Western Rite Orthodoxy

Modern History

19th Century

In 1864, 44-year-old Joseph Julian Overbeck, a former German Catholic priest who had left the priesthood, disillusioned with papal supremacy, became Lutheran and later married, was chrismated into the Orthodox Church. He then published, in 1866, Catholic Orthodoxy and Anglo-Catholicism which contained the groundings for his work for the next twenty years. A year later, be began publishing a periodical, Orthodox Catholic Review, aimed at putting forward Orthodoxy and rejecting Catholicism and Protestantism.

1867 saw Overbeck, with 122 signatures from the Oxford Movement, petition the Church of Russia for the establishment of a Western Rite church in full communion with the Eastern Rite. A seven-member synodal commission was then formed, and invited Overbeck to attend. The idea was approved, and Overbeck set about submitting a draft of the proposed Western liturgy. The base of Overbeck's submission was the 1570 rite which added in an epiclesis and the Trisagion hymn. This rite was submitted in 1871, and was examined and approved by the commission. Overbeck focused his efforts on the Old Catholic movement, who had rejected Papal Infallibility. He continued to engage in polemics with Catholics, Anglicans and Orthodox converts using the Byzantine rite.

In 1876, Overbeck issued an appeal to the various Holy Synods, travelling to Constantinople in 1879. There he met the Ecumenical Patriarch, who authorised him to deliver sermons and apologetics. in 1881, some success was had when the Ecumenical Patriarchate agreed that the West had a right to a Western church and rite.

However, it went no further. Overbeck's marriage after his Catholic ordination was a canonical impediment to the priesthood, the Holy Synod of Greece vetoed his scheme amongst the Orthodox Churches, the Orthodox Catholic Review ended its run, and by 1892 he admitted failure due to the Church of Greece of the time. Overbeck reposed in 1905.

20th Century

The Western Rite continued. In 1890 a Swiss Old Catholic parish in Wisconsin, pastored by Fr Joseph Rene Vilatte, was received by Bp Vladimir (Sokolovsky); however, Fr Vilatte soon led the church into Old Catholicism. In 1911 Arnold Harris Mathew, an Old Catholic bishop, entered into union with the Patriarchate of Antioch, but parted ways soon after, leaving behind a model for future Western Rite groupings to join Orthodoxy. In 1926 the six-parish Polish Catholic National Church was received into the Polish Orthodox Church, flourishing until wiped out by the Nazi's.

St. Tikhon's involvement in the Western Rite has been one more enduring. While he was head of the Russian mission in America, some Episcopalians were interested in the possibility of joining Orthodoxy while retaining Anglican liturgics. St. Tikhon, sending the 1892 Book of Common Prayer, enquired as to the viability of such an idea; in 1904, one commission established by the Holy Synod judged that this liturgical use was undesirable for Orthodox use but admitted its possibility, provided that certain changes to the rite were made (strangely, the changes required by the commission have not yet been fully incorporated by any Orthodox jurisdiction where the BCP rite is used). St. Tikhon did not receive any Episcopalians who used revised Anglican forms, but it lay the groundwork for the reception and liturgics of the Western Rite Vicariate.

There has been a significant Western Rite movement in France, which culminated in the once-flourishing ECOF (Eglise Catholique Orthodoxe de France, or Orthodox Catholic Church of France), which had been affiliated with the Moscow Patriarchate, the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia, and the Romanian Patriarchate. The largest remaining group from this movement (which later lost its Eastern Orthodox sponsorship) is the Union des Associations Cultuelles Orthodoxes de Rite Occidental (UACORO - the Union of Western Rite Orthodox Worship Associations).

United States

The Antiochian Archdiocese received the most stable and successful group of Western Rite parishes, the Society of Clerks Secular of St. Basil, in 1961. Upon reception, they became the Western Rite Vicariate, and their leader, Alexander Turner, becoming an Orthodox priest and the Vicar-General of the Vicariate until 1971. At his repose, Fr Paul W.S. Schneirla became Vicar-General.

