Byzantine Ressourcement #2: How Did They Reform the Liturgy and Avoid Ugliness and Rancor?

Subsidiarity: the key to a peaceful transition to the best liturgy for the Roman Church?

I recently posted an article on the reforms of the Eastern Churches (Eastern Catholic and Orthodox) called Byzantine Ressourcement? Liturgical Reform In The Orthodox Churches, As A Model For The Roman Rite, in which I described how the non-Roman, Apostolic Churches - I used the generic descriptive ‘Eastern’, but as readers pointed out, the picture applies to other non-Roman Churches as well - had, strangely, reformed in accordance with the ideas of the Roman Catholic liturgical reformers of 20th century, and in many ways in accordance with what the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council had hoped to see in the Roman Church.

Some readers felt compelled to comment on the merits of the reforms themselves (many, it seemed to me, were Roman Catholics who seemed unhappy with what had happened to their neighbors on the other side of the garden fence).

I don’t want to revisit that discussion here because this was not actually the main reason for my writing the first article.

The main thrusts of my article were:

First, regardless of what we feel about those changes, the Churches themselves seem largely happy with what they have (even if some of their Latin cousins are not), and this has been achieved with minimal, or in most cases zero, input from Vatican II and without the strife and liturgy wars seen in the West.
Second, the fact that a fragment of a single sentence of instruction, in the case of the Eastern Catholic Churches, and zero instruction from the Council, in the case of Orthodox Churches, can bear such fruit in both cases, undermines a criticism of Vatican II made by some - that it was deliberately written in a tone of aggressive ambiguity in order to sow confusion. This phenomenon of peaceful and gradual reform elsewhere suggests, on the contrary, that there was more than sufficient detail addressed to the Roman Church. The mistake was in assuming the good intentions of those who were charged with implementing it.

The evidence of the reform of the Eastern Churches is that if one accepts the arguments behind the proposals and takes the trouble to understand the reasoning behind them, then the result will be as the framers intended. If on the other hand, people are disposed willfully to misinterpret or ignore the texts of the Council, no matter how clearly articulated, they will do so. And this, I believe, is what has happened in the West. In other words, the Council is largely irrelevant to what has happened - given the intentions of the architects of the mess we have today, it would have happened anyway.  

My thought is that this is worth examining so that we can consider a mechanism by which the Roman Church can move peacefully towards a general dominance of the best liturgy - whatever you may feel that is.

If I have painted a reasonable picture of the pattern of reform in the Eastern Churches (and I had several letters sent to me privately by members of these Churches telling me that I have), the next question is, why? Why has the situation in regard to the liturgical change been so different in the two lungs of the Church? One seems to be inhaling and exhaling freely and developing, dare I say it, ‘organically’; while the other is suffering from chronic COPD.

A clue to the answer, it seems to me, might come from the comments made by those readers of the article who did not dispute the general picture that I painted - that reforms had occurred and the Churches themselves were largely happy with what had occurred - but did point out, quite rightly, that the ‘Schmemann effect’, was not universal either. Some Churches, on the more conservative side, for example, had rejected change altogether, while others, a small minority, had introduced the liberal reforms all too familiar to us in the Roman Church (e.g. female altar servers). But while acknowledging that this is a patchwork quilt of differing ideas of what the liturgy ought to be, the general picture is that Schmemann has had a broad effect due to the free adoption of his ideas.

The answer as to why the pattern of reform is so different, it seems to me, relates to a difference in governance. In the East, the authority to change the liturgy is much more dispersed according to the principle of subsidiarity- maximized local freedom - while in the West, authority is far more centralized, with the focus of that authority in Rome. Consequently, what we have now in the West, again painting a broad picture, is the result of a top-down imposition of a reformed liturgy in the manner of the ‘suburban rite’ Novus ordo, while in the East the process has been more bottom-up. The unity of the Eastern Churches, in this regard, is the pattern of activity that emerges from many freely chosen actions. (For those that are interested in this idea of how order emerges as a pattern for the whole by the free action of the individual parts, here are some thoughts of mine on the subject in an earlier article called Does Order Come Out of Chaos, Or Chaos Out of Order?).

In general, and perhaps counter-intuitively, a bottom-up approach which recognizes local authority tends to give us more stability, and less radical change, and when reforms do occur by this mechanism, those changes that are good are more likely to predominate, while those that are bad are more likely to wither on the vine. The bottom-up implementation also allows for differing but valid local interpretations of what is good: differences don’t always indicate error. So we see a rich variety of local implementations of Schmemann’s ideas and different degrees of reform that sit alongside each other happily.

