Page:Service Book of the Holy Orthodox-Catholic (Greco-Russian) Church 1916.djvu/4

 PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION OF THE

SERVICE BOOK

communications with Moscow been less complicated, His Holiness, Patriarch Tikhon would have received a complete set of the new proofs for his inspection. On January 1st (the 14th N.S.), 1917, I discussed with him, in Petrograd — he being then Archbishop of Vilna and Lithuania — the possibility of a much needed new edition, my own efforts to secure such an edition and a list of corrections which I had already prepared. The first edition was prepared and published under his supervision, while he was at the head of The American Mission, as Archbishop of the Aleutian Islands and North America.

From beginning to end the preparation of this second edition of The Service Book has been unreservedly and exclusively entrusted to me by the Young Men's Christian Association. I have made no changes whatsoever, beyond the correction of accidental errors and omissions — none of them important — natural in the first edition of an exceedingly difficult work; with one exception:

The word "Ruler" has been substituted for any more specific title in the prayers, litanies and hymns. This renders it easy for any one of the score of autonomous churches belonging to the Eastern Orthodox Confession to supply the appropriate Official title for the head of the State, wherever occasion may be found to use this version at their wonderful services.

The Services, as herein set forth, are regularly and officially used, with unimportant local differences, in all the branches of the Orthodox Catholic Church. They are, also, used in one branch of the Roman Catholic Church, known historically as the "Uniat," or "Greek-Catholic" (Roman Catholic of the Greek Rite). The most considerable section of this Uniat Church is that which, at the close of the XVI. century, in South-West (Little) Russia, broke away from its Mother Church, the Russian, and became "Uniat" by recognizing the headship of Rome. It has retained the Old Church Slavonic language and all the Service Books of the Russian Church ; but the divergent dogmas and most of the customs of the Roman Church have gradually been substituted for those of the Mother Church. Since the World War this branch of the Roman Catholic Church has adopted the title of "The Ukrainian Church."

(Signed)

January 14, 1922