Unserious Criticisms of the "Tridentine" Mass, Part 2: Keller's Flawed "Scholarship"

"There are several genuine liturgical experts on this group besides myself." - Derek "Fr. Aidan" Keller, in a humble moment.

Although Keller presents himself -- and is regarded by his followers -- as a "liturgical expert" and "scholar," his words regularly do not measure up against objective reality. His theories, particularly about what is wrong with the "Tridentine" Mass (really, the Liturgy of St. Gregory, celebrated in both Antioch and ROCOR), conflict with genuine liturgical scholarship by acknowledged experts.

Keller has stated in such online writings as "The Derogations of Trent" (and this article) he considers the Liturgy of St. Gregory to be a "severe abridgement" and "deformation" of the real ancient Gregorian Liturgy, which alone has "lovingly preserved" (and will gladly sell you for a modest price). Some of his (many/virulent) specific criticisms, quoted below, are that the Liturgy of St. Gregory: has removed/replaced the priest's apologiae prayers; does not repeat the Introit three times; deleted farced Kyries; has eliminated most Sequences; does not add verses to the Offertory verse; has reduced the number of proper prefaces; and has expunged such "exuberant" and "glorious" features as the troped Agnus Deis, Communion verses, and Introits. These, he tells anyone who will listen, were part of the "parent" liturgy of Rome and all Europe, the "old Roman Rite" or "ancient Roman Mass" which Trent somehow gutted.

Keller's specific quotations are below. For comparison, I'll be citing three books: The Mass: A Study of the Roman Liturgy by Fr. Adrian Fortescue (Fitzwilliam, NH: Loreto Publications, reprint, 1999; originally printed 1912); The Mass of the Roman Rite: Its Origins and Development by Fr. Joseph A. Jungmann, S.J. (NY: Benzinger Bros, 1950, two vols.); and The History of the Mass by Francois Amiot (NY: Guild Press, Publ., 1958). The first two are universally recognized scholars on the liturgy. The last, though less academic, is regarded as a reliable popular history.

Apologiae

Apologiae are (usually long) prayers of self-accusation in which the priest privately asks for forgiveness, while the congregation is doing other things. They occur in several places in the OSRM.

Keller: Keller has written the apologiae are part of the ancient Roman rite but were replaced by the deformed/Tridentine/modernist/Antiochian/ROCOR Mass:

I cannot answer any of these questions satisfactorily unless I explain what the apologiae prayers are, and how they fit into the older recensions of the Gregorian rite. I will do that, oddly enough, by pointing out the practice which--within the Mass--replaced them. Later Roman rite practice, prevailing after the 12th c. and found in the later Sarum books, is that the priest prays softly whatever the choir is singing. While the choir is singing the Officium [Introit-BJ], the priest says it softly. While they sing the Graduale, Alleluya [sic.], and Sequence, the priest says those texts softly, etc. This may seem redundant; why wouldn't the priest just sing along with the choir if he knows the melody, or just let the choir handle what is their job? The answer is that after 1170 or so the choir texts came to be the standard apologiae of the priest.

Scholars: "From the Xth century the perfect Missale plenarium begins; from the XIIIth it rapidly becomes the only book used...Low Mass then reacted on High Mass. Originally the celebrant said or sang his part and listened, like everyone else, to the other parts -- the lessons, gradual and so on. Later, having become used to saying these other parts at Low Mass (at which he had to take on the place of ministers and choir himself), he began to say them at High Mass, too. So we have our present arrangement that the celebrant also repeats in a low voice at the altar whatever is sung by the ministers and choir." (Fortescue, p. 190)

"We make the sign of the cross at the beginning of the Introit because it marks the real beginning of the Mass. Nowadays the celebrant is required to recite it, like other parts which are to be read or sung, but are not specifically reserved to him. This appears to be an unfortunate influence of low Mass upon high Mass...Also, when the plenary Missals appeared, it may have been thought that everything contained in them was to be recited." (Amiot, pp. 39-40)

