlensky) of Lithuania and Vilnius.

The Sacrament of Baptism was to be performed by immersion. Pouring or sprinkling was to be permitted only in exceptional cases. In Chrismation, holy chrism received from the diocesan bishop was to be used. In the Sacrament of Holy Unction, it was to be made clear that this was not merely “Extreme Unction,” but was also for the healing of the soul and body of the sick person.

Winnaert and his group were to submit a petition to Metropolitan Eleutherius, who would receive the group himself or, if he was unable to come, entrust their reception to clergy who knew French.

The parishes being reunited that use the Western Rite are to bear the designation “Western Orthodoxy.”

At their ordination, clergy of the Western Church are to wear Western-style vestments. When serving in Eastern Orthodox churches, they may wear either Western or Eastern vestments. Likewise, Eastern Orthodox clergy, when celebrating services in Winnaert’s churches, may wear either Western or Eastern vestments. [8]

Venerable Silouan the Athonite responded to this event with great enthusiasm, sending Winnaert icons of the Mother of God and the Great Martyr Panteleimon that had been blessed upon holy relics. In his letter to V. N. Lossky, the Venerable Father spoke favorably of Metropolitan Sergius’s broad-mindedness in overcoming ritual differences. [9]

On December 1, 1936, Priest Mikhail Belsky received Winnaert into Orthodoxy in the rank of priest. [10] At the same time, an ecclesiastical divorce was granted, and at the end of January 1937 (according to other sources, on February 5), Winnaert, by then gravely ill and bedridden, was tonsured into monasticism with the name Irenaeus by Hieromonk Stefan (Svetozarov). Shortly thereafter, Father Irenaeus was elevated to the rank of archimandrite by Metropolitan Eleutherius (Bogoyavlensky). [11] In February 1937, a group of clergy and laity under Winnaert’s authority was also received into Orthodoxy. [12] One month later, on March 17, 1937, Archimandrite Irenaeus reposed. [13]

Thus, the foundations of Western Rite Orthodoxy were laid. In addition to the principal parish of the Ascension, several smaller communities were established. Work was also undertaken to reconstruct the Western Orthodox Liturgy. Hieromonk Alexis (van der Mensbrugghe), who had likewise converted from Roman Catholicism, devoted considerable effort to this undertaking. In 1948, he published a book entitled The Orthodox Liturgy of the Western Rite: An Attempt at Restoration. The liturgy he reconstructed was based on the ancient Roman liturgy, incorporating elements of the ancient Gallican and Byzantine liturgies. [14]

The principal continuators of Archimandrite Irenaeus’s work after his death were Priest Evgraf Kovalevsky (later Bishop John) and Priest Lucian Chambault (later Archimandrite Dionysius). The first movement was centered around the Parish of St. Irenaeus and was dynamic and vibrant. [15] The second movement was centered at the Parish of the Ascension. Here, missionary work developed more slowly but promised to bear fruit in the future. However, neither movement produced any tangible results.

There were several reasons for the failure, the principal one being the activities of Priest E. Kovalevsky, who sacrificed both the letter and the spirit of Orthodoxy for the sake of immediate results.

Priest Evgraf Kovalevsky (1905–1970) graduated from the Faculty of Philology of the University of Paris and the St. Sergius Theological Institute. From his youth, Kovalevsky was captivated by the idea of bringing the Orthodox faith to the French. He insisted that ancient Gaul had received Christianity not from Rome, but from the East, and that it had been Christianized even before Rome. The direct evangelizers of Gaul were Eastern saints—the Apostles Trophimus and Dionysius the Areopagite, Righteous Lazarus the Four-Days-Dead, and Hieromartyr Irenaeus of Lyons. As for the Gallican Liturgy, it was based not on the Roman Liturgy, but on the Syrian Liturgy. In the opinion of Priest E. Kovalevsky, the acceptance of Orthodoxy by the French constituted not conversion to another confession, but a return to their origins. [16]

Unfortunately, Father Evgraf’s erudition, gift of persuasion, and sincerity were combined with disagreeable character traits, chief among which was a tendency toward adventurism. This manifested itself, for example, in exaggerating the results of his activities and in bringing into the Church people who had no understanding whatsoever of Orthodoxy. “To give Evgraf the priesthood is the same as giving a revolver to a person with a mental disorder,” V. N. Lossky remarked concerning Father Evgraf Kovalevsky.

While preparing for the reunion of Winnaert’s group with the Orthodox Church, Kovalevsky deliberately misled Metropolitans Sergius (Stragorodsky) and Eleutherius (Bogoyavlensky). In particular, Kovalevsky claimed that thousands of Roman Catholics wished to join the Orthodox Church, whereas in reality Winnaert’s group consisted of only 55 people. Permission to establish the Parish of St. Irenaeus was likewise obtained by inflating the figures: Father Evgraf included 25 people on the list of parishioners, although only four of them were Orthodox. [17]

The situation in Father Evgraf’s parish also gave cause for concern. Archimandrite Dionysius (Chambault) subsequently wrote: “They have their own way of life, centered on the person of Father Evgraf (giving the impression of a sect rather than anything else) [...] In this environment there prevails an atmosphere that is not only far from genuinely Orthodox, but also unhealthy—some even say foul (the clergy, parishioners, and students address one another familiarly, without ceremony, smoke, dance, frequent cafés, etc.).” Far worse, however, were Father Evgraf’s liturgical innovations, for he did not so much celebrate the services as improvise them. This was aggravated by the absence of a fixed liturgical text. Archpriest E. Kovalevsky also permitted non-Orthodox Christians and even unbaptized Jews to receive Communion. [18] “Archpriest E. Kovalevsky,” wrote Metropolitan Nikolai (Yarushevich), “is guilty of treating the Sacraments of Repentance, the Eucharist, Marriage, and Holy Orders with more than excessive freedom (denying the necessity of confession before Communion, encouraging non-Orthodox Christians to receive Communion and administering Communion to them, performing church marriages without observing ecclesiastical rules, assisting in the uncanonical ordination of candidates for the priesthood, personally performing the marriage ceremony of a Catholic priest and presenting him for reordination, and the like). For each of these offenses, Archpriest E. Kovalevsky is liable to the most severe ecclesiastical punishment.” On January 9, 1953, the Holy Synod of the Moscow Patriarchate ordered that Archpriest E. Kovalevsky be relieved of his duties as a member of the Council attached to the Exarchate and granted leave from his duties as rector of the Church of St. Irenaeus. Archpriest E. Kovalevsky was permitted to celebrate divine services only with the authorization of the Chairman of the Exarchate Council. [19]

But Archpriest E. Kovalevsky outwitted the ecclesiastical authorities even in this. It emerged that he had been preparing to leave for several years and had secretly registered the “French Orthodox Church” with the state authorities as early as 1948. [20] At the same time, Father Evgraf had also managed to register the parish’s real estate in his own name.

Thus began Father Evgraf’s wandering from one jurisdiction to another. In 1954, he placed himself under the jurisdiction of the Western European Exarchate of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, but that same year he was suspended from serving by Metropolitan Vladimir (Tikhonitsky) for “disobedience to ecclesiastical authority.” [21] Shortly thereafter, Archpriest E. Kovalevsky joined the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (ROCOR). He won over Archbishop John (Maximovitch) of Brussels and Western Europe to his ideas. Soon the Archbishop began petitioning for Father Evgraf’s consecration to the episcopate. However, the ROCOR Synod of Bishops received the proposal with less enthusiasm. The principal reasons were the celebration of evening Liturgies, as well as the adoption by the French parishes of the Gregorian calendar and the Roman Catholic Paschalion. Nevertheless, these parishes were received, although the Council of Bishops of 1959 imposed a number of conditions upon them. The “French Orthodox Group” was instructed to adopt the Orthodox Paschalion, while evening Liturgies were permitted only by way of exception. It was further stipulated that the priest must not have celebrated the Liturgy that morning and that, together with the lay communicants, he must abstain from food throughout that day. [22]

After Archbishop John (Maximovitch) was transferred to San Francisco, the Western Rite parishes in France and the Netherlands remained under his authority. [23] For several years, these parishes were a constant headache for the Russian Church Abroad. Archpriest E. Kovalevsky continued to administer Communion to non-Orthodox Christians. The French parishes likewise continued to celebrate services according to the new calendar and to use the Catholic Paschalion. It was only in June 1964 that the Council of Bishops acknowledged that these parishes had celebrated Pascha together with the Orthodox Church. However, this was regarded as an isolated occurrence.

