www.byzcath.org Forums Mysteries: The Life of Worship Vespers, Matins & the Divine Liturgy Divne Liturgy Translated to Latin?

Lately I've been wondering something- what if someone translated the liturgy of Saint John Chrystostom into latin? It would be perfect for people who join one of the Byzantine churches from, say, SSPX or any of the Traditionalist Roman Catholic groups. I've done a little work on my own on this, since I took two years of High School Latin. Here's a few examples of what I've got so far:


[b]O Heavenly King...[/b]
"O Rex Caelestorum, O Consolator, Spiritus Veritatis, qui es ubique praesens et omnia imples, bona aerarium et vivificantem: veni et habita in nobis, et purifica nos ab omni inquinamento, et salva animas nostras, o Unum Bonum!"

[b]O come, let us worship...[/b]
"O venite adoremus Deum, regem nostrum.
O venite adoremus et arcumus ante Christus, Deum nostrum et regem nostrum.
o venite adoremus et arcumus ante eum, Christus Deum nostrum et regem nostrum."

[b]Holy trinity, have mercy on us. Lord, blot out...[/b]"Sancte Trinitatas, miserere nobis. Dominus, delenda peccata nostra. Magister, indulge iniquitatis nostras. Sanctum unum, visita nos et sana infirmitatis nostris pro propter nominus tuus."

[b]Through the prayers of the holy fathers...[/b]
"Per preces sanctis patrorum, miserere nobis."

Cherubic Hymn
Nos qui mystice repraesentat cherubim, et cantamus hymnus ter-sanctum ad Trinitatem vivificantis, ponemus seorsum omnia curas terras.

[b]It is Truly Meet and Right to bless you...[/b]
"Est dignum et justum te benedicere, Mater Dei, semper beatum et Mater Deum nostrum. Magis honestis quam Cherubim, et ultra comparatione magis gloriosa quam Seraphim, Te qui, sine corruptione, genuisti Deum Verbum; verum Mater, nos magnificemus te."

Welcome to the forum, I think.

One takes it that you've not spent much time reading here or any time familiarizing yourself with the history of the Eastern Churches. Otherwise, you'd not likely ask ...


This is just about the last thing we need (and I'd have to give a lot of thought as to what would be 'the last', if this were 'just about - but not quite - the last). Although Latin translations of the Divine Liturgy are not unknown, it's blessedly been a long time since anyone has used one, of which I am aware - except for some vagante Orthodox-Catholic entities that showcase such mix and match in their liturgical roleplaying.


Do you understand that the point of 'joining' - canonically transferring enrollment to - an Eastern or Oriental Catholic Church or translating to an Eastern or Oriental Orthodox Church is to become of that Church, to embrace its spirituality, to immerse oneself in its praxis, to worship according to its ritual and rubrics?

We've been the route of traditionalist Latins and SSPX adherents and other Latins who ran from the West but not really to the East. They sought us out and wanted to be with us but not of us.

They liked our incense, the smells and bells, the funny hats, the food festivals, but after they settled in a bit, they also wanted confessional boxes, stations of the cross, first holy communion, altar girls, first fridays, communal rosary recitation, genuflections, a statue or two or three, perhaps a May procession, but even none of them asked for this before they left because we were too ethnic (read as not sufficiently Latin).

People who want to be of us but not be us - who seek some hybrid religious experience that cloaks their Latin identity in our ritual praxis - need to stay where they are or go found their own vagante ecclesia. We have neither need nor want of their presence. Come to us, but to be of us - not to escape your own spiritual heritage.

The mixing and matching of Rites and the crossing of ritual praxis between Churches is proscribed, as well it should be. I strongly suggest that, if this is your idea of what you hope to promote here, that you seek another venue - perhaps fisheaters. It will not fly well here. (I couldn't even see Cardinal Sandri or Archbishop Ireland endorsing this scheme. Well, maybe ... )

The short answer - the sole justification for the use of any such translation would be if a lost community of persons for whom Latin is the vernacular were found in the jungles somewhere and they elected to enter into Christianity as Eastern Catholics or Orthodox. Hmm, no such people? Then, no, there is no valid liturgical use for such a translation.

Many years,

Neil

Dearie me

I can cope in English, Ukrainian [ with an effort ] French and the thought of Latin leaves me speechless.

I'll back Neil with his comments - we are not a refuge for those running from another Church - because they are tired of what they see as abuses.

I get the sense from his post that aspiringseminarian is simply taking the Latin that he's learned thus far out for a spin; he's just being creative...without perhaps understanding that his creation, displayed in this forum, is somewhat akin to making a song of Martin Luther King Jr's "I have a dream" speech to the tune of "Dixie".

Love's Labor's Lost! It's already done. Check out Goar's Euchologium!

It would not be perfect. It would be opposed to everything we (Card-carrying RC Traditionalist Nutjobs like me) stand for. One does not adjust the liturgy to the preferences of the attendees, or to the weather, or to the age. The tradition is not ours. We accept it in trust, we carry it, and we hand it on.

A Latin translation already exists: Jacques Goar's Euchologion sive Rituale Graecorum, 1647. There is a copy on Google books (http://books.google.com/books/about/Euchologion.html?id=ELxFAAAAcAAJ). He presents a critical text (in Greek) with Latin translation. It was reprinted in the 1960s, and your local university probably has a copy. You can see how your translation stacks up. Just keep in mind, he translated from Greek, and some of the prayers could be in a slightly different form. He uses codex Barbarini gr. 336, for instance, for many of the prayers, and that represents the Byzantine Rite in the 8th century. This is readily apparent for the section of Vespers, where there are about 20 or so prayers, instead of the modern 10 or 11. Also, his section on the Divine Liturgy by St Simeon of Thessalonika is from a faulty manuscript, and the Typikon is from the Great Church as it was in the 10th or 11th century, and not as is currently practised. The Divine Liturgies are pretty much the received text, though.

In Christ,
Adam

Here the Latin translation found in the Migne vol 63: http://www.allmercifulsavior.com/Liturgy/Liturgia%20Sci.%20Joannis%20Chrysostomi.pdf (this site has a lot of interesting texts: http://www.allmercifulsavior.com/Liturgy/Liturgics.html)

Hmm, a group of converts within the Vatican, who speak no other tongue . . .



hawk

I'm not sure, but I thought the Romanian Orthodox Church could worship either way, either in Slavonic or Latin (considering that Romanian is a Latin-based language), haven't really looked through their missals or divine liturgy books when I visited St. Mary Romanian Church (since they're having their festival this weekend, I might consider looking through that on a church tour).

In my experience, the Romanians use Romanian... which is awesome because I can't understand a word of Slavonic.

Perhaps a Latin translation could be useful for the purposes of only having to do one translation for us Westerners instead of translating into every single vernacular language? It's just a thought - there are editions of certain texts, particularly exerpts from the Fathers and other sources, with the Greek and a Latin translation. These were used in Latin seminaries until the 1960s at least. And until fairly recently, a lot of people knew Latin... and somewhat fewer Greek, at least round here. So the translation is of some merit, though one assumes that any serious student of these matters would learn Greek.

(I got stuck at chapter 15 when the aorist and deponent verbs derailed me...)

Clearly you have never heard Romanian spoken

Well, believe it or not, I visited a Romanian Orthodox Church in our area during their summer festival (St. Mary's), and I've been told they do use Church Slavonic in their DL. I always thought they would have used Latin, but lah-dee-dah, they don't.