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 RITES

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RITES

added to the Liturgy of the converted Chaldees. The Monophvsite Jacobites, Copts, and Armenians have in the Trisagion the fateful clause: "who wast crucified for us", which has been the watchword of Monophvsitism ever since Peter the Dyer of Antioch added it "(470-SS). If only because of its associations this could not remain in a Catholic Liturgy.

In some instances, however, the correctors were over scrupulous. In the Gregorian Armenian Liturgy the words said by the deacon at the expulsion of the catechumens, long before the Consecration: "The body of the Lord and the blood of the Saviour are set forth (or "are before us") (Brightman, "Eastern Liturgies", 430) were in the Uniat Rite changed to: "are about to be before us". The Uniats also omit the words sung by the Gregorian choir before the Anaphora: "Christ has been manifested amongst us (has appeared in the midst of us)" (ibid., 434), and further change the cherubic hymn because of its antici- pation of the Consecration. These misplacements are really harmless when understood, yet any reviser would be shocked by such strong cases. In many other ways also the Armenian Rite shows evidence of Roman influence. It has unleavened bread, our confession and Judica psalm at the beginning of Mass, a Lavabo before the Canon, the last Gospel, etc. But so Uttle is this the effect of union with Rome that the schismatical Armenians have all these points too. They date from the time of the Crusades, when the Armenians, vehemently opposed to the Orthodox, made many advances towards Cathohcs. So also the strong romanizing of the Maronite Liturgy was entirely the work of the Maronites themselves, when, surrounded by enemies in the East, they too turned towards the great Western Church, sought her communion, and eagerly copied her practices. One can hardly expect the pope to prevent other Churches from imitating Roman cus- toms. Yet in the case of Uniats he does even this. A Byzantine Uniat priest who uses unleavened bread in his Liturgy- incurs excommunication. The only case in which an ancient Eastern rite has been wilfully romanized is that of the Uniat Malabar Christians, where it was not Roman authority but the misguided zeal of Alexius de Menezes, Arch- bishop of Goa, and his Portuguese advisers at the Synod of Diamper (1599) which spoiled the old Alalabar Rite.

The Western medieval rites are in no case (except the AmV>rosian and Mozarabic Rites), really inde- pendent of Rome. They are merely the Roman Rite with local additions and modifications, most of which are to its disadvantage. They are late, exuberant, and inferior variants, whose ornate additions and long interpolates! tropes, sequences, and farcing destroy the dignifie<i simplicity of the old liturgy. In 1570 the revisers appointed by the Council of Trent rcfitorwl with scrupulous care and, even in the light of later studies, brilliant success the pure Roman Missal, which Pius V ordered should alone be used wherever the Roman liite is followed. It was a return to an oMer and purer form. The medieval riteH have no doubt a certain archaeological interest; but where the Roman Rite is used it is best to use it in its pure form. This too only means a return to the principle that rite should follow patriarchate. The reform was made very prudently, Pius V allowing any rite that could prove an existence of two cen- turies to remain (Bull, "Quo primum", 19 July, 1570, printed first in the Missal), thus saving any local use that had a certain antiquity. Some dio- ceses (e. g. Lyons) and religious orders (Domin- icans, Carthusians, Carmelites), therefore keep their special uses, and the independent Ambrosian and Mozarabic Kites, whose loss would have been a real misfortune (see Liturgy, Mass, Liturot of the) still remain.

Rome then by no means imposed uniformity of rite. Catholics are united in faith and discipline, but in their manner of performing the sacred func- tions there is room for variety based on essential unity, as there was in the first centuries. There are cases (e. g. the Georgian Church) where union with Rome has saved the ancient use, while the schis- matics have been forced to abandon it by the cen- tralizing poUcy of their authorities (in this case Russia). The rutliless destruction of ancient rites in favour of uniformity has been the work not of Rome but of the schismatical patriarchs of Con- stantinople. Since the thirteenth century Con- stantinople in its attempt to make itself the one centre of the Orthodox Church has driven out the far more venerable and ancient Liturgies of Antioch and Alexandria and has compelled all the Orthodox to use its owTi late derived rite. The Greek Liturgy of St. Mark has ceased to exist; that of St. James has been revived for one or two days in the year at Zakynthos and Jerusalem only (see Antiochene Liturgy). The Orthodox all the world over must follow the Rite of Constantinople. In this unjustifi- able centralization we have a defiance of the old principle, since Antioch, Jerusalem, Alexandria, Cyprus, in no way belong to the Byzantine Patriarch- ate. Those who accuse the papacy of sacrificing everything for the sake of uniformity mistake the real offender, the oecumenical patriarch.

III. The Old Rites. — Catholic and Schismatical. — A complete table of the old rites with an account of their mutual relations will be found in the article Liturgy. Here it need only be added that there is a Uniat body using each of the Eastern rites. There is no ancient rite that is not represented within the Catholic Church. That rite, liturgical language, and religious body connote three totally different ideas has been explained at length in the article Greek Rites. The rite a bishop or priest follows is no test at all of his religion. Within certain broad limits a member of any Eastern sect might use any rite, for the two categories of rite and religion cross each other con- tinually. They represent quite different classifica- tions: for instance, liturgically all Armenians belong to one class, theologically a Uniat Armenian belongs to the same class as Latins, Chaldees, Maronites, etc., and has nothing to do with his Gregorian (Mono- physite) fellow-countrymen (see Eastern Churches). Among Catholics the rite forms a group; each rite is used by a branch of the Church that is thereby a special, though not separate, entity. So within the Catholic unity we speak of local Churches whose characteristic in each case is the rite they use. Rite is the only basis of this classification. Not all Ar- menian Catholics or Byzantine Uniats obey the same patriarch or local authority; yet they are "Churches " in(lividual provinces of the same great Church, because each is bound together by their own rites. In the West there is the vast Latin Church, in the Ea.st the Byzantine, Chaldean, Coptic, Syrian, Maronite, Armenian, and Malabar Uniat Churches. It is of course possible to subdivide and to speak of the national Churches (of Italy, France, Spain, etc.) under one of these main bodies (see Latin Church). In modern times rite takes the place of the old classification in patriarchates and provinces.

IV. Protestant Rites. — The Reformation in the sixteenth century produced a new and numerous series of rites, which are in no sense continuations of the old development of liturgy. They do not all represent descendants of the earliest rites, nor can they be classified in the table of genus and species that includes all the old liturgies of Christendom. The old rites are unconscious and natural develop- ments of earlier ones and go back to the original fluid rite of the first centuries (see Liturgy). The Protestant rites are deliberate compositions made