"While most of the sacramentary manuscripts of the tenth century still display but few of these new accessions [private prayers for the priest], they are to be found in bewildering profusion in the eleventh...If there is one element in which this accretion of quiet prayers of a private stamp was made especially and emphatically prominent, and by which it showed most clearly how far removed it was from the spirit of the older Roman liturgy, that element is the apologiae...by the eleventh century [they] reach an ultimate of power and extent, then disappear as at a blow, with only a small remnant surviving, amongst others especially our Confiteor and the oratio S. Ambrosii in the preparation prayers of the Roman Missal. The zenith in the development of the apologiae is evinced in the Mass ordo which had its origin around 1030 and which Flacius Illyricus, the historian amongst the Reformers published in 1557...The disappearance of the apologiae is bound up with the clarification of the notions of forgiveness and the growth of the practice of more frequent sacramental confession." (Jungmann, vol. 1, pp. 78-80). Again, these apologiae prayers became known "since the eleventh century almost universally." (Jungmann, vol. 1, p. 104)

Finally, all parties -- including Keller -- agree these are but the priest's private devotions. Fortescue writes, "These were written in missals, but were merely private devotions, like our Preparatio ad missam...They occur especially about the IXth and Xth centuries." (p. 227)

Repeating the Introit Three Times

Keller: He has written: "The ancient Roman Mass, as preserved in the old Ordines Romani, has three or more repetitions of the Officium or Introit chant at Mass. This is preserved in the Sarum use, but has been lost in the Tridentine use."

Scholars: Of Keller's preferred term Officium, Jungmann writes this title came "later," specifically, "The title is already found in the 10th century in Pseudo-Alcuin" (Jungmann, vol. 1, p. 321). As to the repeating it thrice, it's difficult to find much corroboration, and Roman examples are late.

Jungmann recounts in the First Roman Ordo the Introit antiphon is sung, followed by as many of the verses as are necessary to reach the altar, then the Gloria Patri and a repeated antiphon. "Whether [the antiphon] was also repeated after each single verse of the Psalm cannot be determined so far as the city of Rome itself is concerned. In fact the phrase cited above seems to prove the contrary...In some places as late as 1000 [A.D.] mention is still made of the nod or gesture for the closing of the psalmody with Gloria Patri, or the second (or a second) verse of the Psalm is expressly indicated." Footnote: The source for second verse is "a 10th century Mass book from lower Italy."

He adds the chanting of a whole Psalm and repeating the Introit antiphon numerous times dropped out as the Introit itself became more musically intricate, taking the schola ever longer to sing; also church architecture shortened the distance to the altar. Competing with the Protestants, as Keller alleges, never entered into it.

"In other places the Psalm was curtailed to the first verse apparently as early as the eighth century. In the abbreviation of the text we have the result, no doubt, partly of a development of the musical forms which had gone on apace...Sung thus in solemn fashion, the antiphon itself and its repetition took up no little time in performance. But a more important factor in producing this reduction of the Psalm was the fact that in the more modest circumstances of extra-Roman episcopal and capitural churches there was hardly any room for a lengthy procession like that in the papal liturgy...and the distance to the altar was shortened to only a fraction of its former length." (Jungmann, vol. 1, pp. 323-324)

"[The Introit antiphon] was originally repeated all through the Psalm...after each verse...Gradually the Antiphon was reduced to the beginning and end only...As soon as we hear of the Introit-Psalm at Rome we find it sung in this way -- an antiphon, the psalm, Doxology and antiphon repeated...By the time of the Xth Roman Ordo (XIth cent.?) the Introit is already reduced to its present state, one verse only." (Fortescue, pp. 218-219)

He adds even in the First Roman Ordo, a whole Psalm was too long, so the Pope gave a signal for the singing to end. Fortescue noted the Officium in Spain "is arranged like our Responsorium breve, which entails repeating the second half of the first verse twice, for a total of three times (p. 224). Perhaps this Mozarabic instance is the source of Keller's contention for three repetitions in "the ancient Roman mass"?

