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I disagree. Although you can say you are not removing the Slavonic from the Mass, it is like censorship through omission by removing it from the new books, so I don't think that is the fault of the local Priest.

They could have left the "split pages" in the book, but chose not to-just "saying" you approve unfortunately is not sufficient.

There are many reasons this church is dying a slow death, and this is one that is not often talked about-however, I think it shows clearly what is happening.

I have to agree with Starla on this one again. In my opinion,not including it in the new book is virtually the same thing as trying to eliminate it entirely. Leaving it up to the priest/deacon/cantor is a way of side stepping the issue. If there is nothing wrong with a DL in Slavonic--why not include it in the book so as to give people the option? To make parishioners use two books is silly. Especially since the older books are already paid for and have both versions.

How many parishes are desparately short of cash? How many parishes need money to pay for all kinds of things--heating and air conditioning, cemetary maintenance, etc. So we have the older books--which have both English and Slavonic. Those books have been paid for decades ago. According to what you said, Wondering, a parish can choose to use Slavonic anytime it wants. Only now they have to pay for new books (with money they could use elsewhere) which has the new English translation only, keep two books in the pews and switch back and forth. Once again, what is the average age of a Byzantine parishioner? Why are we confusing them and making the DL harder?

As far as the Slavonic being available on the web, that really doesn't make any difference since pews do not include computer monitors with internet access so people can call up the Slavonic version. Yes, the priest/cantor/deacon could print out the Slavonic DL, or the parts of the Slavonic DL they want to use--but we already have that available--in the old books! So why have a new book? To fix some translations? To add the music notation to the DL? How many people can read music? Most of the older parishoners can't. Nor do they need to--they know the liturgy forwards and backwards. I'm not against putting the music in--my wife was raised United Church of Christ and her only complaint about the DL is that she has no idea what notes to sing. So I can see that. But looking through the new book I found it quite confusing. Two parish priests I spoke with said the same thing. Their parishioners don't want to use it, they ignore it and leave it sitting at the end of the pew. They will be using it, but certainly would rather not.

I've elsewhere on some of the threads about the new version versus the older version. The logic and even words they use are above me. Frankly, it seems to be slitting hairs. The reality is that if the book we have been using all these decades is so bad that we have to get rid of it, then who approved it in the first place and why?
Or is this just politics again? We need to spend time, resources and money fixing our churches physically and attracting new members--not splitting hairs about latin/greek/slavonic translations. But hey, who am I? I'm just the guy sitting in a pew who wants to sing "Svate Boze." Why? It makes me feel good.

I agree with you that it is a slow but effective way to eliminate Slavonic from the Liturgy to allow it but to not make resources for it readily available.

I also agree that it is an insensitive approach to those who brought this Church to us and struggled so hard to keep their faith and traditions intact throughout 19th and 20th Century America. On top of making a wholesale and sweeping change of the Liturgy's translation, rubrics, and music, they also made the traditions less accessible.

There is a push to Americanize. I can understand and even agree with it in large part. We are an American Church trying to evangelize Americans. However, our roots are in the Transcarpathian Mountains, and the people who brought this faith here still have strong ethnic ties to their homeland. We don't have the great immigration levels to sustain it, but pastoral concern for the traditions and needs of those people who sustained the Church for us could have been exercised more liberally. As others said above, those parishes where there is enough interest to have Slavonic Liturgies should be free to continue providing them, or even to start providing them. Resources to do so should not be stifled. The remaining parishes will probably continue to include one or two hymns in Slavonic, so some sort of compromise such as putting the most common Slavonic hymns as optional settings would have been a more thoughtful approach.

All of that said, I disagree with many of the statements in the first post. I do not believe we need a unified language in order to have a unified country or Church. I believe a unified faith is far more important. That is something I believe this RDL was attempting to provide. Although I believe there were better available methods and resources, I do not doubt the good intentions of the revisionists. The trap I believe they fell into was what made them or their family "feel good," which was worshipping in a non-ethnic, "modern" American Church. I believe making any theological decisions based on what "feels good" is a poor idea. Good guys with good intentions do not necessarily equate to the right choices. That goes for those who want the Slavonic throughout just as much as for those who don't want any.

We've seen threads like the Cradle to Convert Continuum thread where the expanse of beliefs and practices within a single parish are discussed. It highlights our lack of unity, which will not be solved by a common language. I witnessed a visitor to my parish just the other day who was given directly contradicting information from two different parishioners on what we believe. One told the visitor we believe as the Orthodox do regarding the Eucharist and went on at length about our lack of Adoration, our lack of the term transubstantiation, our differences in theology with the epiclesis and words of consecration, and why we stand throughout. Then the visitor was talking to another parishioner who said we believe as the Roman Catholics do regarding the Eucharist and went on at length about how things are just in a slightly different order, but we believe in transubstantiation and we have adoration and benediction during the Liturgy, and that we reject the Orthodox understanding. This was all in English and was not a case of words being misused or misunderstood. We have a diversity of faiths present in our Church.

Even in this thread we can see this at work on a small scale. Starla was born and raised in the Byzantine Catholic Church. She refers to the Mass, a term derived from the Latin Mass and foreign to the East. We have some people who will politely correct visitors to tell them that we call it the Divine Liturgy. Is it undermining our faith for Starla to then talk to them about the Mass? Does it send the message that we share the same theology as the RC Church? She's a cradle, so does she have more ownership or somehow have more understanding as to what our faith teaches than a convert could have? In short, no. We are all adopted sons and daughters of God and have equal standing before God. Sensitivity to the historical reality of our Church, where Mass was recited on Saturday evenings after the communal rosary or adoration, should have been more forthcoming. Even if it isn't who we should be, it is who we were and in some places who we are.

