www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Eastern Christian -- sign language - deaf

I am beginning to learn a little sign language to communicate with people who are deaf -- basically to be able to welcome them to our church. The religious signs are mostly protestant with some Roman Catholic. The "Orthodox" sign is for Orthodox Jews and refers to 'clean' not 'right worship.'

Does anyone know who or where or a book for Eastern Christian signs -- Byzantine/Eastern Catholic/Orthodox and related signs. Is there such a book or booklet?

Thank you in advance for your help.

Ask SP Dundas - surely he'd know!

I think this is an area that has sadly been neglected. I'd be very interested in hearing (no pun intended ) about any organized outreach to deaf in the Byzantine or Orthodox tradition. I have heard that the Uniontown Pilgrimage has a deaf group.

An idea: how about producing a video tape of the Divine Liturgy with interpretation into ASL? But, instead of just one interpreter have one for the priest/deacon parts and one for the main cantor's parts and then two or three for a "signed choir."

David Ignatius DTBrown@aol.com

If one knows how to sign most of the words of the Divine Liturgy and a few other signs, then perhaps the few "hard to translate" words could be "spelled" out. After all, sign language does have a manual alphabet....I think it would be great to find out eventually if there are signs for those words, but at least it might tide you over.

Thank you.

So how do I contact SP Dundas? I don't know his Forum number or I could use the "search" and send him a private message.

Is there a way to contact him? Has he posted recently? On which thread?

If not, does anyone know how else to reach him?
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

In the search function you can put in "Dundas" and it will pull up all his posts.

Dear Monastic Beginner,

Try contacting Father Michael Hayduk, Rector of the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in Parma, OH. He is well versed in sign language and signs the liturgy during the annual pilgrimage. I'm sure you can find the cathedral phone number on the Parma website.