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Liturgy
The Origin and Development of the Christian Liturgy According to Cultural Epochs Political, Cultural, And Ecclesial Backgrounds, History of the Liturgy - Complete 5 Volume Set by Attila Mikloshazy (Edwin Mellen Press)
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Volume I: Chapter One - The Antecedents of Christian Liturgy
- Chapter Two - Liturgy in the Sacred Books of the New Testament
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Volume II: Chapter Three - Liturgy in the First Three
Centuries
- Chapter Four - The Diversification of Liturgy in the Fourth Century
- Chapter Five - Liturgy in the Patristic Period (300-800)
- Volume III: Chapter Six - Franco-German Influences on the
Roman Liturgy (Eighth-Eleventh Centuries)
- Chapter Seven - Liturgy in the Gothic Period (1050-1300)
- Chapter Eight - Liturgy in the Renaissance Period (Fourteenth-Fifteenth Centuries)
- Volume IV: Chapter Nine - Liturgy in the Age of Reformation
and Baroque (1500-1650)
- Chapter Ten - Liturgy in the Age of Rationalism and Enlightenment (1650-1800)
- Chapter Eleven - Liturgy in the Age of Romanticism and Restoration (Nineteenth Century)
- Volume V: Chapter Twelve - Liturgical Renewal in the Twentieth Century
The Second Vatican Council solemnly proclaimed: "Liturgy is the
summit toward which the action of the church is directed and
it is the source from where all her energy surges" (SC.10) It
follows that there is no more noble service to the Christian
community than to promote her progress toward this spiritual summit
and to assist her to let this energy keep flowing.
Attila Mikloshazy has rendered such service to the church
throughout his long career of teaching, preaching, and celebrating
the liturgy in many parts of the earth — from the rising of the sun
to its setting. The best fruit of his spiritual and intellectual
activity is invisible to us: it lives on in the minds and hearts of
his students, hearers, and partners in worship. In this book,
however, he makes a part of his learning and reflections accessible
to the public: it is an extensive documentation in five volumes of
how in the course of history Christian communities kept
incorporating the elements of human culture into their "sacrifice of
praise" offered to God. They followed the counsel of St. Paul:
"whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever
is pure, whatever is love, whatever is gracious (Phil. 4:8) ought to
be brought before God in prayer and supplication with thanksgiving
(cf. Phil. 4:6). There is the dynamics of incarnation.
His "history" not only helps us to know our past, but it
carries also a powerful message for the future. For the church to
reach the summit in her own spiritual life and to bring God's energy
to all nations, it is necessary to do both — to feed from the riches
of Christ's revelation and to reach out for what is honorable, just,
pure, lovely, and gracious in all cultures. In the Christian
community, the divine praise is the highest when in it grace and
nature blend. This will be the enduring teaching of these volumes.
This book is not the result of original research, but
rather a collection of data according to certain leading ideas for
the use of those interested in liturgy. The author wrote it first of
all for students of liturgy, seminarians and lay people, and
certainly to priests who want to know what they do and why, when
they celebrate the Christian liturgy. In other words, rather than an
original work, it is a collection, compendium and thesaurus of
liturgical data from the origin and of development of Christian
worship.
Before we begin to investigate or study the history of
liturgical expressions, we ought to know something about the
theology of the liturgy, which the author tried to summarize in his
book: "Benedicamus Domino! The theological foundation of the
liturgical renewal," (Ottawa, Novalis, 2001). Liturgy is the
mysterious cooperation of divine and human actions. Throughout
salvation-history, God reveals himself in manifold ways, symbols and
actions. From the human part, liturgy requires to be the external
expression of our inner, religious, spiritual experiences, which
ought to be based on sound theology. The expressions change with
times and cultures, though the essence must remain the same. In
order to discern what is changeable and what is not, one ought to
know the history of the rituals, texts, and symbols. These are much
influenced by the contemporary culture, since liturgy is one of the
most noblest forms of any culture. It is well known that any art
(architecture, sculpture, painting, literature, music, etc.) takes
its origin from the expression of religious experiences. Thus, any
cultural change modifies and affects liturgical expressions as well.
(Here I must admit that I received this idea to classify
the liturgy according to cultural epochs from the
book of A.L.Mayer, Die Liturgie in der europäischen
Geistesgeschichte, Darmstadt, Wissenschaftliche Buchgemeinschaft,
1971).
The culture of an age, of course, depends much on the
political situation, therefore it should be located within that
political framework. The liturgy by its nature being an activity of
the Church, the life of the Church ought to be also known in its ups
and downs. Consequently, each chapter contains four sections: the
political background, the cultural background, the life of the
Church (Church history), and finally the detailed development,
reforms and appearances of liturgical rites.
So we begin our study with the antecedents of Christian
liturgy, with a brief introduction to the general phenomenological
aspects of worship in any religion, even primitive ones, followed by
the Greco-Roman cultural milieu of early Christianity, and then the
Jewish background from which the Christian religion grew
organically, though with the determining factor of the Incarnate
Christ and his plan for the Church, which continues his saving work.
The Jewish liturgy, especially the synagogue liturgy, is treated
quite extensively, giving many texts as well, though not claiming
any critical judgment as to their dating or origin. Yet, we thought
it essential to become more familiar with the Jewish spirituality
expressed in these prayers, even if it reflects the current Jewish
usage and not necessarily the early Jewish liturgy of the time of
Christ. The texts of the prayers were taken mostly from the Jewish
Prayer Book for Weekday, Sabbath and Festival, edited by Ben Zion
Bokser (New York, Hebrew Publishing Co., 1961).
