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To: sionnsar

I can agree with everything you have said but I want to stress what you father said...they changed the theology. The maxim lex orandi, lex credendi is a maxim for a reason. For us humans, its simply true! The Liturgies and devotions of the Church are in great measure didactic, while more importantly being the source of nourishment and spiritual healing as we work out our theosis. Our Liturgies have had a certain organic developement over the centuries, even in Orthodoxy, though most of that, other than in Russia, stopped by the late 1600s. Nevertheless, when a wholesale change in the liturgy is imposed on the clergy and the laity, it is likely because whoever was in charge of those things wanted to either a)emphasize a point of theology which it was believed was being lost or, more ominously, misinterpreted or b)actually change theology, or both. Consequently, if one believes that the Litugies and devotions of the Church express its theology, one has to be particularly wary of any changes whatsoever, especially wholesale changes which almost always, some Orthodox would simply say always, means a change in theology. The very early Liturgies of The Church were changed, sometimes substantially, as conciliar dogmas were promulgated and accepted, the Nicene Constantinopolitan Creed being a good example of that. Nevertheless, even small and well intentioned changes can have massive and destructive consequences. The addition of the filioque in the Creed, well intentioned as a response to Arianism, became one of the prime reasons for the Great Schism. At any rate, it seems to me incumbent upon the laity to always be vigilant concerning even small changes in the Liturgy, even to the extent of making sure that when a Liturg is translated into the vernacular, that translation is as faithful as possible to the original language of the Liturgy.


5 posted on 04/24/2005 6:58:36 PM PDT by Kolokotronis ("Set a guard over my mouth, O Lord; keep watch over the door of my lips!" (Psalm 141:3))
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To: Kolokotronis
"Consequently, if one believes that the Litugies and devotions of the Church express its theology"

I'm worn out tonight... but... how could it be otherwise, unless the liturgies and devotions are empty rituals?

9 posted on 04/25/2005 7:19:09 PM PDT by sionnsar (†trad-anglican.faithweb.com† || Iran Azadi || Where are we going, and why are we in this handbasket?)
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