Question about daily readings

[rusmeister]

I have always wondered, why in the readings do they exclude and skip verses? I can’t see any rationale for today’s reading for example from the gospel of John chapter 19, which has multiple skips and I got out my KJV and looked at what was being excluded and it made no sense at all. Verses 12, 21-24 and 29 are skipped. Why?

 

[The Liturgist]

I have always wondered, why in the readings do they exclude and skip verses? I can’t see any rationale for today’s reading for example from the gospel of John chapter 19, which has multiple skips and I got out my KJV and looked at what was being excluded and it made no sense at all. Verses 12, 21-24 and 29 are skipped. Why?

Frequently, verses not of immediate relevance to the theme of the liturgy will be glossed over, to save time or to keep the liturgy focused.

One could also cite the Paschal gospel stopping at verse 17 when it could have continued to verse 18 without difficulty as an example of this, or for that matter, the Western Rite equivalent stopping at verse 14 (the Last Gospel, John 1:1-14, as used in the Roman Rite and also, due to Latinization, in the Armenian Rite (both Catholic and Oriental Orthodox), and for a time, in other Eastern Catholic churches; I think it was even used in some of the Byzantine Rite churches at one point, but I’m not 100% sure on that, but they definitely used it in the Maronite and Syriac Catholic liturgies, where it is entirely foreign, otherwise.

 

[FenderTL5]

..to save time..

uh, in Orthodoxy?

(j/k)

 

[rusmeister]

Frequently, verses not of immediate relevance to the theme of the liturgy will be glossed over, to save time or to keep the liturgy focused.

One could also cite the Paschal gospel stopping at verse 17 when it could have continued to verse 18 without difficulty as an example of this, or for that matter, the Western Rite equivalent stopping at verse 14 (the Last Gospel, John 1:1-14, as used in the Roman Rite and also, due to Latinization, in the Armenian Rite (both Catholic and Oriental Orthodox), and for a time, in other Eastern Catholic churches; I think it was even used in some of the Byzantine Rite churches at one point, but I’m not 100% sure on that, but they definitely used it in the Maronite and Syriac Catholic liturgies, where it is entirely foreign, otherwise.

This is not a satisfying answer, unfortunately. I don’t think saving time is ever a goal in our worship, and I don’t think the skipped text distracts from the focus of liturgy at all.

 

[The Liturgist]

This is not a satisfying answer, unfortunately. I don’t think saving time is ever a goal in our worship, and I don’t think the skipped text distracts from the focus of liturgy at all.

I’ll conduct a more detailed history of the lectionary. Are there some specific cases you can think of that particularly bother you you wish me to look into?

One thing I like are the arrangement, outside of the lectionary proper, of Psalmody from select verses in various EO and OO liturgical rites (the Syriac Orthodox fenqitho, which is like the Menaion, has some good examples of this) and indeed in the Western rites and of scripture verses to comprise the liturgy as a whole. I would assume neither this, nor the selection of specific verses for the Prokeimenon and Allleluia and their equivalents in other rites such as the Graduale in the Western Rite, bothers you - rather, it sounds like your annoyance is chiefly with the lectionary skipping verses, is that correct?

Perhaps it may be of some consolation to know that the Roman Rite, both before and after the 1969 reforms, contains the most severe examples of this, which post 1969 in the novel three year lectionary, which the Protestants, even many conservative Protestants, then copied in a strange example of liturgical syncretism, includes such important verses as 1 Corinthians 11:27-34, which are now normally omitted in Maundy Thursday services in most Western churches, aside from the small number which use the Traditional Latin Mass or older versions of the Book of Common Prayer or the 1941 Lutheran Hymnal. Unlike the example you cited, these omissions from the Novus Ordo Roman Lectionary and the Revised Common Lectionary actually have severe doctrinal implications.

 

[The Liturgist]

uh, in Orthodoxy?

(j/k)

Well, yes … our current liturgies are mostly severely abbreviated. One thing I like about the canonical Russian Old Rite Orthodox such as the Church of the Nativity in Erie, PA, is that their services have fewer abbreviations, and thus what we do in two hours, they will do in five and a half.

The Ethiopians, the Russians (and Ukrainians), and to a lesser extent the Copts, among all Christians, traditionally have had the longest liturgies, and the Romans traditionally had the shortest liturgies, although the brevity of the old Roman Rite was tempered by the fact that until the ninth century, the Low Mass would be chanted in monotone rather than said quietly (indeed from the writings of St. Ambrose of Milan we can deduce that until he introduced Greek-style antiphonal singing during the successful vigil in 386 AD, to keep the Arians from taking over a church in Milan, which was the last ever such act to have an Imperial sanction despite the personal orthodoxy of St. Theodosius, everything in the Roman church including the hymns were done in monotone, or if not monotone, than some equally drab form of monody sufficiently boring for St. Ambrose to be want to replace it with antiphonal singing, lest the people “perish in soulless monotony”).

