www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Parish Life & Evangelization ByzanTEEN Totally Old Church Slavonic Liturgies?

I think debates are nice when we can hear peoples� tones of voices getting elevated and when we can see them speaking through their closed teeth and hitting the table with their fists. Now, that's fun.
Lauro

Christ is Risen!

Sorry that I haven't been able to reply since I started this thread, my recent studies sorta grabbed me by the ears for a bit. Now to have a real debate!

I, for one, am very against totally Old Church Slavonic Liturgies. I have several reasons for this belief. The most important one is that to do the Liturgy in Old Church Slavonic would be a slap in the face to Cyril and Methodius. How can this be, you ask, since Cyril and Methodius made Old Church Slavonic?? Cyril and Methodius made Old Church Slavonic to serve a very specific people in a very specific region of the world. They never argued for Church Slavonic to be used anywhere else but in the country where it was native! The duo always argued for the Liturgy to be in the native language of the people, not a foreign language. Vatican II agreed with this concept and it has spread to every avenue of the Catholic Church, with the exception of the Tridentine Masses.


My second reason is that using Old Church Slavonic is against Vatican II. This is because Vatican II proclaimed that the language used must be the language of the people, even though Latin can be used. The official stance, then, of the Catholic Church is that we, the people, must use our own, native language, NOT a language meant for another time, and another people.

Third, I believe that using Old Church Slavonic in all the parts of the Liturgy (some is OK, if not used too often)will drive away visitors. I am a convert to the Byzatine rite, Katie G witnessed it. When I first walked into St. George Byzantine Catholic Parish in Aurora, IL, the Liturgy was alien enough. I couldn't follow along. I didn't know how the books worked. But at least I could understood the language. But, if they were chanting it, say, in Romanian, I probably never would have come back. The power of at least understanding words is great, brothers and sisters, and should never be underestimated.

Christos Voskrese!
Dear Nathan,
For one thing if you read my posts then you would know that i am not necessarily promoting this for Suday liturgies but for weekday liturgies. Most visitors come on Sundays. For another thing if there are enough people who want this why is it a bad thing. here's a question Nathan, if our church was in an area highly populated with Spanish speaking indivuduals would you think it okay for a liturgy or parts of the liturgy to be said in Spanish?It's just a thought, I would totally support it becuase it would be in the language of the people.
-Katie

Katie,

I know you meant this question for Nathan, but I think you have answered your own question... so here's another. Where in this country (or any country for that matter) is there an area highly populated with Old Church Slavonic speaking individuals, that is, individuals who use OCS for normal everyday conversation?

Well, since Church Slavonic is a liturgical language, and not a conversational language, you never found a group of people conversing in it in the United States -- or in the Carpathian homeland.

But most of us know that.

I think the real point (and please forgive me, Katie, if I'm misinterpreting it) is that just as a Spanish language liturgy would be a cultural expression for Hispanic-Americans, a liturgy in Church Slavonic is a cultural expression of Rusyn-Americans.

While never the "vernacular" of the people, Church Slavonic was the spiritual language of our people.

--Tim

Tim,

are you sure about that? I've never known a liturgical language to develop that was not the vernacular of a people. Why else would a Greek liturgy be translated into Slavonic? Why develop another liturgical language when Cyril and Methodius had the Greek?

A Spanish language liturgy is much more than a cultural expression. For those who only speak Spanish, a Spanish language liturgy allows them to express their worship of God, not to express a culture.

Dear-in-Christ Deacon John, Tim and others,

Christ is Risen!

There are some accuracies and inaccuracies that need to be teased out here. The liturgical language now employed by the Slav Orthodox Churches (and those that came from them, such as the various BCs) is not the same language that Saints Cyril and Methodius codified and used.

The language of the missionary work of the Brothers from Thessalonika should be called Old Church Slavic (or Slavonic if you perfer) or Old Bulgarian. It represents as much as possible the common language of the Slavs that was spoken over a very wide area and would have been able to be understood from what is now Moravia to Bulgaria. This was at a time then the Slavic languages had not diverged as much as they have today.

