I was sent a notice that St. Ann Byzantine Catholic Church, Harrisburg PA, has placed a notice in their parish bulletin that new (presumably RDL) English-Slavonic liturgical books have been purchased. Is this a Passaic Eparchial book only or is this a "Sui Juris Metropolitan Byzantine Church of America" sponsored printing?

Ung

It is a book put together by Father John Zeyack and Jack Figel. It is odd that they would produce such a book as I thought neither particularly liked the RDL and were waiting for it to fail to put the old books back. St. Ann's isn't the same since the RDL.

Figel posts here. He can tell us how he got permission to publish it. Maybe they will allow publications so long as they use the RDL text. Who knows anymore.

If this "pew book" uses the RDL reverse translated into Church Slavonic by a cantor in Philadelphia, that reverse translated RDL was unofficial and not for public usage. If one is to read the forward in the RDL book, no other books were to be used. If this is now being allowed, then the promogation of the RDL is being mitigated to some extent.

Ung

All,

I would like to simply respond to these posts with some clarifications.

Yes, a book was produced for St Ann's Church in Harrisburg, PA (not a suburb of Philadelphia!) by combining the English text of the newly promulgated Divine Liturgy of the Metropolia of Pittsburgh (RDL) with the transliterated Church Slavonic of the former pew books for the Divine Liturgy, Moleben, Panachida and many pages of Marian, Eucharistic, Christmas, Lenten and Paschal Hymns. Also included in this book were the English-only Prayers before and after Communion, and all the propers (troparion, kontakion, etc.) for the eight Resurrectional Tones and the entire liturgical year (fixed and moveable feasts) as found in the new "Green Books".

This book was designed to be "easy-to-use" with text only, no music, with a five-page Table of Contents and page headers to easily find various services, prayers, etc. It is also laid out with dual-column text for easy reading, and all in black & white.

These were produced by special request of a few parishes, and published as a "for private usage only" and "compiled from approved sources" publication. It is not for general usage or distribution.

The Church Slavonic is NOT a reverse translation of anything, simply the corresponding text for the RDL English from other approved sources such as the previous pew book and other prayer books with transliterated Church Slavonic (for example, the previous pew book did not have Church Slavonic for the Beatitudes, but other earlier prayer books did).

The English used is that of the RDL which is the official English text of the Metropolia. I understand many other parishes across the country have produced similiar "private usage" books for their own parish as "simpler to use" and "lighter weight" than the green books.

We also produced a "private use" English/Slavonic dual language booklet of just the Divine Liturgy which we used for the liturgies during the Seminary Concert Tour. It was this booklet that was the basis for the more complete book that was developed for specific parishes, on request of the pastors.

I hope this clarifies the issues raised.

Jack Figel