Gepriesen bist Du, Herr! Gebetbuch des byzantinischen Ritus ed. by Oleksandr Petrynko and Andreas-Abraham Thiermeyer (review)

German-speaking Catholics are mostly familiar with the Gotteslob, which in 1975 for the first time provided, across countries and bishops' conferences, a handy and at the same time very useful prayer book and hymnal for worship and private prayer. In addition to the Catholics of the Latin Church there are of course a total of 23 Eastern Catholic Churches that largely maintain their own Eastern liturgical traditions and rites within the Catholica—increasingly also in the German language. One fruit of the effort to make this rich treasure of prayers of the Eastern Church traditions accessible was recently presented. It is a prayer book of the Byzantine Rite, prepared for Catholic Ukrainians of the Byzantine Rite and even called the "Byzantine Gotteslob" in imitation of its Roman Rite counterpart.

The liturgical texts were approved on June 1, 2020, by Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk of Kyiv-Halytsch, head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. It was to replace, according to the press release, the "numerous provisional booklets that were used ad experimentum for years with a solid prayer book." This work was largely carried out by the Collegium Orientale, the Eastern Rite seminary of the Bavarian diocese of Eichstätt, on behalf of the then-Apostolic Exarch Petro Kryk for the Catholic Ukrainians of the Byzantine Rite in Germany and Scandinavia. For years, German liturgical texts have been produced and published by the Collegium Orientale (established in 1998), for example the formulae for the Divine Liturgy (Paderborn, 2013).

Blessed are You, Lord, as the title might be translated, is the continuation of this activity. It brings together already known as well as new texts, offering now officially approved versions for liturgical use. It should be noted that this is a long process, which will probably not end with this new publication. The selection from prayers, chants, and other liturgical texts from a tradition as rich as the Byzantine will always remain just this: a selection that must be tried in practice. Certainly, the abundance of liturgical texts gathered is remarkable: on a total of 1248 pages, it provides for the sacraments (mysteries), the Liturgy of the Hours, prayers for various occasions, and important liturgical chants throughout the year. Even though this would require several books for the celebrants and the choir or the people, the prayer book nevertheless retains a compact size. Here is an overview of the contents: a brief selection of Daily Prayers (1–22) is followed by the Horologion (23–219) and the celebration of the Sacraments (221–397). A separate section is formed by the Services for the Deceased (399–491), while Other Services conclude this part (493–552). The second section contains hymns and prayers sung throughout the church year: Daily Chants on Sunday and Weekdays (553–571) and Commemorations of Saints (572–586). The Menologion (587-995) leads through the entire liturgical year (beginning according to the Byzantine Rite in September), offering also the propers of the saints. The Triodion (997–1040), the chants for Great Lent, the Pentekostarion (1041–1080, Easter and Pentecost) and the Theotokarion (1081–1100, chants to Mother of God) conclude this part, followed only by another Calendar (1101–1152) and by some Melodies (1153–1174), especially for Sundays. The Index (1175–1209) helps in view of the amount of the material. For practical reasons, the table of contents should in future be placed at the beginning.

The editor's epilogue provides insight into the structure, selection, transcription, and some decisions concerning translation. For example, a translation based on the Septuagint was chosen for the Psalms, as these are closer to the Byzantine tradition; it is regrettable, however, that a different translation was chosen for other prayers, such as the Creed. The difficulty of translation naturally oscillates between faithfulness to the text, the requirements of the German language, the poetic-liturgical character as well as "singability" (although rather few melodies and indications...