Dominican Rite
The Dominican Rite is the unique liturgical rite of the Dominican Order in the Catholic Church. It has been classified differently by different sources – some consider it a usage of the Roman Rite, others a variant of the Gallican Rite, and still others a form of the Roman Rite into which Gallican elements were inserted.
The Dominican Order composed and adopted this rite in the mid-13th century as its specific rite. In 1968, it decided to adopt the revised Roman Rite of Mass and of the Divine Office, as soon as the texts revised after the Second Vatican Council appeared, but it has kept other elements of its proper rite, such as the Rite of Profession.
As a result, the Dominican Rite of the Mass ceased being celebrated as often after the revised Roman Rite was promulgated. However, in recent decades it has been offered occasionally in some provinces of the Dominican Order, and regularly in others. In addition, it is used by the Traditionalist Catholic Fraternity of St. Vincent Ferrer.
Origin and development
The question of a special unified rite for the order received no official attention in the time of St. Dominic, each province sharing in the general liturgical diversities prevalent throughout the Church at the order's confirmation in 1216. Hence, each province and often each convent had certain peculiarities in the text and in the ceremonies of the Mass and the recitation of the Divine Office. The successors of St. Dominic were quick to recognize the impracticability of such conditions, and soon busied themselves in an effort to eliminate the distinctions. They maintained that the safety of a basic principle of community life—unity of prayer and worship—was endangered by this conformity with different local diocesan conditions. This belief was impressed upon them more forcibly by the confusion that these liturgical diversities occasioned at the general chapters of the order, where brothers from every province were assembled.The first indication of an effort to regulate liturgical conditions was manifested by Jordan of Saxony, the successor of St. Dominic. In the Constitutions of 1228 ascribed to him are found several rubrics for the recitation of the Divine Office. These insist more on the attention with which the Liturgy should be said than on the qualifications of the liturgical books. However, it is said that Jordan took some steps in the latter direction and compiled one Office for universal use. Though this is doubtful, it is certain that his efforts were of little practical value, for the Chapters of Bologna and Paris allowed each convent to conform with the local rites. The first systematic attempt at reform was made under the direction of John of Wildeshausen, the fourth master general of the order. At his suggestion the Chapter of Bologna asked the delegates to bring to the next chapter their special rubrics for the recitation of the Divine Office, their Missals, Graduals and Antiphonaries, "pro concordando officio". To bring some kind of order out of chaos a commission was appointed consisting of four members, one each from the Provinces of France, England, Lombardy, and Germany, to carry out the revision at Angers. They brought the result of their labours to the Chapter of Paris, which approved the compilation and ordered its exclusive use by the whole Order and approved the "Lectionary" which had been entrusted to Humbert of Romains for revision. The work of the commission was again approved by the Chapters of Montpellier and Paris.
But dissatisfaction with the work of the commission was felt on all sides, especially with their interpretation of the rubrics. They had been hurried in their work, and had left too much latitude for local customs. The question was reopened and the Chapter of London asked the commission to reassemble at Metz and revise their work in the light of the criticisms that had been made; the result of this revision was approved at the Chapters of Metz and Bologna and its use made obligatory for the whole order. It was also ordained that one copy of the liturgical books should be placed at Paris and one at Bologna, from which the books for the other convents should be faithfully copied. However, it was recognized that these books were not entirely perfect, leaving room for further revision. Though this work was done under the direction of John the Teuton, the brunt of the revision fell to the lot of Humbert of Romains, then provincial of the Paris Province. Humbert was elected Master General of the Chapter of Buda and was asked to direct his attention to the question of the order's liturgical books. He subjected each of them to a most thorough revision, and after two years submitted his work to the Chapter of Paris. This and several subsequent chapters endorsed the work, effected legislation guarding against corruption, constitutionally recognized the authorship of Humbert, and thus once and for all settled a common rite for the Order of Preachers throughout the world.
