Old Slavic rite
The Old Slavic rite (also: Glagolitic rite and Roman-Slavic liturgy ) is a form of the Roman rite that has been practiced in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina since the 9th century , but has recently only survived in parts of Dalmatia and Istria . While otherwise in the Roman Catholic Church until the liturgical reform of the Second Vatican Council, Latin was used almost everywhere in the liturgy, in many churches in Dalmatia the divine service ( Mass , other sacraments and the Liturgy of the Hours ) was celebrated in Slavic translation for centuries .
history
The Slav apostles Cyril and Method were the first to write the Slavic language. For this, Cyrill developed the so-called Glagolitic alphabet. Some of the oldest Slavic manuscripts, without exception biblical and liturgical texts of Western and Eastern origins, were written in this script. While the Latin script later prevailed among the Moravians and the Cyrillic script came into use in Bulgaria, Serbia and the Kievan Rus , the Glagolitic script was retained among the Dalmatian Croats and was used in particular for liturgical books that were written in Old Church Slavonic .
Like the Slavs in Bohemia and Moravia , the Slavs on the Adriatic coast soon came under the influence of the Latin Church and they also used the Roman rite in worship. Similar to the Greeks in southern Italy , they received the papal privilege to celebrate Mass in their own language. While the Greeks followed the Byzantine rite , the Old Slavic rite of the Dalmatian Slavs was a translation of the Latin liturgical texts used in most western dioceses.
The native speaking rite of the Method displeased some of the Roman clergy. That is why Pope John VIII called him to Rome in a letter dated June 14, 879. There Method justified himself and the Pope allowed the rite and informed the Great Moravian Prince Sventopluk of this in a letter in 880 . In later times the popes behaved inconsistently on this issue and some tried to restrict or even abolish the Old Slavic rite in Dalmatia. Around the year 920, John X banned the Slavic liturgy in letters to the Archbishop of Spalato and to Duke Tomislav . In 1059, Mainard came to Dalmatia and Croatia as papal legate and a council under his chairmanship renewed the ban on the Slavic rite, which was also confirmed by Popes Nicholas II and Alexander II . His successor Pope Gregory VII refused to use the Slavic language in a letter from 1080 to Vratislav II of Bohemia.
Until the 11th century alone, the Old Slavic liturgy always enjoyed the promotion and protection of the Croatian kings . And when finally, from 1102, there was no longer a Slavic dynasty in Croatia, the tradition of the Old Slavic liturgy was already so firmly rooted in Dalmatia that an abolition was no longer possible. In 1248 Pope Innocent IV allowed the southern Slavs to practice the ritus slavo-latinus . The Slavic texts for the divine service ( missals ), the dispensing of the sacraments and sacramentals (rituals) and the prayer of the hours ( breviary ) were handed down in Glagolitic manuscripts throughout the Middle Ages. The main centers of tradition were monasteries on the Dalmatian islands. In the meantime, however, the Croatian vernacular had developed further and moved very far from the language of the Old Slavonic rite. Therefore, the measurement texts were also written down in an adapted form in the vernacular. Since the 15th century, Slavic missal books and breviaries were also printed in Glagolitic script, and in 1640 a vernacular Roman ritual for use in Glagolitic and Latin worship was made in Latin script .
During the Counter-Reformation , the papal church in Rome became more interested in the Old Slavic rite. Pope Urban VIII approved in an Apostolic Constitution of April 29, 1631, the corrected new edition of the Roman-Slavic Missal ( Missale Romanum Slavonico idiomate ) as equivalent to the Latin Missal Romanum . His successor Innocent X. also officially recognized the Slavic Breviary in 1648, the revised new edition of which was published in 1688 under Innocent XI. took place.
