www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Ethnicity and Byzantine Catholics

Dear Alex,
You write "I'm now pushing for an "English only" Divine Liturgy in our parish."

Who says miracles don't happen? Congratulations, and may God give you every success.

Incognitus

Dear Incognitus,

When His Beatitude Patriarch Lubomyr Hu . . . WAS THERE (at the parish), he commented on the need for such.

Personally, I would prefer attending an all-Ukrainian language liturgy without the need to have simultaneous English versions of the Creed, Our Father, Epistle, Gospel and half of the sermon . . .

Kissing your right hand, I implore your blessing to continue properly referring to Patriarchs,

Alex

Alex - I would actually appreciate that at present . The only words in English in my Parish are a few words right at the end reminding me [ and another family I think ] that Lent starts on 6th March .

It's a good job that I am beginning to recognise some words now or I would be very very lost at times

Anhelyna - struggling with Ukrainian

I am still conflicted as to a intirely English translation. What I mean is that while I agree thet the entire Divine Liturgy should be in english in English speaking countries, I don't know that I would like only for English to be used.

The Melkites use mostly all English, with some prayers (and responses after those prayers) in Arabic. The Holy God is sung once in English, once in Greek and once is Arabic.

To me, all should be familiar with the Liturgy (in the Melkite Church) with those prayers (and responses) that are in Arabic and Greek.

Should it be mandatory that only English is used? Not is my view. Should a Church in an English speaking Country be required to use its ethic langauge (for the Melkites it is Arabic and some prayers and responses in Greek). Not in my view.

Of course, I do what I am told so, it's not really up to me.

Dear Laka Ya Rabb,

You make some very strong points for retention of the normal tongue of the Divine Liturgy within each Church, but I believe, to evangelize in America, it would be beneficial to have the entire Divine Liturgy in English, with instances, such as Holy God, in multi-lingual chanting.

Truly, the first time I attended a Divine Liturgy, when I heard our priest speaking the "silent prayers" [I realize this is a whole different topic], I was carried away in spirit to the altar of God. I was able, for the first time, to comprehend the Holy Altar, with all the Angels in Heaven, and all the Saints, singing "Holy, Holy, Holy...". I am certain the Divine Liturgy would have been beautiful regardless of the language, but being able to understand in my native tongue brought me closer to God, than ever in my life previously. Even now, as an overaged and overstuffed altar server, I focus and pray with every word our priest says, with my whole being, but I do not believe I could do this if the liturgy was conducted in a different tongue than what I currently understand fluently.

Does this make any sense?

In Christ,

Michael

Isn't the only reason that the Divine Liturgies are in other languages is because that they are in the vernacular of the immigrants who came from other countries? I think as these wonderful Churches become 2nd and 3rd generational Churches then the need for the old languages has to cease. Otherwise it's just like the Tridentine Mass in Latin. Arabic, Ukrainian, Slovak, Serbian, Ge'ez, Czech, Russian, Greek, etc. are all beautiful languages but not very useful to the average American. If the Divine Liturgy is supposed to be in the language of the people then let it be so. Let the Divine Liturgy be in English and more people will come to your Churches.

Dear Dr Eric, father of Dominic Ericson,

Your point on the Tridentine Mass is EXACTLY the way my father-in-law presented his case for the retention of a "Ukrainian only" Divine Liturgy in his parish.

He said, "If the RC's had the Latn Mass for so many centuries where so many had trouble understanding Latin, why shouldn't we continue to use Ukrainian etc."

BUT the UGCC up here switched to modern Ukrainian in 1970 when people had had enough of the Church Slavonic - had trouble understanding it or something . . .

Alex

Dear Anhelyna,

Just remember that, as King Robert the Bruce said in his Declaration of Ardbroath, the Scots are originally from Scythia ("Scottia" being a play on "Scythia") which is also why St Andrew is our shared patron.

Ultimately, you participate in the collective consciousness of the ancient, one people of Scythia and so Ukrainian shouldn't be too, too hard for you . . . all things being equal.

However, I'm rather surprised that UGCC parishes in Her Majesty's United Kingdom would not use the Queen's English in the Liturgy . . .

Alex

Well - it has to be admitted that I only have gone to Liturgy in the Cathedral in London and the Edinburgh parish - but both are using Ukrainian only.

