If I may post my non-qualified thoughts,
Eh.
While I personally have some own gripes with the Western Rite - for example, I am not a fan of how there are Two Epikleses in the Mass, nor do I buy the idea that "this is the ticket that will convert everyone to Orthodoxy" - I think some of the assumptions and opinions that Father Lawrence posits are not really founded.
He paints this picture that there exists three periods of the Church - one in which there is extreme liturgical diversity, one in which there exist two great liturgical traditions, Byzantium and Rome, and then one in which there is a single liturgical tradition, where liturgy is intimately tied to ecclesial identity.
But this is simply not true.
Not only does this neglect the non-Chalcedonian (which are wildly different from each other and the Chalcedonian liturgical traditions) and the non-Ephesian liturgical traditions, and not only does it also neglects the pretty significant historical schisms which led to significant variation within the Byzantine traditions, but the idea of the liturgy being tied to ecclesial identity today is also not true at all, which I will get into below.
The Uniatism of the Ukrainian and Ruthenian Catholic Churches led to significant Latinization of their liturgical rites at a level, that even with the removal of explicit Latinization (lace, Rosaries, kneeling, etc.), has led to some permanent influence in those traditions in terms of symbols, candles, architecture, art, and chant. The Old Believers schism has such a weird variation of the Byzantine Rite, at least what we are used to. And the Oriental Rites have stuck around as well, with their own ideas.
And yet, with all of the above, the Orthodox Church has adopted with very little question. There exists an entire diocese of Ruthenians (Carpatho-Russian) which are canonically Orthodox, with very little change required, ROCOR and the Moscow Patriarch have allowed the Old Rite to exist canonically, and the Orthodox Church has allowed Oriental Orthodox liturgical traditions to influence their own Church. For instance, there's a very legitimate argument to be made that the Pre-Sanctified Liturgy has origins with Severus of Antioch and not Saint Gregory the Great, and even in Georgia today, there exists a prominent Georgian Orthodox Priest by the name of Father Seraphim who chants in Aramaic / Syriac.
With these additions, there's very little question about the historicity or legitimacy of such practices. How is it that the Ecumenical Patriarch is allowed to rule over a Uniate liturgical tradition with very little question? These are liturgical traditions that have been disconnected from the Orthodox Church for hundreds of years. Same with the Old Russian Rite. Same with any Oriental Orthodox influences. Are not the interpositions of these traditions completely inorganic and non-genuine, considering they existed outside the Body of Christ?
So this begs the question - if we are allowed to adopt liturgical traditions which have been disconnected for hundreds of years into the Orthodox Church, why are we not allowed suddenly when it comes to one that visually looks different than what people are used to?
Father Lawrence makes the argument that the Council of Trent made radical changes to the Roman Mass. Yet, look at any older missal, and you will be shocked at how substantively similar it is. Look at the Sarum Missal for example, or look at a Missal from the 800s.
Moreover, I think Father Lawrence really, really underestimates how much the Byzantine Rite has changed in the liturgical context. I think most Orthodox would be shocked if they read Pope Saint Damasus's letter to the Gallican Bishops, where he rebukes them for looking really drastically visually different from the laity, claiming that the Bishops should be more distinguished by their wisdom and knowledge than by their dress. He should read the history of how the Priest's vestments developed from an almost ordinary outfit of the Roman Empire to today, or how the different coloring of vestments was a post-schism Western novelty, etc. etc. etc.
My final point will be an obvious one - how untrue liturgical rite is tied to ecclesiology. The Ukrainian and Ruthenian Catholics certainly don't think that way (and neither do the Carpatho-Russian), neither do the Melkites, or any of the Eastern Catholics outside the Maronites. Neither does the Anglican Ordinariate. Neither does the Old Rite in communion with the Orthodox Church.
