What is the Western Rite? (Feb. '01)
For the first thousand years or so, the Church was centered around and governed by five great centers: Rome (the old capital city of the Empire, now the capital of the Western provinces), Constantinople (the new capital city of the Empire), Alexandria (the capital of the African provinces), Antioch (the capital of the Eastern provinces, and Jerusalem ( the Holy City). While the same one, holy, catholic and apostolic faith – Holy Orthodoxy – was professed by them all, the liturgical tradition (or rite) of each was quite distinct. Rome and the West possessed a number of rites; Constantinople and its dioceses worshipped according to the rite which we today generically call Greek or Byzantine (e.g., the Divine Liturgies of St. Basil the Great, St. John Chrysostom, and St. Gregory Dialogist or the Presanctified Gifts); Alexandria knew the Divine Liturgy of St. Mark, while Antioch and its daughter church of Jerusalem worshipped according to the liturgy of St. James the Brother-of-God. In time the Roman and Constantinopolitan liturgical traditions completely overshadowed and extinguished the several other rites. And when Rome and the West went in schism, the liturgical tradition of the West was also lost to Holy Orthodoxy. However, in 1870 a form of the ancient Roman liturgical tradition was restored and blessed by the Church for converts to Holy Orthodoxy who desired to retain their own Roman form of worship. Thus began the Western Rite in Orthodoxy. In 1904 the Church corrected and blessed for use a second Western liturgical tradition – the Anglican (which means “from England”). And in the 1930’s the Church revived and blessed for use another ancient Western liturgical tradition – the Gallican (which means that it is “from Gaul,” present-day France). So what is the Western Rite? It is an umbrella term which covers the several authentically Western and authentically Orthodox liturgical traditions which have been blessed by the Church for use by Orthodox Christians today. In our Antiochian Archdiocese we have, since the 1950’s, a Western Rite Vicariate (sort of like a non-geographic Deanery since it covers Western Rite parishes in all seven of our Regions) in which both the Roman and English liturgical traditions are employed. Other Western Rite congregations are under the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate, the Romanian Patriarchate, and the Russian Church Abroad (ROCOR).