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With all of this recent talk on Liturgical Reform, I figured I would "calm everybody down" by bringing up another sore subject.

I would like to discuss Church Slavonic.

Is the routine use of Church Slavonic integral to our tradition, or a tool utilized to maintain clericalism, a separation between the clergy and the laity?

John

Church Slavonic, IMHO, is routinely used for non of the above reasons. Again, in my opinion. Is it integral to our tradition? Well it is part of our patrimony. We should remember that Church Slavonic as we have it today represents something somewhat different that what the Holy Cyril and Methodios knew. It was then, and is still now, a sort of 'lingua franca' in use among the Churches of Slavs and some non-Slavs. It was, however, before the most recent 'Russifications' thought of as a form of the vernacular. That was what I think all would agree Cyril and Methodios considered it.

Has it been abused? I don't know. How could it be used to separate clergy and laity or be used to maintain clericalism?

Further comments?

Bob

I don't care to discuss this based on Deacon John's false dichotomy, but I'll offer this instead:

I'd like to propose an immediate moratorium on any further use of Church Slavonic in the Pittsburgh Metropolia until people (certain choir directors come to mind) learn the difference between "nash" (nas~) and "nas". If I hear "Kol' slaven nas" or "...chlib nas nasus~c~nyj" one more time I'll run screaming into the street. ("nash" (nas~) means "our", and "nas" means "us"...)

And the next time I have to endure some off-key RC "cantors" squawking "...smertviju smert' poplav" I'm going to just crawl into our Lord's tomb and die. Then they can immediately start up a "vic~naja jej pamjat'" even though I'm a GUY... :rolleyes:

Let's face it -- the people in charge:
-- don't know Church Slavonic;
-- don't want to know Church Slavonic;
-- are only too happy to try to impress everyone by throwing it all around but end up looking like fools in the process.

Meanwhile, when those of us who don't have grey hair try to offer a correction, we're glared at with a "what would you know about it, anyway, you little whipper-snapper?"

P.S. The Church Slavonic for "Eis polla eti, Despota!" is NOT "Mnohaja, L'ita!"

P.P.S. l'ita = years; vladyka = despota = master... thus, "Mnohaja l'ita, Vladyko!" Ugh.

P.P.P.S. And don't even get me started on the difference in pronunciation between "ti", "ty" "t'i", "mi", "my" etc.!

[ 07-19-2002: Message edited by: Lemko Rusyn ]

'twas of naught importance to the thread....

[ 07-19-2002: Message edited by: Steve Petach ]

[ 07-22-2002: Message edited by: Steve Petach ]

[ 07-24-2002: Message edited by: Steve Petach ]

I could not have said it better myself!

SLAVA ISUSU CHRISTU!
SLAVA NA VIKI BOHU!

Lemko Rusyn

Here at my parish we don't have Svati Boze, we Shati Boze.

I'm expecting tour buses for Divine Liturgy in the near future....

mark

Dear Lemko:

Not to excuse the errors, but my immediate reaction is to be thrilled to hear that singing is being done with such good diction that the errors are detectable. Sloppy diction is tough to correct, mispronunciation relatively easy.

djs

I'm just curious:

I speak Slovak at an intermediate-high level and am wondering how the transliterated Slavonic in latinica characters is pronounced in the following instance, as I noticed a somewhat different pronunciation than Slovak:

I know that t'i = "palatized t" + i
I was taught that ti = t + hard sign + i (in other words, the t is not palatized).

My question is thus: when they transliterate something with "ty", what sound are they trying to convey?

In Christ,

anastasios

[ 07-20-2002: Message edited by: anastasios ]

anastasios,

This represents the original Cyrillic which looks like: Tb|. Using the traditional Rusyn pronunciation of Church Slavonic, it sounds kind of like "tuh" as in "tush". It is NOT pronounced "tee" which is a Slovakism, not as "ti" as in "tip" which is a Ukrainianism.

Unfortunately, this distinction has been lost in most parishes in the USA and has not been taught at the Pgh. seminary at least for the last few decades, since most of our priests under 60 years old do not pronounce it correctly.