There is also another explanation. "About the twelfth century two other ways of enriching the Introit received further attention. They are both mentioned by Beleth (d. 1165). The first method of amplification, followed on feast days, consisted in repeating the antiphon in whole or in part, even before the Gloria Patri, so that it was sung three times altogether. This was customary in many places north of the Alps, though not general. (Footnote: "The practice seems to have been quite general in England at the close of the Middle Ages. Two examples [are taken] from Spanish Mass books of the 16th century.")...The system was called triumphare psalmis or triplicare. The other [12th century] method consisted in enlarging the text of the Introit by means of tropes. In regard to the Introit the favorite device was the introduction of a preliminary phrase. The Missal of Pius V eliminated all these tropes as parasitic." (Jungmann, vol. 1, pp. 326-327)

"Owing to the fact that in most churches the entry procession had become very short, the Psalm was reduced to a single verse with the Gloria Patri...The shortening of the Psalm must have had something to do with the melodic elaboration of the antiphon, which seems to have taken place since the tenth century at least." (Amiot, pp. 37)

Troped Kyries -- Don't You Love Farce?

Keller: Keller seems to indicate his "Old Sarum Rite Mass"-style farced Kyries go back to Pope St. Gregory the Great: "The petitions preceding each 'Kyrieleyson' [sic.] or 'Xpisteleyson' [sic.] in the Roman liturgy go back to the 5th century at least, were part of the Mass in the time of St. Gregory the Great, and (although he restricted the occasions when they were used to Sundays and feasts) after his time continued to be a prominent part of the Mass. Amalarius of Metz, the 9th c. mass commentator, mentions this ancient Roman usage."

Scholars: This is more "conflation." There was a typical Kyrie litany at the time of Pope St. Gregory the Great, but it dropped out of the liturgy, and its exact wording is not known. Keller's farced Kyries (if authentic, which we'll assume they are) are late medievalisms.

To prove there was Gregorian litany, experts point to a letter Pope St. Gregory the Great wrote to John of Syracuse, "But in daily Masses we leave out some things which are generally said; we only say Kyrie eleison and Christe eleison, that we should dwell rather longer on these words of prayer." (cited in Fortescue, p. 234.) Scholars believe this suppression of the litany soon caused it to disappear altogether.

The scholars also agree how farcing came to be. "Consistently with St. Gregory's idea of dwelling longer on the invocation, the Kyrie was sung (is still sung) with long neums on most of its syllables. In the Middle Ages they seem to have found these neums wearisome. So they inserted clauses to fit the notes; one neum became a series of single notes with a text. There was a huge variety of these farced Kyries everywhere...All these additional texts were abolished by the reform of Pius V." (Fortescue, pp. 234, 236, 238-9)

"When Gregorian chant flourished anew in the tenth and succeeding centuries, many of the elaborate Kyrie melodies of the Roman Kyriale were composed...from this time on, from the ninth to the sixteenth century, a full literature of Kyrie tropes is developed. Every church possessed a dozen or so, some purely local...The collection in the Analecta hymnica covers 158 complete numbers...In rendering this chant, one choir would often take up the trope while the other sang the original Kyrie with its melismas, till both came together on the word eleison. It is from the first line of these tropes that we derive the labels which many of the melodies of the Kyriale bear: Lux et origo; Kyrie Deus sempiterne...For some of the tropes even many-voiced melodies appear in the thirteenth century. The tropes themselves were not included in the Missal of Pius V, thanks to the stricter tastes of his century. The monumental Kyrie was thus freed of overgrowth." (Jungmann, vol. 1, pp. 344-5)

"The invocations, to which the Kyrie served as response, at first disappeared on the ordinary days and then on the more solemn ones at about the time of St. Gregory...This [musical] development appears clearly in the farced Kyrie in which words (or tropes) were adapted to the long neums set to a single syllable; the first words of these tropes have been retained in the Vatican Gradual as the names of the various Masses. The trope formed possibly a useful mnemonic for remembering the melodies but it was an obvious accretion which the Missal of St. Pius V (1570) was fully justified in abolishing. The melodies were developed particularly after the tenth century and our Gradual has preserved a considerable selection of them, several of which are very beautiful." (Amiot, pp. 41-2)

