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Слава Ісусу Христу!

Our churches are not full because of peer pressure. The me generation�s peer pressure is learned from the TV. The only people who go weekly to church are black Baptists, everyone else only goes on Christmas and Easter or Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Unless you are a covenant of sister witches or demon fighting roommates then you are visited. EWTM doesn�t count as they have no prime time sitcoms.

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At the UGCC parishes I've attended in the Chicago area, my experience has always been that people prefer the Ukrainian liturgy to the English one. At my parish they prefer it by a better than 2 to 1 margin. At St Nicholas in Ukrainian Village, I've noticed that the English liturgy was poorly attended and that most people prefered the Ukrainian ones by a wide margin. That might not jibe with the vision some people have of what the UGCC needs to evolve into, but that's the way it is and I say God Bless Them.

Слава Ісусу Христу!
Again and again in peace�

From the time of the Apostles Saints Cyril and Methodius we have been discovering unique treasurers here and others there in use amongst our peoples. The Holy Spirit works with what there is not forcing what there is not. Egotists have tried to uniform the church from the top while the people organically resist by glorifying their lives with the mystical Trinity at their own grass roots level, as during the iconoclast heresy. The migration of the Orthodox during this persecution is the true evangelization of the Slavic peoples. One parish has more people at a liturgical language Liturgy another parish might have more at a vernacular language Liturgy. Why make them choose, offer both. Small communities may offer both during the same Liturgy. I have witnessed where the priest and deacon chanted their parts in Ukrainian while the choir and people answered in Slavonic and the �silent� prayers which use to be secret were offered in English. Amazingly we found not only God was multilingual.

Rome is again learning from the East what was attributed to their own Saint Augustine �in essentials unity, in nonessentials diversity and in all charity�. What are we saying? Listen to the people for nowhere is it written pastors are infallible. Often the perception is not infallibility but scandalous lazy arrogance. If we don't use it we will loose it, and if they don't lay the groundwork it will not generate.

So much for generalizations. Offer some specific examples and see if the unwashed masses here can brainstorm charitable solutions. To exaggerate this invitation lets review what may soon need to be reversed. The Gregorian Calendar was driven down the throats of the American peasantry with edicts and manipulation. Going to church on January 6th for Christmas Eve people found garbage cans with the church�s Christmas trees conspicuously curbside. Inside water was blessed where they were smacked in the face with more than the holy. Would it not have been better to keep the decorations and sing the carols until the Meeting (Presentation) in accordance with our 40 day custom? Would a February 2 or 15 end to the season have been so detrimental? With hind sight we can see how a pot luck �Schedry Vechere� (Bountiful Supper) could have been used to explain our customs do not stop the day after Christmas. Besides the Christmas Eve �Svwaty Vechere� (vegan Holy Supper) we have the Schedry Vechere (Festive supper) at midnight of the feast of First Blood and another Schedry Vechere (vegan Bountiful Supper) for the eve of the Baptism. Like Shevchenko addressing his epistle to the ancestor, those present and those yet to come we would still be celebrating with our persecuted brothers and sisters under the Soviet yoke, and also with our present next door neighbors simultaneously. It was not when that was important but how. Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Protestant parishes organically accepted the spoils from this unjust holy war of ours.

If we do not know our past we are bound to repeat it. It was not a trivial attempt to uniform the calendar. Remember that is why Emperor Constantine called the First Ecumenical Council. It was the execution that was arrogantly uncharitable. On the other hand the 1954 prayer book CHRIST WITH US distributed under Bishop (Archbishop) Ambrose (Senyshyn) was charitably revolutionary. English translation and rubrics on one side and the Slavonic on the other. The marvelous part was the Slavonic was rendered in alternating lines of the Ukrainian alphabet and English alphabet syllable by syllable. He did more with this book to teach Europeans to read English and the American to read Ukrainian than any other project I know. It is ashamed subsequent publications reverted to what I will refer to afterward as a lazy way.

Cultural and peer pressure is certainly a factor (as is, likely, demographics), but if this were the only factor then many of the Protestant (especially Evangelical) faithful would be affected by this. However, they don't seem to be letting peer pressure get the better of them. Their churches are full, and ours are not. No, in our Eastern Catholic case, there must be another more substantial reason.

Your citation of Chicago is not a good one, simply because the majority of the UGCC faithful there are NEW IMMIGRANTS from Ukraine. Of course they are going to prefer the Liturgy in their own language, and this is to be culturally expected.

Agreed, this is a good example of something practical. I have seen many Orthodox parishes that have bi-lingual liturgies (as per the norm of Christian Liturgy, where only one is served each day). We should offer both, because both are included within the treasury of our tradition. As long as we catechize people as to the full meaning of what's going on. Certainly, if people pray better in a 'sacred' language (whatever that means), then go for it. Who am I to stop them? Personally, I absolutely love the Greek and Slavonic. My only concern is that some people, who could have been touched by charity and perhaps hear something prayed in their vernacular, may not be. Lets keep 'em both, and praise God with our whole heart, mind, soul, and strength. Furthermore, let each linguistic adherent show love for the others.

Слава Ісусу Христу!
��the UGCC faithful there are NEW IMMIGRANTS from Ukraine. Of course they are going to prefer the Liturgy in their own language, and this is to be culturally expected�. Quote Byzantine Latino

That may be less accurate than you think. They may be use to different languages from the services from home, depending on the rubrics, gestures, sounds and smells more than the words. Besides going to the English Services will give them a feeling of US belonging; �Welkom to Amrika�. The priority I think is they go when thy think their friends will go. Community.

I've never seen figures for the Chicago area, but at my parish, the vast majority of those attending the Ukrainian liturgy are most definitely not new arrivals, and at other parishes I've spoken with or overheard conversations with more than a few who obviously speak English as there first language, yet attend the Ukrainian liturgy. It's certainly not a case of people going for the language they're more conversationally fluent in.

My sources are new Ukrainian immigrants who are either centered in and around Chicago, or who are well-acquainted and/or connected with the city. I have been told that the majority of the new immigrants cannot speak English. Some, it seems, are learning. Most, however, seem to find work illegally and probably intend to return to Ukraine once they've earned enough money. One of my friends, who was visiting from Ukraine, was heading out to Chicago to stay with a cousin. She asked me to telephone her cousin's cell phone, and mentioned that he couldn't speak English...meaning I would get a good linguistic work-out.
Perhaps your parish is an exception to the area.
Certainly, some people prefer the Ukrainian liturgy. Often, for example, the English liturgy is the second-class one...the singing not being so great.

This may all very well be the case. I think community is the single, most important act of welcome, and it has more success than any other 'tactic'.