The liturgical movement that began around the year 1909 was an attempt to return to the genuine sources of liturgy and to understand the true meaning, nature and the essential characteristics of liturgy. It must be said at the outset that after the golden period of the fathers, from the middle Ages, the liturgical and ecclesial life suffered a set back. The shape and the understanding of Liturgy and Sacraments changed substantially with the advent of scholasticism. The Sacramentumof the West began to be identified more as acts of the minister of Christ than that of the Church herself. Liturgy was considered for a long time as nothing more than a ceremony governed by certain rubrics to be performed as per the rules and regulations that were treated as most sacrosanct. The study of liturgy was nothing but the study of the textbooks containing the explanations of these rubrics.
Thanks to the determined efforts and initiatives of a few pioneers in the liturgical movement, this understanding of liturgy was found to be flimsy and superficial[1]. Undue preoccupation with «materia» and «forma» led to the reduction of once solemnly celebrated liturgies of baptism and Eucharist to a minimum of gestures and words needed to make them valid and licit. The emphasis on the meticulous performance of the rubrics nourished a minimalist attitude towards the liturgical rites and ignored the symbolic meaning and the appropriation of the spiritual effects of the types and symbols associated with the sanctifying mysteries of the Church.[2]
The scholastic sacramental theology had its impact on the Churches of the East as well, thanks to the teachings of the Western missionaries in the East.[3] The ‘magical’ approach to the liturgical rites contributed to the neglect of the celebrative and ecclesial dimensions of the Christian Mysteries, demanding a rethinking on the liturgical life of the Church and her devotional practices. The liturgical movement at the dawn of the 20th century was a positive response to this demand.[4] One of the pioneers of the liturgical movement, Hellriegel observes:
“for centuries we have been too far removed from this divine furnace and its all penetrating sacred fire. We have always felt some of its heat, but not enough to get warm. We were chilled by a degenerated humanism and rationalism and frost-bitten by materialism and religious indifference. We lost a goodly portion of the sentire cum Ecclesia – the mind of the Church; and, by and by, quite a bit of our living the liturgical life of the Church.”[5]
The primary objective of the liturgical movement,[6]as another pioneer Dom B. Botte states, was not a much needed cleaning up of the cobwebs from the venerable monument – Liturgy,[7] but the nourishing of the everyday Christian life through participation in liturgy and awakening of people’s consciousness, primarily of the clergy, to the Church’s traditional spiritual treasury.[8]Fr Schmemann, who could be named as the father of the liturgical theology in the Orthodox Church,[9] admits that the western liturgical movement helped him to discover his own «lex orandi» in a non-orthodox milieu (i.e. U.S.A) and to overcome “western” defects and deviations of orthodox theology.[10]
In the search for a true liturgy many tried to explain or define Christian liturgy. But, these attempts passed through difficult phases since Liturgy is experienced as a dynamic and living reality. Liturgy was primarily meant to be lived rather than to be defined in terms of ides and concepts. Naturally the proposed definitions were either imperfect or highly misleading. These definitions emphasized one aspect or the other and ignored certain fundamental aspects and essential elements.
2. Contribution of Mediator Dei
Pope Pius XII, in his encyclical Mediator Dei of November 20, 1947 rejected some of the erroneous definitions of liturgy proposed. He said that it was an error, consequently a mistake, to think of liturgy as merely the outward or the visible part of the divine worship or as an ornamental ceremonial. He also rejected the notion that liturgy consists solely in a list of laws and prescriptions according to which the rites were performed. The Pope asked the theologians to follow the pioneers of the liturgical movement and give proper place to the supernatural character of liturgy, the priesthood of Christ and the correct notion of the church. And Pope Pius XII defined liturgy as follows:
“The sacred liturgy, then, is the public worship which our redeemer, the head of the Church, offers to the Heavenly Father, and which the community of Christ’s faithful pays to its founder, and through him to the eternal Father; briefly, it is the whole public worship of the mystical body of Jesus Christ – head and the members”[11]
The congregation for the Sacraments and Divine worship, then known as the Congregation for Rites, made a very clear distinction between liturgical actions and pious actions. This was given in the context of undue importance given to the popular devotions and private spiritual satisfaction and the neglect of meaningful liturgical and ecclesial spirituality.