Conservation until the twentieth century
, through the Dominican general, John of Vercelli, issued a Papal Bull in 1267 in which he lauded the ability and zeal of Humbert and forbade the making of any changes without the proper authorization. Subsequent papal regulation went much further towards preserving the integrity of the rite. Pope Innocent XI and Pope Clement XII prohibited the printing of the books without the permission of the master general and ordained that no member of the order should presume to use in his fulfilment of the choral obligation any book not bearing the seal of the general and a reprint of the pontifical Decrees. Another force preservative of the special Dominican Rite was the Decree of Pope Pius V, imposing a common rite on the Western Church but excepting those rites which had been approved for two hundred years. This exception gave to the Order of Friars Preachers the privilege of maintaining its old rite, a privilege which the chapters of the order sanctioned and the members of the order gratefully accepted.There were changes. Some slight corruptions crept in spite of the rigid legislation to the contrary. New feasts were added with the permission of the Roman Pontiffs and many new editions of the liturgical books were printed. Changes in the text, when made, were always effected with the idea of eliminating arbitrary mutilations and restoring the books to a perfect conformity with the old exemplars at Paris and Bologna. Such were the reforms of the Chapters of Salamanca, Rome and Ghent.
Several times movements were started with the idea of conforming with the Roman Rite, but were always defeated until after the Second Vatican Council, when the Order finally decided to adopt the Roman Rite, supplementing it with certain texts of the Dominican tradition and, of course, rituals for various moments in religious life, such as professions and anniversaries, such as every religious order uses without thereby setting up a distinct liturgical rite. The General Chapter of River Forest made this decision, which was applied first to the Mass and later to the Divine Office, in conformity to the spirit and letter of the Constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium. The permission to adopt the Roman liturgy, however, came with the stipulation that the master of the order, for all friars, and the provincials, for those subject to them, could grant permission to celebrate the traditional Dominican Rite Mass and Office; as such, in 1969, the Dominican Order received a rescript from the Holy See, which granted faculties for friars to celebrate the Dominican Rite in accordance with the revised 1965 Missal. It is debated if this faculty continues today. Furthermore, since Pope Benedict XVI's Summorum Pontificum and Universae Ecclesiae granting members of Religious Orders permission to use their own liturgical books which were in force in the year 1962,
Dominicans may celebrate the Dominican Rite according to the 1933 Missal, with the revised Holy Week.
Languages
The rite was originally in Latin, but some vernaculars were allowed:- In the 14th century, Dominican missionaries converted a monastery near Qrna, Armenia to Catholicism, and translated the liturgical books of the Dominican Rite into Armenian for the community's use. The monks were deterred from becoming members of the Dominican Order itself by the severe fasting requirements of the Dominican Constitutions, as well as the prohibition on owning any land other than that on which the monastery stood, and therefore became the Order of the United Friars of St. Gregory the Illuminator, a new order confirmed by Pope Innocent VI in 1356 whose Constitutions were similar to the Dominicans' except for these two laws. This order established monasteries over a vast amount of territory in Greater and Lesser Armenia, Persia, and Georgia, using the Dominican Rite in Armenian until the end of the order's existence in 1794.
- On February 25, 1398, Pope Boniface IX also authorized Maximus Chrysoberges to found a monastery in Greece where Mass would be celebrated in Greek according to the Dominican Rite, and Manuel Chrysoloras translated the Dominican missal into Greek in pursuance of the plan, but nothing further is known of this undertaking.
Liturgical books
By a process of elimination and synthesis undergone with the books of the Roman Rite many of the books of Humbert became superfluous, while several others were formed. These added nothing to the original text, but merely provided for the addition of feasts and the more convenient recitation of the office. The collection of the liturgical books then contained: Martyrology; Collectarium; Processional; Antiphonary; Gradual; Missal for the conventual Mass; Missal for the private Mass; Breviary; Vesperal; Horæ Diurnæ; Ceremonial. The contents of these books followed closely the books of the same name issued by Humbert described above. The new ones were: the Horæ Diurnæ the Vesperal, adaptations from the Breviary and the Antiphonary respectively the Collectarium, a compilation from all the rubrics scattered throughout the other books. With the exception of the Breviary, these books were similar in arrangement to the correspondingly named books of the Roman Rite. The Dominican Breviary was divided into Part I, Advent to Trinity, and Part II, Trinity to Advent. Also, unlike the Tridentine usage of the Roman rite and similar to the Sarum rite and other Northern European usages of the Roman rite, the Dominican Missal and Breviary counted Sundays after Trinity rather than Pentecost.