The last part (in red below) was not generally included in the pre Trent Catholic usage:
Hail Mary, full of grace,
the Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou amongst women,
and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God,
pray for us sinners,
now and at the hour of our death. Amen.
Interestingly the “Pray for us sinners, now and at the time of our death” portion was added by the Dutch Jesuit Peter Canisius in 1555. The Greek Orthodox, Russian Old Rite Orthodox / Old Believer (and also Ruthenian Catholic and Carpatho-Rusyn Orthodox), and contemporary Russian Orthodox versions omit this:
Greek version:
Theotokos and Virgin, rejoice,
Mary full of grace,
the Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou amongst women,
and blessed is the fruit of thy womb,
for thou hast given birth to the Saviour of our souls.
Russian Old Rite and Carpatho-Rusyn/Ruthenian Church Slavonic version:
Rejoice, O Virgin Theotokos
Mary full of grace,
the Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou amongst women,
and blessed is the fruit of thy womb,
for thou hast borne Christ the Saviour,
the Deliverer of our souls.
Current Church Slavonic version (post-Nikonian Russian Orthodox, Ukrainian Orthodox, Belarussian Orthodox, Bulgarian Orthodox, Serbian Orthodox, Macedonian Orthodox, Czech and Slovak Orthodox, and some Polish Orthodox, and St. Panteilmon monastery on Mount Athos among others):
Rejoice, O Virgin Theotokos
Mary full of grace,
The Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou amongst women,
and blessed is the fruit of thy womb,
for thou hast borne the Saviour of our souls.
This all being said, I don’t think any Eastern Orthodox would have a problem with what Peter Canisius said. One of the Oriental Orthodox churches, the Syriac Orthodox, uses it verbatim and there is even a rubric allowing it to ne included in the
Qawmo (the Syriac Orthodox equivalent of the Anglican
preces and the Eastern Orthodox Usual Beginning, from the Divine Office in either case).* Peter Canisius, along with Robert Taft SJ, is one of the Jesuits I happen to like. He is venerated as a saint in the Roman Catholic Church and at first glance at least, such veneration appears broadly applicable except within the most intensely Calvinist churches; more specifically, his doctrine appears to fit within the broader continuum of liturgical Christianity alongside that of Luther, Hus, Laud, Pusey, and Dom Gregory Dix.
Interestingly, the Eastern Orthodox have the Hail Mary, but not the Rosary per se; their equivalent is the Prayer Rule of St. Seraphim of Sarov, which consists of sets of 50 prayers prayed on a specially configured
Lestovka, or leather prayer counter traditionally used by the Russian Orthodox Old-Rite churches and other Old Believers (I have one of these, and several in the traditional configuration; the traditional configuration consists of different groups of varying sizes for different prayers, I think its a group of 12, a group of 17 for the Prayer of St. Ephraim the Syrian, a group of 40 for the Kyrie Eleison, and a group of 33 for the Jesus Prayer - these groups, combined with certain other notches and counters, also allow one to use it for multiplication, in order to say a certain number of prayers of different types, especially within the parameters of the predefined sections; conversely I like prayer ropes when just saying the Jesus Prayer by itself).
Lutherans that use the Rosary, for the most part, will either omit the portion in red, or modify it this way since the Bible is clear that the Saints do pray for us; and their prayers rise like incense:
Holy Mary, Mother of God,
pray with us sinners,
hour of our death.
Now just out of curiosity @MarkRohfrietsch what is the semantic difference between the common Lutheran usage, specifically the change from “for” to “with”, and the Roman Catholic usage and what are the broader oratorial, Mariological, and soteriological differences this reflects in your opinion?
Actually, you answered this question in the previous post. This being said, would you agree with me that asking a saint to pray for us is not praying to them as if they were a deity but rather seeking to pray with them? For example, the common Eastern Orthodox prayer “Through the intercessions of the Theotokos, save us O son of God” (or “Savior, save us”).
* In the Syriac Orthodox
rubrics, in a congregational context, the Ave Maria is naturally sung (or some might say chanted) in the context of the Qawmo, which as I mentioned is used at the beginning of each of the Hours of their Divine Office, which are of course sung using the eight mode system of West Syriac Chant, which is comparable to the mode systems of chant**, so the full rubrics for the Qawmo use it in this manner (note the similarity to the Anglican preces used at Mattins, Evensong, the Litany and other divine offices, which
@MarkRohfrietsch you will doubtless recall influenced most of the English language hymnals via the
Common Service adopted from the
Anglican Book of Common Prayer). Additionally, the chanting is also responsorial,
as can be seen from these rubrics.
As far as I am aware, the Syriac church is the only one that directly incorporates the Ave Maria into a formal liturgical service, as opposed to using it as a devotional or private prayer, since, Roman Catholic members, correct me if I am wrong, but the Angelus and the Novena are not liturgies
per se, right?
**Byzantine, Gregorian, Ambrosian, Mozarabic, Georgian and the various systems of Slavonic chant from Russia, Ukraine and elsewhere such as Znamenny, Prostopinije, Valaam, Kievan, Imperial Court, and so on, are eight mode systems of chant (actually nine in the case of Gregorian, but most people are unaware of the ninth mode), while East Syriac chant is not divided into modes, and Coptic chant has its own system of modes, but I am not sure how many, as the modes are named, and there is one primary node used during the Divine Liturgy for most of the year, the “Annual Tone.” Perhaps
@dzheremi or
@Pavel Mosko might know.
