From Orthodox Blogdom: Liturgy Ideas

Collin Michael Nunis said...


"Judging from the texts I've read and studied, I find both the "Tikhonian" and "Gregorian" liturgies to be beautiful, even though I have yet to attend one.

However, as time passes by, I think it would be good to develop a new liturgy based on both the Tikhonian and Gregorian in both traditional and contemporary English (ala 1979 BCP, minus theological/doctrinal compromises), ensuring that the "best of both the Western-Rite worlds (Roman and Anglican) will be found in this liturgy.

I do not know what others would think, but I believe that a fairly good place to start would be expanding the Roman Catholic Book of Divine Worship's (RC equivalent of BCP) Rite I and Rite II. I do not know how kindly this will be looked upon but if it is possible, that would be great.

By doing this, I think that we will not be selling out to anyone or be "pleasing" to anyone, but rather, make room for the younger generation to understand the depths and beauty of Orthodoxy.

With the Western Rite, not only has it recaptured something it "lost", but has made Orthodoxy more accessible. I'm just hoping to take the accessibility one step further.

Theological correctness for the Eucharistic part of the liturgy is the most important. We should never compromise that. While I am aware that Met. Philip promised no Byzantinisation of the Western Rite, I do not think that using the Byzantine Eucharistic prayer will make the Western Rite less Western."

From these comments, dear readers, we can see that the desire to make Orthodoxy more "accessible" is still alive and well.

I don't know about his idea of a "new" WR liturgy derived from both the Liturgy of Saint Tikhon and the Liturgy of Saint Gregory, but a modern language equivalent for each along the lines of the English Standard version of the Bible might provide at least a shadow of an idea in this direction.

We should consider the Greek Orthodox Church in this regard. Many of their parishes are not allergic to using "you" as opposed to "Thee" in their English translations of the Eastern Rite.

It's kind of silly if we become absolutists on this point if the Greeks aren't that concerned about it. Being addicted to Thees, Thous, Thys and Thines at the expense of potential conversions to Holy Orthodoxy seems to be like straining at gnats while swallowing camels.

Just some thoughts.

Columba Silouan