The Ambrosian Rite’s Byway through History

The interactions and byways of history with the present are always interesting and often unexpected. 
This last Sunday was a case in point. On my way back from Cairo, I made a visit to the Church of St Edward the Confessor in Lugano to meet the new incumbent, Fr Paul Hrynczyszyn, together with members of the congregation where I had been privileged to assist during the second Covid lockdown in 2021 – at a time when that Anglican Chaplaincy was going through an interregnum.

In the afternoon on Sunday, I was invited to join His Excellency, Alain de Raemy, Amministratore apostolico della Diocesi di Lugano and other Christian leaders of Ticino for a special Service to mark the week of Prayer for Christian Unity in the Cattedrale San Lorenzo overlooking Lake Lugano. 

Lugano is the largest Italian speaking city outside Italy, but it is nonetheless very much part of Switzerland — albeit in that uniquely Italian canton known as Ticino. But from the religious perspective, the influence of Milan to the south has always been powerful. The Archdiocese, along with the Ticinese, celebrates a unique Eucharistic liturgy known as the Ambrosian Rite, after St Ambrose. No less a figure than St Augustine of Hippo was said to have observed “that the blessed Ambrose composed [it] because of the existence of a different use of the heretics, which previously used to be sung in Italy.”

After its inception, history records repeated attempts to suppress this distinctive tradition starting with Charlemagne – who wanted to follow the model of his father Pepin the Short, who had abolished the Gallican Rite used in France, in favour of a Gallicanized Roman one. To this end,  he ordered the removal of all the existing Milanese Missals “quasi in exilium” : as though exiled. 

However, proponents of that Rite, led by Bishop Eugenius, appealed against this decision. This led to one of the odder procedures of the time which was a trial by ordeal (which had also occurred in the case of the Mozarabic Rite of Spain). Thus two Missals, one Ambrosian and one Roman, were laid closed upon the altar of St. Peter’s in Rome and left for three days, with the verdict to be given in favour of whichever one was found open on the third day. As it turned out, both were found open on the third day, which was taken as proof that both rites enjoyed Divine favour – and thus was the Ambrosian Rite preserved.

Roman Popes later made several efforts to eliminate it in favour of Roman uniformity, but the Milanese held firm, only to look in great danger with the Council of Trent’s push for uniformity a few centuries later. But once again it survived. This time because the Council took an unusual stance which allowed for local usages, among those that could prove existing use for more than two centuries, could continue. St Charles Borromeo next made a few small Romeward alterations but nonetheless continued the tradition which thus endures down to the present day. 

Ironically, in a number of respects, the Ambrosian Rite now preserves features echoing the Tridentine Rite, which was itself largely suppressed after the Second Vatican Council – which led to the Novus Ordo Rite now generally seen in Roman churches today and which heavily shaped Rite II of the ‘79 Book of Common Prayer in the Episcopal Church. 

What this byway of history illustrates is a striking example of the way in which ecclesial unity does not have to entail uniformity – a principle widely evident in the Western Church before Trent. 

It is of value to remember this now, at a time when in our wider society, uniformity of thought is once again widely demanded by those who decry intellectual diversity and highly value a binary distinction between the rightness of their own views and the wrongness of others. 

In the opening above, I referenced the significance of the unexpected – which is generally as true in life as it is in history. It was in 1997 that I first visited Milan at the suggestion of a Yale friend who was already then a Benedictine monk studying for his doctorate in musicology under Nikolaus Harnoncourt in Graz. He invited me to join a group of seminarians from Graz travelling down to Milan through the city of Trent – where the famous council took place. Our visit then culminated in a grand liturgy in the Duomo of Milan, celebrating the transitus in no less a figure than St Ambrose himself 1600 years before in April 397 – a scale of history not commonly encountered! 

Afterwards, I had the opportunity to meet the principal celebrant, Carlo Maria Cardinal Martini,  who unusually (like the present Pope) was a Jesuit by background, though in his case a notable Biblical scholar. One of the most striking features of his long ministry in Milan was his embrace of the rich and wide intellectual, theological, and liturgical range – alongside his knowledge of the historic roots of his Archdiocese. This made him particularly effective in engaging with the increasingly secular milieu of Italy. A notable example of this was his celebrated public dialogue with the author Umberto Ecco. 

I little thought in 1997 that I would have occasion to revisit all of this background and history as I have this past week.

The Rev. Canon Alistair Macdonald-Radcliff
Rector