September 26, 2012

More Abundant and Varied: Looking at the Links between two Twentieth Century Lectionaries

by Dr. Fred Graham, PhD.  (Associate Professor Emeritus - Faculty of Theology - Emmanuel College of Victoria University)

The dates 1963 and 1978 point to significant turning points in congregational life for Roman Catholic as well as for Protestant and Reformed Churches. In 1963, the Second Vatican Council convened and a year later announced the preparation of a new lectionary containing “more abundant, varied, and appropriate reading of the sacred scriptures.” Reformed and Protestant bodies soon picked up the idea, and in 1978 convened an ecumenical and international consultation in Washington to emulate the success of the Ordo Lectionum Missae adopted by Roman Catholics. The result was the Common Lectionary (1983) and the Revised Common Lectionary (1992). Dr. Fred Graham was a member of the editorial committee (1988-92) for the RCL, and is a past chair of the Consultation on Common Texts who published it. His new account of why it looks the way it does is now available from Fortress Press. He will comment on this new history and the related commentary.

November 7, 2012

An Examination of Luther's Taufbüchlein and Deutsche Messe: Liturgical Reform in Moderation

by Rev. C. Pierson Shaw, Jr., BS, MDiv, STM, STL PhD Student  (Faculty of Theology - St. Michael’s College)

Some of the most enduring elements of the liturgical reform are preserved both in Martin Luther’s Baptismal rite, published in 1523 with a revision published in 1526, and the German translation of the Mass or the Deutsche Messe of 1526. While these liturgies have themselves undergone significant reform over the past five centuries, much of the liturgical and theological thinking which inspired their development by the Augustinian Wittenberg Reformer have profoundly impacted baptismal and Eucharistic Liturgies and practice across the Traditions of the Western Church. While Luther redacted these liturgies from 16th medieval forms, none the less, the revisions show a pattern of “reform in moderation”, more common to the Wittenberg theologians. In other words, while these liturgies reveal a solidly evangelical character, they remain at the same time strongly catholic.

November 28, 2012

Surprises in a Ukrainian Euchology: Wedding Rites in a 16th-century Trebnyk from the Stefanyk Library in Lviv

by Prof. Rev. Peter Galadza, PhD.  ( Faculty of Theology, Saint Paul University - Ottawa)

Prof. Galadza will analyze the wedding rite found in a 16th-century Western Ukrainian euchology. Especially from the perspective of present-day usage, the rite is significantly different, with several fascinating features. The euchology (trebnyk) under consideration is the first in a series of manuscripts that have been transcribed for the Slavonic-English Analytical Catalogue of Liturgical Manuscripts in Ukrainian Repositories (SEACLMUR) compiled by Prof. Galadza, and supported by a major SSHRC grant.

Prof. Peter Galadza is Kule Family Professor of Liturgy at the Sheptytsky Institute of Eastern Christian Studies, Saint Paul University, Ottawa.

March 14, 2012

A New “Soft Spot”: The Structure and Placement of Baptismal and Marriage Rites In Post-Vatican-II Eucharistic Liturgy

by Prof. Christian McConnell, PhD.  (Faculty of Theology - St. Michael’s College)

The rites of baptism and marriage are often celebrated within the context of Eucharistic liturgies. Since Vatican II, a frequent feature of Roman Catholic structures for these rites has been the compression of multiple moments into a single moment, and the placement of the whole rite after the homily. This presentation will critically examine the structure of these rites in Sunday Eucharist, occasional celebrations, and the Easter Vigil, in comparison with historical precedents, and assess the ritual effectiveness of different structures.

February 29, 2012

The Ladder of a Soul's Ascent: the Structure and Use of Liturgical Music in the Coptic Orthodox Church

by Bishoy Dawood, Hon. B.A., MTS, PhD student in the Faculty of Theology (St. Michael’s College)

In the three surviving liturgies of the Coptic Orthodox Church, namely the Anaphoras of St. Basil, St. Gregory, and St. Cyril, the entire liturgical service is chanted, and the majority of hymns for each part of those liturgies have been handed down from cantor to disciple as an oral tradition for centuries. While the Coptic Church did pray other Anaphora’s in the past, the hymns for those Anaphora’s did not survive, and it is only because the hymns did not survive that those liturgies are no longer prayed in the Coptic Church, even if the texts of those liturgies exist. This demonstrates the fact that in the Coptic Church, liturgical music is essential for liturgical prayer -- and even the survival of the liturgies themselves.

In this presentation, Dawood will present some pieces of the liturgical hymns of the Anaphora of St. Basil, and using those pieces as examples, he will argue that the music of the Anaphora is designed in such a way as to resemble the act of raising a sacrificial offering of praise. The hymnology, he will argue, takes the souls of the persons praying the liturgy up a ladder, allowing the priests, deacons, and congregation to ascend higher in musical scales until they all together work their way to heights of praise before partaking of communion.

The hymns used in this presentation will be from the CD production of: “The Rite and Hymns of the Divine Liturgy of Saint Basil” by the Heritage of the Coptic Orthodox Church choir, available in the link below: 

http://www.copticheritage.org/productions/the_rite_and_hymns_of_the_liturgy_of_saint_basil