Rituals
Ambrosian Rite
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Origin Milan, from the episcopate of Ambrose (374-397); surviving books medieval
The Ambrosian Rite is the historic liturgy of the church of Milan, named for Ambrose, its great fourth-century bishop, though the surviving books are centuries younger than he is. It is the largest non-Roman Latin rite still in living use, celebrated today in most of the Archdiocese of Milan and in pockets of the neighbouring dioceses. It keeps its own calendar, its own lectionary, its own order of Mass and its own ancient chant repertory, and its survival through repeated efforts at Roman uniformity makes it a standing witness that the Latin West was once liturgically plural.
Facts
Origins
Origin PeriodMilan, from the episcopate of Ambrose (374-397); surviving books medieval 2 Place of Origin Historical OriginTraditionally traced to the fourth century bishop Ambrose of Milan, though the rite as it survives reflects centuries of later development rather than a text he personally composed. 1 Form
Implements and MaterialsDistinguished from the Roman Rite by its own liturgical books, most notably the Ambrosian Missal, and by Ambrosian chant, a distinct plainchant repertoire preserved alongside its Gregorian counterpart. 1 Meaning
Literal MeaningNamed for Ambrose, the fourth century bishop of Milan credited by tradition with shaping the rite, though scholars regard the liturgy as it survives to be a later Milanese elaboration rather than his own direct composition. 1 Practice
Who Performs ItClergy or ordained officiants 2 Liturgical and Scriptural RoleRetains its own body of chant, distinct from Gregorian chant, and its own calendar variations from the Roman Rite, including a longer season leading into Lent. 2 Status
Current StatusCelebrated today in most of the Archdiocese of Milan and in parts of neighbouring dioceses, the largest non-Roman Latin rite still in living use. 1 Attributions
TraditionCatholicism, Ambrosian Rite of the Latin Church 1 PurposeProvides the Archdiocese of Milan its own ordinary liturgy for the Mass and the Divine Office, distinct from the Roman Rite used through the rest of the Latin Church. 2 Text
Source TextThe Catholic Encyclopedia's entry on the rite traces its distinct chant, calendar and ceremonial forms to the Latin liturgical tradition of Milan, still in active use there alongside the wider Roman Rite. 2 Observance
Observance NoteThe Catholic Encyclopedia notes the rite is not a relic confined to history books but an ordinary living liturgy, celebrated today across the Archdiocese of Milan and in scattered parishes of neighboring dioceses that retained it rather than adopting the Roman Rite. 2 Learn More
The Rite of the Church of Milan
Milan received its liturgical stamp in the age of Ambrose, when the city was the effective capital of the Western empire and its bishop one of the most powerful men in it. Ambrose himself is credited by Augustine with introducing antiphonal hymn singing to the West during the basilica crisis of 386, and genuine hymns of his composition are still sung in the rite that bears his name.
The Ambrosian liturgy differs from the Roman in ways a visitor notices at once and in ways only a scholar would. Its Advent runs six weeks rather than four, beginning after the feast of St Martin. Its Lent begins on the Sunday after the Roman Ash Wednesday, so that ashes are given at the start of the following week. The order of Mass keeps distinctive features, among them the placing of the creed after the offertory and a litany-form dismissal of the catechumens on Lenten Sundays, and the rite preserves a body of Ambrosian chant that is its own musical dialect, older in some of its layers than the Gregorian repertory and never absorbed by it. The lectionary distributes the scriptures on its own scheme, and the calendar honours a Milanese company of saints headed by Ambrose himself. None of this is antiquarianism: the rite is the ordinary Sunday worship of one of the largest dioceses in the world, and its books have been revised and reprinted for contemporary use like any living liturgy.
How Milan Kept Its Liturgy
Every centralising wave in Western liturgical history broke against Milan, and the story of how is half the interest of the rite. Carolingian policy in the eighth and ninth centuries aimed at Roman uniformity across the empire, and later legend delighted in telling how the Ambrosian books were vindicated, in one tale by trial of fire, when their abolition was urged. The decisive test came after the Council of Trent.
When Pius V imposed the Roman Missal of 1570 on the Latin Church, his bull Quo Primum exempted any rite that could prove more than two hundred years of continuous use, and the Ambrosian rite qualified many times over. Its position was then secured from within by Charles Borromeo, the reforming cardinal archbishop of Milan from 1564 to 1584, who might have been expected to Romanise his diocese and instead edited and defended the Ambrosian books, giving the rite a Tridentine-era codification of its own. His successors maintained it, and when the Second Vatican Council ordered the reform of all the Latin liturgies, Milan carried out its own revision rather than adopting the Roman one, publishing a reformed Ambrosian missal in 1976 and a revised lectionary in 2008. The result is a rite that has passed through the same historical gates as the Roman liturgy, Trent and Vatican II alike, while remaining recognisably the worship of one particular church with sixteen centuries of memory.
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