The answer
I am sure if they look at older manuscripts, they will not find many of today's Agpeya prayers. The same applies to the Divine Liturgy; if we go back very much in time, we will delete more than 85% of the liturgy.I am disturbed to hear that a monastery or some churches give themselves the liberty to omit parts of the Church approved prayers. This unfortunately will single them out from the unity of the whole Church. How can we claim to be one Church when some members give themselves the right to change, adding or omitting without the consent of the Church as a whole? Such matters should be presented to the Holy Synod for discussion and not left to individuals to make such decisions on their own. As members of one Church we should all be "Endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace" (Eph 4:3).
Answered by His Eminence Metropolitan Youssef (opens in a new tab)