On June 28, 1964, Archpriest E. Kovalevsky announced that he accepted all the conditions imposed upon him. [24] The Archpriest was tonsured into monasticism with the name John-Nectarius (in ROCOR documents he was referred to as John), and on November 11, 1964, he was consecrated in San Francisco as Bishop of Saint-Denis, Vicar of the Western European Diocese, with responsibility for the Western Rite parishes in France. The consecration was performed by Archbishop John (Maximovitch) and Bishop Theophil (Ionescu), who headed the Romanian parishes of ROCOR. [25]

After the death of St. John (Maximovitch) in 1966, the Western Rite parishes were to come under the jurisdiction of the Western European Diocese of ROCOR. The ruling hierarch of this diocese, Archbishop Anthony (Bartoshevich), having noticed irregularities in the life and practices of the French parishes, appealed to the Synod to investigate the situation. Archbishop Vitaly (Ustinov) was dispatched to France. [26] The hierarch immediately noticed that Bishop John (Kovalevsky)’s flock was not nearly as large as he had reported. It emerged that fasting before Communion was not obligatory in the French parishes, and that Bishop John had permitted a subdeacon to administer Communion to the laity outside the divine services, moreover, not in his own diocese but in the neighboring German Diocese. Some cases were even more outrageous. For example, among the clergy of the “French Church” was a non-Orthodox Christian who had been ordained without first being received into Orthodoxy. This same cleric, with the permission of Bishop John (Kovalevsky), was cohabiting with a woman without being married. On November 7, 1965, Bishop John permitted a Masonic memorial service to be held in his church. Finally, the leader of “French Orthodoxy” had become so absorbed in liturgical creativity that he began devising and introducing his own liturgical rites. [27] Anticipating inevitable canonical penalties, Bishop John (Kovalevsky) sent a telegram to the ROCOR Synod on October 20, 1966, declaring that he no longer recognized ROCOR as his supreme ecclesiastical authority. That same day, he was suspended from serving, but he attached no significance to the suspension. [28] Bishop John told his followers that the penalty was unlawful because it had been imposed upon him after his departure from ROCOR. On February 9, 1967, the Synod of Bishops of the Russian Church Abroad deprived Bishop John of his episcopal rank and reduced him to the status of a simple monk. [29]

The “French Church” became independent. After Kovalevsky’s death in January 1970, the 22 parishes under his authority attempted to place themselves under the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate as an autonomous structure. The negotiations were unsuccessful. Metropolitan Nikodim (Rotov), Chairman of the Department for External Church Relations, wrote that autonomy was out of the question, and that the Western Rite parishes could join the Russian Church by entering the Patriarchal Exarchate of Western Europe. [30] In 1972, the “French Church” came under the jurisdiction of the Romanian Church. Here, a new bishop, Germain (Bertrand-Hardy), was appointed for the Western Rite parishes. In 1993, these parishes broke away from the Romanian Church and dispersed among various ecclesiastical bodies, most of them marginal. After Kovalevsky’s departure from the Russian Church Abroad, a small group of Western Rite parishes nevertheless remained under its jurisdiction. But this group, too, did not last long. In 1986, the group, headed by Archimandrite Ambrose (Fontrier), entered the Old Calendarist schism. [31] [Blog Admin. note: this is a reference to the breakaway old calendarist group associated with the deposed Archbishop Auxentios Pastras.]

It may be said that the branch of Western Rite Orthodoxy associated with Father Evgraf (John) Kovalevsky came to nothing, and this was largely connected with the personality of the leader of this movement. But another branch remained, centered around Archimandrite Dionysius (Chambault). Unfortunately, this movement also met with little success. Archimandrite Dionysius (1899–1965) himself had sincerely embraced Orthodoxy and was one of the few representatives of the Western Rite who truly understood Orthodoxy. Unlike Kovalevsky, Father Dionysius did not pursue outward success, was never involved in scandals, and remained under the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate until the end of his life.

Although the Archimandrite used the Western Rite in divine services, he saw no future for it and considered its use permissible only as a temporary measure. Archimandrite Dionysius regarded another approach, which he called “Orthodoxy in the West,” as more promising. The pastor emphasized that it was not the rites that should be French, but the language of worship and preaching. The clergy should be Orthodox from birth (or, at least, thoroughly understand the essence and traditions of Orthodoxy) and have a perfect command of the French language. It was necessary to publish journals about Orthodoxy in French. Finally, Archimandrite Dionysius considered it beneficial to establish a special French Orthodox community with a Russian rector and two or three monks. The church of this community could serve as a model of Eastern liturgical life and would attract interest in Orthodoxy. [32]

The same approach was proposed by another Orthodox pastor serving in Europe, Priest Augustine Roberts. In 1956, he wrote to Patriarch Alexy that Westerners needed, above all, to have Orthodox teaching explained to them and to be given the opportunity to pray in their native language. It was this, rather than the reconstruction of liturgies, that would bring Europeans to Orthodoxy. [33] Unfortunately, neither Archimandrite Dionysius nor Priest A. Roberts was heeded.

Another reason for the failure of the Western Rite was the lack of support from Moscow. In 1956, Archimandrite Dionysius explicitly warned the Patriarchate that the cause of the Western Rite in Orthodoxy would disappear unless assistance was provided. The absence of support would mean that the priests would continue to live in poverty, while the publication of journals would remain nothing more than a dream. [34] However, the Moscow Patriarchate, held captive by the God-fighting authorities, was unable to help the Western Rite parishes. The Soviet state, for its part, had no interest in the development of Western Rite Orthodoxy. [35]

An important obstacle to missionary work in Europe was the division of Russian Orthodoxy in Europe into three jurisdictions—the Russian Exarchate of Western Europe of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, the Russian Church Abroad, and the Moscow Patriarchate, the last of which was extremely unpopular. [36] Non-Orthodox Christians interested in Russian Orthodoxy turned primarily to the churches of the Exarchate of Constantinople and ROCOR—these jurisdictions had churches and bishops. For the Moscow Patriarchate, appointing a bishop to France in the postwar years was almost impossible. The clergy of the Moscow Patriarchate were regarded by Western European states as Soviet agents, and obtaining visas for them was made extremely difficult. [37]

Western Rite Orthodoxy had failed at that time. The reasons were both particular (Kovalevsky’s adventurism) and general (the lack of understanding of Orthodoxy among the inhabitants of Western Europe). At present, when Roman Catholicism is experiencing a crisis, the preaching of Orthodoxy in Europe may bear fruit. The main thing is not to repeat the mistakes made in the mid-twentieth century.

 

FOOTNOTES

1. Manuscripts Department of the Russian State Library (OR RGB). Fond 919, Box 2, Storage Unit 19, fol. 12.

2. State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF). Fond 6343, Inventory 1, File 252-b, fol. 99. See also: Burega, V. “The Life and Ecclesiastical Activities of Archimandrite Dionysius (Chambault).” Church and Time, 2006, no. 3 (36), pp. 118–120.

3. Manuscripts Department of the Russian State Library (OR RGB). Fond 919, Box 2, Storage Unit 19, fol. 14; State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF). Fond 6343, Inventory 1, File 252-b, fol. 99.

4. State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF). Fond 6991, Inventory 1, File 981, fol. 193.

5. Manuscripts Department of the Russian State Library (OR RGB). Fond 919, Box 1, Storage Unit 21, fols. 13–13v; State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF). Fond 6343, Inventory 1, File 252-b, fol. 99.

6. Burega, V. “The Life and Ecclesiastical Activities of Archimandrite Dionysius (Chambault),” p. 122.

7. State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF). Fond 6343, Inventory 1, File 252-b, fols. 100–101.

8. State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF). Fond 6343, Inventory 1, File 252-b, fols. 101–102. Cf. Burega, V. “The Life and Ecclesiastical Activities of Archimandrite Dionysius (Chambault),” p. 124.

9. Manuscripts Department of the Russian State Library (OR RGB). Fond 919, Box 1, Storage Unit 21, fol. 13v.

10. State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF). Fond 6991, Inventory 1, File 981, fol. 192. See also: Burega, V. “The Life and Ecclesiastical Activities of Archimandrite Dionysius (Chambault),” p. 125.

11. State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF). Fond 6991, Inventory 1, File 981, fol. 192. See also: Burega, V. “The Life and Ecclesiastical Activities of Archimandrite Dionysius (Chambault),” p. 125.