Sequences (Sequentia, Prosa)

Sequences were an elaborate example of farcing. The iubilus (or "jubilatio" below) was the last syllable of the Alleluia preceding the Gospel, which were from early times given a more elaborate melody than the rest of the Alleluia. Early commentators say this represented a mystical joy beyond words. At first, the melody itself was called sequentia, but during the Middle Ages northern European parishes began farcing these notes, giving them words, and transforming them into modern Sequences.

Keller: Keller considers the loss of the Sequences of capital importance.

Since the 8th century or so, the beautiful, didactic, poetic texts known as Sequences were part and parcel of the Roman rite liturgy all over Europe, including in Italy. Their presence in the Mass was blessed in the early 9th c. by Pope Nicholas I, and many of the composers of Sequences were Saints of the Church. These grace-filled hymns were almost entirely banished from the Roman liturgy by Pius V, after having been a standard part of it for more than seven centuries. This long-standing feature of the Roman rite is preserved in the Sarum, but was irreverently ejected from the Tridentine mass.

Elsewhere, he adds, "Liturgical forms originating outside Rome, such as the magnificent tradition of Sequences, tropes, prosula...took firm root at Rome...The number of occasions was numerous, perhaps averaging once per week, when poetic and didactic texts taught the people...when the great bells pealed."

Scholars: First, several historical notes: The first sequences are ascribed to Notker of St. Gall around the 10th century, not the 8th. Pope Nicholas I, who died in 867, blessed the filioque, presided during the Photian Schism, and believed in universal papal authority. Italian missals contained approximately four Sequences; the 1570 Missal included five.

"[T]hey were a modern growth and had never taken hold in Rome or Italy" (Jungmann, vol. 1, p. 136).

"They were admitted later and less willingly in Italy. Italian missals as a rule have only three or four" (Fortescue, p. 274).

This made them a standard feature of some liturgies in some areas (but not Rome, nor parts of Italy and Spain) for six , not "more than seven," centuries (910-1570). As they began so late, and became so widespread, many were but the work of local post-Schism poets. Specifically what happened is:

"The first sequences are attributed to Notker Balbulus of St. Gallen (d. 912). There was at his time no clear manner of writing musical notes, the neums (without lines) were only suggestions for people who already knew the melody by heart. It was then difficult to remember them, especially the long neums of the iubilus, which accompanied no words. A monk from Jumieges came to St. Gallen; Notker saw that in his books words were fitted to the notes of neums, apparently only as a help to memory. Notker then, following his example, adapted texts to the iubilus for all feasts in the year. His adaptations were so attractive that they were no longer used merely as a kind of memoria technica, but were actually sung in churches. These texts were Sequentiae...or Prosae...." (Fortescue, pp. 272-3)

"After Notker, Adam of St. Victor (d. 1192), Ekkehart of St. Gallen (d. 973), Gottschalk of Limburg (d. 1098), Thomas of Celano (d. ca. 1250) are the most famous writers of sequences...There were then curious developments in sequences, such as one would expect in popular compositions...There were so-called sequences about wine and beer; one John Nass wrote one about Martin Luther: 'Invicti Martini laudes intonent Christiani.' It was time the development of Notker's idea should stop. In nothing does the prudence of the Tridentine reformers so shine as in their treatment of the question of sequences. At that time there was a perfect plethora of these compositions. The great number had little or no value either as poetry or devotional works; the whole idea of the sequence was merely a late farcing." (Fortescue, p. 274-5)

