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[ 07-24-2002: Message edited by: Diak ]

Approval by whom - those who will be singing it?
Why aren't the completed manuscripts available on-line for scrutiny and comment? Please tell me this is in the hands of singers experienced in our chant.

Lance, you did us all a great service by posting liturgical texts. Can you do the same with this new chant?

A century ago, when Bishop Firczak was working to bring better "organization and uniformity" to our practice of the prostopinije, he sent out Father Bokshaj and Cantor Malinich to "to gather and copy the local melodies of the entire liturgical cycle." (quotes from Roccasalvo's opus). This grass-roots approach lead to the publication of Tserkovnoje Prostopinije, which set the tone, so to speak, for the next hundred years. Top-down mandated chant is hardly our tradition, and is likely to meet with limited success. The time for broad input is before approval, not after.

djs

[ 07-24-2002: Message edited by: djs ]

[ 07-25-2002: Message edited by: djs ]

In 1934, when the National Socialists (Nazis) came to power in Germany, the Ministry of Propaganda decreed that all "non-Aryan" words were to excised from German and replaced by Germanic/Aryan words. Thus, "der Radio" became "Rundfunk", "das Auto" became "der Wagen", "das Telephon" became "Fernsprecher". Those who dared to use the "old" words were taken into custody and 'questioned'. And sometimes sent to confinement for being "enemies of the Reich".

In 1946, a year after the Third Reich fell, all the Germanic words disappeared for the most part and the older 'European' words came back into general use (with a few exceptions).

The point is: although the most powerful governmental and military forces can impose their will upon the people, the fact remains: what the people want and do will win out in the long run.

"Those who do not know history are doomed to re-live it." --Churchill.

My point is: there are those who will impose their will/scholarship upon the practices of the community. There are those who would try to meld English language with rhythms and cadences of Slavic melodies. This is an extremely difficult task. And I would question how far one should go in determining whether the decent English rendition of the texts needs to be melded with the traditional 'prostupenie' melodies.

Does one really need to be totally faithful to the musical tradition when rendering melodies for English language liturgical worship?

While I very much appreciate the problems that the musicians face in rendering any and/or all English language texts in Ruthenian melodies, I am not quite convinced that being forced to do so is a really important element of our liturgical/missionological endeavor. (The same principle applies to any other "ethnic" group that attempts to meld English language with non-English musical forms.)

Yes, use the Ruthenian melodies as a baseline. But make sure that the texts have primacy because the texts are our primary catechesis. And the texts should be singable and rememberable by the congregants because the people NEED to know what is being taught liturgically.

Blessings!

[ 07-25-2002: Message edited by: Dr John ]

Why should we be committed to keeping the Prostoponije music? Why not, since it is our tradition? Because if we don't, all hell breaks loose and parish choirs begin to use any music including Protestant and Roman Catholic music. Is this being true to our Eastern Christian traditions? I think not! In the Johnstown Deanery (i.e. Protopresbyterate) a choir has been using Roman Catholic and Protestant music instead of Eastern Christian music even though Eastern Christian Choir music is readily availablen for over 14 years! You don't hear Roman Catholic and Protestant church choirs using Eastern Christian music? If we are not committed to perpetuating our Eastern Chritian liturgical music, who will?

Ung-Certez

Dear Bob,

Let me go over a few points you made here . . .

I never said that the translations of the Brothers did not represent the spoken language.

All I said that what they codified or standardized was one thing, and what the people spoke in their daily life was another, even though the two were, at that time, quite similar and the liturgical language was quite understandable.

There were dialects and differences, as there would have been, among the Slavs, but written records of these just didn't come down to us, that's all. That they were similar to each other is a given, especially since Slavic tribes were not yet divided into nations etc.

I did not mean "dead" in the conventional sense, only that there was a literary, codified language that was intended, as you say, to allow the "masses" to understand the liturgy.

The whole purpose of this standardization was to help ensure that the language was, as much as possible, shielded from the ongoing development and variations of the developing dialects spoken by the people. Rev. Dr. Yurij Fedoriw makes this point a number of times in his work on the liturgy and Slavonic and it is mentioned elsewhere as a prime argument for having a standardized liturgical language.

We know that the liturgical language itself also undergoes change, but not nearly as quickly or frequently as the 'common tongues.'

A standardized language is only "dead" insofar as it is not intended for it to undergo the same process of development and change through outside influences as secular languages do. To standardize a language is to try and keep it fixed in a point in time over succeeding generations. That doesn't work, ultimately, but it does slow down the way in which a language develops and changes over time.

