www.byzcath.org Forums Mysteries: The Life of Worship Vespers, Matins & the Divine Liturgy The Revised Divine Liturgy Ta aghia tis aghies

Dear Father Deacon Anthony,

Even though this cannot apply to any English translation, the anachronistic Ukrainian translation(s) tend to keep the Slavonic words where appropriate, since people wisely realize there are some ancient words that are best left alone, such as "Svyateye Svyatym" Suschu Bohoroditsiu, Nasuchney etc.

But what is evident is that liturgical translators don't appear to have some sort of agreed standard (apart from what their bishops tell them) to guide their work.

This is a case in point.

And also why so many English-speaking UGCCers up here go to great lengths to learn the liturgy in any language but English and defend the Slavonic/anach. Ukrainian liturgy. That includes Western Ukr. Canadians.

Alex

Alex,

Thank you for the post. Please see my earlier responses to Deacon Lance.

I understand the issues involved, and I can appreciate that the word "things" is not exact. But it is better to leave the translation ambiguous rather then limit it by adding words. That allows all the nuances Father Serge mentioned (that are referenced in Father Taft's article) to be preserved.

Keeping it ambiguous might even allow the additional shades of meaning. I know the quote does not appear to come directly from Scripture but think about it it terms of:

Wisdom of Solomon 6:9 (RSV)
For they will be made holy who observe holy things in holiness.

LXX 6:10 (Sir Lancelot's translation)
For they that keep holiness holy shall be judged holy, and they that have learned such things shall find what to answer.

6:11 (Douay)
For they that have kept just things justly shall be justified....

It seems to me that that all the possibilities of meanings that Father Taft suggests in his article need to be considered at length before one could choose to limit the text by adding the word "gifts". And that should be done by common agreement of the entire Church (Orthodox and Catholic).

We will have to agree to disagree on this issue.

John

I'm not understanding the point here. I don't know about "anachronistic Ukrainian" but the Slavonic is link [patronagechurch.com] (see last line of page 264).

I unfortunately have not formally studied Church Slavonic, but I'm looking at Archbishop Alypy's GRAMMAR of the CHURCH SLAVONIC LANGUAGE and I see for hard declension adjectives inflected forms that are the same as in the "Svjataja svjatym" in the above link, and these forms correspond to those indicated for the Greek as outlined in my previous post.

So it seems all the more that the Slavonic is just trying to be as literal as possible a rendering of the Greek.

Dn. Anthony

Yes! I meant to comment before that I think this captures the very succinct sense of the Greek and Slavonic if one understands "Holies" as referring to something for which neuter gender is appropriate, and that "Holy" has the {collective} sense of a plural, i.e. males+females.

With that understanding, I'd say it is a very nice rendering.

Dn. Anthony

Since I did not use the phrase "the Holy of holies" which Alex seems to have attributed to me, I also don't know what its relevance here might be.

As I indicated, "Sitz im Gottesdienst" is an expression coined by Father Archimandrite Robert Taft. It means the liturgical context in which one finds a Biblical phrase or expression.

Fr. Serge

Dear and Esteemed Administrator,

I certainly agree with your point on following the Church in this!

Hats off to you as you are in the forefront of dealing with these difficult issues that make someone like me so very happy that I worship in a "tried and true" foreign tongue!

I had just read the new Basilian Horologion in Ukrainian - it's not a translation but a tragedy.

Cheers,

Alex

My apologies, Father Archimandrite . . .

Dear Father Deacon Anthony,

Up here in the UGCC we are going through something like this with our "new translation" now.

Although laity like me who have no training in this whatever apart from attending Church have no say in the matter, the rendering of a word in a correct fashion from another language must, as we have come to appreciate, reflect other concerns involved with the "liturgical rendering" of the word.

But since I don't worship in English, I should really just shut up.

Cheers,

Alex

Alex,

please do not feel like you shouldn't share because you do not worship in English. You know the texts. Your posts have been illuminating.

So you are having liturgy problems up there, too?

Lance

Alex,

I bow to your knowledge, I am not an expert, I am guilty of dispensing second hand knowledge. This thread is shedding a lot of light on the issue.

Lance

Exactly, gifts is an interpretation and as such explains too much, limiting what is not spelled out in the original to an assumed specific meaning that is obviously not intended -- otherwise one would find the Greek or Slavonic word for gifts.



This is coming at it from the opposite approach: The expectation of finding a word in the Greek or Slavonic because it is in the English and is translated as "Gifts." This is a reasonable expectation but the problem is that there is no such word in the original language version.

In an analogous way, one would be hard pressed to come up with the word anthropous/chelovik in the creed given the present translation which has just "for us" rather than "for us xxx." Ironically, in this case a word is there in the original, I would say even a very significant, theologically important word, and it in effect is ignored -- is absent, certainly abandoning the full force of the meaning of the original -- in the current translation.

Dn. Anthony

Darov does indeed mean "gifts" (in the genitive plural). But since "Darov" does not occur in the ecphonesis "Ta Agia tis Agiis", I fail to grasp the relevance to the present discussion.

Fr. Serge

It is relevant to the discussion because "gifts" is in the RDL translation. The question is rather, what is it relevance of "gifts" in the RDL translation to the intent of the Greek/Slavonic original?

Dn. Anthony

Why is it a tragedy? More Latinizations?

Regarding the Ukrainian translational issues, these are apples and oranges compared to the RDL. In most cases the newer UGCC translation (the 1988 Synodal translation) is closer to recent Ukrainian Orthodox translations ("viki vichniy","Hospodevi pomolimsya", the translation of the Our Father, etc.) than the "archaic" Ukrainian.

It is as much an issue with familiarity as anything else. The older Patriach Josyp (Slipiy) translation is what everyone grew up with and knows. I prefer it not because of issues of precision, accuracy, etc. but simply that is how I learned it, learned the music to those texts, etc. and it is closer to Slavonic - really for no other reasons. When I try to sing the newer the older still wants to pop into my head.