 

[rusmeister]

It seems to me that the dangers of a longer reading that is “less focused“, whatever that means, are much smaller than the dangers of omitting and what looks like censoring the text of holy Scripture.

 

[The Liturgist]

It seems to me that the dangers of a longer reading that is “less focused“, whatever that means, are much smaller than the dangers of omitting and what looks like censoring the text of holy Scripture.

I would agree, but the Orthodox lectionary doesn’t engage in any intentional censorship, whereas the Revised Common Lectionary and the 1969 Roman Catholic lectionary actually do.

Indeed it is the custom on Mount Athos and some other Eastern Orthodox communities to read all of the Apocaylpse (Revelation) on the afternoon of Holy Saturday after the Vesperal Divine Liturgy and before the start of Paschal Matins (a tradition we share with the Coptic Orthodox) despite the tendency of this book to cause confusion among neophytes not well versed in Orthodox theology. If we were looking to censor, we would not do that, nor would we use the same pericope on Marian feasts that is commonly used by English-speaking Protestants to attack us on Mariology (“Blessed rather are those who hear the Word of God”) which is actually a pro-Marian statement, but Protestants widely misinterpret it and a great many English language Bibles are skewed to support this Protestant crypto-Nestorianism.

Thus, if we wanted to censor, we would in English speaking countries replace that pericope with one more obviously pro-Marian, such as the Magnificat or the Water Into Wine or the Adoption of St. John at the Foot of the Cross.

Conversely, the Roman Catholics and Protestants are known to have omitted on Holy Thursday, which they call Maundy Thursday, 1 Corinthians 11:27-34 from the lectionary (specifically in the case of Protestants, the Revised Common Lectionary; the old 1979 BCP had a different three year lectionary that has since been retired that made verses 27-30, which contain the essence of that pericope, as an optional extension to the Institutoin Narrative read on Holy Thursday) for fear it would discourage frequent communion. In the Orthodox church we also promote frequent communion and have done so consistently and on an ever-expanding basis since the Kollyvades Brethren initiated a push for the restoration of weekly reception in Greece in the 18th century.

Our holy and venerable St. John of Kronstadt could have sought to omit or read quietly this pericope on Holy Thursday to promote the wide reception of the Eucharist his parish became known for, yet he did not do this according to any historical account I have read.

I have found no evidence of censorship in the main Eastern Orthodox lectionary, only of abbreviation. I would also note that if memory serves, the Antiochian Western Rite Vicarate uses a lectionary based on the old Anglican one-year lectionary which is known for a lack of abbreviation compared to the Tridentine lectionary.

 

[rusmeister]

My main objection is that the omissions seem completely unnecessary. I’m hoping for a more solid explanation. A history of how the designated readings developed would help.

 

[Lukaris]

I don’t understand the breaks in this particular reading but my guess is maybe for brevity. An example I could see this in is on Deity of the Word ( Jesus Christ) and the Incarnation of the Word from John 1. We find Deity in John 1:1-5 & the Incarnation in John 1:14-18.

 

[The Liturgist]

My main objection is that the omissions seem completely unnecessary. I’m hoping for a more solid explanation. A history of how the designated readings developed would help.

Alright, I’ll do my best to research that for you. It will take at least a few days, but I think I know where to start at least (by comparing some ancient lectionaries curated by a now defunct site called bombaxo.org with the current version). It would help if you could provide an example of an abbreviation you find equally disagreeable connected with a more prominent feast, by the way, since in the case of the Menaion entry for the liturgical day of the first of August, there are actually three different feasts that can be celebrated on that day, depending on the church: the Feast of St. Eleazar, St. Solomonia and the Seven Holy Maccabee Children, the Feast of the Procession of the Cross, and the Feast of The Most Merciful Savior and The Most Holy Theotokos, the latter two sharing the same Epistle and Gospel according to my Menaion, but because there are three feasts, and two of them are not as high-profile as I would prefer, for what is normal for feasts of our Lord, the Theotokos and the Cross, as indicated by the fact that all three might be celebrated on the same day, which is a bit of a mess, if I just go on the basis of that liturgical day it could make it harder to find out the history of these abbreviations in general.