12. Voice of the Lithuanian Orthodox Diocese, 1937, nos. 3–4, p. 25.

13. Voice of the Lithuanian Orthodox Diocese, 1937, nos. 3–4, p. 27.

14. Burega, V. “The Life and Ecclesiastical Activities of Archimandrite Dionysius (Chambault),” p. 135.

15. State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF). Fond 6991, Inventory 1, File 981, fols. 107–109.

16. Church Life, 1962, nos. 1–6, pp. 44–52.

17. State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF). Fond 6991, Inventory 1, File 981, fols. 195, 198.

18. State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF). Fond 6991, Inventory 1, File 981, fols. 209–210.

19. Extracts from a letter of Metropolitan Nikolai (Yarushevich) to Archimandrite Nikolai (Eremin), June 5, 1953 (copy); Directives of Patriarch Alexy Concerning the Case of Archpriest E. Kovalevsky (copy). Archives of Holy Trinity Seminary in Jordanville (HTSA). “Ambrose (Konovalov)” Collection, Box 2, Folder 1.

20. Burega, V. “The Life and Ecclesiastical Activities of Archimandrite Dionysius (Chambault),” p. 144.

21. Nivière, A. Orthodox Clergy, Theologians, and Church Figures of the Russian Emigration in Western and Central Europe, 1920–1995. Moscow–Paris, 2007, p. 262.

22. Church Life, 1959, nos. 11–12, p. 203.

23. Church Life, 1963, nos. 1–12, p. 18.

24. Church Life, 1964, nos. 1–6, pp. 12, 87.

25. Church Life, 1964, nos. 7–12, p. 48.

26. Church Life, 1966, nos. 7–12, pp. 84, 87.

27. Church Life, 1967, nos. 7–12, p. 4.

28. Church Life, 1966, nos. 7–12, pp. 87–88.

29. Church Life, 1967, nos. 1–12, pp. 3–6.

30. Chiflyanov, B., Archpriest. Letter to Patriarch Alexy I, August 8, 1971. Archives of the Department for External Church Relations (DECR). File “Russian Church Abroad,” Folder “1971,” fols. 34–35; Nikodim, Metropolitan. Letter to Archpriest B. Chiflyanov, October 20, 1971. DECR Archives. File “Russian Church Abroad,” Folder “1971,” fol. 33.

31. Slesarev, A. The Old Calendarist Schism in the History of the Orthodox Church (1924–2008). Moscow, 2009, pp. 227–230.

32. State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF). Fond 6991, Inventory 1, File 981, fols. 212–217.

33. State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF). Fond 6991, Inventory 2, File 190, fol. 343.

34. Burega, V. “The Life and Ecclesiastical Activities of Archimandrite Dionysius (Chambault),” pp. 147–148.

35. State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF). Fond 6991, Inventory 1, File 843, fol. 62.

36. State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF). Fond 6991, Inventory 1, File 981, fol. 214.

37. For further details, see: Kostryukov, A. The Russian Church Abroad, 1939–1964: Administrative Structure and Relations with the Church in the Homeland. Moscow, 2015, pp. 266–273.

 

Russian source: Платоновские чтения: сб. Материалов [Platon Readings: Collection of Papers], 2015, Issue 12, Perervinsky Theological Seminary, Moscow, 2016, pp. 20–28.

Orthodoxy and the Western Rite: The Question of Necessity

Jack Turner, Ph.D.

Source: The Canadian Journal of Orthodox Christianity, Volume V, No. 3, Fall 2010, pp. 107-125. Typos corrected.

 

 

Necessity is the mother of invention, or so the saying goes. Directly stated, one’s creativity is pressed into service out of serious need or duress, and in moments of struggle one can be eminently imaginative in devising a solution the present quandary. More abstractly the old maxim could be understood as meaning one does not invent something new unless one has a want. In discussions on the validity of Western Rite Orthodoxy, it is commonly asked whether the Orthodox Church needs a Western rite, for any number of purposes, including effective evangelization of non-Orthodox Christians, demonstration of Orthodoxy’s catholicity, and demonstration of a living Western memory, among other possibilities. [1] In other words, is the Western rite necessary? If did not exist, would we wind up inventing it?

The response that Orthodoxy does not need a Western rite is obvious enough at first since it is categorically true: Orthodoxy does not need a Western rite because she simply does not. The problem is not so much in the statement itself, which is indeed so obvious as to be a truism, but in the underlying assumption that are left unspoken, and that is where the deep significance of this objection lies. We can identify at least three unspoken predications to the statement: because the Eastern rite is innately superior to the Western rite in transmitting Orthodoxy; because the West is heretical and therefore the Western rite is automatically heretical; and because the ethos of the West is opposed to Orthodoxy. Each of these rationales have their own underlying assumptions about the nature of Orthodoxy, the West, and the role of culture in the Church. What brings all three elements together under a single heading is that they share a common feature, what Andrew Sopko refers to as “psychological negativism, an unhealthy by-product of the cultural superiority which Byzantium did indeed once possess over the West for many centuries but eventually lost.” [2]

The “otherness” of the Eastern rite to Western Christians has been cited previously as a justification for the existence of a Western rite. [3] The argument posits that, because the Eastern rite represents a culture which is entirely beyond the cultural experience of most Westerners, it is likely to be a barrier to a conversion rather than an aid. In this regard, critics of the Western rite argue that those who prefer a Western rite should be content with an Eastern rite because the nature of the Church itself is Eastern rather than Western.

Chrysostomos Stratman is representative when he states that “[the Orthodox Church’s] Oriental spirit, or Gospel spirit, to use an equivalent expression, is not a development. It was there all the time. It was in the East that the Gospel of truth arose…and it is the same East which has always been the source of its true traditions and spirit.” [4] This itself is little more than a vestigial manifestation of the assumed cultural superiority of Greek culture over and against Latin culture, one which itself not only contributed to the Great Schism, but further served as a barrier to reconciliation between the two sides historically, and this in addition to the very real dogmatic disagreements which are, themselves, the product of two alienated cultures. The claim that Western Christians should be satisfied with the Eastern rite because Christianity is Eastern, because Jesus and his Apostles were Eastern, is itself a confusion of the issue brought about by woolly-headed thinking. In one sense, these critics are correct in that, from the perspective of the Rome at the time of the Early Church, Jesus and his Apostles and his teachings were Eastern because they originated in a cultural milieu of the Eastern portion of the Roman Empire. The same basic truth can be said of the liturgy of the Churches of the Eastern portion of the former Roman Empire.

But there is a problem in assuming that there is any such thing as a monolithic “Eastern” context. Certainly, the Eastern rite is “Eastern,” but to be more precise, it is Greek and to be even more specific, it is Byzantine rather than Attic. Attic Greek culture, the culture of ancient Athens, is the culture of Socrates and Plato which imparts its influence to all of Europe, East and West, including the Byzantine Empire. However, while Byzantine culture absorbs Greco-Attic culture, it is nevertheless distinct from it, for it is a specific synthesis of the Greco-Attic with a reinterpretation of Roman culture and Chalcedonian Christology. This is the cultural context of the Eastern rite, and thus it is properly the Eastern rite, because it is specifically born of the cultural synthesis that took place in Constantinople rather than Athens. By contrast, “the West” is the result of a synthesis of Roman and Germano-Frankish. The Roman culture would consist of the elements found in the Italian peninsula and transmitted in Latin while the Germano-Frankish element is an adaptation of the Roman elements with learning that occurs during the Carolingian renaissance. For those who would contend that Socrates is just as much the cultural inheritance of the West as it is of the East, it is worthwhile to remember that Greek culture was largely lost to the West until the Renaissance, when it was rediscovered and celebrated by humanists in their mistaken belief that this was the true cultural foundation of European civilization.

While it is true that Jesus and his Apostles are Eastern in the same basic sense of Greek civilization, in that it lies east of Rome, that is hardly the most specific description. A more specific description would be that Jesus and his Apostles are Semitic in culture, and to be more precise, are of the Palestinian Jewish variety of Western Semitic culture. There is a distinction between Palestinian Jewishness and Greco-Attic or even Byzantine culture. This distinction is addressed in the fact that there was conflict between Hellenistic Jews (those who had absorbed elements of Greco-Attic culture) and Palestinian Jews, and this is a conflict which is made itself manifest in the very first years of the Church, as the biblical material attests in Acts 3. Thus, the Christian message of the Gospel, which arises in the Palestinian Jewish culture of Jesus and the Twelve (not to mention the majority of the scriptures that constitute the Old Testament), needs to be “translated” into something comprehensible to the prevailing Greek and Latin cultures of the era. This is a process we can see going on even in the time of the Apostle Paul and his attempts to harmonize the Hellenistic and Jewish factions within early Christianity. It seems to be something very obvious, but which has nevertheless been ignored or forgotten. To be direct, fifteen hundred years of dressing Jesus in Greek robes in the sacred art of East and West has made us forget that Jesus was never actually Greek at all.