Your point on Latin is well made. Latin continues to exist in the Romance languages and in the bulk of English words and references we have today.

The Suschchu (what a mouthful!) issue can be quite emotional for some priests.

Some have even gone so far as to suggest that one may easily fall into "heresy" if one doesn't use these anachronistic carry-overs from the Slavonic.

Even the Ukrainian Orthodox who have a much longer tradition of using the living Ukrainian language in their liturgy now often insist on these words.

Apart from meanings, the words can express theology with a certain perceived "dignity" that contemporary words, the language we use in daily life, just don't.

Rome allowed Slavonic in its Roman Rite locally. This was not done throughout most of the Roman Catholic Slavic nations, something that later reformers like Jan Hus in Bohemia decried as contributing to the moral decay of society in the Western Catholic Slavic lands.

That is hardly an official, wide-open policy for Slavic Roman Catholic lands, however, that were obliged to use Latin, in some cases as in former missionary territories of Sts. Cyril and Methodius, having to give up Slavonic for Latin.

As for transliteration, I don't follow any set pattern, but try to do a phonetic transliteration as my colleagues would often pronounce "Ch" as in "Cha-Cha."

I've also seen the "X" used for the Ukrainian "Ch."

For my immediate purposes, a close phonetic translation is always best.

Alex

Dear Lance,

Historical records, Schmistorical records

It's all in the interpretation . . .

The permission to use a Roman-Slavonic liturgy in a few dioceses of Croatia can HARDLY be called an open-door policy on Slavonic for Slavic Roman Catholics.

We know that the mission outreach of Sts. Cyril and Methodius went into Bohemia and elsewhere.

Yet, there is no record of a "Roman-Slavonic" liturgy ever used in those western Slavic lands which was largely limited to the Adriatic coast.

In some cases, the Slavonic-Byzantine liturgy was suppressed and the Latin-Roman Rite imposed.

Jan Hus and other later Slavic reformers decried this as a contributing factor to the religious decay of western Slavic society since the "masses" didn't understand the language they prayed in, stopped reading the Bible and, in one instance, thought that "Sviata Troytsa" was a female saint!

So, yes, Slavonic was used in the Roman Rite locally. But it was not widespread nor was it a Roman Church policy toward Slavic Roman Catholic countries, especially Poland.

The liturgical angle is only one angle here. We would need to see why the Roman-Slavonic liturgy was limited as it was. Was it because it met with opposition on the part of Frankish and later RC missionaries? Was it even more political than that?

Just because Vatican II approved of a new theology concerning the Eastern Churches, doesn't mean it is implemented throughout our Churches. If it were, we wouldn't be having conversations about our rights to nominate our own bishops or worry about our priestly candidates being able to be ordained in the married state.

The history of the Hussites in Bohemia sheds much light on how the imposed Roman Rite and Latin reversed the missionary gains made by the Cyrillo-Methodian tradition there. Matthew Spinka's works, done in a very irenical spirit, review this whole period of western Slavic history. Russian Orthodox theologians have also said that the Hussite period was an attempt by western Slavs (including many Poles in the Cracow area) to return to the Cyrillo-Methodian heritage of the Byzantine-Slavonic Rite.

This is why there was even talk of considering Hus and Jerome of Prague as possible "heralds of a return to Orthodoxy."

As for the history of the veneration of the Thessalonian brothers, Fr. Holweck's entry in his 1923 edition of "The Dictionary of Saints" summarizes it with references.

In historical terms, 1959 didn't happen yesterday.

It happened early in this morning!

Remember that calendars are one thing in hagiography and don't tell the whole story.

Blessed John Duns Scotus and others were beatified locally by bishops (even against Pope Urban's decree). Rome accepted them into the calendar, and created all sorts of rules about their veneration.

The fact a saint is in a calendar, doesn't mean their cult is approved universally or even regionally.

Their feast (July 5th actually ) was celebrated but without official Roman approval.

This approval was given by the Slavic Pope John Paul II who also declared them patrons of Europe with St Benedict.

Remember that St Josaphat, when he was canonized in 1875, had his cult "limited" to the Eastern Catholic Churches ALONE until later in 1888 (?) his cult was extended to the entire Catholic Church.

Metr. Ilarion Ohienko also does an excellent job of reviewing their lives and treatment by Rome in his two volume Ukrainian-language "Constantine and Methodius" (Constantine being, as you know, Cyril's original Christian name).

Remember also that for many RC's in the hey-day of the Union of Brest-Litovsk, the Byzantine-Slavonic liturgy itself was considered an accommodation to the people, the ultimate later aim begin to fully Latinize them, despite "official policy."

