The filioque is less of an issue than most people think, because there is a way of interpreting it that is compatible with Orthodox theology. Also one myth is that the Filioque caused the Great Schism; it did not. Rather, a belligerent eleventh century Papacy demanding submission from the Eastern churches, and desiring control of the missions which were converting the remaining European Pagans (the Romans bitterly resented the Byzantine missions, such as that of St. Cyril and Methodius to the Slavs), wound up sending a hot-tempered cardinal to Constantinople who threw a writ of excommunication on the altar of the Hagia Sophia while the priests were preparing to serve the divine liturgy. Deacons were sent to try and get him to come back, but he left with great swiftness. Then further division resulted from the crusades and the adverse impact they had on Eastern Christians, especially the Fourth Crusade, so by the time of the Council of Florence, the Greeks preferred Turkocratia to submission to Rome, hence the success of St. Mark of Ephesus in scuppering the council. This is something Protestants and Orthodox share in common, and that is, both churches suffered to an extreme extent from excesses of the Roman church during the late medieval and renaissance periods.
Sorry for the phone post. It should read: That is not going to happen while the west persists with the filioque!
Whilst I believe the East (in part at least) would be comfortable with some expressions of a theology of double procession they would certainly not be happy with any expression of it. The phrase monarchical integrity of the Father is clearly heard, and it is important to see that this references the earlier part of the Nicene Creed where the Father is referred to has the maker of all seen and unseen. The point being that as monotheists it is essential that we sense a single point of origin. For the East Proceeds from the Father (always) and the Son (sometimes) is probably getting close. Papal Authority is inherently bound up in this because the Pope acted alone in allowing this change in the Creed of the Council of Constantinople, and in the face of the anathemas of Ephesus which were both affirmed at the Council of Chalcedon. The East argued that it was only with a Council that such a change could happen, and the Popes argued that as the inheritors of the See of Peter they had the power. Any effort to resolve the understanding of the nature of the authority will as a result be inevitably have to deal with this as well. There is no doubt that the bald reading of the filioque inserted in the Nicene Creed is incompatible with Eastern Theology. The Mystagogy of Photeus should leave now western reader in any doubt about this.
Oh, I have no objection to a guitar accompanying the organ or piano, or played in an occasional solo. As long as all of that is somewhere behind my line of sight, so it's not distracting.
The LCMS came out with a supplemental resource a while back that made guitar notations for the Lutheran Service Book. It was something of a recognition of the fact that there are a lot more guitar players than there are piano players these days. I became aware of it when I did a parish profile for a parish and their minister used it for a mid-week service he held when their organist was not available. It is possible to hold a dignified traditional service using this book. However, it seems to be a rare thing. Most churches that bring in guitars immediately dispatch with their hymnals in favor of the Christian Radio Top 40. I also used to worship at a church that would use a violin and flute along with the organ for a few of the major feasts throughout the year. It was very elegant. We have a couple of youth who've been in the school marching band at my parish. I mentioned getting some music for them to play leading up to Easter. The Organist was okay with this in the case of the clarinet player but when I suggested we also equip the percussionist with a set of cymbals I had pushed a bridge too far. She is apparently unaware that cymbals are the primary accompaniment to Coptic worship and probably is somewhat foggy on the details of Psalm 150.
Reading that makes me more sympathetic to the very powerful A capella-only lobby in my church; I support organs in Armenian and Greek churches where they have an established history of use, and cymbals in the Coptic church, but, when I read about that, and mentally contrast that to the exquisite music of the Georgian and Slavonic churches which historically have had none of the above, I understand the appeal of the a capella approach. Alas in the West its usually only been done very incompetently, for example, the dreadful Presbyterian practice of “lining out” and the mediocre a capella exclusive psalmody, which ignores nearly a third of the music in the Bible based on a bizarre reading of “psalms, hymns and spiritual songs” to mean “psalms, psalms and more psalms.” But in general, Protestant churches need more Palestrina and Howells and less pretentious howling; the former can be part of worship, but rocking to a praise band is decidedly not worship in any real sense. At least the guitar being used according to the refined precepts of the LSB has some reverence and does not descend into the latter. I would argue Anglican bishops have a duty to wield their crosier and not allow parishes to degenerate into the kind of aliturgical nightmare characteristic of the other LSB parishes you mention. Within Anglicanism, the aliturgical worship style one might associate with, say, Holy Trinity Brampton, is a tragedy that never should have happened.