In Slovakia, even in Slovak-speaking parishes you will hear the traditional Rusyn pronunciation maintained more or less faithfully. Likewise in Subcarpathian Rus', the natives pronounce it the same way. The Ukrainian imports to the region, or natives trained elsewhere, have lost this distinctive Rusyn vowel sound.

Incidentally, it's only vaguely similar in sound to the Russian vowel written with the same letter b|.

In Rusyn pronunciation this also is why the word "nyn~i" comes out sounding more like "neni" even though that's not completely accurate pronunciation. It's sort of between "ninny" and "nenni".

Lemko Rusyn,

Thanks! The Rusyns in Croatia and Serbia must have lost it, too, because my favorite Slavonic liturgy is in our plaintchant from a priestly family in the former Yugoslavia, under Bp Slavomir (back in 1988), where they pronounce nyni as "neenyee" (ie the y andi are the same).

Would the "uh" sound be the same as an English shwa (like the u in "under")? or is it more rounded like an "ooo"?

Thanks!

In Christ,

anastasios
(always striving to do things right with language!)

PS Question #2: Was Fr. Levkulik right to transcribe "Kol Slaven' nas^" or should it have been "nas"? Because of the unfortunate way he translated the hymns into English (at least he had the courage to do it,though!), I can't figure out what the phrase is trying to convey: "So great OUR glory..." or "so great to us is the Glory"?? please help!

The Croatian Greek Catholics also use the hard 'g' instead of 'h', e.g., "Gospodi" and "mnogaja"... But the Vojvodinian & Srem Rusyns (Serbia & Croatia) don't have that "b|/y" sound in their own language (just like the eastern-Slovak dialects don't), so it's natural that in relative isolation, their Church Slavonic would not have it either.


It's actually like "u" in "push".



Kol' slaven nas~ hospod' v Sioni...
How great/glorious is our Lord in Sion. Jerry Jumba recently prepared a new English version that's in singable English but more faithful to the original words. I believe it's posted here:

http://members.surfbest.net/patronage@surfbest.net/HTML/Kol\'_Slaven.htm

[ 07-21-2002: Message edited by: Lemko Rusyn ]

Fr Deacon John:

Are you assuming that Church Slavonic is routinely used? Out in our neck of the woods it is not. But in any case, the use of Slavonic fits neither premise. Someone mentioned it is a "lingua franca". Are you sure that is the case in this country. The real issue is that the use of the vernacular is integral to our tradition. At a time when the dominant languages were Greek and Latin, those great Apostles to the Slavs evangelized and laid a foundation of worship in a language that the people could understand. IMHO, the continued use of a language that is no longer the common parlance of a given community should not be used as the language of a worshipping community. Now this is not to say that the language is not revelant to the community, but it is only relevant,IMO,in the sense of historical research and academic studies.

Just like Latin in the Western Church.

Please re-read my post above.

I wrote above "It was then, and is still now, a sort of 'lingua franca' in use among the Churches of Slavs and some non-Slavs. It was, however, before the most recent 'Russifications' thought of as a form of the vernacular."

I thought this would be obvious to most. All the Slav churches used Church Slavonic at their liturgical language until the 20th century. As I said above, it was a "sort of 'lingua franca' in use among the churches...." Church Slavonic was not and is not a spoken language. Everyone should know that. It is in a category something akin to Ecclesiastical Latin, which is not the same as the spoken 'vulgar' Latin.

The point of this thread seems to be the use (perhaps misuse) of Church Slavonic in worship in North America today. As some RCs had difficulty no longer using Latin so many BCs and Orthodox have the same difficulty. It is also, IMHO, invaluable to remember that for some such as the Rusins Church Slavonic is closer to their spoken language than Latin was to non-Romance language speakers.

I am in favor of using the vernacular. To Slavs it should be clear that this is the mind of th church especially since that is what Church Slavonic was intended to represent, a form of the vernacular.

Bob

Sorry, Bob, but when you use the present form of the verbs "to be" and "to use", I take that to mean "at this present time" ("... is still now..."). Out West, in the Eparchy of Van Nuys, you would be hardpressed to hear a Divine Liturgy in Slavonic, outside of a "hospodi pomiluj" on the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, or the hymn after the pre-Sanctified Liturgy. Perhaps I should have written,"Church Slavonic is notthe 'lingua franca' of the Church of Van Nuys."