This assumption that the Orthodox Church and the culture the Gospel arose from are Eastern and therefore the same thing also has enormous implications for the current objection. The underlying premise is that if the Western Orthodox accept the “Eastern” Jesus without complaint or desire to Westernize him, they should therefore be willing to accept the liturgy of the East without any need for a westernization of it, either. But the truth is that neither the West nor the “East” has accepted Jesus or the Gospel without any sort of acculturation, as has been apparent by the imposition of Greek philosophical vocabulary on to the Gospel, a process which no Orthodox Christian would regard as illegitimate. [5] So even the Eastern Church has engaged in its own sort of acculturation and accommodation to the Gospel, which detractors to the Western rite have nevertheless decried as illegitimate for Christianity in the West.

We can sometimes detect an air of superiority regarding the Eastern rite from the Western rite’s most ardent detractors. Sometimes these observations are quite sophisticated and have a distinct theological underpinning, as we see in the case of Alexander Schmemann; more often, they are in reality the sort of gross subjectivism that is typified in Stratman, who finds the character of the Roman rite to be one of

Imperialism, regimentation, coldness of spirit, materialistic efficiency, legalism: these are some of the Roman-Latin traits which distorted Western Christianity into the travesty of a Church which for almost a thousand years has been the most dangerous and insidious enemy of Christ and His Immaculate Bride. Observe the Latin Mass critically and behold the Manifestation of every one of these traits! [6]

But such a criticism of the Western Church is highly subjective and, taken with the balance of Stratman’s thoughts on the subject, may best be described as xenophobic. What is more, most of his criticism about the Roman rite could easily be made of the Eastern rite by individuals approaching the Eastern rite from a different perspective. [7] But Stratman goes on for several more pages denigrating everything Western from a highly subjective standpoint, oblivious to the possibility that the same criticism can be turned back on the Eastern rite in many instances, precisely because of their subjective nature. Such subjective accusations are hardly new, and they have been present within Christianity since at least the seventh century. Stephenson summarizes the attitude of the era as one of questioning “if customs differ, how (they ask) is discipline to be preserved? If they differ obstinately, what is this but schism? How can there be unity of men will not renounce their differences?” [8] Though such attitudes are old, they are hardly helpful.

Schmemann’s critique is certainly more nuanced and is made comprehensible by his methodology of lex orandi, lex credendi: “this criticism itself is rooted primarily in my deep conviction that the Eastern liturgical tradition is alone today in having preserved, in spite of all historical ‘deficiencies,’ the fullness of the Church’s lex orandi.” [9] However, it is precisely that methodology that leads him to a false conclusion, that is, because the West ultimately came into a state of schism and heresy, there must be some defect in the rite because the rite is the source of the heretical theology. Consequently, no other rite aside from the Eastern rite can and perhaps never could adequately convey the fullness of Orthodoxy. And yet, he is not averse to stating in other places that the source of the West’s troubles was its having severed theology from its true source and ultimate arbiter in the form of the liturgy, a process he sees taking place in the Orthodox Church and is quick to decry. [10] The later scenario, obviously, is the case for the history of the West, namely that the liturgy ceased to be a source of theology and ultimately became one of its many subjects. In that regard, we should meet Schmemann’s methodological assumption, that the Church only believes what it prays, and its ensuing critique, with an equally robust criticism: sometimes people believe more than what they pray and sometimes they pray what they don’t believe for appearance’s sake.

However, it must also be remembered that Schememann specifically regards the Eastern rite as having preserved the lex orandi of early Christianity, [11] regarding such elements as the Paschal canon of St John of Damascus as closer to the common Catholic heritage as anything else within the Christian tradition. [12] Furthermore, despite his critique of Western Rite Orthodoxy on the basis of its liturgy, it is clear that Schmemann is arguably more concerned with the people who make up the Western Rite, whether they have sufficiently absorbed an Orthodox ethos or are merely attempting to find a safe shelter beyond their form ecclesiological home where they can continue their previous life, dogmatically and liturgically, without interference. [13] This is certainly a valid pastoral concern, but it is also highly individualistic and, in a certain sense, a subjective judgement. It is a question that needs to be investigated more thoroughly with regards to Western Rite Orthodoxy as it is practiced, but does not, in this author’s opinion, address the Western rite’s legitimacy in abstracto as a legitimate expression of the Orthodox faith, and thus not germane to the present question.

Schmemann’s critique, while established by his methodology, probably would strike a chord with the average Orthodox believer. Stratman’s comment, while at the extreme end of Orthodoxy in America, nevertheless is representative of powerful feelings of antagonism towards the West and things Western. We might expect that it comes from a “less enlightened time,” but if this is so, such enlightenment has only come about very recently. We are thereby left to question if Orthodoxy in the West really gotten over its “psychological negativism” as has been protested by Schmemann and Dye, individually or, as is implied, collectively? Certainly Johnson believes that Orthodoxy has done so through its receptivity towards the saints of the pre-schism and their commemoration within the Eastern rite:

If we can picture Overbeck in 19th century England we might realize why he felt an Orthodoxy using a “western rite” was absolutely essential if the Church was to have a viable mission in the West. Overbeck would have only been able to experience the worship of Orthodoxy as done among recent immigrants, using not English, but the languages of their mother countries. No wonder he might reach the conclusion that only an Orthodoxy with a different rite, that had a western memory, could ever again be the church of the venerable Bede… Orthodoxy doesn't have to have a “western rite” to have a western memory. With this in mind, let us suppose Overbeck's experience of the Church had been quite different. Suppose he had attended the celebration of the Liturgy of St John Chrysostom on the feast of the venerable Bede and there in the narthex was a beautiful icon of this saint for veneration by the faithful. Suppose, too that the Liturgy had been conducted entirely in English. What could he find missing to celebrate the feast of this great saint of the early Christian west? True, the Liturgy would not be served in exactly the same way as Bede himself would have done (but then, neither - by a long shot - would the “western rite” liturgies of St Tikhon or St Gregory be the same as done by the venerable Bede). [14]

Though it would be impossible to gauge the extent of the venation of Western saints within Orthodoxy (and indeed, what precisely could be defined as a “Western” saint in the first place since may individuals are venerated with equal zeal in both calendars, St Nicholas of Myra being perhaps the most significant instance), perhaps an anecdotal and admittedly arbitrary guess can be hazarded. Orthodoxy in North America has seen significant growth in the past century, with the founding of several new congregations. Judging by patronal names alone, and excluding those which could be understood as referencing individuals who could be either Eastern or Western (such as St Gregory, who could be Gregory Dialogus or Gregory the Theologian if no modifier is included) or one of the Apostles, we find that parishes dedicated to Western saints, with the exception of a few Western rite parishes, are almost non-existent. Among the three largest jurisdictions in North America (The Greek Orthodox Archdiocese, the Antiochian Archdiocese, and the Orthodox Church in America), there are only five parishes that can be described as having distinctly Western patronal names. There are none in the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese and four in the Orthodox Church in America: St Aidan of Lindisfarne Mission, Cranbrook, BC; St Benedict of Nursia, Montreal, QC; St Ambrose of Milan Mission, Roanoke, VA; and St Cyprian of Carthage Mission, Richmond, VA. Within the Antiochian Archdiocese, aside from the Western rite parishes, only one is named for a Western saint: St Vincent of Lerins in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan; that leaves five Eastern rite parishes out of nearly 1,000 which bear the name of a distinctively Western saint. [15]

Certainly, such a note is simultaneously idiosyncratic and anecdotal, but it does serve to point out that while the Western rite is not required for a Western memory, without a Western rite there is little in the way of that Western memory. While it can be pointed out that important Western saints such as Patrick of Ireland have begun reappearing on the calendars of Orthodox churches in the West, we are left wanting for any effectual evidence that those saints are even commemorated. The point of parish names goes at least so far as to demonstrate that these Western saints would be commemorated in at least these places if for no other reason than the occasion of a patronal festival. It also leaves untouched the question of how these same saints are received in traditionally Orthodox places, whether Patrick of Ireland makes it into the calendar of, for example, the Church of Georgia or not, without mentioning if he is actually commemorated. [16] The primary fallacy in Johnson’s argument is the assumption that inclusion on the calendar, or even commemoration in the liturgy, is evidence of a “Western memory.” To turn the point on its head, John Chrysostom, Basil the Great, and Gregory of Nazianzos all appear in the Roman calendar though I doubt very seriously that Johnson would thereby admit that the Roman Catholic Church has an “Eastern memory.”

