in the new liturgy. At least, not specifically.

The petition which asks us to pray for the government and all the armed forces has been changed to "For our government and for all in the service of our country, let us pray to the Lord."

Fr. Keleher points this out in his book. I checked the Greek text, and it has us pray for "palatiou" and "stratopedou", which are the genitives of "the royal court" and "the army", I think. The new translation collapses all that into "all in the service of our country."

Is there a reason to eliminate the specific reference to the armed forces?

"the royal court" has no meaning anymore. I have no problem with this translation. It nicely sums up the intent.

Maybe it is omitted or avoided because some of the translaters are still stuck in the 60', 70's unease with anything military.

In the Latin Church during that time it was taboo to speak of Christians as "soldiers of Christ" even though this terms comes to us from St. Paul.

Ray S.,

Does "army" no longer have meaning anymore?

Dear Pseudo Athanasius you said:

I say:

Knowing a little Greek, a more accurate translation of 'palatiou' would be 'those of the palace'. In other words, the government, and 'stratopedou' would be 'those soldiering'. So in that sense, 'all in the service of our country', would be a more concise translation.

Zenovia

Concise? Yes. Accurate? No. Why would we want to be concise, anyway, when the Greek isn't? Is the liturgy too long? Can't we spare half a second to mention the armed forces?

We had a young lad get a blessing as his unit was called up to Iraq last Sunday. I find it very problematic that we will no longer be praying specifically for him, as the petition that mentions our armed forces gets folded into a bland petition that includes all.

I heard a rumor that the Greeks were actually adding to one or more of the Litanies to include not only those that travel by sea, air, and land, but also those in space.

I would expect that a the NEW IELC? Liturgy to include those in submarines and in space. Not to delete the armed forces.

At least in Western Europe, palace (a word taken from Latin) meant not so much the court as the royal administration - and not necessarily royal (to this day in French one speaks of the Palai de justice, for example), so translating it as the "government" is defensible.

As to the army, it may be - this is a guess - that in the Vietnam War days priests began to employ various euphemisms rather than risk potential unpleasantness during the Divine Liturgy. The Vietnam War polarized the USA to the point that almost any symbol was risky. I moved to Canada in the midst of it all, and I still remember how shocked I was the first time I went to the movies: the Canadian flag came on the screen and the audience quite peacefully and normally stood up, sang the Canadian national anthem, and sat back down again. Any cinema which had tried that in the USA at the time would probably have had to deal with mayhem.

Fr. Serge

I can't wait! I hope one day to have my own space ship.

The Greeks also have:
Does anyone use "army"? I have heard "armed forces" and "armed forces fighting everywhere", but not "army". The rendering found in the new edition has been around for a while; it is not new to this edition.

And does anyone remember if there was a brouhaha over altering the text to add "air" to travel by sea and land?

I think the Greeks are the only ones who have that sort of translation. All the others I've checked refer to the military.

Didn't the Ecumenical Patriarch add "air" to the litany back in the early twentieth century? That's the story I had heard.

Nec

I did notice the Melkite version has "For our public servants." The OCA version has:

Is that second petition in paranthesis for a reason? Is it used in time of war? Anyone know?

Nec

Dear Nec Aliter,
That petition in parentheses is properly used, if at all, only of a Christian Sovereign.

Fr Serge

Glory to Jesus Christ!

I have to say that here I think the translators have been quite reasonable. Sometimes a literal rendering conveys an idea in English that, while using counterpart vocabulary, conveys an idea that is quite foreign to the original.

A medieval Byzantine Christian would pray for the emperor and his army for reasons that are quite different from those that motivate us today to pray for our various national armed forces. Under the notion of "symphonia" (as I understand it at least!), the Byzantine church identified its aims with those of the state. There was no separation of church and state in the oikumene, simply separation of tasks.

Today, of course, the secular state and its army has aims that, however worthy, are expressly distinct from those of the Church. To use the language of "symphonia" to pray for those secular organs of government would be to distort that very language. It would imply something that the Greek definitely does not, namely an accomodation of the Church to the secular ideal.

So surely we have to go back to basics and look at why we pray for the state at all. We have both apostolic and (pre-Constantine) patristic warrant for such prayers on the ground that the state provides, or should provide, a peaceful environment for the Church to prosper. Thus the rendering of the new translation seems quite acceptable.

Another point: why would we want to specify only the "army" or even the "armed forces." What about police and other protective agencies? Not all of them are armed, but all of them have as their aim the promotion of peace and justice and certainly they all need our prayers to help acheive that aim!

Finally, I took a look at a couple of modern Greek Orthodox translations to see what solution they take. One simply omits this petition altogether! Another, namely that by Archimandrite Ephrem (Lash) and which I believe is the official version of the Liturgy for the Diocese of Thyateira and Great Britain, gives a different GREEK version of the petition. The Greek reads has pray for the "arches" and "exousias", i.e. the government and all in authority.

Finally, if we are going to insist on a completely literal translation of this petition, then we had better go the whole way and sing the Troparion of the Cross properly as well: "grant victory to the kings over the barbarians"!!

hierodeacon Maximos

Dear Father Maximos,

Certainly there is a reason to pray for everyone, including the post office, the utility workers, and the school superintendants, but we don't generally have specific prayers for them. The armed forces, it seems to me, have such a greater responsibility and danger, both physical and spiritual, that I don't think it is out of line to pray for them. Such a prayer includes in it the safety of the soldiers, that they engage in good conduct in war, that the war be just, that the government act for the good of God's Church, etc.

I also wonder what exigence motivated this change. Why do they say "government and armed forces. . . that won't do. Better say 'all in the service of our country.'" Why not retain "armed forces", a translation of stratopedon, and add "all in the service of our country," which seems to me to be implied in the word "palation"?

Perhaps I am a bit emotionally attached to this petition, since we have several soldiers in our parish. I don't like the idea that they are losing a petition.

P.S. Congratulations on your ordination! Axios! Axios! (Perhaps I should translate that, via dynamic equivalence, into "Groovy!")