Of course you have to remember that London is full of native born Ukrainians and from what I have seen so is Edinburgh [ yes there are some youngsters there ] so obviously the main language used in the homes is Ukrainian - so the Liturgy is served in Ukrainian

I've seen the liturgy done like this. Everything the choir sings is in English. The priest does all his prayers in Slavonic and some of the ones to the people in Slavonic as well.
I'm all for retaining a bit of the original tongue. I'd love to at least hear a tebe pojem, svaty boze, a litany or the anafora in Slavonic. That doesn't mean the whole liturgy, just parts that are easily memorized.
Alex, I could see where the Ukrainian and English being used would be a little tedious.
It feels like that when they do it in Slavonic and English at a few parts in the liturgy, I couldn't imagine it the whole way through.

Pyrohy

I was in the Ukrainian Church in Lourdes last year during the Armed Forces Pilgrimage .

That day Liturgy was in a mixture of languages.

The Great Litany was in English , thereafter everything else was in Slavonic or Ukrainian.

It often is like that in Lourdes , it's fairly common to have a language mix there.

I know that Gaelic has been used , and French is coming on stream as well .

Father is willing to use whatever languages are needed for the congregation present.

There is nothing wrong with that. But if they did each litany in a different language that might be cool. But if they repeated each one in four langauges that could be time consuming.
Gaelic.. that's cool, is that Scottish Gaelic and do a lot of people still speak it?

No nothing was repeated and the Gaelic that was used another time was Irish Gaelic

To my knowledge the only time we have ever got in a tangle with languages there , was when Father decided to Serve entirely in English two days after my Chrismation - we got lost !! We were all using the same book , but it wasn't the translation that we were used to - a very interesting experience I can assure you

I am the party guilty for beginning this post. My original thought was that you do not have to be of Eastern European descent to become a Byzantine Catholic. I was not referring to the Ukrainian Byzantines, or the Belarussian Byzantines, or the Romanian Byzantines, etc. as they have their own traditions which should be respected. Rather, I was referring to what was once known as the Ruthenian Byzantine Catholic Church. It is my understanding that Metropolitan Basil of the ArchEparchy of Pittsburgh has requested that we drop all references to Ruthenian or Slavonic. I am sure someone will jump on me if I am wrong.

How do we evangelize to African-Americans or Hispanics if they have to understand at least a little bit of Slavonic, or whatever language the Ruthenians spoke? Imagine going up to an African-American in the inner city and asking him to go to Divine Liturgy with you, but then telling him: "Oh, by the way, part of the Liturgy is in some old Eastern European language called Ruthenian." I can imagine his response would go something like this: "You must be crazy. I'm going to any Church where they don't speak English!"

I could see a similar response in the Hispanic communities, unless the Liturgy was in Spanish. The same for the Chinese community, the Vietnamese community, etc. I would probably make the same response if someone wanted me to go to the Ukrainian Byzantine Catholic Church.

JP

How are we supposed to evangelize to the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the homeless, the sick, or the incarcerated, if we do not speak their language? Matthew 25: 35-46.

Somehow I don't see St. Paul going to Rome to spread the Good News and then telling the converts: "Oh, by the way, our Liturgy is in Hebrew or Aramaic or some other foreign tongue from Judea." No, I think the Liturgy was probably in Latin.

My point is that the Byzantine Catholic Church should be colorblind and speak English if we want to include non-Eastern Europeans. I wish the St. Louis Byzantine Catholic Mission was 50% white, 25% African-American, and 25% Hispanic because this would reflect the racial makeup of the neighborhood of our Mission. Sadly, everybody is white.

Rusyns speak Rusyn, some consider it to be the most western dialect of Ukrainian.
Almost all the slavic churches use Church Slavonic in some capacity. So that is what the Rusyns, Ukrainians, Serbians, Belarussians,et al. use(d) in their liturgies.
The Orthodox Church in America uses English almost exclusively.
There is nothing wrong with using Church Slavonic at some points in the Liturgy if the church has the small tradition of being slavic based.
I do agree though that we must focus on growing our churches and be more about the Faith and less about pierogies and baklava. Check out the evangelization forum and you'll see many people that support this notion of sharing the faith not pierogies. However it is always good to remember where we came from but it is even better to practice our Faith. There is a balance between the two that some of us are trying to achieve. In my parish we speak english, but the different ethnic groups may bring a ethnic dish to the coffee hour. The priest will say the slavonic greeting or the Arabic or the Greek greeting of the season to the people that are that ethnic group. This is a good balance. Your roots get remembered but the Faith is for everyone, and is the focus, something we can all agree on and share.
In a sense it is American. We have many cultures and are diverse, we can share them and at the same time include everyone and be culturally diverse. My parish has ethnic groups that encompass the world, not just the Eastern Europeans.
So in a sense John, my parish lives many of the points you talk about and they are good points. And it can be done very very successfully. Now let's get out there and practice Matthew's Gospel.