Should we continue to retain these elements of our faith that are opposed to our own theology because they were once a part of us? What if it makes people "feel good"? I believe we have a bigger responsibility to worship as we know we are called to, within our own tradition. One legitimate tradition is the ecclesiastical languages of Slavonic and Greek. With so many other issues needing to be addressed, issues that are dear to many good people in our Church, issues that are likely to hurt people if done insensitively, I don't think legitimate traditions like language should have been touched. In reality, they were not. As Starla pointed out, their omission from the official people's book sends a different message. As a matter of fact, the Slavonic could have been offered as an assurance that this is still the faith their ancestors struggled and died to bring to us and played up. Instead, it was also downplayed and in the process the message the people received was that nothing they did was good enough and that this is no longer the faith of their youth.

It isn't the message intended, and it isn't true, but as we can see with Starla's heartfelt plea, it is the message that has been received by many. I think that is a tragedy, no matter which language you want to say it in.

A very moving and well thought out post. Congratulations, Wondering. I'm very glad you took the time to post that. I enjoyed it very much. The "latinization" period hurt the church very much. We have lost so much that was beatiful, as well as "ours." Some of those things would not even be thought of today--for instance the "mens side" and the "women's side." It would simply never happen nor do I think it should. But there was so much beauty that was simply ignored in the drive to be "American."

Many of us raised during those times realize that we were short-changed. No matter how well intended it may have been, and no matter how much the politics of the time forced some of those changes on us, the Byzantine Church has been diminished by the latinization period. Of course it was impossible to send seminarians to Slovakia or Ukraine in the 1950's. But that doesn't mean the powers that be couldn't have set up Byzantine seminaries in the U-S that mirrored those in Eastern Europe. They chose not to. Our traditions have been chipped away for decades--starting with the forced celibacy of our priesthood all the way to eliminating iconostasis and putting up Stations of the Cross during Lent.

The contradiction of the revised liturgy is almost astounding. In order to return to our roots and beginnings, we need to re-translate the entire Liturgy. That will make us more Byzantine, more authentic. But then we are offered an English translation only. And made to pay for it! Literally and figuratively. Again, no matter how well intentioned it may have been, the result seems to be throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Not to mention being a slap in the face to our ancestors who crossed the ocean in steerage passage, going to a land where they didn't speak or understand a word of the language. They worked themselves literally to death in many, many cases. They sacrificied again and again. Whether it was in the coal mines or the steel mills or the railroads. Our ancestors loved their religion so much they would do anything to maintain it. And how do we honor our ancestor's and their sacrifices?

As you said, Wondering, it is not the message intended, I'm sure. But instead of making this an opportunity to honor our ancestors and point with pride at what they accomplished, we've dropped the ball. Frankly, for a church that has a declining membership, the way to attract people back to the fold would have been to honor our ancestors and their sacrifice. That's a bigger public relations opportunity to re-gain some of the lost ground. Telling the world publicly that we are proud of who we are, where we came from and what we stand for. That we are Americans and speak English, yes, but we have a past that is special. The powers that be might be surprised that when the message got out, people might very well listen and respond. Especially those of our generation. They missed a very big PR campaign.

Again, no one I know is suggesting the DL return to only Slavonic. Most people would be lost. I wonder how many priests would even be able to do an entire DL in Slavonic? But there's no reason we can't have some Slavonic in a DL and even teach it to our kids. I'm teaching my 9 year old son Slavonic. Every night when we say our prayers we make the sign of the cross (right shoulder first) and end with "Hospodi Pomilu." Even though I don't live in my hometown, I take him there whenever I can and tell him about the sacrifices of my ancestors and show him the coal mines and how the miners were treated. And no matter how bad it was--they had their religion to turn to.

I hope enough priests will still continue to throw Slavonic into the mix. I'll be asking my priest to do it. S'nami Boh!

I do have to say Wondering, that your post was excellent. On the surface, I agree with the idea that all you need is a unified faith, and not a unified language. However, the more I thought about it-I feel that language expresses faith, and there are ways of expressing that faith that can be lost in translation. Again, I have to go back to Hebrew in Judaism.

If we accept that the highest expression of faith is within ones' heart, but we are called also to outwardly express that faith to the world, then I would argue that there are certain ways that the old church slavonic expresses our faith that sometimes can be lost by english translation.

Now I know this, on one level, is a very superficial argument-but knowing that language ties us to a spiritual (and material) history that helps us to understand our faith on a deeper level, it perplexes me as to why the church would not at least leave the language there.

I am not asking for us to exclude those who do not speak the language (I certainly do not fluently) but I read pages and pages of arguments about the new liturgy, and not one mention about the slavonic being erased. Besides all the academic reasons, that makes me sad.

Why not just go to the Roman Catholic Church that is closer to my house, instead of driving 45 minutes to the Byzantine Catholic Church if all it is, is faith? I guess if I were not human, and none of us were-then there would be no separate religions, just one house of God. But we are human, and there are many reasons I drive 45 minutes that include my faith, but not my faith alone. In some ways, I may be looked down upon as not being a good Catholic, for saying that-but it is the truth.

And again, the youth are the future of the church, and believe me, there are many, many who feel like I do and who are just not going to church anymore because they are not inspired as they see no difference between the church they grew up in, and the one down the street where the young people play guitar all day and have juice during "mass" and meet in someone's living room for the "mass" each sunday.

There is a whole subculture going on that you may or may not even be aware of, where the church is seen as hypocritical, and since your friend is in a christian band who plays every sunday, you would rather go there then to some hypocritical church. I hang out with these people, and they are everywhere-and you would not believe how many are Byzantine Catholic.

Anyway, I have drifted off topic, but thank you for a wonderful post!