For the Orthodox Church to have something of a Western memory, it would seem logical that the East, without exception would be able to see in the West something familiar and evocative of the memory. While there are instances of this positive reception, most often it is a presumed or idealized conception of the West rather than the West as it actually was in the first millennium. [17] Simultaneously, there are many examples, historically and presently, of those who regard the West as something alien and wholly foreign, not only to the East, but to Christianity in general. The latter is certainly the position that Stratman takes in saying “from the point of view either of justice or logic, their position is no different from that of converted African savages… Logically, the situation is no different than if there never been any Western Rite.” [18] Even more bothersome is his directly claim that “the true Gospel spirit [is] Eastern in the sense that it is anti-Western.” [19] While Stratman’s view is somewhat extreme, the practical result is the same even in more moderated views: Western converts should adopt the Eastern rite because the Eastern rite is Orthodox. This leads to the question of precisely where the categorical rejection of the West came from. Sopko points to “an unhealthy by-product of the cultural superiority which Byzantium did indeed once possess over the West for many centuries but eventually lost.” [20] Certainly, there are replete examples of this presumed cultural superiority by Easterners, most notably Theophylakt of Ochrid, who assumed that all Westerners as uneducated savages and assumed Latin to be an impoverished language incapable of theological expression. [21] And certainly, as we have seen, animosity was present between the two sides for a long period of time.

The categorical rejection of the West and all things Western is therefore not new, but it is hardly a relic of the past. Among Greek theologians, the neo-patristic school, commonly identified with the theologies of John Romanides, Christos Yannaras, and, to a lesser extent, John Zizioulas, makes a determined rejection of the West and all things Western as foreign to Orthodoxy. [22] Romanides is particularly firm in his rejection of the West via his rejection of Augustinian theology, which he views as the origin of scholasticism and consequently of every divergence of the West from the East. [23] And Romanides is not alone in his conclusions, with Yannaras succinctly stating at the outset that “Augustine’s theology was decisive, offering an ideal basis for a differentiated Western Christianity.” [24] While Augustine is not the sole genesis of theology in the West despite conclusions to the contrary by some Orthodox theologians, he is in some way symbolic of that theology, and thus an explicit rejection of Augustine is a rejection of Western Christianity. [25] That Romanides traces the theological separation of East and West to such an early period would mean that the tree is cut from the root long before anything approaching the Western rite (at least in any extant form) could arise.

Certainly, we can disagree with Romanides’ conclusions about Augustine and his role in the creation of Western Christianity, [26] but again to those theologians who oppose “the West” and particularly Western influence in Orthodoxy the symbolism Augustine provides is a tempting target.

It is illuminating that the unequivocal condemnation of Augustine by Orthodox theologians first appears in early nineteenth-century Russia in its Slavophile form and then reappears in the late 1950s among Greek theologians. In both situations, the anti-Augustine sentiment emerges together with a reaction against what is perceived to be western influences that are incompatible with the intellectual and spiritual tradition in Russia and Greece. The move toward a restoration of a more authentic, national, intellectual, and spiritual identity in these Orthodox countries was based on a construction of a particular set of categories, namely “the West” and “the East,” and an understanding of these categories in terms of diametrical opposition. [27]

This brings us back to the question of “psychological negativism” that Sopko identified, which both Schmemann and Johnson deny has any effect on their estimation of the Western rite’s orthodoxy. Johnson’s objection is the more flawed than Schmemann’s, but the conclusion he reaches is more damaging. His conclusion that providing the Eastern rite in modern English and commemorating important Western saints is sufficient demonstration of a Western memory or overcomes Sopko’s psychological negativism is simple, yet it draws an irrelevant conclusion: one may speak English as one’s native language and yet be hostile towards the West and all things Western. Insofar as Romanides and other theologians working within the neo-Patristic synthesis exhibit this negativism, Romanides takes it to an extreme level which “[interprets] the ‘West’ as diametrically opposed to the ‘East,’ both theologically and in terms of its cultural ethos.” [28] Thus, the West is no longer simply something that went astray and could be brought back into conformity with Orthodoxy, but is now to be seen as something which Orthodoxy must rejected as unorthodox, at least from Augustine forward.

Romanides approaches the separation of East and West not as a consequence of a growing separate ecclesial life, but the domination, even genocide, of the “West Romans” by an external force in the Frankish kingdoms. In Romanides’ view, far from there being a “Latin Church” and a “Greek Church,” there was a “Roman Church” composed primarily of the Byzantines and inhabitants Italy and a “Frankish Church” which developed apart from direct continuity with Roman Christianity. [29] However, such a dichotomy ignores the general evidence from history, [30] especially the fact that “so far from wanting to remake the Western Roman Empire in their own image, and so rupturing its links with the East, [The Franks] were only too glad to accept whatever of its patrimony… the Greco-Roman world at large could offer them.” [31] A more accurate assessment might be to see a Greek Christianity in the hellenized centers of the East, a Latin Church exemplified by Rome and the Latin-speaking regions of Italy, and a Frankish Church in Gaul, northern Italy and Germania, drawing from a common theological heritage in the first six ecumenical councils but developing it along distinct lines. The Frankish line comes out of the Latin, but the two are eventually reintegrated in the tenth and eleventh centuries. To put the matter simply, Romanides’ historical theory rests on a base that is ultimately fantasy. However, despite the peculiarity of his historical reconstruction, Romanides’ influence should not be understated, particularly his impact on Orthodox living in the West and even on non-Orthodox scholars. [32]

Considering the origins of the Slavophile movement and its influence on the neo-Patristic school, both with their rejection of all things Western, it is interesting to note a parallel timeline within Western Rite Orthodoxy. Khomiakov began his theological work on sobornost and Slavophilism in the 1830’s and developing coherence in the 1850’s while Overbeck makes his initial approach to the Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church in 1864. Both Slavophilia and neo-Patristic thought would lead to Orthodoxy down a road where not only was the West forgotten, it was often rejected outright as something alien to Orthodoxy or, where the West was accepted in whole or part, it was often reinterpreted to the point that Western fathers are devout hellenists who are misunderstood by unworthy successors, especially in Romanides’ skewed vision. So we may confidently conclude that Johnson is mistaken when he states Orthodoxy has a Western memory: English and icons of the Bede do not make a Western memory if they are detached from the historical context and proper perspective.

There is another type of psychological negativism which permeates the Eastern rite, and that is the negativism that comes from converts. In responding to Sopko, Dye finds himself free of the psychological negativism that permeates Eastern Rite Orthodoxy, [33] but there is an existing negativism which comes from being disillusioned with one’s former Church and habits of life which is, in some ways, common of all converts regardless of when or how long ago they converted. Many within the Western Rite Orthodox display this sort of negativism as well, though unlike Dye they do not abjure their former habits of worship. Such hostility is perhaps understandable since many who leave one church in favour of another do so because of some deficiency, real or perceived, in the former group. Sometimes, this hostility can fade but just as frequently it can remain seething beneath the surface until it is released in open attack on former associations; this is especially true when the one leaving the group feels that they are being forced out in some way or have been betrayed by the group itself, either because of changes to demographics, purpose, or beliefs of the group. While not the same as the ethnically based “psychological negativism” that Sopko describes, it can not only be every bit as blinding to the affected individual, it can also be used to feed the assumptions and ideas of those how possess Sopko’s negativism. However, despite Dye’s protestations to the contrary, not having been Orthodox all of one’s life does not free one from psychological negativism; rather, it merely makes them susceptible to different varieties of negativism with a pseudo-legitimate air about them on the assumption that converts must have some special insider knowledge. [34]

Ultimately, the best response to the assertion that Orthodoxy does not need a Western rite is not to argue the point of necessity; from the standpoint of the Orthodox, the Church does not need anything that has not already been provided to her and if something was abandoned along the way, it is because it was not necessary. The real question: how is the Orthodox Church supposed to approach Western Christianity, especially if there is an eventual reunion between East and West? While criticisms of Western Rite Orthodoxy are abundant, most that have been put forward are largely superficial, and it is this superficiality that Sopko is attempting to get at, however ineptly; it is also the same lack of depth that Johnson attempts to rebut while simultaneously succumbing to the same. While criticizing the Western rite on a superficial basis, few critics go so far as to offer alternatives to Western Rite Orthodoxy or to take a larger perspective and consider how their unspoken assumptions would affect larger Western groups seeking union with the Orthodox Church; to put it another way, if reunion took place tomorrow between Constantinople and Rome, what liturgy would Roman Catholics use? For his part, Schmemann is certainly correct that there are more significant issues to be raised in regards to Western Rite Orthodoxy, even though he himself does not approach them with the necessary depth in writing on the subject, than to focus on whether or not Orthodoxy needs a Western rite and what that says about Orthodox Christianity. Certainly, some are likely to have such an immediate and uncritical reaction, but those are hardly individuals who are likely to take opportunity to critique the Byzantine tradition to the same degree that Schmemann does in other places. [35]

 

NOTES

1. There are varieties of Western Rite Orthodoxy, but the most common form is found in the Antiochian Orthodox Archdiocese of North America, which used modified versions of the Tridentine rite or The Anglican Missal (which is itself based on the 1928 US Book of Common Prayer). The most common changes are introducing the epiclesis from the Divine Liturgy of St John Chrysostom, removing reference to the Pope or the filioque, and strengthening petitions to the saints and references to the eucharistic sacrifice in liturgies derived from Anglican sources. Western rite parishes and monasteries Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia use similar liturgies to those just described, in addition to reconstructions of the Sarum use. Furthermore, the Orthodox Church of France, formerly part of the Romanian Orthodox Church, used a reconstructed version of the Gallican rite. The present article addresses criticisms laid against all forms of Western Rite Orthodoxy, since many critics of the Western rite do not take into account the supposed antiquity or source of the liturgy use, considering all form of the Western rite to be invalid.