3. Sacrosanctum Concilium
The liturgical reforms of the 2nd Vatican Council brought about mixed reaction among the scholars. Although the schema of Sacrosanctum Concilum imbibed the Spirit of the liturgical movement, it preferred to follow the middle path, distancing from those who wanted to stick on to the Tridentine schema and those wanted to create altogether new liturgies. In fact, many serious scholars of the West including the present theologian Pope Ratzinger, today, feel that the present liturgical state of the Roman rite is not that it should be, nor what it was intended to be, by the pioneers of liturgical movement or even by the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council.[12] With the exception of those who were fully part of the liturgical movement and a few bishops and theologians who shared the Spirit of the movement in the Council, the worldwide Church was not able to comprehend the Spirit of the liturgical reform enunciated by the Vatican council II and to imbibe the Spirit of the movement.
The Council deliberately avoided scholarly formulations. Instead it used biblical and patristic language and categories to explain liturgy. Therefore we do not find in SC strict scientific definitions of liturgy. The explanations as to the content, nature, purpose, goal, pre-eminence, fruitfulness and efficacy and effects of liturgy are clearly worded in the document. The Constitution also clarifies the various dimensions of Christian liturgy. The Council Fathers also gives the answers to the questions: Why liturgy is celebrated? Who celebrates liturgy? To whom liturgy is celebrated (offered}? How liturgy is celebrated? Etc.
It must, however, be noted that the Constitution on Liturgy is not an extempore or ex-nihilo creation of the Fathers of the Council. Rather, it is the fruit of many years of serious study and research by the theologians under the direction of the authority in the context of an emerging liturgical sense and consciousness promoted by the liturgical movement. The newness of the teaching of the Vatican Council II is that it succeeded to a great extent in re-instating the patristic understanding of liturgy. However, the abundance of documents issued by the Holy See during the post council era indicates that the Constitution on Liturgy was very much misunderstood and misinterpreted and hence misquoted.
Within the Roman Church, it has been observed that the post-conciliar development of the liturgical movement turned sharply leftward,that some of the pioneers of the liturgical movement became deeply disappointed and were quickly estranged from the movement. The leftward direction of the liturgical renewal may be traced to the misinterpretation of the Constitution on the Liturgy[13]and there are numerous post-conciliar documents[14] which disapprove such leftward trends.However, these documents do not highlight sufficiently the liturgical ethos of the Eastern Churches, in particular of the Syriac East.
Certain studies made on the Mysteries (Rāzê) of the Church of the East often betray a pre-occupation either to verify the ‘orthodoxy’ of the Rāzê (sacraments) or to prove their ‘fidelity’ to the researcher’s theology of sacraments. The Roman Catholic Church that considers the words of institution as integral part and therefore, indispensable of every Eucharistic prayer «has come to the conclusion that this anaphora can be considered valid».[15]Instead of returning to genuine liturgical traditions, many Eastern Churches themselves, including those who are not in communion with Rome,[16] tend to accommodate good and bad influences from the Roman liturgical tradition.[17] The underlying reason for the ‘leftward’ trend in liturgical practices both in the East and the West may be traced to the neglect of the sacramentality of the Christian mysteries (Rāzānāyuta).That is, the dilution of ecclesial, symbolic, celebrative dimension of the liturgy, the erosion of the sense of the sacred and the sense of the Church (sentire cum ecclesiae).
[1]Vagaggini, Theological Dimensions of the Liturgy, Minnasota 1959, v.
[2]Cf. Chupungco, Sacraments, xxii-xxiv.
[3] Cf. Tisserant, “Nestorienne (L’Eglise)”, DTC XI (1931), 222-224; Varghese, “Holy Leaven”, 108-109; for general information on latization of Malabar Church see Vellian, Latinization; Vellian, Romanization; Arangassery, “Equality of Churches”.
[4]On liturgical movement see Bouyer, Liturgical Piety; Casel, Mystery of Christian Worship; Crichton, Lights in Darkness; Fenwick & Spinks, Worship in Transition; Franklin, “Liturgical Movement,” 12-39; Funk, “Liturgical Movement (1830-1969),” 695-715; Pecklers, Unread Vision; Pierce & Downey, Source and Summit.
[5]Hellriegel, “Liturgical Movement”, 334; Cf. also Reid, Organic Development, 70-71.