If you want me to specifically investigate the history of that liturgical day, that would also be an interesting project, and I’m willing to do both in order to make sure you’re assured the Orthodox Church is not engaging in censorship of the lectionary, unlike the novel three year lectionary introduced in 1969 by the Novus Ordo Missae Roman Catholic Church and the Revised Common Lectionary based upon it, which is used by the mainline Protestant churches. Those lectionaries, as I mention previously, have intentionally omitted several pericopes and truncated others, for example, 1 Corinthians 11:27-34 has been cut from the Maundy Thursday lection, which in most Western churches consisted of all or most of 1 Corinthians 11:17-34 (verses 20-32 in the Tridentine and pre-1969 Ambrosian Rite, verses 23-32 in the Eastern Orthodox Byzantine Rite and the pre-1969 Mozarabic Rite. The Syriac Orthodox (West Syriac use of the Rite of Antioch, closely related to the Maronite use) and Coptic Orthodox (hybrid of the Coptic use of the ancient Alexandrian Rite with Coptic and Arabic translations of West Syriac and Byzantine liturgical texts) have verses 23-34. The entire Eucharistic pericope, verses 17-34, is present nearly all old editions of the Book of Common Prayer, in keeping with with the prolix Cranmerian style, except for the 1928 American BCP, which had 20-26 only (this was partially corrected with the 1979 book which provided an option to read through verse 30, only to be de-corrected when the Episcopal Church switched to the RCL. Also the 1962 Canadian book only has verses 23-29, but that is still enough of the warning from 1 Corinthians.

I would also note that if a monastery, or a parish in a jurisdiction which allows some leeway in liturgics provided certain levels of quality are met, could easily read the entire pericope (minor differences between the typikons of monasteries and jurisdictions, where a jurisdiction is anything from a diocese to an autocephalous church, are extremely common, and some fairly small Orthodox churches like ACROD are using four different variants on the typikon (Slavonic and KJV English, Slavonic and contemporary English, and KJV English only, and contemporary English only), with the contemporary English translation in ACROD being unusual in that it uses similar phraseology to English translations of Byzantine Catholic service books, not unlike the OCA monastery of New Skete, which was founded as Byzantine Rite Catholic and then converted.

The other issue is of course the very unfortunate increase in abbreviations of the Divine Office in general. If you look at the very good translations of the Octoechos, the Triodion, Pentecostarion or Menaion on a website such as All Saints Eastern Orthodox Liturgical Resources* or the Triodion and Festal Menaion translations of Metropolitan Kallistos Ware and Mother Mary, may their memories be eternal, and the Octoechos and Pentecostarion editions of Isaac E. Lambertsen, memory eternal, and the contemporary English versions of all of the above translated by Archimandrite Ephrem Lash, may his memory be eternal, and Holy Transfiguration Monastery in Boston,** and compare the services of Matins contained therein with the very abbreviated services, from the Nasser Five Pounder or the services of the AOCNA’s Department of Liturgics, the omissions can be severe, and even in the case of ROCOR more of the canon is usually omitted than one might prefer. For example, compare this AOCNA PDF of Orthros for the Dormition with Matins from the



* The website is operated by Old Calendarists, but the most widely used Pentecostarion, that of Holy Transfiguration Monastery in Boston, that also publishes several other liturgical books popular among Greek Orthodox users of Byzantine chant, such as the “Boston Psalter”, is also Old Calendarist. While I disagree with their schismatic status and their hostility towards reconciliation with the Oriental Orthodox, I will say that the Old Calendarists do a good job with liturgics, although this is also true of several canonical jurisdictions, for example, ROCOR.

** I recently added the HTM Pentecostarion to my collection; I have had the Lambertsen Pentecostarion published by St. John of Kronstadt Press since 2015; I was surprised by how good and beautiful the HTM version was, it being the first book I’ve seen done with Byzantine chant in mind that does not compromise readability, or usability for people not using Byzantine chant.

 

[The Liturgist]

I don’t understand the breaks in this particular reading but my guess is maybe for brevity. An example I could see this in is on Deity of the Word ( Jesus Christ) and the Incarnation of the Word from John 1. We find Deity in John 1:1-5 & the Incarnation in John 1:14-18.

I don’t understand the breaks in this particular reading but my guess is maybe for brevity. An example I could see this in is on Deity of the Word ( Jesus Christ) and the Incarnation of the Word from John 1. We find Deity in John 1:1-5 & the Incarnation in John 1:14-18.



