www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology Slavonic or no Slavonic

I know this has been brought up many times before, but I need to vent.

There is an almost all out war in my parish over the use of Slavonic. The younger crowd wants all English, the old timers want to retain some Slavonic. When we have Slavonic Sunday it's only about 1/4, if that. I settled on the parish mainly because they take some Slavonic.

The annual parish meeting turned into a shoutfest over the issue. Father has had enough, and wants the issue settled once and for all at this years meeting.

I'm curious. Is anyone else here going through this same type of thing at their parish?

I am very sorry your parish is going through this turmoil. I really don't understand why your parishioners want to throw away their heritage by rejecting Church Slavonic.
I hope a compromise can be reached. It would be unfortunate if the parish lost touch with its historical and spiritual roots. They would be missing so much.

I too am sorry to hear your parish is having such turmoil. I am curious, do you only have one Sunday liturgy? I know some parishes have solved the problem by doing one liturgy in English and one in mostly Church Slavonic. The older parishioners do want to retain Slavonic and this method seems to help. Holy Days are different, but most of the attendees are also those who come to the Slavonic Liturgy, so we try to do a mixture then also.

One liturgy only. We're OCA so I doubt another Liturgy would be allowed anyway?. Even if it were allowed, there aren't enough people for two liturgies. So we're one big(not) happy(not) family!

The real question is why is the pastor not putting his foot down? He has the final say on what happens at the Liturgy. He is shirking his responsibilty and in doing so creating the conflict. If he says we are doing X% English and Y% Slavonic that is it and those who don't like it can be mad at him instead of each other.

Etnick:

Glory to Jesus Christ!

If I may ask, what reasons do the opponents of Slavonic give for wanting English-only? What reasons do the proponents of Slavonic give for including it in the liturgy?

In Christ,
Theophilos

I see your point, BUT the parish council is very powerful at my parish. It's almost as if what they say goes. The priest comes off as basically an employee of the parish who can be fired at will.

It feels as though a final decision will be made, as Father fired off a fairly angry e-mail to everyone concerning a fill in priest a few weeks ago. It happened to be Slavonic Sunday and the "choir director" was in a tizzy as what to do. I think that put him at the breaking point.

The younger people want an "American" Orthodox church, hence no Slavonic. The old timers grew up with it so they want to keep it.

I'm on the fence. I see the younger crowds point, but we are a Rusyn parish so why not keep on what we're doing? It's not like we ever do a (God forbid)! all Slavonic liturgy. Although I'd love to do that once or twice a year.

Yeah, that's the same at our OCA mission parish. Although, with 75% of parishioners being converts, and our status as a mission--you know, to evangelize--I can understand it. Our priest is cradle Orthodox and traditionally-oriented, and he'd do more Slavonic except for certain members of our parish (including choir members) who don't want anything specifically "ethnic" in the church. Father does put Slavonic in where he can, though, such as in some of the priest's prayers during the Liturgy and occasionally at the ending of a litany. There are other converts in the parish, such as my friend (and soon-to-be godfather) and I, who wouldn't mind even all Slavonic services at times. I'm sure there are probably some cradle Orthodox of a Slavic background who would agree with us. I don't see it changing, however, in the foreseeable future, and personally it isn't that big a deal to me. I use a lot of Slavonic in my private prayers, but for those that may not have the language skill or interest in Slavonic that I do, it shouldn't be made a potential barrier to embracing Orthodoxy either. The same people who have a problem with Slavonic also disapprove of the veneration of the Holy Royal Passion-bearers of Russia too, it seems...

Tim

And that sort of parish administration is among the reasons which motivate some of us to remain Eastern Catholics.

Fr. Serge

Father Serge,

The parish council thing has taken some getting used to. It seems that in the Catholic church, what the priest says, goes. It's almost the direct opposite in Orthodoxy. He's an employee of the parish.

In many older Metropolia (OCA) parishes, that is definately the case. Though I think in new parishes and missions, even in the OCA, it is often not true. Though there are definately places in ROCOR where you find this sort of thing (especially in parishes that came to us from the OCA due to the Calendar change or other causes), there is much more respect for the priest in the Russian Church Abroad. In the two parishes I have served during my twenty-one years as a priest, the first in the Antiochian Archdiocese and the second in the Russian Orthodox Church, the priest has been solely responsible for deciding all liturgical matters, whether it be to have a service or not, what time to have services, language issues, etc.

Fr David Straut

It seems that Orthodox and Catholics now have one thing in common: Protestant converts coming into the Church, in the process importing their anti-traditional mentality and trying to impose THEIR way of thinking on the old-timers. I'm not saying that all converts are like that; but far too many certainly are.

I just wonder though, why young Orthodox seem to hate the old liturgical languages. In the Catholic Church, it is precisely youngsters like me (I'm 25) who are clamoring for a return of the sacred and for the retention of sacral language (Latin, literal translations, etc.) Furthermore, even as the Latin rite is finally abandoning the liturgical craziness of the 60's and 70's, the Orthodox (and Byzantine Catholics) are intent on repeating our mistakes! All this talk from the Orthodox about making liturgy accessible and modern and about abandoning Slavonic and Greek gives me the creeps. It is as if the ghosts of Annibale Bugnini and Giacomo Lercaro have possessed the souls of some Eastern hierarchs.

Very good point! Bugnini's ghost still haunts the church... What we need is an all out exorcism.

One thing I have learned from my studies is that language is tied to culture when they are in a 'foreign' milieu. Once the language goes, the culture soon follows.

I'm a Spanish/German Latin Catholic with a VERY rudimentary knowledge of Russian and even I can follow the Slavonic (provided it's in the Cyrillic characters. I have trouble with the Glagolitic.) Perhaps the parish can start offering lessons in reading the Cyrillic alphabet for starters...

This would never happen in a Ukrainian Orthodox parish Thank God. I guess we have been lucky in our parish and all of our priests except 2 in the history of the parish have stayed put until they died and were very much loved. We as a parish asked the consistory to remove a priest last summer who did not fit in with the parish. He was a bit of a fanatic showing movies on Sunday afternoons about exorcisms in Russia. His voice and liturgical singing were good but his sermons also were fantatic and his social skills were nil. His new parish after only a few months is already writing to the consistory to move him along. Our remaining priests are wonderful. We have different views on the parish council but our priests are the mediators. There is a lot of yelling and screaming at times, but somehow we manage to reach a consensus and go on. A vote was taken a number of years ago to sell a patch of our old camp ground which I voted against and was in the minority. I still think I was right but the vote was taken and we all have to get along don't we. There is no point is bringing it up again. Everyone has talents to offer to the church.
But to get back to the issue here I don't understand why you can't have the litanies in alternate languages, the Gospel and Epistle in both languages and the Communion Hymn in Church Slavonic. The rest could be in English. I think people really miss the beautiful church music in Church Slavonic so a portion could be incorporated into the Divine Liturgy. But to ban the use of Church Slavonic entirely in the Divine Liturgy is to deny the history and heritage of the OCA. What is the point of that?
I know young people who sing in Church Slavonic choirs because of the beauty of the music. The Holy Spirity works in the theology of beauty too not just by rational understanding of the English language.