Sifting... through pseudo-Western Orthodoxy

It may seem strange I changed the title to my Reredos Blog to westernandorthodox.blogspot.com . The truth is that a great deal of our time as Orthodox Westerners, especially those looking for authentic, Patristic expressions of our faith are generally handed a stone for bread.

Don't get me wrong. I don't generally blame the laity (except for a couple of particulars). Most of them are in fact looking for genuine, Western Orthodoxy. They have a right, an ancestral right to it, especially after endeavoring to join the Orthodox Church! The clergy of some "official Orthodox" dioceses, as well as various independent groups, have spent massive man-hours using completely post-schism, Western sources to claim that they are real "Western-rite Orthodox".

I stare at a lot of Latin. I don't have a choice. To look at pre-schismatic Western texts, you have to. You cannot, as a Western Orthodox Christian, in an age where you can get microfilms of 10th and 11th century manuscripts to check your liturgical texts against, simply pick up what's available from Anglican and Roman Catholic sources, such as the 1925 Breviarium Monasticum from Bruges-- and then reprint it, nor call it "Western Rite Orthodox"!

And that is why I find attacks on the Western usages of the Milan Synod so disingenuous-- I don't think people who defend the use of kneeling on Sundays, the "Sacred Heart", and prayers attributed to Thomas Aquinas have a right to speak for any length of time on the matter.

If putting these liturgies together from pre-schism texts-- or at least verifying that the texts used at least CONTAIN the pre-schism texts, as is the case even in the most Romanized of the Mozarabic texts, I'd have no reason to complain. But putting in sermons for the "Sacred Heart"? DEFENDING post-schism devotions? And labelling anyone who wants to use Western Orthodox tradition, not late Roman or Anglican "tradition", as a vagante?

No, I will complain.
I do complain.

This was NOT approved by St Tikhon, this was NOT Overbeck's mission, and this is dishonest.