Author: The Orthodox West

The Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ is the central event in the history of world, and its celebration is the preeminent feast day in the Christian year. But not all Christians today—and not even all Orthodox Christians—celebrate this most holy Feast on the same day. Whatever one’s feelings about cooperation between communions, or “ecumenism,” the fact is that the division between Christian communions on the dating of Pascha is a stumbling block to non-believers and should be felt as a scandal to us all. This division and scandal is hardly a new problem, however.

In my previous article on depicting the Trinity, which was initially intended as a stand-alone post, I reached the conclusion that Andrei Rublev’s masterful iconographic rendering of “the hospitality of Abraham” pictorial tradition was the height of Trinitarian visual depictions, in its mystical and symbolic highlighting of the divine attributes of the Triune Godhead. I argued in favor of this iconography as opposed to other various images of the Trinity which represented the Father as an old man.

In the Western liturgical life as we have it in the Antiochian Archdiocese of North America today, we have precious few Sequence hymns prescribed to be sung. A Sequence hymn is a poetic chant sung after the Gradual and Alleluia/Tract. That’s why on Pentecost and throughout its Octave (excluding the following Sunday), it’s a joy to sing the Sequence “Veni, Sancte Spiritus.” This 12th or 13th century hymn was popularly dubbed the “Golden Sequence” in the late middle ages because of its “wondrous sweetness, clarity of style, pleasant brevity combined with wealth of thought (so that every line is a sentence), and finally the constructive grace and elegance displayed in the skilful and apt juxtaposition of contrasting thoughts.” I would also add to that list the memorableness of its melody.

The Liturgy is made up of many different parts that all work together to accomplish a full and total service of prayer and praise and supplication. In the Western Eucharistic Liturgy, which we call the Mass, there are two main groupings of parts, the Ordinary and the Propers. The Ordinary of the Mass is that collection of prayers and declarations and songs that stay the same each Mass. The Propers of the Mass are those portions that are variable, which change from Mass to Mass.