Archimandrite Robert Taft, SJ, RIP

Grant we beseech Thee, O Lord, that the soul of Thy servant, Robert, Thy Priest, whom Thou didst endow with sacred gifts whilst he dwelt on earth, may evermore rejoice in the glorious abode of heaven.
Through Jesus Christ, thy Son our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end.
R. Amen.

From the New Liturgical Movement

Archimandrite Robert Taft, SJ, who is well-known as one of the most important modern scholars of the Byzantine Liturgy inter multa alia, passed away yesterday at the age of 86, at the Jesuit Order’s home for retired priests in Weston, Massachusetts. He taught for many years at the Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome as Professor of Oriental Liturgy, producing hundreds of scholarly works; among his best known are the book The Liturgy of the Hours in East and West, and The Great Entrance, a study of that part of the Liturgy of St John Chrysostom.

Fr Taft was ordained to the priesthood in the Byzantine Slavonic Rite in 1963, and for decades, regularly celebrated the Divine Liturgy at the church of the Pontifical Russian College, generally known as the Russicum. Here is a beautiful video of the Liturgy at the Russicum on Pentecost Sunday, 2009, in which he was the principal celebrant. The choir is conducted by his confrère Fr Ludwig Pichler, upon whose extraordinary work is built the magnificent choral tradition of the Russicum. (Fr Pichler passed away in May of last year at the age of 101.)

Вѣчная Памѧть - Eternal memory!