Western Rite

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The Western Rite is a strand of Orthodox Christian worship based on the liturgical traditions of the ancient pre-Schism Orthodox Church of the West. Western Rite Orthodox Christians hold in common the full Orthodox faith with their brethren of the Byzantine Rite, and at present, all of the bishops who care for such parishes are themselves primarily users of the Byzantine Rite.

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Western Rite
History
Rule of St. Benedict
Nineteenth Century
Twentieth Century
Criticism
Liturgics
Liturgy of St. Gregory
Liturgy of St. Tikhon
Liturgy of St. Germanus
Sarum Rite
Gallican Rite
Stowe Missal
Service Books
Vestments
Groupings
Antiochian Western Rite Vicariate
Society of St. Basil
Orthodox Church of France
Monasteries
Christminster
Saint Petroc
Holy Name Abbey (Old Calendarist)
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Modern History

The Nineteenth Century

Main article: Western Rite in the Nineteenth Century

In 1864, 44-year-old Joseph Julian Overbeck, a former German Catholic priest who had left the priesthood, disillusioned with papal supremacy, became Lutheran and later married, was chrismated into the Orthodox Church. He then published, in 1866, Catholic Orthodoxy and Anglo-Catholicism which contained the groundings for his work for the next twenty years. A year later, be began publishing a periodical, Orthodox Catholic Review, aimed at putting forward Orthodoxy and rejecting Catholicism and Protestantism.

1867 saw Overbeck, with 122 signatures from the Oxford Movement, petition the Church of Russia for the establishment of a Western Rite church in full communion with the Eastern Rite. A seven-member synodal commission was then formed, and invited Overbeck to attend. The idea was approved, and Overbeck set about submitting a draft of the proposed Western liturgy. The base of Overbeck's submission was the 1570 rite which added in an epiclesis and the Trisagion hymn. This rite was submitted in 1871, and was examined and approved by the commission. Overbeck focused his efforts on the Old Catholic movement, who had rejected Papal Infallibility. He continued to engage in polemics with Catholics, Anglicans and Orthodox converts using the Byzantine rite.

In 1876, Overbeck issued an appeal to the various Holy Synods, travelling to Constantinople in 1879. There he met the Ecumenical Patriarch, who authorised him to deliver sermons and apologetics. in 1881, some success was had when the Ecumenical Patriarchate agreed that the West had a right to a Western church and rite.

However, it went no further. Overbeck's marriage after his Catholic ordination was a canonical impediment to the priesthood, the Holy Synod of Greece vetoed his scheme amongst the Orthodox Churches, the Orthodox Catholic Review ended its run, and by 1892 he admitted failure due to the Church of Greece of the time. Overbeck reposed in 1905.

The Twentieth Century

Episcopalian Consecration of Reginald Weller as co-adjutor bishop of Fond-du-Lac, 1900.
Main article: Western Rite in the Twentieth Century

The Western Rite continued. In 1890 a Swiss Old Catholic parish in Wisconsin, pastored by Fr Joseph Rene Vilatte, was received by Bp Vladimir (Sokolovsky); however, Fr Vilatte soon led the church into Old Catholicism. In 1911 Arnold Harris Mathew, an Old Catholic bishop, entered into union with the Patriarchate of Antioch, but parted ways soon after, leaving behind a model for future Western Rite groupings to join Orthodoxy.

A western Rite diocese was established in Czechoslowakia in 1898. A Polish independent catholic group was established as a Western Rite Orthodox diocese in 1926. The Orthodox Church ofg France was established by an Ukase of the Moscow Patriarchate in 1936. This was reestablished under ROCOR after WW II. In 1926 the small Polish Catholic National Church was received into the Polish Orthodox Church, flourishing until wiped out by the Germans during WW II. It is conceivable that the Germans saw the Western Rite Orthodox, mostly under the Russian Church in France and Poland as a potential danger and trerated them accordingly. Both suffered terminal/near terminal damage.