[6] The liturgical movement was initiated by Dom Lambert Beauduin in 1909 who appealed for a renewed understanding of liturgy in his paper “La Vraie prière de l’église”. Cf. Haquin, Lambert Beauduin, 238-241; Beaudin, Liturgy; Reid, Organic Development, 68-69. The movement which earned the patronage of Cardinal Mercier and the endorsement of historian Godefroid Kurth was born at the Catholic Conference at Malines. It resolved to translate the liturgical texts (Sunday Mass and vespers) into vernacular, to give liturgical character to popular piety, to work for a wider and more perfect use of Gregorian chant and to promote retreats at centres of liturgical life. See Rousseau, Progress of the Liturgy, 165; Reid, Organic Development, 69.
[7] Cf. Botte, From Silence to Participation, 22-23.
[8]Hellriegel, “Liturgical Movement”, 334; Reid, Organic Development, 70-71. The contributions of the pioneers of the liturgical movement and theologians like O. Casel, L. Beauduin, Botte, J.A. Jungmann, L. Bouyer, R. Guardini, H. A. Reinhold, K. Rahner, E. Schillebeeckx, Schmemann etc towards the renewed understanding of the Church and the liturgy in the Vatican Council II and in the post-conciliar period, are significant.
[9]“It is Schmemann who is credited, or blamed, for many of the liturgical changes that we in America have experienced in recent decades.” Meyendorff, “Liturgical Path”, 49.
[10]Cf. Schmemann, “Liturgical Theology”, 19; Schmemann, however, strongly warned against nominalism, minimalism and secularist tendencies in the liturgical life of the Church.Cf. Schmemann, “Liturgy and Theology”, 51.Meyendorff observes that Schmemann’s warning has become a reality today. Meyendorff, “Liturgical Path”, 54. Schmemann was also critical of professional and ‘rational’ theologians for whom theology ceased to be the conscience and consciousness of the Church.Cf. Schmemann, Liturgy and Tradition, 50; Schmemann, For the Life of the World, 150.
[11] Pope Pius XII, Mediator Dei, Nov.20, 1947.
[12] Cf. Flanagan, Sociology and Liturgy,326; Ratzinger, Spirit of Liturgy; Ratzinger, “Klaus Gamber”, 6-8; Harrison, “Postconciliar Eucharistic Liturgy”, 151-193; Kocik, Reform of the Reform?; Parsons, “A Reform of the Reform?”, 211-256; Caldecott, Beyond the Prosaic; Nichols, Looking at the Liturgy; Spurr, Word in the Desert; Reid, Liturgy with Cardinal Ratzinger; Pickstock, “Medieval Liturgy and Modern Reform”, 19-25.
[13]The liturgical renewal turned leftward through the introduction of novelties not in tune with Christian liturgy such as ‘Mass versus populum’, ‘informality’, ‘spontaneity’, readings from secular literature and non-Christian scriptures, use of non-Christian symbols in liturgy, confusion of liturgical roles, lack of sense of the sacred, lack of ecclesial sense (sentire cum ecclesiae) etc.Cf. Reid, Organic Development, 107-108, note 160; Arangassery, “Homogeneity”, 80-81.
[14]See Inaestimabile donum, Vicessimus Quintus Annus (VQA), Varietates legitimate (VL), Redemptionis Sacramentum (RS), Liturgiam Authenticam, Mane Nobiscum Domine, Sacramentum Caritatis, etc. and the Motu proprio of Pope Benedict XVI issued on 7 July, 2007. It is important to note here that the Church began to caution strongly against this “leftward” liturgical trend only since 1980s.
[15] Even the prominent Syriac scholars like A.Mingana, P. Bedjan are not spared from this accusation of pro-Lain bias. See the Introduction in NARSAI, Homilies,li. It appears that the scope of the «Orientamenti per l’ammissione all’Eucaristia fra la Chiesa caldea e la Chiesa assira dell’Oriente», L’Osservatore Romano [26/10/2001], 7, was to justify the ‘defect’ of AM, i.e. to justify the absence of the words of institution in the anaphora of AM, «to remove the last obstacles that still prevent the realization of full communion». See AAS 87 [1995] 685-687, See also Giraudo, “Most Ancient Eucharistic Prayer”, 105-120. The expression ‘pontifical rites of sacramentals’ used by Kochuparampil in “Sacramentals”, is foreign to the Chaldean Pontifical.
[16]Mar Soro admits this fact in the case of his Church. Cf. SD 5 (2003), 122.
