| Washington, DC, 1966. P. 815—819; см. также: Meyendorff J. Emperor Justinian, the Empire and the Church. DOP 22 (1968). P. 45—60; переиздано в The Byzantine Legacy in the Orthodox Church, Crest-wood, NY, 1982. P. 43—66. Очень хорошее обсуждение этого положения см.: Richards. Popes. P. 133—135. Этот праздник впоследствии превратился в празднование первых четырех, затем первых шести соборов. Он и в наше время сохраняется в византийском календаре. Ср.: Salaville S. La fête du concile de Chalcédoine dans le rite byzantin//Chalkedon. IL P. 677—695. Подробное описание событий: VasilievA. Justin I. Cambridge, Mass., 1950. P.136—144. Collectio Avellana, ed. Günther О.//Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum latinorum. 35, IL Vindobonae, 1898. Поел. 16В. P. 520. (Ср. также: PL. 63. Col. 393.) Avellana- знаменитое собрание писем и других документов, относящихся к «схизме Акакия» и ее последствиям. Наиболее современное критическое изучение этого собрания сделано В. Боровым. Collectio Avellana как исторический источник.//Богословские Труды. Т.1. Москва, 1962. С. 111 — 139. Illam sedem apostoli Pétri et istius augustae civitatis unam esse defïnio//Coll. Avell.; Поел. 159. Ed. cit. P. 608 (ср. также: PL 63. Col. 444A). О том, что подразумевается этой фразой см.: Morrison K.F. Op. cit. P.I 15—116. Как, например, в Тире, о чем свидетельствует письмо епископа Епифания Константинопольскому собору (Mansi. VIII. 1073—1082). Этот инцидент обсуждается в нескольких письмах папы Гормизда, сохранившихся в Avellana; полный отчетом.: VasilievA. Op. cit. P.185—188. Латинский текст писем находится без хронологического порядка в Avellana (éd. cit. P. 626—627, 650—651, 649—650, 701—703, 715—716. Английский перевод см.: Roman State and Christian Church. A Collection of Legal Documents to A.D. 535. III. P. 976—989. Ed. cit. P. 702. Англ, перевод: Р. 985. Ср., например, Житие св. Даниила Столпника, написанное современником. Изд. Delehaye H.//Analecta Bollandiana. 32 (1913), 70 (англ, перевод: Dawes E., Baynes N. |
| 297. “Preface,” ibid., 7. 298. “Reconstructing the History of the Byzantine Communion Ritual: Principles, Methods, Results,” EOrans. 9 (1994) 355-377. 299. “Предговор/Preface,” Вселена/Oikoumenh (Sofia, Bulgaria) 2 (1994) 9-12 (Bulgarian), 13-15 (English). 300. “Неделятавяввизантийскататрадиция,” Вселена/Oikoumenh (Sofia, Bulgaria) 2 (1994) 73-94 (Болгарскаяверсия 62). 301. Review of Paul F. Bradshaw, The Search for the Origins of Christian Worship. Sources and Methods for the Study of Early Liturgy (New York/Oxford 1992), The Catholic Historical Review 80 (1994) 556-558. 302. Review of Hugh Wybrew, The Orthodox Liturgy. The Development of the Eucharistic Liturgy in the Byzantine Rite (Crestwood, NY 1990), Harvard Ukrainian Studies 16 (1992) 459 (published in fall of 1994). 1995 303. Liturgy in Byzantium and Beyond (Variorum Collected Studies Series CS494, Aldershot/Brookfield: Variorum 1995) xiv + 352 pp. 304. “War and Peace in the Byzantine Divine Liturgy,” in T.S. Miller & J. Nesbitt (eds.) War and Peace in Byzantium. Festschrift for George Dennis, S.J. (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press 1995) 17-32. 305. (Associate editor), The HarperCollins Encyclopedia of Catholicism, Richard P. McBrien (ed.), Robert F. Taft et alii (associate eds.) (San Francisco: HarperCollins Publishers 1995). 306-486. 181 articles in The HarperCollins Encyclopedia of Catholicism, Richard P. McBrien (ed.), Robert F. Taft et al. (associate eds.) (San Francisco: HarperCollins Publishers 1995): “Abbuna, Akathistos, Akolouthia, Alexandrian Rite, Aliturgical Days, Allatius Leo, All-night Vigil, Ambo, Antidoron, Antimension, Antiochene Rite, Apodosis, Archdeacon, Archimandrite, Archpriest, Armenian Rite, Baumstark Anton, Bema, Biritualism, Bishop Edmund, Byzantine Italy, Byzantine Rite, Byzantine Style, Canon [Liturgical], Canticle, Carmelites of Mary Immaculate, Catholicos, Cerularius Michael, Chaldean Rite, Chant Byzantine, Cheirotonia, Cherubicon, Chevetogne, Chorbishop, Concelebration, Congregation for the Oriental Churches, Copt & Coptic, Coptic Rite, Crown episcopal, Crowning liturgical, |