[1] [2]

Saint Tikhon (Belavin's) involvement in the Western Rite has been one more enduring. While he was head of the Russian mission in America, some Episcopalians were interested in the possibility of joining Orthodoxy while retaining Anglican liturgics. St. Tikhon, sending the 1892 Book of Common Prayer, enquired as to the viability of such an idea; in 1904, the Holy Synod set up a Commission which reported in 1907, permitting the adaption of services taken out of the BCP, including many notes on how such adaption should be carried out in an Orthodox manner and permitting individual dioceses to carry out the adaption. St. Tikhon did not receive any Episcopalians who used the revised Anglican forms, but the Holy Synod's decision laid the groundwork for the reception and liturgics of the Russian Orthodox Western Rite monasteries and their missions [3] and the Antiochian Orthodox Western Rite Vicariate. [4]

France

There has been a significant Western Rite movement in France, the largest remaining group thereof being the Union des Associations Cultuelles Orthodoxes de Rite Occidental (UACORO - the Union of Western Rite Orthodox Worship Associations).

The United States

The Antiochian Archdiocese received the most stable and successful group of Western Rite parishes, the Society of Clerks Secular of St. Basil, in 1961. Upon reception, they became the Western Rite Vicariate, and their leader, Alexander Turner, becoming an Orthodox priest and the Vicar-General of the Vicariate until 1971. At his repose, Fr Paul W.S. Schneirla became Vicar-General.

Besides the parishes that were in the former Society, other parishes have been received into the Western Rite Vicariate of the Antiochian Archdiocese, especially because ofthe theological and practical devolution of the Episcopal Church. Added to this, a number of Western Rite missions have been founded, some growing into full parish status.

The Church of Russia received a New York Old Catholic monastic community in 1962, Our Lady of Mount Royal Monastery, under Abbot Augustine (Whitfield) which later moved to Woodstock, New York, under the omophorion of Archbishop John (Wendland) of the Russian Exarchate of North America. Later, this community was received by the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia, under Archbishop Nikon (Rklitzsky). In 1993, part of the monastery was reestablished as Christ the Saviour Monastery in Providence, Rhode Island, under Bishop Hilarion (Kapral) of Manhattan (since transferred to Sydney). Its present superior is Dom James Deschene, while the rest under Abbot Augustine continues to commemorate the ROCOR Metropolitan at Jacksonville, Florida.

Australia and New Zealand

Western Rite Orthodoxy, in Australia and New Zealand, has arisen mostly from Anglican and Continuing Anglican communities. Archbishop Hilarion (Kapral) of Sydney, ROCOR, received Saint Petroc Monastery under his omophorion; while others have been received by Bishop Gibran and Metropolitan Archbishop Paul, successive Church of Antioch hierarchs.

While the Antiochian western rite groups are indistinguishably part of the Antiochian Archdiocese, the ROCOR Western Rite all stems from Saint Petroc Monastery which has a paruchia of some ten Orthodox Study Societies and Monastery missions.

Rest of the World

The Russian Orthodox Church established several Western Rite Parishes in South America during the episcopate of Bishop Alexander (Mileant) of Buenos Aires. These were former Roman Catholics.


Liturgy

North American Antiochian Orthodox Western Rite parishes generally follow one (or sometimes both) of two types of traditional Western liturgical traditions. The majority celebrate the Liturgy of St. Tikhon of Moscow, which is an adaptation of the Communion service from the 1928 Anglican Book of Common Prayer and The Anglican Missal in the American Edition, as their Sunday liturgy. Until 1977, all Antiochian Western Rite parishes celebrated only the Liturgy of St. Gregory the Great, which is a modified form of the ancient Mass authorised by the Holy Synod of Russia in 1870 and similar to that known to Roman Catholics before the liturgical reforms of Vatican II in the 1960s. Many parishes within the Western Rite Vicariate continue to celebrate the Gregorian liturgy. However, most AWRV parishes celebrate more than one weekly liturgy, and many of the Tikhonite parishes celebrate the shorter Gregorian liturgy on weekdays. The complete Roman rite of Benediction is also authorized.

Russian Orthodox Western Rite practice is now mostly governed by the Saint Colman Prayer Book - a complete book containing the Sarum Liturgy (Usus Cascadae), the English Liturgy (adapted from the 1549 BCP and Sarum), the Liturgy of Saint Gregory (Usus Providentiae) (the adaption of the rite authorised by the Holy Synod of Russia done by Abbot Augustine and used both in the Mount Royal and Providence monasteries) or else the complete Benedictine liturgical practice of Christ the Saviour Monastery. The Saint Colman Prayer Book also contains the majority of the occasional services, simplified breviary and lectionary resources needed by a parish throughout the year, for the most part adapted from the Sarum original.