Alex

UC:

I'll take the bait. Several questions:

What do you mean by "instead of":
"to the exclusion of", or an do you simply mean the addition of a few weil-known pieces that are not from our tradition? Do you object to Chritmas-time singing of universal favorties like Pridijte Vsi Virni, and Ticha Noc in addition to our own?

What exactly is Roman Catholic or Protestant vs. Eastern Christian in choir music, anyway? The introduction of choir singing into Byzantine-Slavic practice was a definite mimicking of Latin and Polish practice that we adopted becuase we found it irresistible. So what is Eastern about it? I am not an advocate of choir vs. congregational singing but I understand its appeal, and I don't think it's a disgrace.
And if some choir director introduces some irresitable piece from the "West", again I wouldn't do it myself, I wouldn't encourage it, but I don't think I would kvetch about it very much, particularly as a visitor to a parish.

14 years? There has been choir music available since Bortniansky. In at least one choir in the Johnstown deanery (possibly the one you have in mind) choir settings of Prostopinije pieces have been in use for 25 or so years.

djs

[ 07-25-2002: Message edited by: djs ]

Alex,

On 07-24-2002 at 02:22 PM you wrote "In addition, it is really a myth that Sts. Cyril and Methodius translated the liturgical texts into the 'language of the people.'"

Bob

OK. Scratch above. Checked some Cyrillic Slavonic last night...this latinica transliteration in some books is bad. Should be mn'i and hr'ishnomu in Ung's original post.

The jat' cannot be represented in the same way either of the two -i- are since the jat' 'palatalizes' (sort of) without the use of the soft sign while the -i- does not. Using a soft sign where there is not one in the 'original' seems risky. Further using -ch- to represent two different sounds--let's see like the -ch- 'church' and the -ch- in 'Christ' is problematic and leads to what was discussed above, people who sing in incorrect Slavonic. Now that cannot, by any stretch, be good! You wanna use Slavonic? Go ahead, but pronounce it properly. If people mispronounced English like they do Slavonic in the Liturgy people in the pews wouls be horrified. I will not even try to give an idea of what that might sound like...that would be blasphemous.

Bob

[ 07-25-2002: Message edited by: Bob King ]

Bob, Bob, Bob.

That should be dorohyj !!

Back to Cyrillic, then, OK?

Дорогый Лемко,

Щастный?

Пріательу,

Як хочеш таким способом можем �пост-овати.�

Bob

Лемко,

Ґде в Карпатскои-Руси есте?

Bob

Dear Bob,

I give thanks unto the Lord that at the Last Judgement it will be God Who will judge me and not you, Friend!

I was simply differentiating between the language spoken by the people and the standardized liturgical language of Slavonic.

At THAT time, the two were quite similar and the people of the "Great Unwashed Masses" understood it, as opposed to the "Great Unwashed Masses" of today who don't.

Sorry if I was imprecise.

Alex

djs,

The Johnstown Deanery choir started in 1987 under the direction of Paulette Parlock. She is a high school Spanish teacher and not a Music teacher. She insists on using Roman Catholic arrangements for the "Holy, Holy, Holy...", "One is Lord...", the "Our Father..." etc., etc. While the Deanery Choir no longer sings in the Johnstown Parish, they manage to suddenly appear at Christmas time and Pascha in the Windber parish and continue to use these Roman Catholic Choir arrangements. In August of 2000 when Dormition of the Mother of God Church (Windber) celebrated her centennial celebration, the Parlock choir was assisted by the choirs of Sts. Peter and Paul Orthodox Church (Windber) and Christ the Savior Orthodox Church (Johnstown). These Orthodox Choirs brought their Eastern Christian Choir music with them and taught them to this "combined ecumenical choir" and they also brought their English and Church Slavonic Prostopinije four part harmony arrangements. It sounded great thanks to the our Orthodox brethren bringing their music along with them! As I recall the only part that sounded like Roman Catholic Choir music was when they sang the "Alleluija" after the Gospel reading. I guess the Orthodox "guests" let Ms. Parlock use her "Roman" arrangement for that part of the Divine Liturgy. The priests of the Deanery do not make waves about what the choir sings, even if it means that they continue to use these Roman Catholic arrangements. While this may seem perfectly harmless and sound "ecumenical", it has no place in an Eastern Christian Church, especially since there exists (in the English-speaking parts of North America)numerous Eastern Christian Liturgical musical arrangements used by many Uniate and Orthodox Churches of North America.

Ung-Certez