The roots of the word liturgy are laos and ergon, meaning the people's work. The idea of a group of people gathered together for worship being aliturgical is of course a tautology. Nonetheless I take you point, and I get your meaning. Sadly I suspect those engaging in such practices would not know what a crozier was, even if they were caught in its crook!
“Alas in the West its usually only been done very incompetently, for example, the dreadful Presbyterian practice of “lining out” and the mediocre a capella exclusive psalmody, which ignores nearly a third of the music in the Bible based on a bizarre reading of “psalms, hymns and spiritual songs” to mean “psalms, psalms and more psalms.” Can you explain this further? What do you mean by lining out? Also, what is the music being left out?
He's referring to a very old hymnal practice among some Western Christians which he bizarrely dislikes.
Sed contra, some of the old lining out is some of the most beautiful corporate singing that western Christianity has.
And yeah we all must return to the 1662 Book of Common Prayer.[/QUOTE] I’m definitely in favour of this.
You could actually be right. I believe I was misinformed on some of this music and I want to apologize for being disagreeable. My new attitude is that all traditional forms of church music are good, and this includes lining out and a capella Psalmody for Presbyterisns (I obtained a book of a capella Psalmody, a Psalter from the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America, and the settings were beautiful). Mea culpa. However to my frustration I can’t find any good recordings of lining out or the old Anglican Sternhold and Hopkins Psalter. I have looked. If you could help me find some I would be greatly obliged.
I’m definitely in favour of this.[/QUOTE] I can’t entirely agree; I believe the 1549 and 1552 BCP should be the core of Anglican worship, with the 1662 representing the standard book. However, the Scottish Episcopalians and later the American Church have for 300 years used a variant form of Holy Communion, and the additions of Prime and Compline in 1928 Deposited Book, also the alternate Compline present in the American Occasional Offices, are really very good. The definite editions of the BCP in my opinion are the 1549, 1552, Elizabethan, Jacobean, 1662 (Restoration), the Scottish Wee Bookies and their descendant, the 1929 Scottish BCP, the 1927-28 Deposited Book, the 1892 and especially the 1928 American Book, and the 1938 Melanesian Book. All of these are very good. The 1962 Canadian BCP I had been a fan of; I still like its Compline and Holy Communion, but I was annoyed to discover it had removed the so-called imprecatory psalms, which is of course due to an erroneous Antiochene-literalist interpretation that even my beloved John Wesley made. These, and the corrected version of the 1979 American BCP, the Anglican Service Book, and the new 2019 ACNA BCP, represent, to me, the ideal of the Book of Common Prayer. But I agree entirely that the 1662 is the gold standard, and anything which contradicts the 1662 book rather than merely supplementing it (for example, every BCP since the 1938 Melanesian book in at least some respects) is to be regarded as in error in that respect, errors ranging from minor in the case of the 1962 Canadian book to massive in the case of Common Worship or the dreadful New Zealand BCP, books which should be prohibited.
By the way I feel obliged to stress again I was completely wrong about traditional music like Lining Out. That was a huge mistake on my part, and I do hope you will forgive me and help me find a good quality recording of that music or a service where it is being used. I was just really utterly wrong on that point.