2. Andrew Sopko, ‘Western Rite Orthodoxy: A Case Study and Reappraisal,’ St Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly Vol. 24, No. 4, 1980, p. 255.

3. Cf., e.g., John Rossner, ‘Orthodoxy and the Future of Western Christianity’, St Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly Vol. 14, No. 3, 1970, pp. 134-5; Winfield S. Mott, ‘Some Perspectives on the Western Rite – I,” St Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly Vol. 26, No. 2, 1982, pp. 124-5; and Alexy Young “An Introduction,” in Michael Trigg, ed. An Introduction to Western Rite Orthodoxy (Ben Lomond: Conciliar Press, 1993), pp. 5-6.

4. Chrysostomos Stratman, “The Roman Rite in Orthodoxy,” p. 9.

5. This is not to say that the Greek context of early Christianity is irrelevant or unimportant. Greek culture provided a vehicle for interpreting the Hebrew scriptures, and the Christian faith to the non-Jewish world. Furthermore, Christianity has historically claimed that Greek and Latin culture were being divinely prepared to receive the revelation of the Gospel, the philosophical quests coming to their own natural conclusion at precisely the correct time for the audience to be receptive. In that sense, one can agree with Georges Florovsky’s assessment that “we are all Greek” (theologically speaking). Simultaneously, this must be qualified to some degree as the Latin tradition has contributed to the common theological heritage, so there remains a subtle danger in Florovsky’s statement. Furthermore, the difference between Greek and Jewish culture cannot be overstated in this case, precisely because many Western rite critics, in saying we are all eastern, does not seem intend as merely theologically, but culturally as well. In this case, consistent repetition of the historical context of Jesus is important because the implication in stating Jesus’ easternness without further specificity is a deceptive straw-man.

6. Stratman, “The Roman Rite in Orthodoxy,” p. 3.

7. My own anecdotal experience in the opposite direction (non-Orthodox reflecting on the Divine Liturgy) is perhaps illustrative in this regard. Among non-Orthodox associates, there are varying perspectives on the Divine Liturgy after the first time they see it celebrated. Many are awe-struck by the liturgy, but just as many, if not more in some instances, find themselves turned off to the liturgy, describing it with the same adjectives that Stratman uses, to also include “pompous,” “ostentatious,” “unintelligible,” “confusing,” and “meaningless.” This serves to underscore the point that subjective approach to the liturgy is simply that: subjective. Long-term admirers (Orthodox and non-Orthodox alike) would be want to use the same descriptors, but these, too, are subjective judgements, so they can only say something about what is or is not right for me as an individual, and thus are to be avoided categorically.

8. Richard Southern, Western Society and the Church (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1970), p. 57.

9. Alexander Schmemann, “Some Reflections Upon ‘A Case Study,’” St Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly Vol. 24, No. 4, 1980, p. 268, emphasis original.

10. Schmemann, Introduction to Liturgical Theology (London: Faith Press, Ltd., 1963), pp. 16 21. See also Schmemann, “Problems of Orthodoxy in America II: The Liturgical Problem,” St Vladimir’s Seminary Quarterly (NS) Vol. 8, No. 4, 1964, pp. 164-85.

11. Schmemann, “Some Reflections Upon ‘A Case Study,’” St Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly Vol. 24, No. 4, 1980, p. 268.

12. Schmemann, “Notes and Comments: The Western Rite,” St Vladimir’s Seminary Quarterly (NS) Vol. 2, No. 4, 1958, p. 30.

13. This is brought out, for example, in Schmemann’s comment that making a Western liturgy Orthodox involves more than textual changes (“Some Reflections Upon ‘A Case Study,’” St Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly Vol. 24, No. 4, 1980, p. 268), but is directly stated in his previous comments that jurisdictional belongings, minimal assent to specific doctrinal and liturgical points, or “mechanical” understanding of Apostolic Succession are “a very real danger to Orthodoxy” and “the replacement of Orthodoxy of ‘content’ by an Orthodoxy of ‘form’” (“Notes and Comments: The Western Rite,” St Vladimir’s Seminary Quarterly (NS) Vol. 2, No. 4, 1958, p. 30). Of course, the very same criticism could have been made of convert parishes which use the Eastern rite, so there is not necessarily anything specific to Western Rite Orthodoxy, though Schemann would doubtless argue the danger created is even greater within the Western rite than in if the converts are formed in the Byzantine rite.

14. Michael Johnson, “The “Western Rite”: Is it Right for Orthodoxy,” The Priest Vol. 5, May 1995, http://www.holy-trinity.org/modern/western-rite/johnson.html. However, Johnson is off the mark in his assumption that Overbeck would have found that nothing could be lacking in the English Celebration of the Eastern rite. Timotheos Hatherly advocated for the Eastern rite in English, yet his objective was bitterly opposed by Overbeck as insufficient. See Jack Turner, Cum Illa Greaci Sint, Nos Latini: Western Rite Orthodoxy and the Eastern Orthodox Church (PhD thesis: University of Wales, 2010), pp. 33-4.

15. Anecdotally, the most common parish name is Sts Peter and Paul in the OCA and Holy Trinity in the Antiochian and Greek Orthodox Archdioceses. If we account for the various festal titles, the Theotokos and derivative titles have a solid majority in all three jurisdictions.

16. Of course, in all fairness, one would undoubtedly require an extensive memory, and Orthodox cannot be faulted for preferring the familiar over the “other,” no matter how ancient or venerable. There are encouraging signs, notably in the Moscow Patriarchate’s 2007 decision allowing the third Sunday after Pentecost to be celebrated as All Saints of Britain and Ireland.

17. One example involves an Orthodox priest, related to me by an associate: the priest insisted that there was no Western rite because the Western rite was invented after 1054. When pressed to identify the liturgy used before the Schism, the priest stated that it was the John Chrysostom liturgy, which was used faithfully up to 1053. When further pressed for where the priest had acquired this knowledge, he this was told to him in seminary. Clearly, this is an extreme example, but it is by no means an isolated one.

18. Stratman, “The Roman Rite in Orthodoxy,” p. 2.

19. Ibid., 9.

20. Sopko, “Western Rite Orthodoxy: A Case Study,” St Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly Vol. 24, No. 4, 1980, p. 255.

21. Tia M. Kolbaba “The Orthodoxy of the Latins in the Twelfth Century,” in Andrew Louth and Augustine Cassidy, eds. Byzantine Orthodoxies (London: SPCK, 2006), p. 201.

22. George Demacopoulos and Aristotle Papanikolaou, “Augustine and the Orthodox,” in Aristotle Papanikolaou and George Demacopoulos, eds. Orthodox Readings of Augustine (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press), pp. 30-6.

23. These were not, of course, the first to decry Western influence in the Orthodox Church. St Nichodemos the Athonite in his collection of cannons of the Orthodox Church is particularly antagonistic towards the Latins, writing in a time of particular anti-Latin popular sentiment. Nicodemos directed his antagonism against the Latins in regards to the validity of their sacraments, particularly baptism in his commentaries on various baptismal canons of the ecumenical councils, most notably Canon 8 – Nicaea, 325; Canon 7 – Constantinople, 381; and Canon 95 – Pentetheke, 691. His commentary goes to great lengths to justify leniency in the admission of Arians, Nestorians, and Monophysites, but in regards to Latins he is unequivocally adamant, stating that all are to be re-baptized, and in conformity with the policy of the Ecumenical Patriarchate.

24. Christos Yannaras, Orthodoxy and the West: Hellenic Self-Identity in the Modern Age (Brookline, MA: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 2006), p. 16.

25. This could be qualified in the case of Romanides since he rejects Frankish Christianity rather than what he would identify as authentic West Roman Christianity, though the practical result is the same regardless of the phrasing.