"[S]ince about the middle of the ninth century certain texts begin to make an appearance in Normandy and then in St. Gall -- texts intended to support the melodies [of the iubilus] and at the same time (and perhaps even primarily) to render the melodies more agreeable to the musical sensibilities of northern peoples to whom up to now the melismatic chant was strange...This text itself was called sequentia...After the year 1000 a new type of sequence began to develop, a type founded on rhythmical principles...This is the floushing period in the composition of sequences, the most famous writer of which was Adam of St. Victor (d. about 1192). Some 5,000 sequences have been collected from the manuscripts...In northern countries, the Mass books of the later Middle Ages contain a sequence for almost every feast day...A Cologne missal of 1487 has 73 of them, the Augsburg missal of 1555 has 98. But elsewhere, above all in Rome, their reception was cool...In the reform of the Mass books under Pius V, out of all the luxuriant crop only four were retained -- the same, approximately, as those which are encountered earlier here and there in Italian Mass books." (Jungmann, vol. 1, pp. 436-7)

"At the sequence the organ seems to have been used as an accompaniment from the start. Later we hear of a solemn pealing of bells to accompany the sequence." (Jungmann, vol. 1, p. 439) So it seems the organ, which Keller detests, is bound up with the sequences and "pealing of bells" he loves. As they say, "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds."

"The sequences are of a more popular nature than the hymns of the office; they are also called proses, from prosa...Sequences in the Middle Ages were very numerous indeed; the medieval English Missals, for example, like those of France of Germany, contained a great number, several of them from the pen of Adam of St. Victor (who died in 1190)." (Amiot, p. 66)

By contrast to this highly individualistic poetry of dubious value, the neums on the iubilus were themselves called sequentia originally, before any words were added. Amalarius of Metz preserved the ancient Western and Roman understanding of Sequences: "This jubilatio [iubilus], which singers call a sequentia, induces in us a mental state when the utterance of words will not be necessary but by thought alone Mind will show to mind what it has within itself." This is the joy preserved by the AWRV and ROCOR.

Offertory (Offerenda) Verses?

Keller: Keller believes the Missal of Pope Pius V does not return the West to the Mass of the olden days, because it did not restore verses to the Offertory verse (which he calls the Offerenda). He writes, "[The Missal of Pope Pius V] might return the sanctorale (alone) to a more 11th-c. state, but the rest of the liturgy does not follow suit and return to 11th-c. norms. For example, the long repeats of Mass chants (the verses on the Offerenda, for one example) were not restored." Again, he insists on the importance of this, "The [Old] Sarum [Rite Missal] use keeps up...the ancient Roman custom of verses on the Offerenda chant, with repetitions of the offerenda itself. The Tridentine liturgy has lost this standard old-Roman feature." Since the "Tridentine" Mass does not restore these, in his opinion, it does not restore the Mass of the 11th century.

Scholars: "[A]s a matter of fact, it is in the eleventh century that the offertory verses begin to disappear from many manuscripts. By the following century, this omission has become a general rule." Like the Introit, the expansion or reduction of offertory verses depended upon "the length of the offertory procession." (Jungmann, vol. 2, p. 29)

"From about the XIth or XIIth centuries the shortening of the offertory act [the procession] led to a further shortening of the chant, so that only the antiphon was sung" (Fortescue, p. 304).

Also worth noting: Keller admits in another message, "the Sarum use has comparatively brief prayers at the offertory movement, definitely fewer prayers than the Tridentine has at that point." Perhaps the Roman liturgy did not restore these verses, because it had less for which to compensate?

How Many Prefaces are Proper?

Keller: He pontificates: "One cannot claim to carry forward the venerable ancient Roman liturgy as it was celebrated across Western Europe before the Schism (and even for some time after the Schism) without preserving in use the ancient and venerable Roman prefaces, proper to each day or feast. The decretal whereby these prefaces were abolished postdates [sic.] the Schism of 1054."

