Orthodoxy and Heterodox Easter

[E.C.]

I keep an eye out for Pascha discounts, that's about it.

 

[Light of the East]

What, if any, canonical restrictions are there regarding praying with my Roman Catholic wife on Good Friday? She is into all the Western Prayers for Good Friday (Rosary, Seven Words, etc.). She was one reason it took me so long to head over to the True Church and she has been very laid back about my conversion for some reason, which I appreciate. I have tried, in turn, to be overly kind to her and do little things to show my appreciation and get along with her. I know she is still upset that I will no longer be Catholic, but since she has been so quiet about all this (only two eruptions in the whole of Great Lent) i would like to make her feel that we are not completely separated.

Fr. Matt???

 

[ArmyMatt]

What, if any, canonical restrictions are there regarding praying with my Roman Catholic wife on Good Friday? She is into all the Western Prayers for Good Friday (Rosary, Seven Words, etc.). She was one reason it took me so long to head over to the True Church and she has been very laid back about my conversion for some reason, which I appreciate. I have tried, in turn, to be overly kind to her and do little things to show my appreciation and get along with her. I know she is still upset that I will no longer be Catholic, but since she has been so quiet about all this (only two eruptions in the whole of Great Lent) i would like to make her feel that we are not completely separated.

Fr. Matt???

ask your priest. but you shouldn’t be doing Roman prayers.

 

[The Liturgist]

ask your priest. but you shouldn’t be doing Roman prayers.

Just out of curiosity, what about as a compromise prayers officially sanctioned by the ROCOR or Antiochian Western Rite communities? Since these are basically Anglican and Catholic prayers edited to conform to Orthodox theology. Also while we lack the Rosary, there is the Prayer Rule of St. Seraphim of Sarov (I even have a beautiful leather lestovka of the special configuration used for praying it, vs. the standard configuration used in the Russian Old Rite), which does consist of the Hail Mary but lacks the use of the visual imagination in prayer? I was catechized the latter can be dangerous, and one benefit of veneration of the holy icons while in prayer* is that they prevent the formation of idols in the mind.

Before I became Orthodox, I thought of God the Father as being a Zeus like white bearded man against a blue sky with light clouds, such as one might expect to see in Michaelangelo, not realizing the Father is invisible except insofar as the Son has revealed Him. This is chiefly why I view the decades of the Rosary, the various mysteries one is supposed to imagine, as dangerous, because I was taught they lead to prelest. However, the Hail Mary itself exists in Orthodox versions and I was taught is beneficial, particularly in the context of the Prayer Rule of St. Seraphim of Sarov.

*Of course, contrary to what the iconoclasts argue, we don’t worship the icons but merely salute them; Metropolitan Kallistos Ware likened them to doorways or windows into the Heavenly realm. I can’t even recall anyone praying to them, for though they are sacred, their holiness is derived from their depiction of God, who is alone worthy of all worship and adoration, our blessed lady Theotokos and ever virgin Mary, who is worthy of hyperdoulia, or extreme veneration, and the saints, who are venerable, and the icon is simply a visual representation of these, which is lawful because of the Incarnation, and we are, as Metropolitan Kallistos Ware taught, called to make our home lives, our relationships at church and at work et cetera a living icon of the Holy Trinity, One god with one divine essence, in three persons and three hypostases in an eternal union of perfect love.

 

[ArmyMatt]

Just out of curiosity, what about as a compromise prayers officially sanctioned by the ROCOR or Antiochian Western Rite communities? Since these are basically Anglican and Catholic prayers edited to conform to Orthodox theology. Also while we lack the Rosary, there is the Prayer Rule of St. Seraphim of Sarov (I even have a beautiful leather lestovka of the special configuration used for praying it, vs. the standard configuration used in the Russian Old Rite), which does consist of the Hail Mary but lacks the use of the visual imagination in prayer? I was catechized the latter can be dangerous, and one benefit of veneration of the holy icons while in prayer* is that they prevent the formation of idols in the mind.