26. Cf. Demacopoulos and Papanikolaou, “Augustine and the Orthodox,” in Aristotle Papanikolaou and George Demacopoulos, eds. Orthodox Readings of Augustine (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press), pp. 11-40 and Peter Galadza, “The Liturgical Commemoration of Augustine in the Orthodox Church: An Ambiguous Lex Orandi for an Ambiguous Lex Credendi,” St Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly Vol. 52, No. 1, 2008, pp. 111-130.

27. Ibid., p. 37.

28. Ibid., 28.

29. John S. Romanides, Franks, Romans, Feudalism, and Doctrine: An Interplay Between Theology and Society (Brookline, MA: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 1981), p. 60.

30. Though Romanides would say that this “evidence” is flawed because it buys in to the Frankish mythology that the Franks and the West Romans shared a theological lineage distinct from the Byzantine East (see Romanides, op. cit., pp. 63, 69).

31. Aiden Nichols, Light From the East: Authors and Themes in Orthodox Theology (London: Sheed & Ward, 1995), pp. 79-80.

32. Demacopoulos and Papanikolaou, “Augustine and the Orthodox,” in Aristotle Papanikolaou and George Demacopoulos, eds. Orthodox Readings of Augustine (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press), p. 5 n.75.

33. Gregory H. M. Dye, “Notes and Comments: Some Perspectives on the Western Rite – II,” St Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly Vol.26 No. 2, 1982, p. 125.

34. For further critique of converts and the unique challenges they bring to churches which they convert to, see, Joseph D. Honeycutt, One Flew Over the Onion Dome: American Orthodox Converts, Retreads, and Reverts (Salisbury, MA: Regina Orthodox Press, 2006). The negativism that converts can bring when discussing their former memberships is not to be overlooked. Particularly for those converts coming to Western Rite Orthodoxy, there is frequently a sense of betrayal and not a little bit of bitterness against their former churches. Many convert parishes and clergy came to Orthodoxy from Anglicanism after The Episcopal Church’s decision to ordain women in 1977. It may also be borne in mind that Stratman was himself a convert to the Orthodox Church.

35. Cf. Schmemann’s three-part series in St Vladimir’s Seminary Quarterly on the problems of Orthodoxy in America: “Problems of Orthodoxy in America I: The Canonical Problem,” St Vladimir’s Seminary Quarterly (NS) Vol. 8 No.2, 1964, pp. 67-85; “Problems of Orthodoxy in America II: The Liturgical Problem,” St Vladimir’s Seminary Quarterly (NS) Vol. 8 No. 4, 1964, pp. 164-185; and “Problems of Orthodoxy in America III: The Spiritual Problem,” St Vladimir’s Seminary Quarterly (NS) Vol. 9. No. 4, 1965, pp. 171-194.

 

“Conclusions” on the Western Rite

Source: CUM ILLI GRAECI SINT, NOS LATINI: Western Rite Orthodoxy and the Eastern Orthodox Church, Jack Turner, Ph.D. thesis, University of Wales, 2010, Chapter 12, pp. 291-298.

 

 

 

The present study began by asking two questions: ‘what, if anything, in Western Rite Orthodoxy is in conflict with Orthodox spirituality’ and ‘at what point of modification does the Western rite cease to be Western’. In the preceding, we have attempted to come to some conclusions about the state of Western Rite Orthodoxy, most specifically the form found in the AWRV [Antiochian Western Rite Vicariate], but we can also draw more general conclusions about the concept of Western Rite Orthodoxy as a whole. Answering these questions, if only tentatively, is really the beginning of longer term possibilities for the study of Western Rite Orthodoxy; thus, in light of the tentative conclusions to the two questions above, a third question begins to emerge: ‘and where should we go from here’.

Can There Really be Truly Orthodox, Truly Western Rite?

Leo Davis makes the observation that the Christological settlement of the Fourth Ecumenical Council (that Christ is fully human and fully divine) was a Western solution to what was essentially an Eastern problem, and it took a while for the East to come to wholeheartedly accept this alien flavour in their theological diet. [1] Due to the way the liturgical and canonical tradition evolved in the East, and how it has been implemented, it certainly seems the same can be said about the Western rite in Orthodoxy. In one sense, Schmemann is correct in stating the opinion that to be Orthodox is to be Byzantine since the Orthodox East knows no other rite than those of Constantinople and thereby has little recourse to other rites as a source of theology. As such, to truly be Orthodox, the rite, whether it be Byzantine or Western, must express Orthodox theology. In the case of the Western rite, that necessarily means that elements which contradict the Eastern understanding of Christianity must be excised, even if they have been in the liturgy from the beginning, even if they are well beloved devotions of the West. We see this most clearly in the liturgies for chrismation and marriage.

By one standard, for the rite to be ‘Western’ it must be as free from alteration, based on whatever intention, as possible. This is why the decision to develop Western Orthodoxy as a ‘safe haven’ from the process of liturgical change in the Western churches, especially The Episcopal Church, is itself fundamentally flawed. Those individuals who came to Orthodoxy via the Western Rite after the 1970’s did so as a means of preserving their cherished liturgical rites from what they considered as heretical meddling, from what they viewed as overthrowing of two millennia of Christian tradition. Fundamentally, as Western Rite Orthodoxy is constituted now, there is a choice between whether the liturgy will be fully Orthodox and thus subject to liturgical amendment without hesitation or reservation, or if the liturgy will be fully Western, resisting as much change as possible, even if such a change is necessary to bring the rite more fully in line with Orthodox theology. To date, Western Rite Orthodox have done so in an uneven and arguably arbitrary manner, and so long as the Western rite construes itself as a ‘resistance movement’ against NOM [Novus Ordo Missae, the contemporary Roman Rite Missal, which is also reflected in modern Anglican liturgical changes as well], breaking out of this false dichotomy will not happen any time soon.

This is not to suggest that it is impossible for there to be an Orthodox Western Rite, only that the models that have been chosen thus far are insufficient to that task. In the first place, it must be admitted that the rite does need correction to make it Orthodox, and these corrections are more than just minor items such as removing the filioque. Indeed, as has been argued already, some of the changes that were made to the Western rite eucharistic liturgy were unnecessary (especially the epiclesis), while other changes that were important were omitted, and other liturgies were modified badly. Secondly, it should also be admitted that the path the AWRV has taken with regards to liturgy is a difficult one to maintain, primarily because Orthodoxy, again to reference Schememann, should not be a haven for individuals to preserve this or that favoured item against encroachment within their former communions. [2] For that matter, this results in a slippery slope since the natural flow of argument has been that the Tridentine forms are more Orthodox than NOM, but the logical conclusion would be than a liturgical use which survived more or less in tact from before 1054 is consequently even closer to Orthodoxy than the Tridentine rite. And there are proponents of the revised Sarum rites who have made precisely this argument. Thus, those who have supported the Tridentine rite against NOM, even if out of love for the rite, may have inadvertently sowed the seeds for its eventual elimination within the Orthodox Church.

There are a great many factors which go into answer thing original question of if the Orthodox Western rite is fully Orthodox or fully Western. Certainly, there are theological problems with the liturgies that are used by the Western Rite Orthodox, and these items should be corrected. As to the matter of if the Orthodox Western Rite remains Western, there is perhaps an opportunity to approach a firmer answer. At the very least, Western Rite Orthodoxy has lost touch with its ‘Westernness’ through directly denouncing the liturgy of the majority of Western Christians as illegitimate. At the present time, it is more akin to a museum piece from the history of Western Christianity and what things might have looked like in the Orthodox Church had reunion taken place before 1964, but it cannot approach what union would look like if it happened tomorrow. The obvious retort is that there is much to be glad about not having kept apace with in the Western Church, most notably the recent controversies over the place of openly homosexual individuals in the hierarchy of the Episcopal and Lutheran Churches, as well as the ordination of women in those same two bodies several decades ago. Yet, correlation is not causation, and there is no evidence that the two strands are essentially linked to a common impulse. For that matter, advocacy for liturgical reform stretches back past Vatican II into the middle part of the nineteenth century. [3] Thus, in a very real way, Western Rite Orthodoxy remains Western, but only an idealized form of the pre-Vatican II West, and not the West as it actually is today or was historically.