Taking a jab at the AWRV (for the millionth time), he comments: "[T]he Gelasian sacramentary, like the other old Roman books, contains a richness of proper prefaces, an important heritage of the old Gregorian rite. These are lacking in your Antiochian books and lovingly preserved in our St. Hilarion Press books." (Of course, proper prefaces are very much a part of the Orthodox Missal -- not one for each day.) He also suggests suppressing these daily prefaces was a post-Schism scheme to enforce submission to the Pope: "The reduction is rather mysterious; the decretal attributed to Pope Pelagius (II, I suppose?) is surely not authentic. And a tenth preface, of Our Lady, was added soon to the nine. It could also simply be a ploy of power on Rome's part, to force Western churches to obey some command, no matter what that command might be."

Scholars: Many of the early prefaces were unworthy of addition, and the Church happily expunged them in a process beginning long before the Schism.

"The most ancient collection of Roman Mass formularies, the Sacramentarium Leonianum has a proper preface for each Mass...267 prefaces! Even the older Gelasianum still furnishes 54 prefaces, the later Gelasianum in the St. Gall manuscript, 186...In this oldest of sacramentaries, even Mass-formularies lacking a distinctively festal character are sometimes found with a preface whose contents are far different from the original conception of a eucharistic prayer, for example when it is used as a tirade againt objectionable adversaries of as an exhortation to lead a moral life. Such curiosities as these must lead sooner or later to a reaction...Phenomena of the sort described must finally have induced that drastic reform which is revealed in the Gregorian Sacramentary. In the genuine portions of this sacramentary as remanded by Adrian I to Charlemagne, there are only fourteen prefaces, counting the praefatio communis. Of these, a number -- those for extraordinary occasions and for the two saints' feasts which were still favored -- were later discontinued in Frankish territory [reducing the number of prefaces] to seven formulas." One of these was "not counted"; the Franks added three more prefaces. "These [nine] prefaces...were the only ones considered admissible in the Decretals first mentioned by Burchard of Worms (d. 1025), and by him ascribed to Pelagius II (d. 590)...Finally, to this sparse group was added the Marian preface, prescribed by Urban II at the Synod of Piacenza in 1095, although it is itself of an earlier date...[I]n the eleventh century the prescription supposedly written by Pelagius II finally prevailed everywhere." (Jungmann, vol. 2, pp. 118-120, 123)

Footnote: "With a minor variation...today's wording [for the Marian preface, Keller's "ploy"] is the same as that found in about 850 in the Cod. Ottobon. 313 of the Gregorianum...also in the Sacramentary of Eligius" (Jungmann, vol. 2, p. 120).

"The Leonine sacramentary includes 267 [prefaces], one for each Mass...there are already far fewer in the Gregorian...The proliferation of early days certainly included much that was mediocre -- on occasion an unexpected polemical note is struck or we find long exhortations unconnected with the fundamental theme." (Amiot, p. 101)

"For instance, [one preface was written] after the enemy (perhaps the Goths in 537) had seized the harvest which the Romans laboriously had sown around the city...In the next Sacramentary (the Gelasian) this note has disappeared. Its prefaces are much fewer and more staid. It has (in the Canon) our common preface, and 53 proper ones. The tendency to reduce the number of changing prefaces grows. The Gregorian book has only 10; but another influence (Gallican) adds more than 100 in its appendix...We now have eleven prefaces. Ten of them are in the Gregorian Sacramentary, one (of the Blessed Virgin) was added under Urban II...[T]he preface was considered on the whole too sacred, too near the intangible Canon to be much altered." (Fortescue, p. 318)

Farced Agnus Deis?

Keller: Keller seems to have never met a farce he does not like, including on the Agnus Dei. "The old Sarum style of serving is chock-full of practical advantages for the parishes of today, and this is also true of the older way of singing the Agnus Dei, with tropes which elongate it. (In parishes that don't use tropes, however, the Agnus can be sung in different languages--first in Latin, then in English, then in Spanish, for example)."

Scholars: The "older way of singing the Agnus Dei" is the "Tridentine"/Gregorian form of Antioch/ROCOR; once again, farcing was a late medieval custom flourishing around the time of the Great Schism. "Pope Sergius I (687-701) had decreed ut tempore confractionis dominici corporis 'Agnus Dei qui tollis peccata mundi miserere nobis' a clero et populo decantetur...Like so many other chants, the Agnus Dei also was overspread with tropes, especially in the later Middle Ages." Footnote: "A widely spread Tropus that appeared in the 10th century runs as follows...." (Jungmann, vol. 2, pp. 333, 340).