That said, on Pascha we read John 1:1-17 inclusive, and likewise the Romans and most other liturgical Western Christians read John 1:1-14 on Christmas Day or the first Sunday of Christmastide, verses 1-14 being known in the West as “the last Gospel,” which is recited by the presbyter at the end of the liturgy, a custom which also spread to the Armenian Apostolic Church (Oriental Orthodox) when they came under Latin influence (the Armenian Rite also experienced Byzantine influence - this is why their synaxis (liturgy of the catrchumens and the small part of the liturgy of the faithful before the Anaphora of St. Athanasius, an abbreviated version of the anaphora from the ancient Hagiopolitan Divine Liturgy of St. James, basically Anaphora is the traditional Greek word for what is now usually called a Eucharistic Prayer in the non-orthodox western churches).



The Last Gospel is also used in the Antiochian Western Rite Vicarate with both Divine Liturgies in St. Andrew’s Service Book, (the Divine Liturgy of St. Tikhon based on the Anglican Holy Communion Service with heavy modifications, and the Divine Liturgy of St. Gregory, an English translation of the Roman Mass in its most common Tridentine form, slightly modified; the famed Anglican Missal used by ultra high church Anglo Catholics known as “missal Catholics” vs. “prayer book Catholics” is largely a translation into English of the Tridentine Missal. A good example of Missal Catholics who can be watched online are those at St. Magnus the Martyr in London, whose ornate liturgy usually combines some aspects of the Anglican BCP with the Tridentine Missale Romana - usually celebrated partially in Latin, the result being closer to what Vatican II actually specified for their liturgy in Sacrosanctum Concilium. It is interesting to compare videos of the liturgy at St. Magnus the Martyr with that of St. Patrick’s Orthodox Church, an Antiochian church using either St. Andrew’s Service Book or the very similiar St. Colman’s Prayer Book.



By the way, that reminds me - a controversial book about Orthodox legends is called book is called Liturgical Reform After Vatican II: The Impact on Eastern Orthodoxy, by Nicholas E. Denysenko. I disagree with virtually all of his opinions about what the Orthodox liturgy should be, in that I am opposed to liturgical reform of the Vatican II disruptive variety, but I like and have found to be accurate his descriptions of liturgical style in ROCOR, the OCA and the reforms proposed but not fully implemented by Fr. Alexander Schmemann, the liturgy of the Church of Greece, and the case study he is most excited about, New Skete Monastery, whose radical and unusual typikon works for them, but the author thinks it would work more broadly, but here he ignores the likely outcome if were if implemented outside the specific context of that monastery - a schism worse than the combined impact of the Nikonian schisms in the ROC and the Old Believer schisms.

I like reading books that articulate their arguments in an interesting manner, even if I reject their conclusions.

 

[Chesterton]

I'm Antiochian and John was not our reading last Thursday. The readings were from 2nd Corinthians and Matthew. So I guess we don't all have the same readings on the same days?

 

[rusmeister]

I'm Antiochian and John was not our reading last Thursday. The readings were from 2nd Corinthians and Matthew. So I guess we don't all have the same readings on the same days?

I do know that for much of the year, from the Apostle’s Fast to the Nativity, readings are out of whack between the New and Old Calendars.

 

[ArmyMatt]

I do know that for much of the year, from the Apostle’s Fast to the Nativity, readings are out of whack between the New and Old Calendars.

they are also different between jurisdictions on the same calendar.

 

[rusmeister]

they are also different between jurisdictions on the same calendar.

This has driven me, nuts, especially where I am now, where the Serbian calendar should have mostly the same readings as the Russian one, but sometimes they don’t. and here I am trying to prepare to understand readings in yet another foreign language, being stymied by the fact that whatever the reader is reading is not what my calendar says it should be, and then I don’t even really know what’s going on.

 

[ArmyMatt]

This has driven me, nuts, especially where I am now, where the Serbian calendar should have mostly the same readings as the Russian one, but sometimes they don’t. and here I am trying to prepare to understand readings in yet another foreign language, being sty needs by the fact that whatever the reader is reading is not what my calendar says it should be, and then I don’t even really know what’s going on.

as an Army chaplain who has had to go to whatever parish is closest to post, I sympathize.

 

[The Liturgist]

I'm Antiochian and John was not our reading last Thursday. The readings were from 2nd Corinthians and Matthew. So I guess we don't all have the same readings on the same days?

No, you’re on the Revised Julian Calendar whereas Russian Orthodox Churches (whether under the omophorion of the OCA, ROCOR, the MP or the Romanians) use the Julian Calendar, along with the Church of Serbia and of Montenegro, the Churches of Georgia, Jerusalem, Sinai, Lithuania, Latvia, Moldova, one of the two Estonian jurisdictions, and the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC-MP), the UOC-KP (but not the OCU) and also, under the EP, Mount Athos and the American Carpatho-Rusyn Orthodox Diocese.