A top-down approach to implementation, on the other hand, which overrides natural local authority, tends to result, ultimately, in the predominance of what is bad. In the case where there is a single central authority, when innovation goes bad it lacks an internal mechanism for change and we are stuck with it. It is always possible that what is good might go bad in the future, but it is likely that what is bad will remain so.

Here’s why it happens this way, in my opinion:

Imagine, hypothetically, that every parish is free to decide how it celebrates the liturgy. It is likely that some will make bad decisions. However, others will likely exercise their freedom faithfully. In this situation, the ones that choose well will flourish and become beacons of the Faith, while others that choose badly will not. But, those places that get it right and flourish will inspire vocations, will attract the faithful, and will influence their neighbors by example. Those that get it wrong will continue to hemorrhage parishioners and in time die out.

It is analogous, in some ways, to what one might call Jesuit vs Oratorian styles of organization. When you have a very strong central organization, as the Jesuits have if the center goes bad, the whole organization suffers and it is very difficult for it to recover, for there is no natural mechanism for self-correction, except yet more powerful and yet more centralized authority. As a result, the best hope for redemption in the Jesuit-style organization, if it goes wrong, is a miracle!

However, if you have more distributed authority, so that separate houses are autonomous, as Oratorian houses are, then some will flourish and persist while others will decline. However, those that succeed will become mission churches that attract the laity, encourage vocations, and influence the founding of other Oratorian houses by the example of their success. This way even a few successes can be beacons of light that become good examples to inspire many. This is, I believe, the best mechanism also for an organic and authentic development of the liturgy.

The one drawback with this dispersed pattern of authority in the perception of many is, paradoxically, precisely the source of its strength in practice, namely that no part can directly control what any other does. Each autonomous unit has authority only over itself and may have to accept that a neighbor does things differently. If my mindset is such that my main concern is over what others ought to do, then I am less inclined to give others freedom in case they fail to do what I want them to. The liturgy wars then become more than simply debates about right and wrong, they become a struggle for political control of centralized power.

How localized is the natural authority for freedom to implement liturgical changes in the Roman Church? I am happy to be guided by canon lawyers on this, but I believe, historically at least, it resided with bishops (and from what I can tell theoretically does still does so today, although it is not often exercised in practice). If this were so, each diocese would not feel bound by Congregations in Rome or national councils of bishops, and each could choose to exercise the authority given to them and the situation would begin to right itself. Even better, each bishop might choose to allow parishes freedom too.

There is one aspect of the liturgy in which some authority for participation as one chooses lies within individual parishes and even laypeople, and that is with the Liturgy of the Hours when practiced in, for example, the domestic church. (I discussed the possibilities of people exercising this freedom well in a recent blog post entitled, Will the Domestic Church Grow as the Institutional Church Shrinks?). The ideal, it seems to me, is that at every level, all members of the Church take the initiative to exercise their natural authority for the good.

The need for subsidiarity is the argument made by Adam DeVille in his book, Everything Hidden Shall Be Revealed which I reviewed here. He addresses a different problem within the Church (corruption and the sexual abuse scandal), but the argument regarding subsidiarity as a solution is the same. He argues that if dioceses chose their bishops, as they used to do, and parishes are accorded freedom by their bishop, then this would encourage still further the right exercise of free autonomy.

To be clear, this is not an argument against papal authority as traditionally understood and as reflected in the First Vatican Council. Rather it is an argument for greater recognition of a natural local authority that is already present, but not always exercised. Nor is it the encouragement of license. Full freedom, as we know, is a choice free of constraint or restraint, but directed towards a right end. So the fullest freedom is in the choice to do what is good. However, it is not freedom if there isn’t the possibility of people exercising it poorly. In most situations, there are different opinions on what is good, and sometimes what is good for me is not the best for you. So, in this model each local authority decides, in good faith, what they believe Vatican II meant in regard to the degree or nature of reform, one taking a maximalist line, while another a minimalist ‘organic development’ approach to reform, and yet a third might reject change altogether and stick to the 1962 Missal. We can’t predict which approach will flourish and effectively become the Church, but in faith, we trust that the good will win out, even if some making the choices are bad actors.

