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(SVOTS) - Seminarians from St. Vladimir’s, St. Tikhon’s, and Holy Cross seminaries gathered on the campus of St. Vladimir’s Seminary March 8-11 for the Spring 2019 Conference of the Orthodox Inter-Seminary Movement (OISM).
Founded in the 1960s and revived in 2003 (by Archbishop Michael of New York while he led St. Tikhon's), the OISM fosters fellowship and cooperation among Orthodox seminary and theology students. The group meets every year at one of North America’s Orthodox theological seminaries. St. Vladimir’s Seminary (SVOTS) was selected as the host for 2019. "Selected" needs a little context. There's a rotation of schools. The next school in the rota is asked if they can host and if they can't the next school is asked. It's a student-led organization so more freeform than you might expect.
“I joined OISM because I wanted to actively foster a deep brotherhood between Seminarians of every jurisdiction. We also had in mind how isolated and lonely the clerical vocation can be,” said St. Vladimir’s Seminarian Evan LeDoux, who helped organize this year’s conference.
“God-willing, when we are all ordained priests or are serving Christ's Church in another capacity, we will have true friends to support us who understand our shared challenges and can work together with us.”
The weekend-long event began with a Western Rite Divine Liturgy celebrated by Archpriest Edward Hughes of St. George Antiochian Orthodox Church in Lawrence, MA. Father Edward, the Vicar General of the Antiochian Western Rite Vicariate, also spoke and led discussions at the conference regarding the Western Rite and Orthodox unity.
“For me, the Liturgy was an amazing event,” said Seminarian David McReady, who assisted Fr. Edward at the Liturgy. “The Western Rite is very small and not well-known in Orthodoxy, so it was wonderful to share this treasure with our brothers and sisters.”
McReady, a native of Belfast, was raised in the Church of Ireland and served as an Anglican priest before coming to SVOTS as a student of the Antiochian Archdiocese. He hopes to serve as a Western Rite priest.
Following Divine Liturgy, seminarians gathered for the talks led by Fr. Edward as well as SVOTS Professor Dr. John Barnet. Professor Barnet delivered a lecture on Christian unity in the New Testament. The conference concluded with Sunday’s Divine Liturgy at Three Hierarchs Chapel.
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So, tell us what you think of the "western rite." :-)
ReplyDeleteSubjected, Father? With all due respect, why such a choice of words?
ReplyDeleteByzantine chauvinism and ignorance are the two most common sources of EO objections.
DeleteThe Divine Liturgy of St Thomas Cranmer.
ReplyDeleteThe Orthodox Book of Common Prayer, published by Lancelot Andrewes Press. There’s really nothing like praying The Great Litany during Holy Lent. Don’t knock what you’ve never tried.
DeleteThere is a reason that High Anglican Worship is considered to be one of the most beautiful ways to worship God that exists anywhere.
Shakespearean English set to Liturgy. What’s not to like. You like Shakespeare, right?
We worship at a WR parish, and still call our Matins “Anglican Chant Matins.”
After all, Anglican simply means “English.”
I’m glad you can find The Liturgy of Saint Tikhon in God’s Holy Orthodox Church.
A Church with the Liturgy of Saint John, the Liturgy of Saint Gregory, and the Liturgy of Saint Tikhon is a Church “loaded for bear.”
Embrace the variety, don’t scoff at it. The more the merrier.
Like the Ancient Church we’re supposed to be. You know, the one that had a good variety of acceptable liturgies, and it was okay?
Oh yes, the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church? This is us, right?
Blessings in the Holy Trinity, One God
I am on the fence re western rite. There needs to be honest discussion , for pastoral reasons. Trying to look objectively, I have seen it used as a bridge to folks that otherwise would be overwhelmed by the Byzantine rite. Although many I have met,who were introduced to the church via Western rite, end up discontent with the Western rite, and move to the liturgy of St. John. That said, it was, from what I understand, essentially the liturgy of St Gregory. This also brings up other questions , such as the nature of liturgical "revision" or development. On another note, Going back to an earlier expression of liturgy is not the norm for us, and even additions to St. JNs DL, which are clearly later and perhaps not accurate, we leave intact.
ReplyDeleteDo they end up discontent with the Western Rite, because of some inherent defect in it? Or because it is a tiny, second-class niche in a communion pervaded with the assumed superiority of everything emanating from Byzantium?