This has driven me, nuts, especially where I am now, where the Serbian calendar should have mostly the same readings as the Russian one, but sometimes they don’t. and here I am trying to prepare to understand readings in yet another foreign language, being sty needs by the fact that whatever the reader is reading is not what my calendar says it should be, and then I don’t even really know what’s going on.

The silver lining of that cloud is the immense beauty in the differences between the different Orthodox churches in terms of their musical styles, architecture, and liturgical practices. The idea that all churches must do everything in exactly the same way has led to many liturgical tragedies and schisms, such as the loss of the ancient Gallican Rite and Beneventan Rite and the slow reduction of the Mozarabic to what is nearly a liturgical museum piece celebrated only in a special chapel of Toledo Cathedral and s nearby monastery*, the schism between the SSPX and other traditional Latin churces with the Vatican over the ugly Novus Ordo Missae, the Continuing Anglican schism in the US, and also within Eastern Orthodoxy the Nikonian Schism and the Old Calendarist Schism.

The Serbians are much more architecturally Byzantine than the North Slavic churches (the Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, Finnish and most OCA parishes, and to a large extent, the Bulgarians, except for their preference of Byzantine Chant to Znamenny Chant, use largely the same music, whereas Serbia likes Byzantine Chant and also has its own national composers who are preferred in my experience to Bortnianski, Chesnokov, et al, red Athonite vestments or the slightly cooler Ukrainian vestments, where the Phelonian is cut higher so as to cross the shoulders and upper chest, the same liturgical colors, except for the question of whether to change into red vestments at the end of Paschal Matins and wear it until returning to white for the Ascension and the Sunday of the Holy Fathers of Nicaea, or just wear white throughout the Pentecostarion (most of the MP and some Russian churches in the OCA like Holy Virgin Mary Cathedral in Los Angeles does the former, while ROCOR and the former parishes of the Russian Orthodox Exarchate in Europe, now mostly under the MP, do the latter, also the norm in Serbian Orthodox churches in the US). The Russian Old Rite is radically different from all of the above, being based on an older version of the Typikon, one closer to the Studite revision of the original Sabaite typikon, instead of most editions of the traditional Typikon, which is s Sabaite revision of the Studite revision of the Sabaite Typikon, often called the Sabaite-Studite Synthesis.

We also used to have the Cathedral Typikon used at Hagia Sophia and a few other great cathedrals such as those in Athens and Thessaloniki, but it disappeared after the Venetian occupation of Constantinople in 1204 in the worst of the “crusades”, the Fourth Crusade, where an army raised to retake Jerusalem was diverted by Venice to subjugate their Byzantine rivals, an event that weakened the Empire and doubtless contributed to the fall of Constantinople and the genocidal Ottoman oppression known as Turkocratia. The difference of course being Pope John Paul II acknowledged this was wrong, apologized to us and returned some stolen relics such as those of the Three Holy Hierarchs, while Turkey not only engages in genocide denial, but under Erdogan promotes a romanticized view of the Ottoman era and has moved to abandon Ataturk’s secularization programs, turning our stolen cathedral of Hagia Sophia back into an evil Mosque, concealing the holy icons with screens and the ancient floor with Muslim prayer rugs.

Lastly, my confessor taught me of an Orthodox saint (I can’t remember his name) who said we should never criticize someone else’s typikon - it was in the context of monasticism, and I can’t remember who said it, and I would argue it should not apply to liturgical innovations like the disastrous Violakis Typikon used by most Greek churches, which even Metropolitan Kallistos Ware criticized (in his most widely read book, The Orthodox Church, no less).

But I am nonetheless extremely sympathetic to those who have to deal with these differences, such as yourself and @ArmyMatt - it would be easier if we had a comparative Typikon that explained all the differences in worship between any two major Orthodox traditions, based on software I already wrote which can generate a simple set of instructions for visiting laity and clergy, for I have a blessing from my Father Confessor to write this, but finding data on differences between, for instance, Serbian and Russian or Greek and Cypriot worship has been .. a challenge. All I have implemented thus far are the most basic Antiochian and Russian uses in North America.

* In Toledo there were seven Mozarabic parishes that remained in the mid 19th century; all have since been Romanized. Traces of Mozarabic influence survive in the Mexican nuptial mass, and some Western Rite Orthodox have tried using the ancient rite of Al-Andalus, that is to say, Spain under Moorish occupation.