In my experience, many pious Roman Catholics are not inclined to believe that subsidiarity is a good thing in this regard. I used to be skeptical too; I was reluctant to believe that giving people freedom to choose will facilitate the emergence of what is truly best, fearing that the opposite would happen and everything would eventually default to the lowest common denominator. What I yearned for, therefore, was a centralized authority to impose on the whole Church what I wished to see in my local parish.

However, happily, not all are as I used to be. I do see some recognition of this idea of subsidiarity even amongst devotees of the Traditional Latin Mass, (and contrary to the ultramontanist outlook that one might expect). For example, I read recently an article in which one was encouraging an even more radical dispersion of local autonomy than I am, by suggesting that individual priests might be justified in celebrating the Latin Mass even if it meant disobeying their bishop’s wishes.

Some, at the other end of the scale, have more ultramontanist instincts, will worry that this is a prescription for anarchy. I would say no, it is in fact a prescription for freedom. And freedom is always a good thing, for the pattern of freedom is dynamic and self-regulating. What can’t be guaranteed, however, is that the pattern that emerges ultimately will be the one that I would like it to be. I have to have faith that whatever predominates is the best, even if it is not what I would have liked.

And for many, therein lies the rub.

Photos above, top to bottom: St Margaret Mary, Oakland; The Brompton Oratory; The Birmingham Oratory; Holy Family parish, which is run by the Toronto Oratory; a private home altar; and Star of the Sea, San Francisco.

Byzantine Ressourcement? Liturgical Reform in the Orthodox Churches as a Model for the Roman Rite

You would have to be a liturgical ostrich not to be aware that the Roman Rite has been a battleground for the last 70 years or so. At times I have been tempted to look wistfully over the garden fence at the Eastern Rite churches, and wish we had it like them. They have been sailing along steadily and peacefully, as far as I was aware, in an unchanging bubble of serene mysticism, apparently untouched by any of the controversy that is ripping the institutional Roman Church apart. Ever since St John Chrysostom and St Basil put stylus to diptych and composed their liturgies, all has been sweetness and uncreated light. I thought.

Now I am not so sure.

I have recently been working my way through some books on the liturgy by the Orthodox theologian Alexander Schmemann, For the Life of the World; Of Water and Spirit - A Liturgical Study of Baptism, An Introduction to Liturgical Theology, and Great Lent - Journey to Pascha.

These books paint a beautiful picture of how our worship ought to relate to the Christian life, which is also applicable in general terms, I would say, to participation in Roman Rite. What is surprising to me, however, is how critical he is of the Eastern Rite that he saw in his day, and the reforms he suggests to counter problems within it. It became apparent to me that the Eastern liturgies I had been attending, and assumed had been unchanged since their inception, were in fact recently reformed. And, what was even more surprising to me, that reform was in accordance with the principles by which the Roman Liturgical Reform movement of the 19th and 20th centuries had proposed to change the Latin Mass, and for the most part, failed.

A Melkite liturgy in the USA

Alexander Schmemann was born of Russian parents in Estonia in 1921, and grew up primarily in France as part of the thriving Russian expatriate community of Paris. In 1951, he moved to the United States, where he was a member of the Orthodox Church of America. The books named above were written in the period between the mid-1960s and his death in 1983.

In his writing, he makes the occasional passing reference to the Roman Rite (which for him is just beyond the pale) and then addresses his concerns with the Orthodox liturgy of his day. As mentioned, these criticisms of the Divine Liturgy are strikingly similar to those that the liturgical reformers of the 19th and 20th centuries made of the Tridentine Mass. Indeed, Schmemann cites the familiar names of this movement as authorities, and like them, looks to the early Church for a model of how the liturgy ought to be. He quotes, for example, Dom Gregory Dix, Oscar Cullmann, Joachim Jeremias, Jean Danielou, Romano Guardini, Louis Bouyer, and even Yves Congar.

His specific worries about the Orthodox liturgy will sound familiar to us even if some of the specifics are different: the laity have become detached from the clergy in their worship, and so are not participating actively, and they are more likely to be engaged in devotional prayer than in the worship of God; the detachment has occurred in part because the profusion of secret prayers said by the clergy and the physical barrier of the iconostasis which all but hides the activity of the priest. This detachment has led also to clericalism, in which the importance of the role of the laity in worship is diminished, while that of the priest is exaggerated relative to it.