[17]For more on the leftward liturgical trend in the Syro-Malabar Church, see the Roman directives and documents addressed to SMC, especially Report 1980; Observations 1981 and Final Judgement 1985, Arangassery, “Homogeneity”, 75-92; Arangassery, “Eastern Liturgical Ethos”, 70-89.
4. Liturgical Renewal in the Syro-MalabarChurch
The Apostolic Church of St Thomas Christians of India came in contact with the Latin (Roman) Church with the arrival of the missionaries who accompanied the Portuguese colonisers and merchants. The process of systematic and forced Latinisation of this apostolic church commenced with the controversial Synod of Diamper held in 1599. The Church of Thomas Christians was formally buried in 1886 when the Latin hierarchy was established in India and a new Church with the name “Syro-Malabar”emerged as a “uniate” Church when two vicariates were established for these ancient Indian Christians with the ritual separation of them from the Latin Catholics by the decree of Pope Leo XIII (1878-1903) on 20th May 1887.[1]
Pope Leo XIII ordered through his apostolic letter Orientalium Dignitas Ecclesiarum[2] the preservation of the venerable traditions of the East. The Exhortation of the Pope was given least attention by the missionaries in India. In the year 1907, according to the Apostolic delegate, there were 113 seminarians in the seminary at Puthenpally seminary in Kerala and among them 110 belonged to the Syro-MalabarChurch and the Mass was always celebrated in Latin rite and the lone Syro-Malabar priest Fr Andrew was never allowed to celebrate Syro-Malabar Qurbana in the seminary.[3] The ecclesial and liturgical formation of Thomaschristians carried out according to the traditions of the Latin Church since 1599 with least respect for theecclesial traditions of thomaschristians and the periodic instructions of the Pontiffs on the preservation and promotion the traditions of the Eastern Churches, had their desired fruit namely an antipathy towards everything Oriental and undue attraction towards everything western.
Everyone hoped that the situation would change when the independent Syro-Malabar hierarchy was established in 1923[4]. Although the Church became de jure oriental, in its form and hierarchical grades of order and jurisdiction it was similar to the Latin Hierarchy[5]. Pope Pius XI on September 8, 1928 urged all to study the history, liturgy and theology of the Eastern Churches through Rerum Orientalium[6]. However, there were no serious efforts made by the first indigenous bishops and their successors, the priests and the religious of the modern era to return to the genuine liturgical sources that characterised the global liturgical movement. Instead they preferred to be more catholic than the Pope himself by becoming addicted to Latin liturgical practices and traditions.
Refusing to approve the Syriac translation of the Latin Pontifical for the use of Syro-Malabar Church and unwilling to approve the slavish attachment of the Syro-Malabar Eparchs to the Latin liturgy and traditions, Pope Pius XI ordered on December 1, 1934 to initiate the process of restoring and renewing the Syro-Malabar liturgy. He said: “Latinism ought not be encouraged among the Orientals. The Holy See does not wish to Latinise, but to Catholicise. Half measures are neither generous nor fruitful. Let a commission be nominated with the task of revising the most ancient Pontifical…”[7]A very brief history of the liturgical renewal of the Syro-Malabar Church since 1934 is given in the Decree of the Congregation for the oriental Churches dated 19 December, 1985 approving the Syro-Malabar Qurbana- The Order of Raza.
[1] Acta Leonis XIII, VII 106-108.
[2] Acta Leonis XIII, XIV,358-370.Other Pontiffs followed the suit by exhorting the Easterners to this effect. See the chapter on Roman Pontiffs and Eastern Churches in L Arangassery, Catholic Eastern Churches, HIRS, Changanachery 1999.
[3] The report of the Apostolic Delegate dated 20 February 1907. cf. L. Arangassery, Ecclesial Dimensions of East Syrian Liturgy, OIRSI, Kottayam 1990,p.5
[4] Pope Pius XI, Romani Pontifices, December 21,1923 see AAS 16 (1924) 257-262
[5] Varkey Vithayatil, “The Syro-Malabar Hierarchy and the New Oriental Legislation” in Vellian, ed., The Malabar Church, OCA 186 Rome, 1970, 257-264 Even today the slavish mentality to everything latin or western is so strong in the Syro-Malabar Eparchs, priests and religiious that there is a strong antipathy to return to the Eastern sources of Syro-Malabar liturgy.
[6]Rerum Orientalium, AAS 28/1928, 277-288
[7] P.Podipara, The Rise and Decline of the IndianChurch of St Thomas, Kottayam 1979, 43
CHURCH AND LITURGY 