(And of course no Western Orthodox Church prescribed a trilingual Agnus, which Keller perhaps imported from certain Byzantine churches that do this with the Trisagion and/or litanies; the French Gallican Trisagion was also sung in three languages.)

Troped Communion Verses (and Introits)

Keller: Keller's e-mailed "Daily Ordo" includes, hence he supports, troping the Introit ("Officium") as well as the Communion antiphons.

Scholars: "In the Middle Ages the Introit (as almost every sung part of the Mass) was often 'farced' with strange texts added as 'Tropi.'...Pius V's reform happily banished all tropi except some sequences." (Fortescue, pp. 222-223)

"The embellishment by tropes [of the Communion antiphon] which started in the tenth century fell into decay even before it could be properly developed." Footnote: "The tropes for Communion, which, like those for the Introit, either introduce the antiphon or carry it through, belong almost entirely to the 10th and 11th centuries" (Jungmann, vol. 2, p. 396).

Conclusion: Keller's liturgical claims about the "old Roman Rite" are mistaken in nearly their every instance. The reforms of the Missal of Pius V deleted nearly all these widely divergent accretions and restored the integrity of the ancient texts.

Did Keller's "Old Sarum Rite Missal" restore the Mass of the Pre-Schism West? Many of his texts date from the era of the Great Schism or after, as he acknoweldges. Keller correctly points out, "By no means did 1066 signal a change of Faith in England. The Filioque had already long been in use there, and the Anglo-Saxons were even more devoted to the schismatic Papacy than the Normans were." He has written he considers the Old Sarum Rite Missal "more characteristic of Western liturgy prior to 1200," adding: "The pre-1200 prefaces were in the 1st edition of the amplified Sarum Missal issued by SHP and they will also of course be included in the 2nd edition." This is an important admission, if you assert, as Keller does, that the OSRM represents "the full Western liturgy from the Orthodox period." Many of the texts were written long after many parts of the West (especially the "Gallican" liturgical areas) had "troped," as it were, the Nicene Creed -- by adding one word: filioque. By the time farcing had taken hold, many parts of Europe were already reciting the filioque, using azymes for the Eucharist, baptizing by pouring, celebrating private and votive masses (as many as nine a day), playing the organ, and in Rome there was a growing sense of universal jurisdiction and authority. It is certainly a stretch to call this highly speculative development, reflecting a skewed version of the state of Schism and post-Schism England, "The Liturgy of St. Peter the Apostle," as Keller does.

This leaves aside his blatant Byzantinizations. His decision to commune people with a spoon with a towel under the chin, as in the Byzantine Rite comes to mind. Keller chose not to provide even one source for this custom, claiming, "The main reason for communing with a spoon is a pastoral one" -- apparently an issue no one in the history of the Orthodox West encountered, nor any in the modern Western Rite (including Fr. Michael and others in Australia who celebrate the Sarum Liturgy in ROCOR). Into an already Byzantized formula for administering communion, "the communicant's name is inserted for pastoral reasons." This in a monastery which, even when "W. Orthodox," wore Byzantine robes; small wonder they eventually gave up the pretense and Byzantized. As Ari noted, he combed through the widely divergent texts available to him by accepting farcing to find "analogues" of the Byzantine Rite. None of which takes into account his translation of the texts themselves. All we have seen of his posts call into question his competence for this work.

Undoubtedly, Keller may say these simply "do not know the full range of old books" -- his typical dodge. It could be Keller is wiser and more learned than these distinguished liturgical scholars (and the many who agree with them against Keller, including all those of Antioch/ROCOR). Or it's possible his liturgical scholarship is seriously defective. The near-universal agreement against Keller renders all his pronouncements dubious and discredited.