| Photo: http://basilica.ro/ The Orthodox world is buzzing with the recent news repor t on the ordination of deaconesses in the Patriarchate of Alexandria. To the best of our knowledge, the ordination occurred after the Divine Liturgy in the nave of the temple, and appears to resemble the rite used to ordain subdeacons. This rite includes the presentation of the orarion, handlaying, a prayer, and the washing of the bishop’s hands. The reports do not offer details on the prayer said by the Patriarch. It seems that the Patriarch did not use the Byzantine Rite for the ordination of a deaconess, which takes place at the end of the anaphora (before the deacon intones the litany before the Lord’s Prayer, “Having remembered all the saints”), in the altar, and includes the deaconesses receiving Communion with the other clergy in the altar, according to order. While Patriarch Theodoros II appeared to use the rite for the ordination of subdeacons, the Patriarchate of Alexandria is referring to these newly-ordained women as deaconesses, and has appointed them to perform crucial sacramental and catechetical ministries as part of the Patriarchate’s missionary work. The ordination of these five deaconesses in Alexandria marks a turning point in the discussion about the order of deaconess within the Orthodox Church. To date, the restoration of the female diaconate has been limited to discussion, deliberation, and study – not to mention heated debate. With this ordination, we now have a historical episode of ordination and appointment to ministry, a pattern for what the female diaconate could become. Will the Alexandrian ordination become the new rite for the order of deaconess, or will the Church dust off the Byzantine rite of the ordination of a deaconess? What other ministries might the deaconesses execute? We do not know the answers to these questions. We do know that the debate on the female diaconate is going to intensify. As part of an ongoing research project, I’ve been asking Orthodox lay women and men for their opinions about the restoration of the order of deaconess. The responses seem to fit the positions presented by ideologues in the debate. Some people argue that restoring the order of deaconess is a legitimate application of ressourcement , of drawing upon our liturgical and ecclesiological history to appoint ministers who contribute to the building up of the body of Christ through particular gifts. Others depict the attempt to restore the deaconess as a trojan horse strategy to inject secular egalitarian values into the Church’s political theology. Others are unsure: one lay woman remarked that Orthodoxy “has the Panagia, and the Greek Orthodox Church has the Philoptochos Society – women essentially run the Church – why do we need a female diaconate?” |
| Tweet Нравится Against the Myth of the Byzantine Gay Marriage Rite On October 7/20 the Orthodox Church keeps the memory of the saints Sergius and Bacchus, known for their great friendship, who held high positions in the Roman army under the emperor Maximian (284-305) and were eventually martyred for their refusal to renonce Christ and worship the false pagan gods. Unfortunately the memory of these illustrious saints is often perverted and blasphemed today by those who seek to force their own agenda upon the Church. In 1994 Yale professor John Boswell published the book " Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe " in which he argued that the Byzantine rite of adelphopoiesis, which mentions the martyrs Sergius and Bacchus, was in fact a Church-sanctioned service of homosexual marriage which the saints had undergone, and he even used an icon of Sts. Sergius and Bacchus on the cover of his book. Although his research has been debunked time and again, his argument is repeatedly resurrected by those seeking to introduce homosexual marriages into the Church. Fr. Patrick Viscuso is a priest and canonist of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese in America who has written numerous scholarly articles in the area of Byzantine marriage and canon law. In this present article, " Failed Attempt to Rewrite History, " Fr. Viscuso defends the truth of historical Orthodox practice against the claims of Boswell, and in doing so honors the memory of Sts. Sergius and Bacchus. Writing the history of a religious institution involves understanding concepts and language within their historical and cultural context. Yale professor John Boswell " s book purports to find precedents for homosexual marriage, particularly in Eastern Orthodoxy during the late Byzantine period. His main contention is that the Byzantines regarded the rite of adelphopoiesis , a Greek term translated as " same-sex union " by Boswell, as a form of marriage contracted between two males and blessed by the Church. It is beyond dispute that there are rites for adelphopoiesis contained in Byzantine manuscripts dating from the ninth to the 15th century. The ceremony was conducted by a priest for two males in church, and contained symbols common to Byzantine marriage rites including holding candles, joining hands, receiving Communion, and processing three times around a table used in the celebration. Prayers used for the sacerdotal blessing referred to God establishing " spiritual brothers " ( pneumatikous adelphous ) and contained references to sainted pairs, including most notably SS Sergius and Bacchus, who were famous for their friendship. The order of the service varied, but appeared to possess a simple structure, usually including petitions followed by the central prayer(s) of benediction and a dismissal. |