Generally speaking, the Western Rite liturgy has much less repetition than its corresponding elements in the Byzantine rite, and generally has a more brisk, succinct manner to it. Clergy wear the traditional Western vestments, and the faithful follow pious devotional customs peculiar to their tradition, as well. The Sarum Liturgy celebrated of a Sunday will take in excess of two hours, the English Liturgy around an hour and a half and the Saint Gregory Liturgy about three quarters of an hour

The development of the current use within the Western Rite Vicariate is of particular note:

Metropolitan Antony was well aware that the Western Rite was "a work for specialists." The new Western Rite usage of the Archdiocese was to be guided by "a Commission of Orthodox Theologians," an advisory committee of qualified clerics or laymen to advise the Metropolitan and determine "the mode of reception of groups desiring to employ the Western Rite, and the character of the rites to be used, as well as the authorization of official liturgical texts." The first WRV Commission, convened by Metropolitan Antony in 1958, was composed of Fathers Paul Schneirla, Stephen Upson, Alexander Schmemann and John Meyendorff. Schneirla, Schmemann, and Meyendorff in particular had seen the Western Rite up close in France, as it had been approved in the Russian Ukase of 1936. Schneirla recalls Schmemann's work in particular as being key, as he was familiar with the Liturgical Movement within the Roman Catholic and Anglican communions. Schmemann was particularly instrumental in joining together the separate Rites of Initiation of the Rituale Romanum – Baptism, Confirmation and First Holy Communion – into one unified rite, according to the Orthodox understanding.

In January of 1962, the official Western Rite Directory was issued, "establishing liturgical usages and customs and discipline," drawing on principles gleaned from the 1904 Moscow Synodal response to Saint Tikhon, the authorization of Western Rite offices by Metropolitan Gerassimos (Messarah) of Beirut, and the 1932 Russian Ukase of Metropolitan Sergius.[5]

Ironically, before his committed and pivotal involvement with the architecture of the current usage of the Western Rite, Fr. Schmemann had criticized it in a response to a 1958 article Fr. Schneirla wrote in The Word.[6] However, after his criticisms, Fr. Schmemann worked to establish the Western Rite Vicariate and, later still, taught at the Western Rite seminary in Paris.

Congregations

By far the largest group of these parishes is represented by the Western Rite Vicariate of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America. Other Antiochian Western Rite parishes exist in the Antiochian Orthodox Archdiocese of Australia and New Zealand.

The Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (ROCOR) has several monasteries, located in Australia and the USA. The former, Saint Petroc Monastery, uses the Sarum Rite liturgy in English and the English Liturgy. Such Western Rite missions and parishes as ROCOR has are attached to this monastery and use either the Sarum or "The English Liturgy," an English Use service based upon the 1549 Anglican Book of Common Prayer but incorporating certain elements of the Sarum Use.

Abbot, Augustine (Whitfield), who led the Our Lady of Mount Royal Monastery, into communion with ROCOR, records that Saint John Maximovitch told him: "Never, never, never let anyone tell you that, in order to be Orthodox, you must also be eastern. The West was Orthodox for a thousand years, and her venerable liturgy is far older than any of her heresies."[7]

The Orthodox Church of France—which is currently of ambiguous status with regard to world Orthodoxy, but at one time was cared for by St. John Maximovitch and later by the Church of Romania—also uses a Western Rite liturgy based on ancient Gallican liturgical materials, though often supplemented by Byzantine elements.

It should also be noted that there are a number of groups who follow various Western rites and may call themselves Orthodox but are not part of or in communion with the historic Orthodox Church such as the Holy Synod of Milan, an "old calendarist" group, has a few communities including one monastery, in the United States, which worship according to various Western rites.


See also

Sources

External links

Liturgies

Book

Introduction and History

Apologias

Criticism

News and Views

Listservs

  • Western Rite Orthodoxy: Discussion of Western Rite Orthodoxy, focusing the Western Rite Vicariate (Antiochian). Most active participants are members of the Antiochian WRV.
  • The Ely Forum: "Dedicated to the theological and liturgical heritage of The Church in the British Isles, the ancient Patriarchates of the Undivided Church and the restoration of our genuine heritage of Orthodox Christianity in the West. A place of sane, sensible, lively, discussion between Christian gentlemen." Founded by Fr. Michael of St. Petroc Monastery (ROCOR).
  • Occidentalis: Dedicated to promoting the "Old Sarum Rite Missal" published by a monk formerly of the Milan Synod.