31. The obvious conclusion from the foregoing remarks is that in this matter the Apostolic See has sometimes agreed in certain circumstances and in consideration of the character of individual people to make specific concessions which it has refused to others in different circumstances among different peoples. So to complete the task which We have begun, We have only to show that this Apostolic See has kindly allowed an Oriental or Greek people to use a Latin ceremony to which they were devoted, particularly if they adopted this ceremony in ancient times and if the bishops did not oppose it at any time, but approved it either expressly or implicitly.

Latin Rite Adopted by Oriental Church

We referred to evident examples of this occurrence above, in mentioning the category of Orientals and Greeks who respect equally the Latin and Greek rites. In the main they observe their own ceremonies, but are attached to some of Ours. Therefore, We will refrain from useless repetition, merely recalling here what was fully presented earlier in this letter. We shall add just two examples from the Maronites. For several centuries the episcopal and priestly vestments of the Maronites have resembled exactly the vestments prescribed in the Latin rite (Synod of Lebanon 1736, chap. 12, on the sacrament of the Eucharist, no. 7). Pope Innocent 111 in his letter Quia Divinae Sapientiae bonitas to Patriarch Jeremiah in 1215 exhorted them to imitate the episcopal vestments of the Latin Church. In consequence this pope and his successors sent them gifts of holy vestments, chalices, and patens (Patriarch Peter in two letters to Leo X in Labbe, Collectionis Conciliorum, vol. 14, p. 346f). Recently at the synod of Lebanon (chap. 13), unanimously and with Our approval, the Maronites adopted the Latin rite in regard to the Mass of the Presanctified. They celebrate it only on Good Friday, since they have abandoned for just reasons the practice of the Greeks who offer only the Mass of the Presanctified on the days of the Lenten fast, except on Saturdays, Sundays, and the feast of the Annunciation when it occurs in Lent, as is laid down in Trullan Canon 52. On these days the priest divides the consecrated bread into as many pieces as will suffice for celebrating the Mass of the Presanctified on the following days. On these days he consumes and distributes to the congregation these pieces, which he had reserved in the ciborium (Leo Allatius in his prolegomena to Gabriel Naud, de Missa Praesanctificatorum, p. 1531, n. 1).