Mozarabic Rite
The Mozarabic rite (also Mozarabic liturgy, Visigothic liturgy or old Spanish liturgy called ) is a liturgical rite of the Roman Catholic Church, which has developed in the Iberian peninsula and is still practiced in a few places in Spain. Other names such as Toledan rite or rite Isidorianischer (after Isidore of Seville ) are found sporadically.
Historical Development
With the rapid spread of Christianity in the Roman Empire in the individual churches were built various liturgical rites, among which the Roman rite initially had no special precedence. The creation and enforcement of the acclaimed on the Iberian Peninsula rite was a sign of resurgent Church in the Hispanic provinces and their long maintained relative independence from Rome. The liturgy is already occupied in the 4th and 5th century, shortly after the elevation of the bishopric to the archbishopric of Toledo. At this time dominated the Arian Visigoths, the Iberian peninsula, who confessed from about 589 to the Nicene doctrine of the trinity. Under Visigoth auspices of the Mozarabic rite spread over the entire territory. The greatest prevalence of this rite is accepted for the 7th century.
After the invasion of the Moors in Hispania in 711 and the associated spread of Islam were living under Moorish rule for Christians - the Mozarabs - continue to practice their religion and thus also celebrate this liturgy form. Even in the non- Muslim areas of the Iberian Peninsula Things remained in this rite. To take over the Roman liturgy and church order, it came gradually and starting from the Pyrenees with its Carolingian influences, but mainly in the 11th and 12th centuries as part of the " Europeanization " of the Iberian Peninsula. This process went with the growing political and church- political influence of Roman, Norman and French forces along the inneriberischen conditions and there operated by Christian rulers Reconquista.
The conquest and the establishment of new secular and church structures in the territories newly acquired from the Christians not only attracted many nobles and clergy from other Christian regions of Europe into the country, but you took part also new legal principles and forms of organization. Especially the papacy, which promoted the centralization of the church with the church reforms of the 11th century, supported this process, among others in the cast of episcopal sees with French clerics, the growing influence of Benedictine monasticism, especially the Cluniac, but also to be example, the replacement of the traditional Visigothic script expressed by the rest of Western Europe has long been generally accepted Carolingian minuscule, and more.
After Pope Alexander II is said to have ordered the change to the Roman Rite, this was first introduced in the Kingdom of Aragon. 1074 the Mozarabic liturgy was expressly forbidden by Pope Gregory VII and declared the Roman rite in 1080 on a council at Burgos by the papal envoy for binding in all countries of the Iberian Peninsula.
Against the enforcement of the Roman Rite, there were a variety of resistance, since the rite meant changing the jurisdictional connection of the hitherto very independent Iberian church at Rome. This was accompanied by a significant weakening of the influence of the laity in the churches and monasteries, which in turn limited the foundations of the rule of the aristocracy and ultimately strengthened the central power of the monarchy.
After the conquest of Toledo in 1085 refused the local Mozarabic population to celebrate the Roman liturgy. Then granted the pope six parishes, the Mozarabic rite continue to practice. In addition to these six municipalities of the Mozarabic rite was henceforth celebrated only by the Christians of the Moorish dominions and so got its name.
Characteristics and distribution
The historian Klaus Herbers describes the differences between the Mozarabic and the Roman liturgy, which primarily show up in ceremonial forms and the number and sequence of liturgical celebrations. So had the traditional Visigothic liturgy:
- A greater number of readings from the Old Testament;
- A different arrangement of individual parts of the Mass;
- An independent and of the Benedictine monk widely differing Liturgy ( Liturgy of the Hours );
- A more nuanced festival calendar with other saints festivals.
The Mozarabic Mass celebrated was clearly divided into altkirchlicher tradition into two separate sections: a Katechumenenfeier, ie, the Annunciation to the ( adult ) Taufschüler ( systematically about the modern Liturgy of the Word equivalent), which then had to leave the church, while the already baptized church members also on the second part of the celebration, the Eucharist, took part. The Communion was served under both, the Lord's Prayer spoken before conversion and the credo was integrated into the Eucharistic Prayer of the fair.
Today, the Mozarabic Rite in Cathedral of Toledo, Salamanca, with the monks at the Montserrat and in the Abbey of Santo Domingo de Silos and of priests is celebrated with special permission. Although only a limited spread, the Mozarabic liturgy after Vatican II through the publication of the " Missale Hispano- Mozarabicum " (1991 ) basically confirmed equivalent and equal ( by the Spanish Bishops' Conference and the Archbishop of Toledo) as one of the Roman liturgy.