When Latin was introduced as the sole language of instruction in the seminaries of Dalmatia in 1828, this had an adverse effect on the preservation of the Old Slavic rite. The young priests now passed over to the Latin rite in many churches, which they were familiar with from their training. In spite of this, the Old Slavic rite survived in some places and in 1893 and 1894, the Propaganda Congregation in Rome published a new Roman Missal, Slavonico idiomate and a new ritual (Obrednik) . Some patriotically minded Croatian bishops, such as Josip Juraj Strossmayer and Antun Mahnić , were particularly committed to the preservation and dissemination of the Old Slavic liturgy. Mahnić z. B. founded the Old Slavic Academy in 1902, based on Krk . However , the Holy See rejected Strossmayer's request to introduce the Slavic rite throughout Croatia and Bosnia . At the request of the Montenegrin Prince Nikola , Pope Leo XIII. the Archdiocese of Bar in 1886 the right to use the Old Slavonic language in the liturgy, which was hardly used there in practice, on the one hand because the priests were not familiar with the Glagolitic script, on the other hand because many Catholics in Montenegro were Albanians.
Around 1900 the Old Slavic rite was still practiced in the Croatian dioceses of Senj , Veglia , Zadar and Split . There were also some Franciscan monastery churches. The priests were forbidden to switch between languages during the service; the liturgy had to be celebrated either entirely in Slavonic or entirely in Latin.
With the introduction of the vernacular in the Roman Catholic liturgy as a result of the liturgical reform of the Second Vatican Council , the Old Slavonic rite lost its meaning; Today it is only used exceptionally in the liturgy.
literature
swell
- Misal po zakonu rimskoga dvora. 1483 (first print in Glagolitic letters, reprint: Zagreb 1971) .
- Roman Missal. Slavonico idiomate. Ex Decreto Sacrosancti Concilii Tridentini Restitutum, Pii V. Pontificis Maximis Jussu Editum, Clementis VIII, Urbani VIII et Leonis XIII Auctoritate Recognitum. Romae 1893.
- Rimski Misal slověnskim jezikom ... - Missale Romanum slavonico idiomate ex decreto Sancrosancti Concilii Tridentini restitutum S. Pii V Pontificis Maximi iusu editum a Pio X reformatum et SSmi DN Pii XI auctoritate vulgatum . Rimĕ - Romae: Typis polyglottis Vaticanis 1927, XLIV, 664, [167] p.
- Roman Missal. Ex Decreto SS. Concilii Tridentini restitutum Summorum Pontificum Cura Recognitum. Ratisbonae 1958. (Last edition of the Old Slavonic Missal before the liturgical reform) .
- Rimskyj Misal slověnskym jazykem - Missal Romanum veteroslavica . Olomucii 1972.
Representations
- D. Kniewald: Old Slavonic and Croatian language in worship. In: Liturgischer Jahrbuch 13 (1963) 33–42.
- František V. Mareš: The new Croatian-New Church Slavonic Missal. In: Slovo 32-33 (1982-1983) 123-130.
- Francis J. Thomson: The Legacy of SS. Cyril and Methodius in the Counter-Reformation. The Council of Trent and the Question of Scripture and Liturgy in the Vernacular, together with an Account of the Subsequent Consequences for the Slavo-Latin (Glagolitic) Rite and the Bible in Croatian Translation. In: E. Konstantinou (ed.): Methodios and Kyrillos in their European dimension (Philhellenic Studies 10). Lang, Frankfurt a. M. 2005, 85-246. ISBN 3-631-53477-9 ( Internet edition ; PDF; 807 kB)
- Mario Grčević: The Croatian vernacular Roman Missal of the 16th century. Philological and linguistic investigation. Diss. Mannheim 2005 (PDF file; 3.57 MB)
- Bernardo Benussi: La liturgia slava nell'Istria. In: Atti e memorie della societa istriana di archeologia e storia patria. Parenzo 1893.
- Alojz Ivanišević: Josip Juraj Strossmayer's efforts to promote the Slavic liturgy from the perspective of the Austro-Hungarian central authorities and the Vatican. In: Croatia (= Österreichische Osthefte 37 / 1995,2). Pp. 423-445.
- Matthias Murko: The Slavic liturgy on the Adriatic. In: Österreichische Rundschau 2 (1884), pp. 163–178.
- Josef Vajs : Memoria liturgiae slavicae in Dioecesi Auxerensi. Ex archivo Dioecesano Auxerensi excerpsit. Veglae 1906.