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"Why is it that the Revisionists always label those seeking authentic restoration of our tradition as 'troublemakers'?"


Because deep down inside they are western christians. They know it. They try to drag the good people down with them. Traitors to the Byzantine tradition all of them.

1) Everyday American English has evolved to the point where "man, he, mankind, etc." as generic terms for men and women is a thing of the past and in order to make it accessible, those terms needed to be reworked?

"man" is used throughout the Mass as a term for both men and women

By expelling "sexist" terminology, we'll draw more people in who have no faith and stop the hemorrage of our youth and more educated people.

There was not...one doctrine for theologians and another for ordinary believers; and certainly nothing of the division we often see today between teaching which all but denies the faith itself, and the orthodox teaching which is seen as a collection of myths which satisfy only the ignorant...There is...as for any christian, one faith, one doctrine, one teaching understood by the believer more or less fully depending upon his natural ability, training, circumstance, grace and opportunity.

The life of liturgy does not come from what dawns upon the minds of individuals and planning groups. On the contrary, it is God's descent upon our world, the source of real liberation. He alone can open the door to freedom. The more priests and faithful humbly surrender themselves to this descent of God, the more 'new' liturgy will constantly be, and the more true and personal it becomes. Yes, the liturgy becomes personal, true, and new, not through tomfoolery and banal experiments with the words, but through a courageous entry into the great reality that through rite is always ahead of us and can never be quite overtaken.

Those of us who feel we have been "robbed" are not troublemakers. We just know we have been robbed. While others turn their heads and ignore the fact that a precious treasure has been removed/denied/stolen. Remember the Commandment -- THOU SHALL NOT STEAL....

Why Inclusive Language Won't Succeed

Inclusive language in worship is supposed to correct what is thought to be male dominance in the church. Writing in Commonweal, Robert Woodward of Newsweek has questioned the existence of this hypothetical masculine domination. Citing Walter Ong's insightful book Fighting for Life, Woodward contends that the church at large has always been overwhelmingly feminine, the "Holy Mother Church." (And, we may add, the New Testament portrays the church as the bride of Christ.) In such a feminine environment an all-male clergy, as in the Catholic and Orthodox communities and many evangelical denominations, is a necessary balancing force which encourages men as well as women to be religious. Sociologists confirm that the best predictor of whether a child will maintain a religious commitment in adult life is not the faith of the mother � women are expected to be religious � but the faith of the father. Woodward comments, "if the father demonstrates that religion is not foreign to what a man is and does, the child � especially the male child � is much more likely to be religious upon reaching adulthood."

Because of their biological makeup, principally their more task-focused and less intuitive intellectual processes, men are unlikely to connect with a feminine-dominated or even gender-neutral symbolic environment, which is what a religion is. Masculine language in reference to God is part of the traditional symbol system of biblical faith, and it has allowed men to find meaning in that faith. Feminizing the language of worship virtually guarantees that men will fall by the wayside, except perhaps those whose sexual identity is confused.

Languages lie at the bedrock of cultures, and are inherently resistant to change. Bible translators know this, and make accommodations in order to translate the biblical idiom into phrases that will have equivalent significance in the target culture. But the current drive for gender-neutral language works in the opposite direction: it attempts to force linguistic change in order to foster cultural change. In this case, the translators are attempting to force a linguistic change on both the originating culture (the Bible and Christian tradition) and the target culture (North American society) at the same time. In reality, the movement for inclusive language is an attempt by an elitist segment to impose its values upon a larger community, and to take control not only of the actions of others but their thoughts as well.

If worship is to be truly inclusive, it cannot impose an elitist linguistic convention on a larger culture. A mandate for gender-neutral language in Christian worship would simply create a small, holier-than-thou cult with its own special lingo, while the rest of us hopeless Neanderthals fall off the edge of their world. And that's exactly what's happening to most of the historic North American denominations. Locked into the feminizing agenda, they are fast becoming a tiny minority of left-wing activists and their captive senior citizens who stick around just because of inertia. Anybody who is really looking for a meaningful set of religious symbols is going someplace else: to those churches which don't care about inclusive language, but do care whether or not people are included in the covenant with God through Jesus Christ.

I think you could call this new entity something like "The American Carpatho-Russian, Ukrainian, Slovak, Hungarian, Croatian, Serbian, Orthodox Greek Catholic Church of the U.S.A, and all the Seven Seas, Inc., a Pennsylvania Corporation". The short name would be .