DeleteYawn.
DeleteByzantium never existed, just Rome West/East, but regardless, since when is Orthodoxy about adapting the Church to our preferences?
DeleteMy main issue with the idea of WR is that it most often seems to be preferred by people I know who haven't really given up on being Anglican or Catholic, and who think the Church can be reformatted at will.
You receive Orthodoxy, liturgy and all, deciding you don't like what you received and making up your own version never ends well.
Not really interested in fighting about it since it's such a tiny group of people who prefer it, but those are my thoughts.
I’ve been Western Rite Orthodox for ten years, and you raise a serious point. When you love your previous hertitage / church identity, it’s impossible to just give it up or get over it. Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
DeleteI’m fortunate in that the Temple I worship at is a great blend of Gothic architecture, Icons, great music and well-done Liturgy.
However, we wouldn’t be allowed to build such a Temple from scratch today. Instead, we would be forced to build a Romanesque structure, because “later architectural styles are ‘not orthodox.’”
This is where it gets frustrating. The highest and most beautiful western church form is the Gothic or Neo-Gothic Cathedral style church building complete with high arches, ornate wood-carving, glorious stained glass and all the other things a person would expect in such structures: Pipe Organs, Choir Lofts, Rood Screens as opposed to an iconostasis, etc.
The Western Church Tradition has a complete high artistic form, and to lop off pieces of it here and there or to forbid some aspects ruins the whole tapestry, so to speak. It’s a form of Iconoclasm, IMO.
You can add icons to such architecture and these don’t subtract anything, but when you forbid the other elements, it doesn’t feel like home.
The reason the WR stays a tiny group of people is that it ends up being smothered in the cradle. If you undercut deep enthusiasm and attachment, you end up with half-hearted devotion. The Western Rite is really an all or nothing thing, IMO. You can’t half-posterior it.
By all means, grant the Western Rite it’s own Patriarch and complete autocephalous freedom to build according to our most cherished forms and not architecture restricted to pre-1054 A.D. We’ll keep the Icons the right way, of course, but allow everything else, please!
You couldn’t build a Western Rite Chartres Cathedral or Washington D.C. National Cathedral because “‘Tis-Outrage / This is not Orthodox.” It’s riduculous, and it eventually gets old, indeed.
How would The Greeks or Russians respond if some pompous official said they couldn’t have Onion Domes or Iconostasis, and perhaps you can start to get an idea how any Western Christian might feel with the restrictions we still labor under.
And we should be able to worship in a traditional manner with well-done modern English Liturgies. The Greeks and the OCA have no compunction about using modern English. We should “spoil the Egyptians” by taking the best things the West has to offer and not set some arbitrary acceptable period or date.
Passing the Peace like the Anglicans, Catholics and Lutherans do would also be encouraging and is really no different than Easterners doing the same thing with “Christ is in our Midst.”
Too many good things are still unnecessarily forbidden, IMO. Until we’re trusted as responsible, we’ll-intentioned adult Christians with our own heritage, what real space do we have to grow or thrive? No one knows our own heritage better than we do, and how to conform it to Holy Orthodoxy. Outsiders just aren’t expert enough.
Perhaps many more Western Christians would have converted already if they weren’t influenced to be suspicious of and to reject their own culture and traditions.
In many ways, the powers that be keep the Western Rite convert feeling like they’ve taken a trip to a foreign country instead of like a new, permanent long-term home.
To expect “high church” converts to even want to give up their heritage is to ask them to be Iconoclasts with their own traditions and expressions.
Don’t muzzle the ox while it’s treading the grain!
Respectfully Submitted,
Columba Silouan
Why not give it a chance. The problem that there is an antiochian group, a rocor group, and two noncanonical groups. Just think the success they could have United in one church body and with their own bishop. Alas we are known for splitting and not unifying
ReplyDeleteTo your point, and adding to my earlier point, one of my friends, Catholic convert, believes the Catholic liturgy is superior to St. John's, it's the only thing he misses about Catholicism, loves WR but refuses to do it with "weirdos" or those who don't do it in Latin...
DeleteI really wish we could drop the idea of which Liturgy is superior, simply acknowledge that
ReplyDeleteOrthodox Christians in good standing have their preferences and call it All Good.