Reply To: Week 2 Discussion Topic: Do You Think We Need a New Typikon?
If presented with the question “do you think the church should adopt a new Typikon” I would immediately say “no”. After thinking about this more I realized that it depends on what we mean by “new”. If new is being used in the sense of a modernized Typikon, meaning a standardization of the unfortunate “straying” from Tradition that we sadly see in America, then I still hold to my answer as “no”. There is another way to take that, this is to say “new” in the sense that Violakis Typikon was “new” in that it fixed or restored developed practices that had been excepted but were not in accord with tradition and where inconsistent. In America there has been a lot of great work done in the area of the Typikon to make the practices of the Orthodox church accessible to English speaking chanters and churches, but there is still work to be done. This effort could be aided in a “new” Typikon meaning that the work of this Typikon takes a different aim at the same goal. This goal being foremost of priority the preserving of our rich and ancient apostolic Tradition. When we are chanting at our church and having to make the sad decision of what parts of the services we have to cut in order to still chant the services in our current situation it would be helpful to have a standardization of practices in this regard, but always with the goal of building up to the full service in its entirety as prescribed by TAS or Violakis.
It is an unfortunate era in the church as a whole in which “timed” services have lost a unique part of the beauty of our Liturgy: The heavenly existence outside of time which God allows us to glimpse in his Holy Liturgy.
This being said we still live in America were people are very concerned about the clock and many parishes are not heavily staffed with chanters and clergy, thus making it challenging to do everything as prescribed in TAS or Violakis. Knowing the “ranking” of the parts of the services such as which hymns are older or which are more traditional would aid in preserving, to the best of our ability, the Orthodox Tradition by not allowing more recent hymns or practices take precedence over Tradition.
Thus the publishing of a Typikon where this is laid out would be helpful. Accepting that chanters are aware of the Orthodox tradition and strive to make TAS or Violakis in its entirety their end goal.