The Future of Western Rite Scholarship

Before the present work, the majority of scholarly investigation into the Western Rite had been concerned primarily with consideration of the ordinary of the AWRV liturgy in the SASB [Saint Andrew Service Book], usually in comparison to the liturgies of the ECOF [Orthodox Catholic Church of France]. Schnerlia and Abramtsov’s histories were hopelessly out of date since both were printed before the AWRV became a functional reality. Furthermore, it is at least important to mention should a recently published review of the most significant secondary literature on the Western rite. [4] In looking through the literature, we can see that most of what has been written to this point is primarily an argument between pro- and anti-Western rite factions as to the validity or desirability of Western rites in general and the orthodoxy of the SASB specifically in more recent works. But, the near exclusive emphasis on the eucharistic liturgy leaves one to the potential conclusion that there is nothing to the Western rite other than GRE [‘Rite of Saint Gregory’] and TIK [‘Rite of Saint Tikhon’], and that other Western liturgies are not worth studying or even fighting over. Even in instances where attempt have been made to broaden the discussion, and here I am thinking specifically of Smith’s article, the attempt has only been feeble, exclusively negative with regards to the AWRV, and highly transitory. On the subject of liturgical studies, while I have criticized individuals such as Andersen who place what is, in my opinion, an unnecessary emphasis on TOM [The Orthodox Missal] as the exclusive expression of Western rite liturgy within the AWRV, I can also say that critics like Woolfenden and Smith are mistaken in their exclusive reliance on the SASB; both documents must be taken inconsideration together.

The present work rectifies the previously deficient state of scholarship in a number of ways. First, the rites themselves are actually studied for what they say, rather than simply described for the unaware, as if such a methodology produced results which were self-explanatory. While the problems noted in the eucharistic liturgies were limited only to a few salient points, such as the elevation or eucharistic bread types, it has gone beyond the scope of previous efforts, aided in no small part to the amount of space which could be dedicated to the subject. Secondly, the discussion is extended beyond the eucharistic liturgy and into the other liturgies of Western Rite Orthodoxy. Though this development is positive, it must simultaneously be recognized that there is still significant progress that could be made, especially on what are sometimes identified as ‘para-liturgical’ devotions.

Secondly, the historical section is as comprehensive as one is able to make it in the space that is available for a dissertation which primarily focuses on theology and liturgy. In some instances, it is difficult to expand on the work of Schneirla or Abramtsov because their works are foundational to any comprehensive history of Western Rite Orthodoxy, but also because they provide information which does not exist in any extant form that is easily obtainable. By way of example, Abramtsov is the only source for information on the Polish Orthodox National Church that can be found. Furthermore, because of the passage of time, closing the gaps between the death of Alexander Turner and the start of the current century will be exceptionally difficult as many of the important figures during this period have already died. While Schneirla, due to his exceptionally long tenure as the AWRV’s Vicar-General and his vast experience with Western Rite Orthodoxy, remains a valuable source for the history of the AWRV this is still not the same as having the personal account of the principal individuals involved or accurate files. Most of the documentation covering the ECOF is still in French and as a result leaves this aspect of Western rite history closed to many English speaking students of the Western rite. Even so, the ECOF has taken the lead in telling its own story, providing a number of monographs on the subject and these items will need to be included in any future comprehensive history of Western Rite Orthodoxy, and it would be encouraging for the AWRV to follow that example.

Third, the present work takes account of the practical problems that Western Rite Orthodoxy presents to Orthodox ecclesiology and to Orthodoxy’s attempts at rapprochement with the Roman Catholic and other Protestant Churches as currently constituted in the AWRV. Here again, most previous studies which are critical of the Western rite are critical of the rite itself. Where I have chosen to be critical, I am critical not only of the liturgy, though the criticisms I express are very different from those of Stratman or Smith, but also of what Western Rite Orthodoxy can be said to represent: an uncritical adoption of the Western rite with and incomplete understanding of Orthodox ecclesiology and what makes the Western rite specifically Western. It is my assertion that most of the apologists for the Western rite have misplaced their emphases in a desperate attempt to avoid liturgical change while still ‘remain’ within an historic Church. This different critical perspective advances the study of the Western rite forward and points out that there is more implied by Western Rite Orthodoxy than just the celebration of a different ritual form.

Nevertheless, there is still significant room for growth in the study of the Western rite even beyond the current study. Some potential avenues of research involve expanding the scope of the present work, while others would mean going in an entirely different direction. The first area for further consideration would be the history of Western Rite Orthodoxy, and not simply the history of the Orthodox Church of France or the AWRV, no matter how important each of these might individually be. Rather, the recent emergence of the Western Rite has been placed in its proper historical context, both in terms of East-West relations more generally and the interplay between eastern and western liturgical customs more specifically. While there are a number of good, independent histories of eastern and western tensions, the liturgical tensions are often mentioned only in a passing manner. However, liturgy and liturgical customs are at the heart of the Western Rite and so deserve central attention in any consideration of the history of Western Rite Orthodoxy. More importantly, the history has been considered in a dispassionate manner, with no particular agenda pushed in regards to the rightness or truthfulness of the position of one side or the other, that is, Greek or Latin or Anglican. In this regard, the history in Chapters 2 and 3 are an attempt to grasp the facts and provide meaning rather than the more philosophical ‘quest for truth’ which often results in an attempt to press a polemical agenda and which has been characteristic of most Western rite histories written by ‘armature’ historians over the past half century; in that regard, regardless of how limited, the current work is a definite step forward. Still, there is significant work that can still be done, particularly in reconstructing the history of the various parishes that utilize the Western rite, even if one limits their focus exclusively to North America. There are a number of parishes that simply disappeared, some have changed to the Byzantine rite, and some have left the Antiochians or ROCOR for other quarter. Even among those parishes that can be identified as Western rite, a significant amount of detail as to their founding and history remains un-written. Simultaneously, the individual memoirs of AWRV pioneers, at least those who remain alive, should be committed to writing while such a task can still be undertaken.

Secondly, a deeper study of the liturgies of Western Rite Orthodoxy must be undertaken; it is not sufficient to continue to debate the Orthodoxy of the eucharistic rites in general form any longer. That is not to say that salient points cannot or should not be treated in an in-depth manner, but that generalized discussions of GRE and TIK should not be favoured over the same treatment of other liturgies in the Western rite, such as the so-called ‘para-liturgical’ devotions, and the Western rite in the ROCOR. Furthermore, there is still a significant portion of work which could be done with the variable portions of the liturgy; this is particularly true for festal liturgies which not only have their own proper texts but have their own unique structures. The Triduum and the Paschal Vigil are the best example of these types of proper liturgies, and both have been mentioned in the present study though only briefly.

Third, it would be beneficial to move the study of the Western Rite liturgy away from exclusive focus on the AWRV and to include the liturgies of the French Church, the ROCOR, Holy Synod of Milan, and many of the more important autogenic Western rite churches. Some limited attempts have been made in this direction by Smyth, but his treatment leaves much to be desired in terms of systematic exposition. The course of this sort of study could take a variety of different directions, including direct textual comparisons or individualized treatment followed by extended critique of a Western rite on its own merits. There is certainly nothing limiting scholarly creativity at this point, and it is a substantial undertaking that would require an extensive commitment of time and resources depending on how far into the variable parts of the rite the individual wished to probe.

Finally, if the study of the Western rite is to be undertaken with any sort of seriousness by academics, access to available literature needs to be increased greatly. A comprehensive collection of texts related to Western Rite Orthodoxy within a single library with generous inter-library lending policies seems to be the most desirable solution. However, for this to work out, individuals in possession of documents and literature of value to the study of the movement would need to be donated to a single library as a part of a coordinated effort. It is unfortunate, but likely true, that no single library would be interested enough at this time to acquire the necessary works of its own initiative or out of its own funding. Here again, private individuals with an interest in promoting the study of Western Rite Orthodoxy would need to provide any partner library in question with donated books or targeted contributions. The question of which library would be most conducive to the program is one that needs to be considered. The libraries of the Orthodox seminaries, specifically Holy Cross and St Vladimir’s, are obvious choices. Less obvious are those institutions which already include significant portions of The Basilian and Orthodoxy in their collections who would be willing to circulate them through inter-library lending, as these journals are central to the history of the Western Rite in North America and new copies of which are unlikely to ever be found in private hands for donation.

The reception of new work on the Western rite demonstrates that there is a potential interest for further studies of this type, both within the Orthodoxy and within the broader scholarly community. Future progress will be dictated to some degree by availability and access to materials, but to a greater degree by individuals willing to commit significant time and energy towards the study of the matter. While this author is sufficiently interested to continue the necessary work based on the plans outlined already, there is enough potential work to sustain an entire career in academia. It would certainly be better if a larger number of individuals within the academic community, especially those from a Byzantine rite background, would make study of the subject matter, no matter how limited or brief.

 

NOTES

1. Davis, The First Seven Ecumenical Councils, 207.

2. Schmemann, ‘Some Reflections Upon “A Case Study’”, SVTQ 24.4 (1980) 268.

3. See Chapter 4 above.

4. Cf. J. Turner, ‘The Road Thus Far’, SVTQ 53.4 (2009) 477-505.