www.byzcath.org Forums Mysteries: The Life of Worship Vespers, Matins & the Divine Liturgy The Revised Divine Liturgy Vesperal Liturgy broadcast

Unfortunately, isn't that exactly where we are at the moment in regards to the RDL? We have some people saying one thing and others saying something else. And what it comes down to is this: is the new RDL actually the older music/translation we should have been using all along? Have we been doing the wrong thing for the last 40 or more years? I don't know the answer to that. I would love to trust my Bishops and those at the Seminary who know more about music, Liturgy, rubrics and Prostopinje than I do. But should I?

So the questions we need to answer are "what if they are correct?" or "what if they are wrong?" Only when we answer those questions do we know in which direction to move--embrace or deny.


TIm

A treasure has not been saved. It�s been marred with the new music. When the new music is sung it makes us sound like we just got off the boat. If we are going to actually restore Boksaj let�s at least make it sound like we speak English as our first language.

Thank God we are not using the new music. Everyone is hoping that Bishop Pataki will finally retire. No other bishop wanted this reform. Maybe it will die when he retires.

God bless you Tim! I understand what you are saying. I have chosen to follow my conscience and my heart.

Here is what I have been told on more than one occasion from supporters of the revision:

--words such as "shall", "thy", "thou", "fillest" etc. are archaic. It is shakespearean style old English that the people can no longer understand or relate to.

--words such as "men", "mankind", "man", "sons", brethren", etc. are sexist and must be eliminated from the Divine Liturgy in many instances.

--for all other errors, I again refer you to Fr Serge's excellent book.


And so my conscience and heart does not ask me "what if they are wrong"? It tells me, "they are in serious error"!

Now, as I attend the Orthodox Church, I hear the Divine Liturgy as our fathers before us prayed. There is a great reverence in the "unmodernized version" and I can feel the presence of the angels, saints, and Church Fathers praying along with me. I am once again enveloped by great peace and contentment. I can once again fall into deep prayer as I bask in the presence of our Lord.

Hence, my impending reception into the Holy Orthodox Church.

I wonder why they didn't change the 'Our Father' which is filled with archaic language. Maybe that is the next revision?

Monomakh

Recluse,

I feel exactly the same way and have come to the same conclusions. Thankfully, through a friend I met in the Byzantine Ruthenian parish I attended who has preceded myself in entering Orthodoxy, I have found an Orthodox priest who is very sensitive to our needs and reasons for becoming Orthodox (not just related to the RDL, of course) and am preparing to be received fully into the Orthodox Church.

Timothy

Perhaps!

Monomakh--you're a genius! None of us saw the forest for the trees. If we need to get rid of archaic language that is too confusing (does anyone REALLY believe that?) then "whoart in heaven" needs to go. Despite the fact it came from Jesus' own lips! Hey, archaic language is archaic language. They changed wording from the King James version, even quotations from Jesus, because it was too hard for people to relate to in this day and age, so let's just embrace it the entire way.

Hey, in that case, why don't we just scrap the entire Declaration of Independance and Constitution and re-write new ones--remember how a "s" looks like an "f?" Isn't that just too confusing? And speaking of archaic! Well, just throw those old pieces of paper away, get a good laser printer, have a good, long, hard no holds bared debate on what font to use and print new ones for the Library of Congress, and every place else who might want an "original" copy. Who knows, the demand for "originals" might be so big we could pay off the national debt!

Thank you Monomakh. We all owe you.

Tim

While we're at it, let's change that "all men are created equal" stuff too! (They really did mean only MEN you know!)

I am really slipping here today! Thank you, my brothers, for picking up the slack! And you are right--since only men were allowed to vote, and only if you were free, over a certain age and owned a certain amount of land, as I recall. Get the eraser! Oh heck, those papers are so old let's just use them as kindling!

Now this one's a serious question I just thought of--do they have these problems when they translate the Gospels into other languages? Luther translated the Gospel into German. But the German that people speak today is different, isn't it? Not as dramatic as High German, but does a Lutheran bible in Germany today have any changes from the one first translated by Luther?

Most languages evolve naturally over time--just like the "thee" and "thou." I think Chinese is one of the exceptions. The pictographs are made slightly differently now than they used to (think different fonts) but a Chinese person today can read an inscription carved into a rock three thousand years ago.

Now, if we're going to modernize the language now, does it mean someone in another 50, 100, 200 years is going to modernize what we just came up with? I use the term "we" losely, since none of us had anything to do with it.

Thoughts?

Tim

There is a reverence when we use the language of "thee", "thy", and "thou" in our worship. As you noticed, everyone is afraid to modernize "The Lord's Prayer". If you haven't already done so, pick up a copy of Archbishop Joseph Raya's book on The Divine Liturgy. He has some interesting things to say about the language of "thee","thou", and "thy".