Before I became Orthodox, I thought of God the Father as being a Zeus like white bearded man against a blue sky with light clouds, such as one might expect to see in Michaelangelo, not realizing the Father is invisible except insofar as the Son has revealed Him. This is chiefly why I view the decades of the Rosary, the various mysteries one is supposed to imagine, as dangerous, because I was taught they lead to prelest. However, the Hail Mary itself exists in Orthodox versions and I was taught is beneficial, particularly in the context of the Prayer Rule of St. Seraphim of Sarov.

*Of course, contrary to what the iconoclasts argue, we don’t worship the icons but merely salute them; Metropolitan Kallistos Ware likened them to doorways or windows into the Heavenly realm. I can’t even recall anyone praying to them, for though they are sacred, their holiness is derived from their depiction of God, who is alone worthy of all worship and adoration, our blessed lady Theotokos and ever virgin Mary, who is worthy of hyperdoulia, or extreme veneration, and the saints, who are venerable, and the icon is simply a visual representation of these, which is lawful because of the Incarnation, and we are, as Metropolitan Kallistos Ware taught, called to make our home lives, our relationships at church and at work et cetera a living icon of the Holy Trinity, One god with one divine essence, in three persons and three hypostases in an eternal union of perfect love.

if it’s been approved by the Church, it belongs to the Church with the Church’s proper understanding even if the origin is erroneous.

 

[Light of the East]

Just out of curiosity, what about as a compromise prayers officially sanctioned by the ROCOR or Antiochian Western Rite communities? Since these are basically Anglican and Catholic prayers edited to conform to Orthodox theology. Also while we lack the Rosary, there is the Prayer Rule of St. Seraphim of Sarov (I even have a beautiful leather lestovka of the special configuration used for praying it, vs. the standard configuration used in the Russian Old Rite), which does consist of the Hail Mary but lacks the use of the visual imagination in prayer? I was catechized the latter can be dangerous, and one benefit of veneration of the holy icons while in prayer* is that they prevent the formation of idols in the mind.

Before I became Orthodox, I thought of God the Father as being a Zeus like white bearded man against a blue sky with light clouds, such as one might expect to see in Michaelangelo, not realizing the Father is invisible except insofar as the Son has revealed Him. This is chiefly why I view the decades of the Rosary, the various mysteries one is supposed to imagine, as dangerous, because I was taught they lead to prelest. However, the Hail Mary itself exists in Orthodox versions and I was taught is beneficial, particularly in the context of the Prayer Rule of St. Seraphim of Sarov.

*Of course, contrary to what the iconoclasts argue, we don’t worship the icons but merely salute them; Metropolitan Kallistos Ware likened them to doorways or windows into the Heavenly realm. I can’t even recall anyone praying to them, for though they are sacred, their holiness is derived from their depiction of God, who is alone worthy of all worship and adoration, our blessed lady Theotokos and ever virgin Mary, who is worthy of hyperdoulia, or extreme veneration, and the saints, who are venerable, and the icon is simply a visual representation of these, which is lawful because of the Incarnation, and we are, as Metropolitan Kallistos Ware taught, called to make our home lives, our relationships at church and at work et cetera a living icon of the Holy Trinity, One god with one divine essence, in three persons and three hypostases in an eternal union of perfect love.

What are these prayers from the ROCOR and Antiochian Western Rite? Do you have a link to them?

 

[The Liturgist]

What are these prayers from the ROCOR and Antiochian Western Rite? Do you have a link to them?

I do have canonical Antiochian Western Rite Vicarate service books; if you PM me I can assist you.*

That said if she likes the Rosary, you could introduce her to the Prayer Rule of St. Seraphim of Sarov, which is not specific to the Western Rite at all, and if she likes the Tenebrae service, introduce her to the Twelve Gospels Service which is basically the same thing, and also point out to her the similarities between the pre-1955 Roman Catholic Mass of the Presanctified and our Presanctified Divine Liturgy if you take her to that, and likewise our Vesperal Divine Liturgy on Holy Saturday is extremely similar, even including the time of day, to the pre-1955 Roman Catholic Paschal Vigils.

