www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West suggestions for book

I'm honestly not sure where to post this - so I'll try here.

Background - my Parish is very very Ukrainian - no English is used at all [ except when we manage to force the use of English for the Readings ]

One of our members who realises that the Parish will die unless something is done soon is married to an RC who hates coming to Liturgy because she can understand nothing And I have to admit I can understand this.
Now I bring with me [ on instruction from my SF it has to be admitted ] the Readings every week printed out in English - but I don't think any of the other English Mother tongue folk do - well I suspect it's very much a case of they don't know where the Readings can be found.

I was chatting with Peter [ him of the RC Wife] a couple of weeks ago and said I would print out all the Sunday Readings till Palm Sunday for him - the Parish Committe have had a wee bit of a heated discussion about this - and Peter seems to have made the point that we are driving folk away because of the lack of English.

We do have a self appointed 'chanter' who seems to think that if we are a Ukrainian parish then we use Ukrainian and that's that.

This is not working.

Now I use the Sheptitsky Institute Anthology - there are some drawbacks and there are some failings with it - BUT is there anything better for non-Ukrainian Speakers ?

Our English Speakers [ and there are about 10 of them - including some Children ] need the Liturgy in English - but having it alongside Ukrainian is a help .

There has to be something better than the wee blue Toronto published Basilian copy.

To me the snag with Sheptitsky is the numerous versions of the Liturgy - we really don't need all that for Parish use.

The lady today was telling me that she would love something like
Roman Missal and honestly Sheptitsky is not that - nor is Sacrifice of Praise [ Bishop Robert Moskal ] which I also have .

Anyone got any better ideas - can our clergy help ?

my own wee list of such things -

Sacrifice of Praise - the big full copy and the smaller English only Paperback copy.

The Sheptitisky Anthology

2 other copies from the OCA

The wee blue book published by the Basilians in Toronto

All suggestions would be most welcome - and please remember that any books you recommend will have to be purchased and shipped from outside the UK !!

Check out the following website:

http://stjosaphateparchy.org/Store.html

especially the prayerbook LET US LIFT UP OUR HEARTS

Now, I am going out on a limb here, because I am not that familiar with all this, but I notice you posted your question a while ago, so...

I think that maybe what you are looking for is a missal. The Byzantine church I used to attend had a missal that was English and transliterated Church Slavonic side-by-side; I think that it was only the St John Crysostom liturgy.

The Divine Liturgy was chanted partly in English and partly in CS, and the parts in each changed each week. With the missal, it was very easy for me to become familiar with the prayers when they were not in English, as well as knowing what is going on.

The missal had the troparia and the kontaka???? in the back; however, the readings were not included. (The readings could be announced in the bulletin the week before, chanted in English, or if photocopied for parishioners)

I don't know if this would work for your situation, but if you are interested in finding out more about them, I can find out the title and publisher.

Byzatheart

Thanks for your offer of help. Being honest I have suggested the necessary books to Peter's RC Wife , it turns out she had the wee blue Basilans Book but was not bringing it with her.

She is very impressed with the Sheptitsky Anthology and they may well be buying that [ well after all it also gives the details for the readings ]

Unless anyone else has any more suggestions I think this question is now answered

Taa folks - you lot never let me down