| Sts. Sergius and Bacchus The distinction of betrothal from complete marriage, which was established by the final rite of crowning, may be understood if the grounds for their dissolution are compared. While the grounds for divorce of a completed marriage concentrated on the disruption of marital union and dealt with adultery or situations that concerned actual or suspected sexual immorality, the causes for dissolving betrothals had a different focus, namely, finances, character, position in life, and events surrounding the contracting of the marriage. The difference indicated that while divorce in the case of a completed marriage was concerned with the loss of union, the sundering of betrothal dealt with the loss of the foundation for the union. Betrothal is a step in the completion of matrimony, nearly equivalent to marriage, but it is not the same as the completed union. Crowning, the final stage of the formation of marriage, was named after the central rite of benediction during which crowns were placed on the heads of the bride and groom by the priest. As in the case of betrothal, a solemn invocation of divine blessing was made to establish the marital union. The marital union resulted in a number of kinships by marriage, known as relationships by affinity. Complex rules or canons governed whether such family members were allowed to intermarry. Once established, this type of kinship even survived the death of either or both of the spouses. These relationships were more extensive than those formed through any other Sacrament or mystery, including Baptism, which also resulted in certain prohibitions on marriage between the sponsor " s family and the baptized. If Byzantine marriage is compared with the rite for adelphopoiesis (what Boswell calls " same-sex union " ), several differences are apparent. The first is that marriage occurs through a process, not a single rite. The most immediate reason for this appears to be that marital unity in Byzantine society involved both the spouses and their families, rather than simply individuals. |
| Let us establish from the start that borrowing has often been a feature of liturgical development. Liturgical scholars have, for example, noted the influence of the fourth century liturgy of Jerusalem on the structure of the Holy Week rites, both East and West; Antiochene Rite played a similar role, shaping many of the ceremonies still observed throughout the Byzantine Rite for the same period up to Pascha. Sharing has always been done but, usually, the local religious ethos has reshaped the forms. If, however, we look at the history of Christmas carols in Western Christianity, we can observe that, in fact, they were para-liturgical, that is, used outside the main services, usually as part of a continuing folk celebration of the particular feast. The point here is that the Roman rite, like the Byzantine, had no provision for optional hymns as such; it had its introits and graduals, sequences and scriptural (usually psalmic) verses, just as we have our Antiphons, Prokeimena, Troparia and Kontakia, Megalanaria etc. Apart from the traditional Latin (often Ambrosian) hymns in the Liturgy of the Hours, there appears to have been no official sanction for metrical hymnody in the Western Eucharist until quite late. I presume that this has come into the modern Roman rite from the influence of Protestantism, where popular hymn singing replaced traditional liturgical texts with more subjective, poetic compositions, designed to appeal to the emotions first of all. In mediaeval England, popular Christmas carols were sung at ‘parish ales’ after the Mass on certain festivals, involving community singing and the drinking of beer. But these were strictly extra-liturgical and an extension into folk culture of the Christian faith. In other words, carol singing was part of the enculturation of Christianity and the overall process of evangelisation. Whether this can find a place in Orthodox practice is a moot point. The singing of composed hymns, rather than verses from the Scriptures, was controversial in the early centuries of Christianity. Arians composed popular songs and used them to demonstrate their heresy. This was why St. John Chrysostom organised processions, chanting litanies through the streets of Antioch in opposition. The difficulty we have here, though, is that of fitting different cultural forms, oriental and occidental together. It is Time itself, of course, which enculturates, almost hallows, liturgical forms but to make fusions of two different forms must, at best, be awkward. Each rite has its own integrity or genius so that the use of rhyming metre and Western musical forms must appear out of place. |