Also the Orthodox preserve the tradition of reading only an Epistle and a Gospel during the Divine Liturgy, and of using a one year lectionary, whereas the Roman Rite adopted a three year lectionary in 1969 which was unprecedented in Christendom but which unfortunately inspired the Revised Common Lectionary which now dominates Protestantism and which is a seriously defective lectionary compared to all historical lectionaries of every ancient church and liturgical rite, and especially compared to the Byzantine lectionary, which if one uses the Julian Calendar and the Sabaite-Studite Typikon in its Old Rite or Athonite/post-Nikonian Slavonic recension rather than the Violakis Typikon, is simply unsurpassed (that said the Violakis Typikon on the Revised Julian Calendar is easily in the no. 2 spot; worship using it can be spectacularly beautiful, for example, the liturgies at St. Anthony’s Monastery in Florence, Arizona, where I hope to go on pilgrimage in the weeks ahead).

So I think the trick is to point out how beautiful Roman liturgical worship used to be, and how liturgical worship is arguably more important than devotions, then show how the Orthodox have retained that which Rome has lost, both in the Western Rite, and in the Byzantine Rite (which is so beautiful I understand the perspective of people like Metropolitan Kallistos Ware who are unenthusiastic about the Western Rite even though I disagree with them), and then also show her, by the way, we have the Prayer Rule of St. Seraphim of Sarov, whose exceptional holiness might remind her of Francis of Assisi, but St. Seraphim was really a saint; there is no need to go polemical on poor Francis or other Roman Catholics by name, because St. Seraphim simply exudes with radiant holiness and love, as do our other saints, and also tell her about the Prayer of Jesus, which is the best devotion possible, and if she likes the Angelus or the Novena, introduce her to the Canons and the Akathist in any good Orthodox prayer book. The second edition of the Jordanville Prayer Book is freely available online: Liturgical Texts - Orthodox Prayer Book

So you probably don’t even need to use any Western Rite material, because the Byzantine Rite has better devotions and since the disastrous liturgical reforms of the 1950s-70s, vastly superior worship, regardless of which calendar or typikon you are on (I myself gravitate towards the traditional Russian/Ukrainian Julian Calendar style).

*ROCOR changed up its Western Rite liturgy a bit following the retirement of Archbishop Jerome Shaw, there was a bit of a crisis; some thought the RWRV would be shut down or Byzantinized, however, Metropolitan Hilarion Kapral, the protohierarch of ROCOR, stepped in and personally took charge, and has been very popular with the laity and made a number of improvements; I just don’t have their revised materials yet.

 

[Lukaris]

What, if any, canonical restrictions are there regarding praying with my Roman Catholic wife on Good Friday? She is into all the Western Prayers for Good Friday (Rosary, Seven Words, etc.). She was one reason it took me so long to head over to the True Church and she has been very laid back about my conversion for some reason, which I appreciate. I have tried, in turn, to be overly kind to her and do little things to show my appreciation and get along with her. I know she is still upset that I will no longer be Catholic, but since she has been so quiet about all this (only two eruptions in the whole of Great Lent) i would like to make her feel that we are not completely separated.

Fr. Matt???

I had asked a priest re this & he told me:


Hi Ed,
Just got a chance to answer your email.
I don't know of any "canonical restrictions" about his praying with his wife on her Good Friday. We don't have those services you mentioned but some of the prayers, like "Hail Mary full of grace...", we do have as well, as you know. I don't think he needs to feel that he is doing something wrong to be with her for Good Friday. Does she come to his church for our Holy Friday service? Interesting to know.
Fr.