The liturgical language of the Slav Orthodox (and other Churches including the Old Ritualists) should be called Church Slavonic. It represents a much later development than the work of Saints Cyril and Methodius and has been revised and updated over the centuries (IIRC most recently in the reign of Catherine in Russia) to more closely resemble the modern languages. Old Church Slavic is a South Slav language. Church Slavonic is harder to place; it is highly Russified now in all its recensions but still has a South Slav base.

So, Old Church Slavic, the language of Cyril and Methodius certainly represents as best as possible the vernacular of the Slavs at that time. Church Slavonic, the modern liturgical language, represents a liturgical language somewhat removed from the literary language but nevertheless updated to keep it somewhat understandable. Church Slavonic further exercised a massive influence on the development of the literarature and literary standard of the Slavic lands where it was the liturgical languages, that is South and East primarily.

Having done some grad work in this I am happy to continue discussing it but I am not a teen either.

Tony

Perhaps the problem is the isolation caused by the term "Hispanic-Americans." My paternal grandmother never learned English yet lived in the US for about 20 years. She only spoke Spanish. My father and mother separated and divorced, my dad went home, my other uncle did as well, and my grandmother was left with her last son, my uncle who eventually became a JW.

I used to take my grandmother to RC Mass in Spanish. Sometimes there were cultural events but not often. Going to Mass in Spanish was not a cultural event. I am not sure if she would fit the term "Hispanic-American." I think I would though, for me a Spanish Mass or Liturgy is nice but not necessary, for here it was necessary. Latin would have worked for her as that is what she grew up in but one was not available then and there.

Tony

Huh?

Lots of our immigrant grandparents never learned English, or at least never learned it well.

What does that have to do with the cultural pride of their English-speaking grandchildren singing a Spanish-language song or having a liturgy in Church Slavonic?

And of course a religious service is also a cultural event. It's also a musical event. It's also a communal event. It's a family event.

It's many things all at the same time. And it can be different things for different people.

--Tim

This is my point exactly. You do not make clear what you mean by "Hispanic-American" which is why I mention that twice above. Am I an Hispanic-American for your purposes or was my grandmother?

Our language needs are (were as she has gone to rest) totally different.

To put the Church Slavonic spin on this there are people who until today have never heard the Divine Liturgy in any other language (than Slavonic). While it does not represent their home-language do they have no need for a Slavonic liturgy because they don't speak it at home?

Sorry, you've lost me. I don't understand what your grandmother has to do with anything.

I'm talking about us, not our grandparents. Mine are all dead, so I'm assuming this isn't much of an issue for them.

--Tim

Tim,

The original post about Spanish in the liturgy used "Spanish speaking indivuduals" you turn that into "Hispanic-Americans." It makes a difference if Spanish is the first language. If Spanish is the first language, or the only language, that is different than one who is bilingual from home.

I am not talking about some nostalgia trip. I am talking about people who don't understand English.

Tony

If you want to dismiss this discussion about remembering and keeping alive the Church Slavonic liturgical heritage of the Byzantine Catholic Church as a "nostalgia trip," then that's your right.

--Tim

Christ is risen! Katie, I apologize, I miunderstood you. I'm glad that we agree on this issue. And yes, I do think that if needed the Liturgy should be translated into Spanish. As for whether or not we should be proud of our heritage, my answer is, WHAT heritage? I have at least five cultures in my blood, many of which have frequently conflicted (Native American, English, French, Polish, Irish, and MAYBE Dutch) so believe me, I have no heritage whatsoever. Many of us are a mix, maybe not as mixed as I am but even so. There are more people coming into the Byzantine Church who are English, German, Irish, French, heck, maybe even Chinese. We can't afford to be ethnical anymore.

It may have been the vernacular of "a" people, but not the vernacular of the folks in the Carpathian homeland of the Byzantine Catholic Church. They spoke a different Slavic dialect, although we don't know precisely how different it originally was, since it wasn't written.

It was obviously a related Slavic tongue and Church Slavonic was nowhere near as foreign as liturgical Greek would have been. But it wasn't the vernacular, just as it wasn't the vernacular for the Russians, Ukrainians or Belarussians.

It was an externally imposed liturgical language, and as such, I think it acquired a spiritual heft and a power that the local tongue didn't carry.

There were attempts to use Church Slavonic as a foundation for a literary language of the Carpatho-Rusyn people, but that ended in the mid-1800s.

--Tim