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"Most Holy Theotokos, save us"

The Liturgist

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Yes, but here the point is that the Greek service books don't say to sing "Most Holy Theotokos save us" at that point of the litanies, do they?

No, but if they’re omitting certain hymns from the Horologion, the Octoechos and/or the Menaion which are widely omitted, the restatement of intercessions fo the Theotokos is highly warranted even if done out of sequence.
 
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gzt

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I don't quite get your point. What is being omitted in typical Greek practice that would mean explicitly saying "most holy Theotokos save us" during litanies is somehow making up for some lack? Which Slavic practice isn't missing?
 
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The Liturgist

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I don't quite get your point. What is being omitted in typical Greek practice that would mean explicitly saying "most holy Theotokos save us" during litanies is somehow making up for some lack? Which Slavic practice isn't missing?

Basically, in Greek parishes, and indeed in almost all parishes, the Divine Office is extremely abbreviated; very seldom does anyone sing all of the appointed odes in their entirety at Matins, or do everything specified at Vespers and so on; All Night Vigils without interruption is known to take ten hours, and was last done in a non-Old Rite parish by some Russian seminarians in 1910 (only the Old Rite Orthodox and among our Oriental Orthodox friends, the Ethiopians and Eritreans, do full unabbreviated services of that length as a matter of course; indeed the average length of a Sunday service in an Ethiopian church is six hours if one arrives for the start of the morning prayers).

What is abbreviated varies from rite to rite, but there are canons to the Theotokos included in the Octoechos that are supposed to be used alongside Resurrectional canons and canons from the Menion, and these contain Theotokia, so where abbreviation is occurring, it is very likely abbreviating some Marian material.

Also the Third and Sixth hour almost never happen in the Violakis Typikon used by the Greeks.
 
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The Liturgist

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I don't quite get your point. What is being omitted in typical Greek practice that would mean explicitly saying "most holy Theotokos save us" during litanies is somehow making up for some lack? Which Slavic practice isn't missing?

By the way, to be clear, I do understand where you are coming from and I do respect your position, in that I gather that you would not be a fan of parishes randomly improvising, and neither would I (although conversely monasteries, dioceses and individual parishes have historically been allowed to have some diversity in their implementation of the typikon in Orthodoxy, which is why you see subtle differences in the style of worship from place to place, and in some cases, less subtle differences, for example, New Skete Monastery got a blessing for a fairly radical liturgical implementation).

I could provide a litany of liturgical improvements I’d like to see in Greek parishes, but deleting Marian intercessions wouldn’t be on it; indeed I actually object to most modifications of the liturgy at existing parishes, because of the disruptions they cause.
 
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gzt

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I mean yes I'm familiar with both Greek and Russian ways of doing things. I'm just having trouble drawing the line from the common abbreviations the Greeks do that differ from the ones the Russians do that imply perhaps adding this in is somehow appropriate. Again this would not be a deletion, it's not in the service books in the first place.
 
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Phronema

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I'll chime in on this, and say that in the GOARCH Metropolis of Atlanta, Metropolitan Alexios (now former), told the priests throughout the Metropolis to pass along to the parish choirs and chanters to no longer say it. Interestingly, not long after that I ended up at a couple of Divine Liturgies IN Atlanta at the Metropolis with him there, and their chanters still said it, maybe out of habit. That said, I'm at an Antiochian parish in PA now, and they don't say it despite the parish being named for the Theotokos.
 
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The Liturgist

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I'll chime in on this, and say that in the GOARCH Metropolis of Atlanta, Metropolitan Alexios (now former), told the priests throughout the Metropolis to pass along to the parish choirs and chanters to no longer say it. Interestingly, not long after that I ended up at a couple of Divine Liturgies IN Atlanta at the Metropolis with him there, and their chanters still said it, maybe out of habit. That said, I'm at an Antiochian parish in PA now, and they don't say it despite the parish being named for the Theotokos.

Note that AOCNA still retains some vestigial Slavonic influences, and indeed one Antiochian parish in PA even set aside a Vespers for only Slavonic heritage chant about a year ago, and then did another using only Syro-Byzantine chant (St. Philip’s). So I wouldn’t necessarily expect to find Greek practices in as much evidence,
 
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The Liturgist

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I mean yes I'm familiar with both Greek and Russian ways of doing things. I'm just having trouble drawing the line from the common abbreviations the Greeks do that differ from the ones the Russians do that imply perhaps adding this in is somehow appropriate. Again this would not be a deletion, it's not in the service books in the first place.

That’s a good point.
 
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gzt

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In my experience with Antiochians, the Slavic influence is confined to the musical selections and the liturgics are pretty much all Greek/Arab style, but somebody who has more internal experience with the Antiochians would certainly be more informed.
 
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The Liturgist

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In my experience with Antiochians, the Slavic influence is confined to the musical selections and the liturgics are pretty much all Greek/Arab style

They definitely incline towards a Mediterranean, Levantine direction.
 
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