www.byzcath.org Forums Mysteries: The Life of Worship Vespers, Matins & the Divine Liturgy The Revised Divine Liturgy I have never.... (A discussion regarding BCA and Orthodox practice and behavior

And good thoughts they are! I don't know how anyone can look at our society and not see potential mission territory. I think the time is right for Eastern Christianity to catch on.

And excellent thoughts they are. We do exactly that in my parish. But this year was the first year that we did not have the Paschal Gospel read in Slavonic. Bishop read it in English, our priest in Hungarian (his language from home) and our deacon in Spanish (his language from home). The Paschal greeting was done in Slavonic, English, Hungarian, Spanish, Greek and Arabic (we have a few native Arabic speakers).

I do miss hearing "Slava Isusu Christu" and answering "Slava na viki" at the beginning and end of the homily, however. I really don't know why that had to disappear. Anyone can learn a short phrase like that, and I'm sure that a lot of very American children whose parents aren't Slavic at all came to know, understand and repeat it quite well.

Sophia

"I do miss hearing "Slava Isusu Christu" and answering "Slava na viki" at the beginning and end of the homily, however. I really don't know why that had to disappear. Anyone can learn a short phrase like that, and I'm sure that a lot of very American children whose parents aren't Slavic at all came to know, understand and repeat it quite well."

I remember the lunch line at my Byzantine school. Msgr.was at the end of the line and every one of us had to say that. I was 9 years old...

Eli and Andrew,

Very well stated and re-stated by both of you. You have grasped one of the most important issues
which members in our churches currently face.

Mark, I have heard it proposed in several places that some sort of ethnic cleansing will be the silver bullet for the church in this country. What I have seen is some truly odd things come out of such thinking. I don't know if something similar is going on in the BCC with this liturgy to try and stay somewhat in relation to this thread.

Etnick said

At the church I've been attending they do this. Last week actually the priest reminded people that when they greet each other at church they should say "Slava Isusu Christu", and not just hello or hi.

Andrew

Oh my.

You and Andrew are starting to winnow, and I don't have much time to do anything systematic this morning but my head is full of ideas and images. We seem to be thinking enough along the same lines for my ideas to be used kindly till I get back. In fact you may take them out and do much more with them than even I might have with more time.

The first: No one, who understands my thinking on this issue, is seeking any kind of ethnic purity. In some ways one does with ethnicity in this instance what is also done with language.

Language of liturgy is transformed, raised up, set aside, purified, for example.

The true meaning of piety comes in the taking of the profane and offering it for sanctification. We do that with our language in liturgy.

We do that with our infants at Baptism. We do that with our prayer. We do that with Eucharist. We do that with our very bodies. Why not do that with the very history and cultures of the peoples standing together as natal and as spiritual family in a parish church?

It is in that meaning of ethnicity that a particular Church may grow organically without loosing the seed corn.

That's one analog for ethnicity.

The other primary one comes in the Church's use of symbols and expands on the issue of the languages used in Church, in the kinds of attention paid out in the community as expressed in symbols and symbolic acts, and I will let you fellows mull on that and fill in the etceteras.

Time to run off.

God bless you both, and venerable father Staro, and all.

Eli

PS: The Monastic analog. The parish in analogy to the community of monks. How? First and foremost in that deep sense of at-homeness!! One needs not only to "feel" at home. One needs to "be" at home! There's more to it that feeling. There's more to it than papering over disparity. There must BE transformation in the person and that means an absorption and adaptation of culture. Does the monk transform Athos or does Athos transform the man?

Cheerio! Happy hunting!

Fascinating: This comment seems to encapsulate so much of this thread.

I remember hearing some people who insisted on greeting me like that. I know they meant well, but I found it really annoying. It was like they were turning the Gospel into a secret code or a secret handshake that makes people feel like they are members of a special club by (in effect) excluding others who don't speak their language. I know that�s not what they meant to do, but that was the impression I took.

I realize that many people take their ethnic heritage seriously, as immigrants or descendants of immigrants, and I can respect that. However, when it comes to the Gospel and the Church, I want the prayer and worship to be in my own language, and I don't want my church to feel like an ethnic club.

That is why I joined the Byzantine (Ruthenian) Catholic Church . They don�t deny their Slovak / Ruthenian roots, but they are trying to be open to everyone in America. They are trying to preach the Gospel and offer the Tradition of the Christian East to all Americans. The Liturgy (at least, in my parish) is almost entirely in English; and people are welcomed regardless of their ethnicity. It works.

I thought that part of the genius of Eastern Christianity was to preach and worship in the language of the people.

I realize that some Eastern Christians (e.g., the Greek Orthodox, the Ukrainian Greek Catholics, etc.) want to preserve their ethnic heritage and language from the old country, along with the Gospel. Fine; I wish them well.