The second chapter deals with the writings of the New
Testament, which provides us with a wide range of data regarding the
elements of the Christian liturgy. Most of these elements were taken
from J.M.Nielen's book: Gebet and Gottesdienst im Neuen Testament,
(Freiburg, Herder, 1937), and some from R.Brown's book:
Priest and Bishop, (Paulist Press, 1970). The first three
centuries of Christianity under persecution manifest a wide spectrum
of liturgical styles, which developed around the large cities, where
saintly bishops exercised their apostolic function with deep
theological acumen, and produced liturgies which were the same in
essence, yet provided quite a bit of local variations.
These variations became more pronounced and organized in
the fourth century, when Eastern and Western Christianity were
somewhat divided by Constantine, and produced the "Eastern and
Western Liturgies". So the fourth chapter gives a brief overview of
the different Eastern and Western rites, which mirror the situation
of today, rather than the fourth century division, yet whose roots
go far back in history.
From this point forward the chapters deal mostly with the
development of the Western liturgy, and even more specifically of
the Roman Liturgy, though other Western liturgies and also some
Eastern liturgies are occasionally taken into consideration. We do
not however attempt to make comparisons among the different branches
of liturgy, nor make any judgement about their structures and
languages. We want simply to remark again, that unfortunately in the
West we do not know sufficiently the extremely rich treasury of the
Oriental Liturgy, which would considerably enhance our liturgical
spirituality in the West.
The Golden Age of the Roman Liturgy was the time of the
Church Fathers, who produced, commented and propagated it in the
Early Middle Ages, which still had the classical Greco-Roman
culture. Much of the Roman liturgy had its roots in this period, and
so the fifth chapter is quite extensive. (Most of the material in
this chapter I owe to M. Righetti's four volumes of Manuale di
Storia Liturgica, Milano, Ancora, 1945-66; and to C.Vogel's Medieval
Liturgy, Washington, Pastoral Press, 1986).
The following Dark Ages, or the Romanesque Age, manifest a
certain decadence liturgically, yet the monastic culture preserved
and even somewhat promoted the precious heritage of the past
centuries (sixth chapter). It is interesting to note that a
liturgically flourishing epoch is usually followed by a rather
confused and decadent age in the church, which is mostly manifested
in the decline of missionary zeal and religious life, as well as in
liturgical aberrations. Then again, the Church renews itself and a
new age comes, which shows healthy improvement and progression.
Thus, in the High Middle Ages the Gothic spirit reached a
renewed church life and the liturgy. Chapter Seven deals with these
developments and outlines the foundations of the "modern Roman
liturgy", with considerable additions.
The Renaissance period, which followed, again produced
magnificent art works but also liturgical abuses, in spite of the
healthy critiques of the Humanists (Chapter Eight).
No wonder that the Reformation period attempted to correct
these mistakes, though in a radical and often unwise way. The Church
reacted to it with its counter-Reformation and the triumphalist
Baroque style in art and liturgy (Chapter Nine).
The Baroque ebullience produced its own positive and
negative developments, and therefore the following Age of Reason and
Enlightenment attempted to curb it, once again in an unwise and
radical way. Its rationalist reforms failed, yet somehow
foreshadowed future reforms in the liturgy (Chapter Ten).
The cool and sober Neo-Classicist style suited perhaps well
the spirit of the French Revolution, but later, the reaction of the
Restoration and Romanticism brought back the forbidden emotions in
the nineteenth century, and created a flourishing life in the
church, yet not much happened in the field of liturgy, except in an
isolated and scientific way (Chapter Eleven).
Finally, the twentieth century arrived with its pluralistic
culture of confusion in literature and art, and eventually also in
liturgy. There is no longer a unified cultural trend in the Western
world. Globalization created manifold cultures in every country,
even in every city where the immigrant population brought their
sub-cultures with them, (Chapter Twelve). Now the church tries to
inculturate its liturgy to a congregation, which consists of so many
different cultures and national characteristics, that the unity of
the Christian liturgy is endangered. That is the situation today and
the task for the Church is to deal with this problem: creating
community and unity in diversity, and meanwhile distinguishing the
permanent essential elements from the changeable, historically
conditioned ones.
Of course, this problem does not touch only the Catholic
Church. Though we outlined briefly the attempt of the Reformers in
the sixteenth-seventeenth centuries, we did not follow up their
further reforms, nor did we mention their serious reforms in our
ecumenical age, which in the field of liturgy produced significant
results.
The present book consciously omitted the many footnote
references to the sources of the texts, yet it tried to give in
certain more important places the bibliographies to the pertinent
section. The extensive bibliography, divided according to cultural
epochs, gives a more complete, though not exhaustive list of past
and current publications, which can be consulted by those who want
more knowledge on a specific topic.
As we said before, this book is primarily for the use of
those, priests and laypeople, who want to know how the present
Christian liturgy has arrived at the point where it is today. At the
same time, it also gives a broader view with its political,
cultural, and church history of each epoch. The sad experience of
ignoring past history by many people today prompted the author to
provide these backgrounds before treating the real purpose of this
book: the origin and development of the Christian liturgy throughout
history.
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