A Discussion of Orthodoxy in Today's World

After posting the previous article, I read a recent account of the continued development in the Russian Orthodox Church regarding the pactice of praying the “priest’s prayers”  in an audible manner. It concurs that this pratice is becoming more and more noticeable, and the positive results of this practice are being felt in pastoral care and teaching. The followng is a selection from a report issued on the  First Annniversary of the Enthronement of Patriarch Kirill of Moscow.

When Patriarch Kirill celebrates Divine Liturgy, sound amplifiers make every word he utters audible in every corner of the church – including the Eucharistic prayers that priests usually speak quietly at the altar during the main part of the service.For a long time, Eucharistic prayers said aloud have been a mark of liberalism in the Russian Orthodox Church. In Russia, few priests had the bishops’ authorization to do so, and conservatives regarded the practice as inadmissible. But Patriarch Kirill resorted to high technologies to resolve the controversy – no one can accuse him of articulating those prayers loudly. At the same time, everyone can hear them. Thus the service becomes more intelligible and parishioners feel more closely involved in it.

 Apparently, the late Russian Patriarch Alexy II did something similar: Up to Patriarch Alexey’s time, it was common almost everywhere to partake of the Holy Mysteries of Christ very rarely, and people were not given communion on Nativity, Theophany, and Pascha at all. Patriarch Alexey, from the first day of his patriarchal ministry to the last, whenever he had the strength, himself communed everyone who strived to come to him to the very last person. He blessed people to commune often as well as on the feasts, and during the celebration of the divine liturgy he recited all prayers aloud. At some point, probably from over tiredness, he started to have problems with his voice and microphones began to be used. Due to that, probably not without God’s Providence, everyone who was standing in the church could hear the patriarch reading the priestly prayers in the altar and he was reading them in an absolutely marvelous way: with unusual simplicity, magnificence, and with some sort of inexpressibly beautiful intonation. Thus, the patriarchal liturgy became accessible, in much more fullness, to all the worshippers.