Rorate Caeli

Declaration on the Anaphora of Addai and Mari
FOLLOW-UP: It was once condemned

Did the Roman Curia ever condemn the fact that one of the "Eastern Anaphoras" did not contain the Institution Narrative? A new portion of the article "Historical and Theological Argumentation in Favour Of Anaphoras without Institution Narrative: A Critical Appraisal" - of which we had posted just a few excerpts due to possible copyright restrictions - may help clarify the very interesting debate:

A bishop from the Church of the East arrived in Rome in the 16th century; he asked for and obtained ecclesiastical communion from the Pope, who recognized him as Patriarch. This was the return of a part of the Church of the East to full communion with the See of Peter; it would come to be called the Chaldean Church, inheritor of the catholicity of the pre-Council of Ephesus Church of the East. One Cardinal Amulius made a report to the Council of Trent about the “Chaldeans’” faith and sacraments, and his outline of their Mass specifically mentions the Narrative of the Institution and the words of consecration as a part of their Eucharistic liturgy.

This indicates the cardinal’s presumption that at least from the time of the Patriarch’s request for communion with Rome he and the clergy in union with him would henceforth recite the Institution Narrative. Even though no condemnation was issued against the Anaphora of Addai and Mari without Institution Narrative, it is significant that when Rome received a portion of the Church of the East into her communion it was presumed by Cardinal Amulius that their Eucharist would be celebrated with the Institution Narrative.
By the late 19th century it was becoming known in the Christian West that some liturgical manuscripts from the Assyrian Church lacked the Institution Narrative. It was at this time that an instruction of the Holy See’s Congregatio de Propaganda Fide to Catholic missionaries in the Near East instructed them to uproot the “incredible abuse” of Mass without the words of consecration and to instruct about the true form of the sacrament of the Eucharist. [RORATE Note: this is followed by a footnote with the following Italian text, translated by us: "Abolish the incredible abuse of not pronouncing the sacramental words at the Consecration in the Mass called 'of the Apostles', which is the most frequent one. Instruct on the true formula of Consecration." Letter dated 31 July 1902, in Codicis Juris Canonici fontes, ed. P. Gasparri and J. Serédi, vol. V, Rome, 1935, 546.]

One wonders whether the experts consulted for the 2001 letter [of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, available here] were aware of this letter of
Propaganda Fide (...). At the very least, we can say that the Anaphora of Addai and Mari was once presumed worthy of condemnation by an organ of the Holy See.