The Gallican Rite (also known as the Gallo-Roman Rite) is a liturgical form within the United Roman-Ruthenian Church. It is under the Spiritual Authority of the United Roman-Ruthenian Church, but under the temporal authority of the Crown of the Merovingian Dynasty. It was re-established by a decree of H.A.H. Prince-Bishop Rutherford I of Rome-Ruthenia, with the support of H.R.H. Sire Rubén Gavaldá de Gévaudan, sovereign head of the Merovingian Dynasty. The rite was established under a Primate of the Gallican Rite. The first appointed Primate was His Reverence Monsignor Alejandro Rodrigues, Archbishop of Lyon.
The Gallican Rite was a historical form of Christian liturgy and ritual practices used in Western Christianity. It was not a single liturgical rite, but rather several Latin rites that developed within the Latin Church, which was the predominant form of worship in most of Western Christianity for much of the first millennium AD. The rites first emerged in the early centuries as the Syriac-Greek rites of Jerusalem and Antioch, and were later translated into Latin in various parts of the Western Roman Empire, particularly the Praetorian prefecture of Gaul. By the 5th century, the Gallican Rite was well-established in the Roman civil diocese of Gaul, which had a few early centers of Christianity in the south. Ireland is also known to have had a form of this Gallican Liturgy mixed with Celtic customs.
Yet, the Gallican Rite was used from before the 5th century, likely prior to the Diocletian reform in AD 293 in Roman Gaul, until the middle or end of the 8th century. There is little information about the rite before the 5th century, and throughout the whole period, there was significant diversity, with the general outlines of the rite being similar, but not a high degree of homogeneity.
The Rite of Iberia, used from the 5th century in Roman provinces within the Roman civil diocese of Hispania until the end of the 11th century, was so closely related to the Gallican Rite that the term "Hispano-Gallican" is often used to refer to the two. However, the Iberian Mozarabic Rite has a sufficiently independent history to warrant separate treatment.
The chief authorities for the Gallican Mass are the letters of Saint Germanus of Paris (555–576), and a comparison of these with various existing sacramentaries, liturgical texts, and descriptions from other sources, which allows for a fairly clear and general understanding of the service, despite the lack of a complete Gallican Ordinary of the Mass and Antiphoner.
The analysis of the Gallican Mass shows that it contained a very small number of fixed elements, with nearly the whole service being variable according to the day. This is in contrast to the more fixed structures of the Roman Mass or the Ambrosian Mass.
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