| Emperors did not belong to the regular hierarchy of the Church. They were in no sense «ministers of Word and sacraments.» Some special «priestly» character might be conceded to them, and indeed has been often claimed and asserted. In any case, it was a very specific «Royal priesthood,» clearly distinguishable from the «Ministerial priesthood» of the clergy. Certainly, the Emperor was a high dignitary in the Church, but in a very special sense, which it is not easy to define exactly. Whatever the original meaning of the rite of Imperial Coronation might have been – and it seems that originally it was definitely a strictly «secular» ceremony, in which even the Patriarch acted as a civil servant – gradually it developed into a sacred rite, a sacramentale, if not a regular «sacrament,» especially since it was combined with the rite of «anointment,» a distinctively ecclesiastical rite, conferred by the Church. The rites of Imperial Coronation convey a thoroughly «consecrational» conception of the «temporal power.» Probably, this «theocratical» emphasis was even stronger in the West than in Byzantium. It is specifically significant that the rite included a solemn oath to obey faithfully all the rules of the Church, and above all to keep inviolate the Orthodox faith, in conformity with the Holy Scripture and the ordinances of the Councils. The crux of the problem is in the claim of the «temporal» rulers, and in their endeavor, «to be Christian» and to perform accordingly certain Christian duties in their own right, as their own assignment. This claim implied a conviction that basically «the secular» itself was, in a certain sense, «sacred.» In a Christian society nothing can be simply «secular.» It may be argued that this claim was often insincere, no more than a disguise for worldly motives and concerns. Yet it is obvious that in many instances – and one should emphasize, in all major and crucial instances – this claim was utterly sincere. Both Justinian and Charlemagne – to quote but the most spectacular cases – were deeply sincere in their endeavor to be «Christian rulers» and to promote the cause of Christ, as much as their actual policies were open to criticism. |
| 1156 Renoux Ch. Un bilan provisoire sur l’héritage grec du rite arménien//Le Muséon: Revue d’études orientales. 2003. T. 116. Fase. 1,2; Idem. Initiation chrétienne. 1. Rituels arméniens du baptême/Texte arménien, traduction française, introduction et notes. P., 1997 (Sources liturgiques, 1); Idem. Les arméniens et la liturgie de Jérusalem: L’Arménie: mémoire de la Bible//Le Monde de la Bible. 2001. 136; Idem. Les lectures quadragésimales du rite arménien//Revue des études arméniennes. 1968. T. 5; Idem. Le Codex Erevan 985: Une adaptation arménienne du lectionnaire hiérosolymimain//Armeniaca: Mélanges d’études arméniennes. Venise, 1969; Idem. Le Triduum pascal dans le rite arménien et les hymnes de la grande semaine//Revue des études arméniennes. 1970. T. 7; Idem. L’anaphore arménienne de St. Grégoire d’Arménie//Eucharisties d’Orient et d’Occident/Éd. B. Botte. P., 1970. Vol. 2; Idem. Les lectures bibliques du rite arménien: de la Pentecôte à Vardavar//Mélanges liturgiques offérts au R.P. Dom B. Botte. Louvain, 1972; Idem. Eucharistie et rémission des péchés dans les Anaphores arméniennes//Didaskalia. Lisboã, 1973. T. 3; Idem. Liturgie arménienne et liturgie hiérosolymimaine//Liturgie de l’église particulière et de l’église universelle. Rome, 1976 (Ephemerides liturgicae. Subs., 7); Idem. «Les fêtes et les saints de l’Église arménienne» de N. Adontz//Revue des études arméniennes. 1980–1981. T. 14–15; Idem. À propos de G. Winkler «The Armenian Night Office, II»//Ibid. 1984. T. 18; Idem. Le Lectionnaire de Jérusalem en Arménie: Le ašoc. 1: Intr. et liste des manuscrites. Turnhout, 1989; Idem. Office du matin et Lectionnaires//Revue des études arméniennes. 1992. T. 23; Idem. Une influence du rite byzantin sur la liturgie arménienne: un pentecostaire et Byzance: Histoire et culture. P., 1996 (Byzantina Sorbonensia; 12); Idem. La lecture liturgique des épîtres catholiques dans l’église ancienne. Lausanne, 1996. 1157 Winkler G. Über der Kathedralvesper in den verschiedenen Riten des Ostens und Westens//Archiv für Liturgiewissenschaft. |