Lining out is a tradition from Presbyterian music which I stupidly dismissed. I have made this mistake before, with Prostopinije (Carpatho-Rusyn-Ruthenian congregational singing from Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholic churches in Central Europe, for example, amomg the Rusyns, Slovaks, some Poles, the Lemkos (such as Andy Warhol). I also made this mistake with Indian Syriac chant, because the melodies are the same as Levantine Syriac chant, but the Indians sing in a different style; I was distracted by cheap electronic synthesizer-organs which I remain opposed to (Yamaha keyboards), but those frequently ruin Syriac Orthodox and Church of the East music in the Middle East and the diaspora as well, so that was also me being stupid. I also erred regarding Maronite music, again because I was distracted by contemporary praise and worship instruments and could not find a good recording. Finally, I made a similar mistake with Ethiopian Orthodox music; I thought it consisted entirely of the dissonant, drum-accompanied chant of the debteras, but this is not the case; during the Divine Liturgy the Ethiopians use a pleasing melismatic chant which is a capella. What I have through repentance (metanoia in Greek, which literally means “to change ones mind) is that I love all traditional church music, period. It has become clear to me the disaster was praise and worship music in the 20th century. ~ That said I do have a minor problem with a capella exclusive psalmody, and that is while I love it as a musical style, I do not believe it is doctrinally required; I believe the Evangelical Canticles in Luke and the numerous other hymns in the Bible are worthy of being sung, and that St. Paul expressly grants us permission to compose new hymns, and Psalm 150 expressly grants permission for musical instruments. But on an aesthetic level, I love early Presbyterian music. I think like in most respects traditional Anglicanism gets it right with regards to liturgical music, by using a diverse array of Biblical canticles, chanting the entire Psalter each month, using some of the most ancient hymns in Christendom like Te Deum Laudamus, using the Organ, using new hymns by the likes of Charles Wesley and Arthur Sullivan, and continuing to foster talented composers (at least until recently; Francis Jackson is the most recent Anglican composer I am familiar with who I greatly like; I also particularly love among recent composers Herbert Howells, George Dyson, and Healey Willan). The main problem with some recent composers is influence from pop culture and liberal theology. Also, the earliest Anglican music is incredibly good, by Byrd, Tallis, Gibbons and others. William Byrd was secretly a Roman Catholic, but his Anglican music is no less excellent than his Roman Catholic music, and the same is true for Tallis. Anglicanism has also dome a brilliant job importing music from sister churches: adaptations of Gregorian chant into plainsong, the use of hymns by Martin Luther and compositions by Lutheran composers like Johann Sebastian Bach and Dietrich Buxtehude, and more recently, splendid English translations of the Russian Orthodox liturgical music of Rachmaninoff (which sadly Russian bishops tend to neglect), there being an excellent recording of this by the brilliant choir of All Saints Margaret Street in London, which is one of my four favorite choirs in London.* Another of those four choirs, that of St. Sepulchre without Newgate, the National Musician’s Church, released a brilliant album which breaks the trend away from good recent Anglican compositions; everything on it is exquisite and composed within the past three decades or so. This album, the Rachmaninoff album, and several others from All Saints Margaret Street are available in iTunes/Apple Music. Sadly the organ at St. Sepulchre is unserviceable and requires repairs, which makes me very unhappy as that parish is supposed to be the home parish for musicians in England. *My other two favorite choirs in London are those of St. Paul’s Cathedral, and the boys and clerks at the Collegiate Church of St. Peter (Westminster Abbey); the latter is one of my three favorite Anglican choirs in the world, the other two being the choirs at York Minster and Gloucester Cathedral; Canterbury Cathedral also has brilliant singers but I find the repetoire on their recordings and at their services disappointing. I have no doubt there are some parish choirs I am overlooking, and also I intentionally omitted the very excellent choirs at schools like Eton and at Oxford and Cambridge, such as King’s College, in part because there are so many, they are all so good, but I don’t know how open these are to public worship, or how they function in the Anglican hierarchy; even the cathedral of Christ Church seems so closely integrated into Oxford, I need to learn more. If anyone knows of any good choirs I have passed over, please let me know.