www.byzcath.org Forums Mysteries: The Life of Worship Vespers, Matins & the Divine Liturgy The Revised Divine Liturgy Some considerations on translating the hymn "It is truly proper"

U-C,

An even better question is why has our membership been declining since the 60s if not before then? Why are some trying to blame the RDL for what has been occuring in our Church for decades? Because it is convenient for their cause? (I do recognize some have left over the RDL).

Fr. Deacon Lance

I agree. There were cracks in the foundation years ago and the entire structure was starting to lean a bit. It's easy to make the RDL a scapegoat for all our ills. I hear how the "old" liturgy, contrived and chopped up as it was in practice, will restore heaven on earth. It's not going to happen. We have had a crisis in leadership and identity for years. Unless God raises up a saint and puts him in charge, the future for us doesn't look promising.

Fr. Deacon,

They left because, like at my former GC church, from at least the 1950's on, (based on conversations that I have had with people around then) the people were taught that "Catlik is Catlik, and it doesn't matter where you go, as long as it's Catlik!" At the same time as this, the Holy Name Society was formed, stations of the cross were hung up, a "confessional" was installed, the church was repainted with a large mural of the crowning of Mary by the Holy Trinity based on the famous mural by Velázquez Coronation of the Virgin [images.google.com] painted behind the altar, the altar servers started to wear cassocks and surplices, May crownings began, altar rails put in to allow kneeling for Communion, need I go on? With at least 10 other "Catlik" parishes in about a five mile radius of this church that were doing the same thing, why go to the Greek Catholic church, which became increasingly farther away as people moved out of the old Rusyn neighborhood where the church was to more suburban post War II housing tracts being built.

This went on until the 1970s when a young Vostochnik pastor came in and tried to revive Eastern Christianity and install an iconostas, and almost got booted out for it. By then it was too late, the damage has been done. The RDL has had little effect in this parish, as it's not all much different from what was being done before, except for the music.

Beacause of the numerous churches I attend, nobody sings the RDL parts of the liturgy, even if they are lucky enough to have a cantor. I attend parishes that use a combination of Levkulic/Green RDL books and when the older tranlations for the fixed parts are used, people sing. When the new RDL parts are used nobody sings. The parish life in theses churches have dropped off considerably since the RDL. Now to say or act like the RDL has nothing to do with the significant drop in laity participation which leads to parish drop-outs is absurd. Why is our Church, what's left of it, in such denial? Recongnizing the problems is the first step in recovery. Continuing on with our heads in the sand and not dealing with these real problems will all but gurantee
our Church will disappear into oblivion!

Christ is Born! Glorify Him!

Ung

And I can point to our parish where, since the green book, participation has increased a lot. Also since the book we continue to take in new people.

Great! But I would bet that your parish is in the minority. I would love to survey every parish in the Metropolia and see what the results would find.

Christ is Born! Glorify Him!

Ung

The impact of the RDL promulgation on the most authentic participation of the people in the DL, full congregational singing, is an important topic. I proposed here in the initial post the examination of a short, well-defined hymn of the liturgy with an emphasis on the approach to the English translation. A current thread is examining the aspect of the chant and singing in more general terms, and I recommend it for consideration: Ensuring Beautiful Liturgies.


An new English translation should be aware of existing translations. What I propose here is a fresh look at this particular text, and considerations based on the meaning of words and the structure of the text, both of which serve to convey what the composition is saying. It is also necessary in the case of churches that have a more immediate liturgical language than the Greek to take that tradition, the medium for handing on the liturgical rite, into account. One of my first posts on the forum inquired about the Present status of the Ruthenian Recension.


I've intended to say more about the translation of the hymn in light of and in response to some previous posts, but I need to work on it more. This can get involved because it brings in aspects of the Greek text, the Slavonic text, the factors that necessitate changing a familiar translation that may be doing an adequate job, and the compatibility of a new English translation with, in this case, tone 6 Samohlasen (which can always be done but one would prefer something that seamlessly slides off the tongue).