John,

I took your post as sarcasm. However, I'll let you be the judge as to whether it should be sarcasm or dead serious.


https://www.byzcath.org/forums/ubbthreads.php/ubb/showflat/Number/225621/page/1/fpart/8#Post226221


I always thought that the 'writ of habeas corpus' applied to women from day one?

Monomakh

Thou canst not be too sure...

As the Founding Fathers were moving to declare independance, Abigail Adams wrote to her husband John, "In the new code of laws, remember the ladies and do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the husbands."

John Adams replied, "I cannot but laugh. Depend upon it, we know better than to repeal our masculine systems."

(from The Letters of John and Abigail Adams, Penguin Classics, 2003, also found in Alice S. Rossi, The Feminist Papers: From Adams to de Beauvoir, New York: Columbia University Press, 1973)

As attitudes began to change, the courts have broadened the interpretation of many laws which previously did not pertain to women.

Regarding the Lord's Prayer, this was asked and answered in a previous forum thread. Perhaps someone can do a search and post the link.

'Originally Posted By: Father David

'Separate from these issues, I would add a persoanl reflection. I have become convinced that the reason "men" was used in the English language to mean both "men" and "women" is that before the 20th century, "women" simply had no standing in the body politic of "mankind." They did not vote and were not expected to take part in public affairs, therefore, their status was "meaningless." In the context of the late 18th century, therefore, the statement "All men are created equal" means exactly what it says.'


I found this to be the most galling of apologias for the new liturgy. Many of the new translations I dislike come from Greek rather than Slavonic, and I recognize that I don't have a leg to stand on in criticizing these revisions--beyond e.g., noting that meaningful differences between "sublime" and "magnificent" escape me.

However as a sometime teacher of American history--economic history, but history nonetheless--at the university level, this reasoning tells me that the entire revision project has some unacknowledged motivation of adapting the liturgy to suit present day political agendas. Some changes occurred due to differing perspectives on the Slavonic and Greek source documents, and some apparently were imposed on us because they reflect Fr David's idiosyncratic personal convictions.

Perhaps to make the Creed really inclusive it should be rewritten to state that Jesus came for unborn children as well. Talk about a group with no standing in the body politic!

Fr David's statement is absurd. Why is he appealing to the Declaration to support liturgical changes? If he is right, will our omission of "man" from the Creed suddenly delete coverture from American legal history or postdate the 19th Amendment back into the Bill of Rights? If the problem lies in our language in the past--did the King James translators write that "no man can serve two masters" because women had found a way to do so? This isn't a reasoned argument--it's one person's opinion.

The revision of the Creed (which must appear to the Orthodox as a popular Catholic pastime) was not the only such change, as everyone knows. But I would like to point out one that most people don't get to hear. In the prayers of preparation the priest and deacon formerly said: "Glory be to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will among men," but now this reads: "Glory to God in the highest, and to people on earth, peace and good will." [Apparently Neil Armstrong was on his own for a few days.] As an altar server I get to hear this irritant repeated every week.

Pardon my venting here. Each week when I hear the new translation I get angry all over again. I am grateful that this forum exists for such debate.

And thank you for posting. No matter what the opinion is, we need to hear more of them. Thanks for taking the time to give us your feelings. Don't stop!

Tim

Well, if "men" did really mean only male human beings when the Declaration was written, it's meaning has changed to include us all (men and women), which is just the opposite of what is happening in many places nowadays. Confusing ain't it?

To get back to the topic at hand, I listened to the "vesperal" DL broadcast again yesterday, to give it another shot. Unfortunately I came in at the prokeimenon and did not hear the verses on Psalm 140. Was St. Mary Magdalene comemorated? The sermon centered on her, but that was about all I heard regarding her feast.

And lo, and behold, when the cantor sang "May our lips be filled" (or is it mouths now?) I actually started to recognize the melody as being pretty darn close to the Slavonic version sung in the recording of Archbishop Stephen (Koscisko's) anniversary DL that is on Patronage Baltimore's website from the 1960's. And as I joyfully started to sing along thinking "this is great! not so bad after all", I got knocked flat on my dupsko when none of the "repeated phrases" sung in the Slavonic were carried over into the new English version. That one gets a big zero from me--not that I matter.

I still could not hear "the people" singing, which is hopefully still the microphone placement issue. After listening 3 times, I give up. That was my last.

Kudos again to Parma for thinking to broadcast it--especially on what appears to be a primarily "evangelical" station, but we should be broadcasting "the best" we have. I'll stick to the CD I made of Archbishop Stephen's D/L, sanctus bells and all!

John K