Besides the parishes that were in the former Society, other parishes have been received into the Western Rite Vicariate of the Antiochian Archdiocese, especially because ofthe theological and practical devolution of the Episcopal Church U.S.A. Added to this, several Western Rite missions have been founded, some growing into full parish status.

The Church of Russia received a New York Old Catholic community in 1962 as Mount Royal Monastery, which later moved to Woodstock, New York, under Archbishop John (Wendland) of the Russian Exarchate of North America. Later, this community divided. Part was received by the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia, under Archbishop Nikon (Rklitzsky), while another part revived the Old Catholic title but later, in 1997, joined the Old Calendarist movement (Milan Synod). In 1993, the ROCOR monastery was renamed to Christminster and moved to Providence, Rhode Island, under Bishop Hilarion of Manhattan (now Metropolitan of the Russian Church Abroad). Its current usage is Tridentine and its present abbot is Dom James Deschene. In 2008 two Milan Synod hieromonks were received into the Russian Church Abroad, where they celebrate the Sarum rite (one occasionally, one regularly). In 2009 two Western rite congregations were formed in England, in the Russian Church Abroad, thanks to the labours of Fr. Michael (Mansbridge-Wood), a hieromonk of Australian extraction.

Australasia and Elsewhere

Western Rite Orthodoxy in Australia and New Zealand has arisen mostly from Anglican and Continuing Anglican communities. Archbishop Hilarion (Kapral) of Sydney, ROCOR, received some communities under his omophorion; while others have been received by Archbishop Gibran and Metropolitan Archbishop Paul, both of whom are under the Church of Antioch. Fr. Jack Witbrock of New Zealand is leading the way for a restoration of the old Tridentine divine office; his work is being made available on the internet free of charge.

Other small groups following the Western Rite have been received, but usually have either had little impact, or have declared independence soon after their reception.

Liturgy

North American Western Rite parishes generally follow one (or sometimes both) of two types of Western liturgical traditions. The majority celebrate an Anglican rite under the title Liturgy of St. Tikhon of Moscow, which is an adaptation of the Communion service from the 1928 Anglican Book of Common Prayer and The Anglican Missal in the American Edition. Until 1977, all Western Rite parishes celebrated only the Roman rite in its Tridentine form, called Liturgy of St. Gregory the Great.  This is a modified form of the ancient Mass known to Roman Catholics before the liturgical reforms of Vatican II in the 1960s. Many parishes within the Western Rite Vicariate continue to celebrate the Gregorian liturgy. The official divine office of the Antiochian Western Rite Vicariate is currently the Anglican form found in the Book of Common Prayer.

In the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia, the Western Rite communities follow one of three forms, the Roman rite in its Tridentine version (Christminster, Rhode Island), the Roman rite in an older version called the Sarum (St. Petroc's, Tasmania), and the Anglican liturgy found principally in the Book of Common Prayer, with adaptations (St. Petroc's and New Zealand communities).

In the Milan Synod, of the Greek Old Calendarist movement, the Western Rite communities follow either the Roman rite (in its older, Sarum version) or the Gallican rite (in an edition which however differs from the Gallican rite of the ECOF).

In the ECOF movement and its descendants, the Gallican rite is used. This is a liturgical use approved by St. John Maximovitch of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia, formerly Archbishop in France. It is based on fragments of several liturgies formerly used in Gaul in the 6th-8th centuries, with the fresh composition of an anaphora (the fragments are lacking an anaphora) and the insertion of large quantities of material from the Tridentine Roman rite and the Byzantine liturgy.

On occasion one Western Rite Orthodox community or another has used either the Mozarabic or Ambrosian Western liturgies, but these have not yet taken full root in a Western Rite congregation.

Congregations

By far the largest group of these parishes is represented by the Western Rite Vicariate of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America. Other Antiochian Western Rite parishes exist in the Antiochian Orthodox Archdiocese of Australia and New Zealand.

The Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (ROCOR) also has a small number of Western Rite parishes in addition to two monasteries, one located in Tasmania and another in Rhode Island which follows Benedictine liturgical traditions. The former, St. Petroc Monastery, uses the Sarum Rite (old Roman rite) liturgy in English. Missions and Parishes of the ROCOR Western Rite in Tasmania use either the Sarum or "The English Liturgy," a new English language order of service which combines elements from the 1549 Anglican Book of Common Prayer but incorporates certain elements of the Sarum Use and other liturgical rites.

Dom Augustin (Whitfield), who led the latter monastery of Mount Royal, now named Christminster, and for a few years in the 1990s served under Archbishop John (LoBue) of the Milan Synod, once remarked to St. John Maximovitch, Archbishop of the non-Patriarchal Russian Church, that it was difficult to promote Western Rite Orthodoxy, whereupon the saint replied: "Never, never, never let anyone tell you that, in order to be Orthodox, you must also be eastern. The West was Orthodox for a thousand years, and her venerable liturgy is far older than any of her heresies."

The Orthodox Church of France—which is currently of ambiguous status with regard to world Orthodoxy, but at one time was cared for by St. John Maximovitch and and later by the Church of Romania—still has a number of congregations in France and abroad (for example, the parish in Buenos Aires, Argentina). Some of these have now affiliated with official Orthodoxy. 

In addition, the Holy Synod of Milan, an Old Calendarist group, has a number of communities (including one monastery, in the United States, in West Milford, New Jersey, the Abbey of the Holy Name) which worship according to the old Roman rite called the Sarum liturgy. The membership of these communities is more numerous than ROCOR's presence but less numerous than that of the Antiochian jurisdiction.

It should also be noted that there are a number of groups who follow various Western rites and use the term Orthodox, but are not part of or in communion with the historic Orthodox Church. These groups are not unrelated to the future of Western Rite Orthodoxy, however. 

Criticism

The Western Rite in the Orthodox Church is not without its critics. Objections are made in regards to desire for liturgical uniformity within Orthodoxy and fears that Western Rite vicariates or similar Western Rite practices have produced a para-ecclesiastic organization within the Church. Some question the sincerity of Western Rite parishes as all or mostly-convert groups. Some Orthodox Christians are concerned that there has not been organic liturgical continuity for the Western Rite; in other words, that there was a gap in Western Rite usage by Orthodox Christians from 1054 (the date of the Schism of Rome from Orthodoxy) and modern times (the 19th century and especially the 20th). However, the latest scholarship on the part of Orthodox clergy including Fr. Hieromonk Aidan (Keller) and Archpriest John Shaw has firmly established that we know of no century in the history of Orthodoxy when there was not a Western rite in use. Thus, this objection, formerly very widespread, now appears to lack a factual basis. 

The relative successfulness and extent of the Western Rite in the Orthodox Church is a matter of some dispute and conjecture. Meantime, the Byzantine Rite bishops who oversee Western Rite parishes—and many who oversee no Western Rite parishes—continue to declare the flocks of Western Rite faithful to be Orthodox Christians and they are regarded as fully in communion with the rest of the Church. As yet, there are no schisms within the episcopacy of the Orthodox Church regarding the issue of Western Rite parishes. Part of the success of the Western Rite in the Orthodox Church is surely tied to resolution of the thorny conflict between more traditional and less traditional elements in Eastern Orthodoxy (the "Old Calendarist" controversy), which has resulted in a division between the Milan Synod faithful and those of the Antiochian jurisdiction. The division between the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia and other jurisdictions in the Orthodox communion, such as the Moscow Patriarchate and the Oecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, formerly more pronounced, appears for the last several years, now, to be nearing a peaceful solution.

Liturgical Publications

This article was adapted from a composite article at OrthodoxWiki and from other sources.