But I also think that there should be a denomination of Eastern Christianity that seeks to serve the people of America as Americans. In other words, I think there should be a jurisdiction of Eastern Christianity that tries to serve the American "ethnicity" . . . instead of trying to preserve the ethnicity of another country. The OCA is doing that for the Eastern Orthodox, and the BCC seems to be trying to do that for the Eastern Catholics.

-- John

John, do I understand that what you want is for the existing BCC'ers to forego "their culture" so you can feel more at home with "your culture"? If I have it wrong, forgive me and correct it, please.

Staro

One of the several problems with the term "Ruthenian" is that it encourages confusion between a liturgical tradition and a nationality or an ethnic community.

The ethnic community of the Greek-Catholics originating on the southern slopes of the Carpathian Mountains is presently often termed "Rusyn" or "Carpatho-Russian", and sometimes "Carpatho-Ukrainian", depending on whom one is speaking with. As usually happens in places of mixed population, one can also find Slovaks and Hungarians who follow the "Ruthenian" liturgical tradition (which is differentiated from the present-day Ukrainian Greek-Catholic liturgical tradition primarily by the music, and by the somewhat stronger tendency to retain Church-Slavonic as a liturgical language, both in Transcarpathia and to a lesser extent in Eastern Slovakia).

Nothing whatever, though, prevents a Polish group from adhering to the "Ruthenian" liturgical tradition, or a Croatian group, and so on.

It is, no joking, difficult to deal with this word - and I've only scratched the surface, since the same term has still more potential meanings depending on the context and the time of its use (somewhere in an old issue of the Journal of Byelorussian Studies there is a footnote which assures the unwary reader that "Ruthenian" means "a member of the Eastern Orthodox Church"! That would come as news to almost everyone.

Fr. Serge

You know, it is a wierd thing in my parish and others that I have visited. Greek born Greeks and those of Greek heritage will usually say 'Christos Anesti', and most, though not all, will respond correctly 'Alithos Anesti'.

But when you say 'Christ is Risen' in English to those who know no Greek, they look at you as if you have two heads.

The same with the custom of the kiss of peace in my particular parish. The weekly bulletin every single weeks prints that the exchange we say to each other is: 'Christ is in our midst'.. and the refrain is: 'He is and ever shall be'. Most don't even say the 'Christ is in our midst'. Instead they will just smile and shake your hand.
Forget about the refrain!

I don't know why this is. Maybe it is just where I live. People are very secularized in the New York area. They seem really uncomfortable with sharing these deeply religious professions of faith in a language which they fully comprehend.

Anyway, my point to John is that maybe it is better to share these exchanges in another language (atleast in my unique experience) than not to share them at all? Just a thought...though I do like them in English better, because you really feel and understand your own language better.

Alice

Dear John,

Eastern Orthodoxy and eastern Catholics are not denominational. They are Catholics arrayed in particular Churches based upon a cultural heritage, place, peoples,language, habits of mind, habits of being, habits of doing. The seed stock is eastern in language and in culture. It may be transplanted and hybridized, but there is nothing without the seed stock.

There are no Catholic denominations.

What you are talking about cannot happen. There is no way to plant a mustard seed and get a cow.

You want a cow. The east has a mustard seed.

I am not being nasty. I am expressing a reality.

And for your contemplation, parish by parish, the OCA, in order to survive is expressing itself in the language of many peoples, and the many peoples are learing to know one another and become transformed. The OCA is not a success story and I am not talking about its current kerfluffle over finances. That is insignificant in comparison to their spiritual crisis.

Rather than simply being an Orthodox Church they tried to be that grand umbrella for all people and what they wound up with was an umbrella that only fit over people like you, John, and they began to loose members and purpose and their theology because dilute, and they are in crisis currently and you, John, are suggesting that we follow?

Nah.

Eli

In all fairness to John, whom I have had the honor of knowing for a few years on this forum--he is not expressing any frustration that I have not heard many cradle and convert Orthodox of all the different ethnic bodies express at one time or another.

There is no sin and there should be no offense in John expressing himself. He is being honest with us and I respect that. We don't all have to fit into one mindset here.

However, as I tell/warn those others, we must be careful not to want to transplant one ethnicity (Americanism) over another. One could easily say that the Evangelical and Pentecostal churches are ethnically 'American', for instance.

In Christ,
Alice

No, that's not what I meant; and I botched the job in trying to espress myself.

What I want is Eastern Christian Church that is American in ethnicity, i.e., using English (or Spanish, for the new immigrants from Latin America) and developing its own American heritage within the Eastern Christian tradition.

I thought that was what the BCC was trying to do, and that is one of the reasons I was attracted to it.

But, if I am mistaken, then I apologize. I don't want any church to divest itself of its heritage.

I just wish there was an Eastern Christian church that was American as its ethnic heritage.

-- John