Ad multos annos (English: For many more years) is a Latin acclamation for celebrations, and also a hymn used in the rites of the Orthodox and Catholic churches.
Ad multos annos was a form of congratulation during Greco-Roman antiquity, which was especially used as an acclamation for higher-ranking people.
In the Orthodox liturgy, Ad multos annos has a Byzantine equivalent of the first millennium which is an acclamation called Eis polla eti (Greek εἰς πολλὰ ἔτη): it is part of the Polychronion. [1] In Slavic Orthodoxy, especially Ukraine and Russia, Mnogaya leta has become a traditional celebratory song, akin to Happy birthday to you.
In the Roman Catholic liturgy, it was an element of the episcopal ordination rite first found in the Pontifical of Apamea from the 12th century: [2] the newly consecrated bishop sang this three times to his consecrator; [3] or in the case of an abbot at his investiture, once only. In a ceremonial similar to that of the Laudes Regiæ or Carolingian Litany, the bishop at his ordination would acclaim his consecrator in order to thank him. In three stages, the bishop would advance toward his consecrator, perform three genuflections, and sing three times giving his voice each time a higher pitch, the acclamation: Ad multos annos!
There is an exception to this rite: when the newly consecrated bishop is the pope (this happens when a man who is not a bishop is elected pope), it is the consecrator who sings to the pope, not vice versa. [4]
It is still sung during major celebrations, [5] such as conclaves for bishops who are elevated to the cardinalate. Today the Latin phrase is also used in greetings and toasts in academic and ecclesiastical circles, [6] especially at the Pontifical North American College in Rome where it has become a refrain. [7]
Ad multos annos was set to various musical arrangements.
Austrian composer Joseph Balthasar Hochreither wrote the Missa ad multos annos, his oldest surviving work from 1705, on the occasion of the consecration Abbot Maximilian Pagl of Lambach Abbey in Upper Austria. The premiere took place on April 19, 1705 in the Lambach collegiate church. [8]
The most popular version of the Mnohaya lita sang in Russia, Ukraine and among the diaspora was composed by Dmitry Bortniansky (1751 † 1825), when he was choirmaster of the imperial chapel in Russia and it was adapted into the Latin Ad multos annos by Maxime Kovalevsky (1903 † 1988) when he was chapel master in Paris.
Mass is the main Eucharistic liturgical service in many forms of Western Christianity. The term Mass is commonly used in the Catholic Church, Western Rite Orthodoxy, Old Catholicism, and Independent Catholicism. The term is also used in some Lutheran churches, as well as in some Anglican churches, and on rare occasion by other Protestant churches.
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The Tridentine Mass, also known as the Traditional Latin Mass or the Traditional Rite, is the liturgy in the Roman Missal of the Catholic Church published from 1570 to 1962. Celebrated almost exclusively in Ecclesiastical Latin, it was the most widely used Eucharistic liturgy in the world from its issuance in 1570 until the introduction of the Mass of Paul VI.
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The Roman Rite is the most common ritual family for performing the ecclesiastical services of the Latin Church, the largest of the sui iuris particular churches that comprise the Catholic Church. The Roman Rite governs rites such as the Roman Mass and the Liturgy of the Hours as well as the manner in which sacraments and blessings are performed.
The Cæremoniale Episcoporum is a liturgical book that describes the church services to be performed by bishops of the Latin Church of the Catholic Church.
The Euchologion is one of the chief liturgical books of the Eastern Orthodox and Byzantine Catholic churches, containing the portions of the services which are said by the bishop, priest, or deacon. The Euchologion roughly corresponds to a combination of the missal, ritual, and pontifical as they are used in Latin liturgical rites. There are several different volumes of the book in use.
The Mass is the central liturgical service of the Eucharist in the Catholic Church, in which bread and wine are consecrated and become the body and blood of Christ. As defined by the Church at the Council of Trent, in the Mass "the same Christ who offered himself once in a bloody manner on the altar of the cross, is present and offered in an unbloody manner". The Church describes the Mass as the "source and summit of the Christian life", and teaches that the Mass is a sacrifice, in which the sacramental bread and wine, through consecration by an ordained priest, become the sacrificial body, blood, soul, and divinity of Christ as the sacrifice on Calvary made truly present once again on the altar. The Catholic Church permits only baptised members in the state of grace to receive Christ in the Eucharist.
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The Roman Pontifical, in Latin Pontificale Romanum, is the pontifical as used by the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church. It is the liturgical book that contains the rites and ceremonies usually performed by bishops of the Roman Rite.
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In the Catholic Church, preconciliar Latin liturgical rites coexist with postconciliar rites. In the years following the Second Vatican Council, Pope Paul VI initiated significant changes. Some of Paul VI's contemporaries, who considered the changes to be too drastic, obtained from him limited permission for the continued use of the previous Roman Missal. In the years since, the Holy See has granted varying degrees of permission to celebrate the Roman Rite and other Latin rites in the same manner as before the council. The use of preconciliar rites is associated with traditionalist Catholicism.
The Edwardine Ordinals are two ordinals primarily written by Thomas Cranmer as influenced by Martin Bucer and first published under Edward VI, the first in 1550 and the second in 1552, for the Church of England. Both liturgical books were intended to replace the ordination liturgies contained within medieval pontificals in use before the English Reformation.
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