| There several problems with the details in his presentation. By saying that the monastic/liturgical rite of “brother-making” (Greek adelphopoiesis ) “precedes by a century or two that of marriage”, he gives the impression that somehow the late Byzantine rite of “brother-making”—i.e. sanctifying a deep bond between friends for a specific purpose—somehow shares some sort of ontological parity with marriage. (Shades of John Boswell!) Otherwise why mention the timing at all? In fact of course marriage itself did not arise after brother-making, but in the Garden. But the fact that the current rite of marriage in its Byzantine liturgical form continued to evolve after the form of brother-making ceased evolving is irrelevant. If anything it shows the shortened shelf-life of the form of brother-making and its limited use. The rite of adelphopoiesis did not continue to evolve liturgically because the need for it ceased to be felt. Sanfilippo also says that the term “sexual orientation” is modern, and its use “as a marker of personal identity” was unknown to the ancients. That is true, but that does not mean that the ancients felt no such desires, or that their words condemning homosexual activity no longer apply to us today. It simply means that they did not share our own modern obsession with personal identity. Also problematic is his anachronistic identification of certain details of friendship as suggesting a sexual component to the friendship. Mentions of “patristic encomiums to friendship that have an almost romantic quality about them”, or an icon which “depicts SS. Theodore of Tyre and Theodore Stratelates in military attire holding hands like any modern couple” are misleading in the extreme. Again, Lewis could have warned him. “Kisses, tears and embraces are not in themselves evidence of homosexuality” he wrote. They are only evidence that all ancient friendships had a physical component to them, and that the modern disease of sexualizing everything, including friendship, had not taken hold of the ancients. Hard as it may be for some today to believe, a friendship could be physical, and still not sexual. |
| The adoption of a single system of liturgy for both secular and monastic churches facilitated liturgical unification throughout the Church. Byzantine dominance in the Christian East led, in fact, to an even greater liturgical centralization than Rome could ever achieve in the West. The difference, however, was that no particular ecclesiological significance was attached to this centralization, which was due only to the inimitable cultural prestige of the «Great Church.» Actually, the Byzantine rite was not Constantinopolitan by origin, but Syrian in its first version and Palestinian in the second. Yet the opportunity presented to newly converted peoples to translate the liturgy into their respective tongues counterbalanced the disadvantages of centralization and constituted a powerful tool for missionary activity. In any case, the liturgy remained, in the Orthodox Church, a major expression of unity. Equally important was the adoption, by the Byzantine Church, of a monastic Typikon to regulate the liturgical life of the entire Christian community. Actually, on this point, the other Eastern Christian spiritual familiesthe Copts, the Jacobites, the Armenianswere in the same predicament. By accepting monastic spirituality as a general pattern for its worship, the Christian East as a whole expressed the eschatological meaning of the Christian message. The very magnitude of the liturgical requirements described in the Typikon, the impossibility for an average community to fulfill them integrally, and the severity of penitential discipline implied in the liturgical books always served as a safe- guard against any attempt to identify the Church too closely with the present aion, and as a signpost of the Kingdom to come. If properly understood, the Eastern liturgy places the Church in a state of permanent eschatological tension. 2. The Liturgical Cycles In its fully developed form, reached in the fourteenth century, the Byzantine rite is still essentially dominated by the paschal theme of the early Christian message: in Christ, man passes from slavery to freedom, from darkness to light, from death to life. Byzantine liturgy may frequently use conceptual definitions, formal doctrinal confessions, or romantic poetryas we shall see in our discussion of hymnographybut it is impossible to understand its structure and the internal logic of its cycles without grasping the dynamic suggestion of a passage from the «old» to the «new,» which is the central theme of almost every liturgical unit. Variations on this theme appear everywhere. The misery of man« " s existence in the «old Adam» is given more or less emphasis, just as the bliss of new life is considered either as an already present reality or as a goal still to be achieved. |
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