A iconostasis in Moscow, dating from 1693

He tells us that the chanting of the propers has become too ornate and melismatic so that it cannot be understood by those who hear and is too difficult for the laity to sing. And he complains of the profusion of an artificial symbolism that hides the true meaning of the liturgy, “not the symbolism as the sacramentality of all God’s creation,” he says, “but that allegorical symbolism that confers on each part of the sacred rite a special meaning, making it a representation of something that is not.”

Furthermore, somehow Eastern Rite Churches, both Orthodox and Catholic, have managed to varying degrees, to implement his recommended changes. I say this based upon personal experience of attending Divine Liturgy in the UK and the US and so, admittedly, it is anecdotal.

Contrast this to what has happened in the Roman Rite. If I was to characterize the broad pattern of the response to the impetus for reform in the Roman Rite, it is characterized by two poles - complete resistance to any change on the part of those who attend the Traditional Latin Mass on the one hand, and radical and misdirected change in the Novus Ordo on the other.

When we look at Eastern Churches we see something different. The liturgies have been translated into the vernacular; in the ones I have attended, into understandable but elegant English. The laity sing the chants along with the ordained ministers. The iconostases are open and lower than the ‘traditional’ ‘image-wall’ iconostasis seen above - sometimes more like an English medieval rood screen, and the Royal Doors at least are made in such a way as to to allow the altar to be seen during the whole Liturgy. The prayers of the clergy can be heard and understood. The “spirit” of these changes, if I can use that phrase, is therefore closer to those which the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council hoped for in the Roman Mass. Furthermore, these have been implemented by Orthodox Churches that do not consider themselves bound by the Council (and very likely in most cases by people who have never read it or even thought about doing so).

A modern Greek Orthodox church in Shrewsbury, England.

A modern iconostasis at the Russian Orthodox church of St Nicholas in Amsterdam.

The effect of Schmemann on the Eastern Catholic Churches is just as notable. I am told that if you had gone into a Byzantine Catholic church in the 1950s, you would have seen something different from the Orthodox liturgies that Schmemann was criticizing. It would most likely have been a highly Romanized version of the Divine Liturgy, very close in style and content to a Roman Mass. Now, you are more likely to see a reformed Divine Liturgy which is purged of its Roman influence and reflects the ‘Eastern Ressourcement’ influence of Schmemann. These Churches do recognize Vatican II, but in this case the Council had very little to say about them (although what was said was very positive). The changes in the liturgy conform to an instruction that was part of a single sentence in Orientalium Ecclesiarum, the decree of the Council, promulgated in 1964 to the Eastern Church. It declared:

...it is the mind of the Catholic Church that each individual Church or Rite should retain its traditions whole and entire and likewise that it should adapt its way of life to the different needs of time and place. (2).

The fact that a single sentence of instruction can bear such fruit undermines the argument of some critics of the Council, that it was deliberately written in a tone of aggressive ambiguity in order to sow confusion. It suggests, on the contrary, that there was more than sufficient detail addressed to the Roman Church, if one accepts and genuinely takes the trouble to try to understand what was said. No matter how clearly articulated, and detailed the language of the Constitutions, if on the other hand, people are disposed willfully to misinterpret or ignore the text, they will do so. And this, I suggest, is what has happened.

A number of thoughts arise from this. First, Schmemann was part of the expatriate community in Paris in the mid-20th century that included the great figures that re-established the traditional forms of the iconographic tradition, such as Ouspensky, Kroug, Lossky, and Evdokimov. It strikes me as no accident that a reform of the liturgy and a reform of the culture of faith go hand in hand. The approach to tradition and its relation to modernity is driven by the same principle, which is exactly what I learned in my icon painting classes with Aidan Hart. There has been a similar flourishing of Orthodox architecture and music. All of this is still largely absent in the Western Church, where we swing between the poles of historicism and liberalism. If we are to evangelize the culture of the West, we still need, I believe, that liturgical reform. Neither the Tridentine Mass circa 1955 nor the standard suburban rite, circa 1970 can drive it, in my opinion.

Second, it does beg the question: why have Eastern Churches reformed their liturgies successfully with little or no input from the Council, while the Roman Church, to which most of what the Council had to say was directed, has failed so spectacularly?

I have some thoughts on this, which I will address in a future blog post. (However, I would say that one factor is the difference in governance as highlighted in Everything Hidden Shall Be Revealed, Ridding the Church of Abuses of Sex and Power by Adam DeVille, published by Angelico Press.)