Father Deacon’s statement is misleading. Our fellow Greek Catholics and the Orthodox allow a lot of freedom. None PROHIBIT the full Liturgy. Even the Greek Orthodox are adding back all the litanies between the Gospel and the Cherubic Hymn.

Following your logic then we should add back all the litanies and other removed parts of the Liturgy and correct the rubrics to the 1942 so that we can be like the Orthodox? Shall we start using Elizabethan English, too?

So far no one has provided any real justification for the change. “Mother of God” worked just fine.

Father Deacon’s statement is misleading. Our fellow Greek Catholics and the Orthodox allow a lot of freedom. None PROHIBIT the full Liturgy except our bishops. Even the Greek Orthodox are adding back all the litanies between the Gospel and the Cherubic Hymn. The trend in the OCA, Johnstown and the Melkites is towards the full Liturgy.

Following your logic then we should add back all the litanies and other removed parts of the Liturgy and correct the rubrics to the 1942 so that we can be like the Orthodox? Shall we start using Elizabethan English, too?

So far no one has provided any real justification for the change. “Mother of God” worked just fine.

Why not? I love the use of Thee, Thou, Thy, etc in the Orthodox Church. It is very reverent.

This is the translation in the 1965 liturgicon and the old Pew Book. As such it was the familiar version to all in the BCC. Based on what has been said so far I offer this critique and comparison.

It does the job. It approximates the first direct address Theotokos/Bohorodicu as "who have borne God" which at least maintains the theme of birth through the use of borne; "the mother of God" is used for the same direct address at the end of the hymn, and this is not consistent. As I point out in a previous post, using Theotokos essential nullifies the birth theme, however, to the extent that it is somewhat intelligible, it reclaims the sense of being a direct address and that the same word/phrase is in both places.

Essential, the RDL just replaced those two phrases in the former translation with the term found in the Greek version, Theotokos. Some of of the plus and minuses in doing this have been noted. The RDL version with Theotokos achieved a certain consistency at the expense of clarity, immediate intelligibility, and sustaining the theme of birth present in the hymn in the Greek and Slavonic. Also, I still find it very awkward to sing to the given Tone 6 Samohlasen setting.

The question of a literal, accurate, yet unstrained translation requires commenting on this translation and the others provided in a previous post, and the tie-in with the words in the ekphonesis introducing the hymn. Because of language fonts and formatting I have put my comments in a pdf file. It is rather detailed and so may not be of general interest. It basically has two points:

1. the hymn has a (proposed) chiastic structure that can be an aid in its interpretation and, therefore, translation

2. certain English words in the hymn and ekphosesis do not maintain and may be unable to maintain the distinction found in the Greek and emulated in the Slavonic

Here are some examples using the ACROD text. The ekphonesis is as in the RDL and is the same as in the '65 liturgicon and is, I believe, a basic, standard, rendering into English; here the RDL's Theotokos is the '65 liturgicons's Mother of God, and is here rendered consistent with the hymn's proposed text as Birthgiver of God:


In this ekphonesis: the word blessed is not the same as in the hymn's blessed; the word glorious is not the hynm's use of glory which is, however, the same as the hymn's word blessed; and Virgin is not the same as the hymn's use of virgin. Some of these issues are reflected in variations in the other translation versions given in an earlier post.

Consideration is given to the hymn making an allusion to Luke 1:48 all generations will call me blessed. After some allowances and compromises I suggest:
Also, I provide a suggested setting in Tone 6 Samohlasen indicating it is quite singable (more so for me than the present version).

Link to the pdf file: link [patronagechurch.com]

Might I recommend printing out and reading Deacon Anthony's work at the link he gave? It is very good analysis and bears a more careful study than (at least I) can manage on a screen.

In the end, though, I still see no reason for any change to this text. The 1964 text and musical setting were both quite good and had become a theme song for our Church. There was no reason whatsoever to destroy it. It met the standards of accurate translation and sing-ability. Any change should have waited until such time as there is a text common to all Byzantines.