Greetings from an enthusiast of traditional liturgy

Discussion in 'New Members' started by Liturgyworks, May 28, 2019.

  1. Liturgyworks

    Liturgyworks Well-Known Member Anglican

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    Christ is Risen!

    I was baptized and raised in the United Methodist Church, and had the very unpleasant experience in my youth of seeing my parish into which I was baptized thoroughly ruined, first by a female elder, something I have come to regard as unacceptable per se, who in this case was of the liberal modernist variety, and then by a series of abusive ultra-low church evangelical chaps who gutted the traditional Methodist liturgy and replaced the traditional hymns with a “praise band.” The experience of full alienation came in the early 2000s, when during the summer, a “Surfing” themed service was held with a surfboard casually placed on the altar. So I spent the next decade or so at an adjacent parish, in a very small town, that appeared to have a decent traditionalist elder and which strictly retained the traditional organ music and hymnody. And that was nice, until it became evident that the elder was a homosexual of the Arian persuasion.

    This was in 2013, when the Syrian bishops of the Syriac and Antiochian Orthodox churches had been abducted. My mother and I decided to visit the local parishes of these two churches, as we had always as a matter of private devotion believed in the real presence of our Lord in the Eucharist, and my mother had a particular interest in Russian Orthodoxy (which I later acquired). I somewhat preferred the music at the Syriac parish, and it was closer, and we were received with remarkably little fuss compared with the very long catechumenate that some converts to the Orthodox Church, perhaps to their benefit, go through.

    At the same time, a conservative Episcopalian priest who was a friend of mine was nearing retirement, so I made a point to visit his parish while he was still there; the music was an unpleasant mix of praise and worship and traditional music badly executed, with the music director being an interesting chap who once told me he considered the liturgy to be an example of “ritual magic.” Aside from that guy, and from the deaconess who inevitably supplanted my friend the vicar when he retired, I liked that parish, and I became very interested and supportive of traditional Anglicanism, particularly Continuing Anglicanism, and of the Western Rite Orthodox Vicarates in the Antiochian, ROCOR and other churches. I have come to regret that the proposed union of Russian Orthodox and Episcopalians in the US in the 1900s did not happen, and the apparent attempt by the Scottish Non Jurors to be recognized as an Orthodox church alluded to in some histories of their movement apparently failed.

    I greatly dislike the schisms between the traditional churches. Due to the ecumenical rapprochement between the three great Eastern churches (Eastern, Oriental and Assyrian), I feel very comfortable in any of the above. I also cannot find anything to disagree with in the doctrinal positions of some of the high church continuing Anglican jurisdictions, such as the Anglican Province of Christ the King. And concurrently, I don’t have any major quarrel with low church continuing Anglicans who, for example, are using the 1928 American or the 1962 Canadian Book of Common Prayer, as I really like those liturgies (my favorite Anglican liturgy is probably the 1928 Deposited Book in the UK; I also like the traditional language reworking of the Anglican Service Book). I think there is room for optimization of some of these service books to better meet the needs of their users; the 2019 BCP developed by ACNA is interesting, but I wish they had reverted to the ancient one-year lectionary, which is a common heritage of all Christian churches (a liturgical commonality as ubiquitous as the Sursum Corda). I would very happily attend any traditional Anglican church, and on my next trip to London, I specifically want to make a point to visit all of the surviving parishes in the square mile of the City of London, as well as several of the more interesting high-church parishes in the City of Westminster and in Southwark.
     
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  2. Fr. Brench

    Fr. Brench Well-Known Member Anglican

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    I am mostly a fan of the 2019 book, and that is my top disappointment with it also. Welcome, LiturgyWorks, enjoy the company!
     
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  3. Peteprint

    Peteprint Well-Known Member Anglican

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    Welcome!
     
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  4. Jeffg

    Jeffg Active Member

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    Welcome
     
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