Demise of the ROCOR Western Rite

Discussion in 'Non-Anglican Discussion' started by SarumPilgrim, Sep 27, 2022.

  1. SarumPilgrim

    SarumPilgrim New Member

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    As a former member of the Antiochian Western Rite Vicariate, I decided to do a little checkup on the ROCOR Western Rite as I had heard some fairly nasty rumors about how it was being Byzantinized out of existence, a sort of death by a thousand liturgical cuts, if you will. Sadly, those rumors were confirmed for me yesterday by visiting their website and discovering that that have all but abandoned anything Western or remotely Anglican or Catholic. It seems Orthodox iconoclasm is alive and well and flowing steadfastly against all things Western not only in their supposedly "Western" Rites but in the Eastern Rites as well. It is disappointing, but not surprising, as the insular theology of the recent Orthodox saints and scholars has produced some erratic and now extremely erroneous praxis, i.e. Russky Mir to justify war in Ukraine, Pan-Hellenism to justify Constantinopolitan Papism, etc.

    Now it appears that the only truly Western Rite Orthodox are a few parishes within the Antiochian WR Vicariate, such as St. Michael's in Whittier CA and St. Patrick's in Bealeton VA, and the Benedictine Monastery of Our Lady and St. Laurence in Canon City CO. Of course the Old Calendarists may also have something truly western in provenance but I have yet to confirm.

    Here is the ROCOR WR website: https://www.rocor-wr.org/
     
  2. PDL

    PDL Well-Known Member Anglican

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    I have always seen the Western Rite of any Eastern Orthodox church as a contradiction. I cannot understand why a church in the Eastern Christian Tradition would want a western rite.
     
  3. bwallac2335

    bwallac2335 Well-Known Member

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    They don't see them selves as Eastern Orthodox but as simply Catholic and the true church. This to them brings back the old orthodox Western Rites into the fold
     
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  4. Matthew J Taylor

    Matthew J Taylor Member

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    They do.
    The Diocese of the British Isles uses the Sarum Use for its Western Services aimed primarily at Britons, alongside Eastern Services for Eastern diaspora in Britain.
     
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  5. PDL

    PDL Well-Known Member Anglican

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    Presumably, though, they are part of one of the Eastern Orthodox churches or are they yet another splinter group within Eastern Orthodoxy?

    I am not sure to what you refer with the phrase, 'old orthodox Western Rites into the fold'. I can guess at bits of it, e.g. by writing 'orthodox' with a lowercase 'a' you're referring to orthodoxy as correct doctrine rather than to the Orthodox Communion. However, I would prefer you to clarify what you wrote.
     
  6. bwallac2335

    bwallac2335 Well-Known Member

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    Well we refer to the Eastern Orthodox as that but that is not their name for themselves. Their official name is the Orthodox Catholic Church and that is how they see themselves. They accept and bring in "Western Orthodoxy" as they see it as bringing in and using the rites of the church pre schism. That is what I meant by the old orthodox Western Rites. The pre schism rites that were part of the church before the schism. They also allow latitude and will use a modified Latin Rite and Anglican Rite after making sure that they fit within an orthodox definition as they define it.
     
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  7. SarumPilgrim

    SarumPilgrim New Member

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    @bwallac2335 this is precisely what they believe. In the Antiochian Western Orthodoxy the Anglican Rite is called the Liturgy of St. Tikhon with its English Office (Morning and Evening Prayer from the BCP 1928 and St. Dunstan's Plainsong Psalter); while the Latin Rite is essentially the Tridentine Rite translated into Sacral English with a few forced Byzantinizations like the insertion of a descending explicit Epiclesis (taken from the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom) right before the implicit ascending Epiclesis "Suplices Te Rogamus" in the native Latin Canon. The Benedictine Office is used for those practicing the Latin Rite, utilizing primarily the Monastic Diurnal and Monastic Breviary Matins.

    @PDL the "restoration" of the Pre-Schism Western Rites to Orthodoxy is an attempt to show that the Orthodox Church is truly the Orthodox Catholic Church, and that it is the Universal Faith, in an attempt to cast aside it's tendency towards becoming an ethnophyletist ghetto. Whether this attempt succeeds or confirms that appraisal we shall have to leave to the future to decide. Although with the demise of ROCOR's Western Rite Orthodoxy, and so few healthy parochial/monastic examples within Antioch, only God knows if it will survive the next century.
     
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  8. youngfogey

    youngfogey Member

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    From a Melkite friend in Syria: the only truly multi-ritual Christian communion is the Miaphysite. Copts, Ethiopians, Armenians, and Syriacs each with its own rite, little to do with each other. An Armenian priest doesn't adopt Coptic practices to prove he's a "real Miaphysite" or "part of the Universal Church." Rome comes close to being multi-ritual but their small Eastern churches are as latinized as Western Rite Orthodoxy is byzantinized. There is nothing in theory stopping the Orthodox from having churches and services entirely Latin or Catholic Anglican - there's a famous quotation from ROCOR's St. John of Shanghai and San Francisco saying you don't have to be Eastern to be Orthodox - but they can't conceive of a church that's not Byzantine, so the converts are strongly pressured to compromise their rite. There are nearly unlatinized Eastern Catholics but they're rare.
     
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