The compilation of the Pian Missal

At Mere Comments, Mr. Stuart Koehl writes the following:

The Trindentine Mass is itself something of an artifact, having been redacted by the Tridentine liturgical commission from the typical edition of the Romano-Frankish rite used in the city of Bologna. It accurately reflects the state of Roman liturgical observance in the mid-16th century, which means that it enshrines a number of late medieval Latin liturgical innovations, many of which are not consistent with the patristic understanding of liturgy, let alone the liturgical usage of the Latin Church in the first millennium. Rather than being more traditional than the Ordo Paulus VI (aka the Novus Ordo), it in fact represents a radical departure from a tradition common to both the Western and Eastern Churches, to which the Vatican II liturgical commission was attempting (with mixed success) to return.

These deviations include the total clericalization of the liturgy, with the role of the people reduced to spectators; according to the rubrics of the Tridentine rite, only the words uttered by the priest are efficacious--a concept alient to Orthodoxy and the ancient liturgical tradition. This also permits the priest to celebrate "private" Masses, without any other people present, another radical departure from tradition.

Moreover, according to the ancient tradition, the pontifical or hierarchical form of the liturgy, as celebrated by the bishop, is normative, with parochial usage redacted from that. But the Tridentine liturgical commission believed the low Mass was the normative form, and developed the Tridentine high Mass by adding elements to the Low. In the ancient tradition, as in Orthodoxy today, there is only one form of Eucharistic liturgy, and all of them are derivations of the pontifical Liturgy.

When one considers the many ways in which the Tridentine Mass is a deviation from Tradition, it is surprising that so many Orthodox claim to prefer it to the Novus Ordo. This may just be the result of complete unfamiliarity (how many have actually "heard" the Tridentine), or, in the case of some older ex-Roman Catholics, it may just be nostalgia (or perhaps apologia pro vita sua).

Making the irony complete is the influence that the Tridentine Mass has had on the Orthodox Divine Liturgy since the 16th century. Because of the Turkocratia, most Greek liturgy books were published in Venice by Greek writers and musicians. They were deeply influenced by liturgical developments in the Latin Church, most noticeably in music. It is through Italy that polyphonic, composed music enters Orthodox liturgical music, to the point that, in the mid-17th century, composed music almost totally displaces the plainchant tradition. This is most notable in Russia, where court patronage actually brings in Italian composers to write liturgical music, which in turn is aped by indigenous Russian composers. Because of the switch to composed music, capable of being sung only by trained musicians, popular participation in the Divine Liturgy, where not eliminated altogether, is greatly truncated, so that in both the Greek and Russian Churches, there is a focused movement to restore congregational singing (e.g., the organization "Chant", which goes to parishes to teach people to sing). As per usual, the Orthodox are so solipsistic that many insist "congregational singing" is a "latinization", because it is done by Greek Catholics. Of course, the opposite is true--the Greek Catholics, like the Old Believers, retain the ancient tradition, while choral singing is the innovation.

Which brings us to the second, more insidious effect of the Tridentine Mass on Orthodox liturgy: it introduced the notion of liturgical uniformity--the desirability, even the necessity of a "typical edition" to be used by all parishes in a particular Church. In the ancient Orthodox tradition, though there were just two (in some instances three) forms of the liturgy, there were many local usages, within Churches, even within dioceses. This was understood as part of the dynamism of the Church, and was not only tolerated but encouraged by the issuance of Typicons to individual monasteries. When the Russian Patriarch Nikon, encouraged by Tsar Alexei, attempted to impose a single, "reformed" rite on the Russian Church, it had two unfortunate effects: it introduced more errors than it eliminated, since the Greek texts used by the "reformers" were later than those already used by the Russian Church, and included a number of "latinizations"; and it instigated the Raskol, or Schism, between the Church of Moscow and the Old Ritualists (aka the Old Believers), which caused serious fissures within the Church and also led to the sinful repression of these people who wanted no more than to worship as they always had. The final irony, of course, is today the Old Ritualists are rightfully seen by the Moscow Patriarchate as being a repository of the undiluted Russian liturgical tradition, and their music and practices are assiduously studied by Orthodox Church scholars.

Another source of the pre-Nikonian tradition is the 1629 Liturgikon of St. Peter Moghila, now available in a dazzling reproduction edition (if you have $500 lying around), which shows how liturgy was celebrated in the area of Kyiv in the generation before the Nikonian reforms. It convincingly demonstrates how many practices of the Ruthenian Greek Catholics (Ukrainian and Rusyn) condemned as latinizations are authentically Orthodox. Conversely, it also showed that some practices condemned by Ukrainian and Rusyn nationalists as "russifications" were also authentically Kyivan.

Is the history accurate?