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Dear Alice,

I sincerely apologize to you and ALL who have no Slavic background. I am guilty of often posting a phrase here and there in our mother tongue without even thinking about it. Thank you for your timely and appropriate reminder.

"Hospodi pomiluj," as already posted above, translates to "Lord, have mercy," a familiar response to all who regularly attend Divine Liturgy (pronounced HO-spo-dee po-MEE-loy).

Your post drives home the very point of my post. We have many, MANY brethren within our Church with no Slavic background - and more and more (hopefully!) every year! If we who DO have backgrounds rooted in the Slavic language do not take the time to share our (limited, in my case) knowledge of the beautiful mother tongue of our Church with our English-only brethren, we can be certain of one thing: it will die with us.

But it doesn't have to be like this! The Slavic tongue that set us apart from our "Latin" brethren for so many generations is not that difficult to learn, at least to a point where one can understand and appreciate what is being said.

Here's a simple example:

Vo imja Otca, i Syna, i Svataho Ducha. Amin.
(Vo EEM-ya OUGHT-sa, ee SEEN-ah, ee SYAH-ta-ho DOO-ha. Ah-MEEN.)
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Here we learn the root word for Father (Otca), Son (Syna), Holy (Svataho) and Spirit (Ducha), all in one phrase. Now, take the word for Father (Otca)... we may see it with minor variations in other hymns or responses, depending on grammar rules and tense - it may show up as Otcu (OUGHT-su) or Otce (OUGHT-chay), but we still know (or can fairly easily surmise) that we're speaking of the Father by knowing the root.

Next step: If we learn one additional word - "slava" (SLAH-vah) which means "glory" - we can now easily surmise that this phrase...

Slava Otcu, i Synu, i Svatomu Duchu
(SLAH-vah OUGHT-su, ee SEEN-ooh, ee SYAH-toe-mu DO-who)...

means "Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit" just from having learned the root words in the Sign of the Cross example above (ummm, "i" is "and"... but I'm sure you figured that one out!).

Sorry this post got so involved, but I'm pretty passionate about seeing Old Church Slavonic live on for other generations to appreciate. Shame on us if we don't give them the chance!


Whoo-BOY! How 'bout that?? We just got through Lesson #1!

Al (a pilgrim)

We Hos podi here. I guess the best way to tell someone to say Gospodi is, it's like ghost without the t, then podee. accented on the ghos then podi.

Vo imja Otca, i Syna, i Svataho Ducha. Amin.
(Vo EEM-ya OUGHT-sa, ee SEEN-ah, ee SYAH-ta-ho DOO-ha. Ah-MEEN.)
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Al (a pilgrim)
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Al, some Eastern Slavs do pronnounce the "V" in Svjataho(S-vah- ja-ta-ho). Some don't and say and write S'jat.

Ung

Yes, Liturgy in the true sense is the work of the people. The whole community participating in the communal prayer that is the Divine Liturgy. Liturgy doesn't mean Father on the altar praying and the choir singing while everyone else observes.

The thing is, many Slavic parishes overlook znammeny or sub carpatho and gallician prostopinije that already has existed for hundred of years. Instead they go to this simplified chant that is dissident (in musical terms) and doesn't have gusto or mirror the joyous celebration of the Liturgy.

I will have to dig through my personal library to take a look. Perhaps you are correct, but I remember not being able to read the vast majority of the characters eventhough I can read a little Russian.

Bless you Alice! It would take a Greek to speak up for us Hungarian Ruthenian Catholics... Although I have been at a Slavonic based parish long enough to know my way around... some of us ARE ethnics, and not familiar!

Try A Thiarna, dean trocaire!

Dear Simple Sinner,

You are a Hungarian EC?

My grandfather, a married EC priest, ministered among the Hungarians for several years!

Servus!

Alex

Dear AMM,

Well, I had to memorize the Creed in Church Slavonic as did my colleagues, at an early age.

Very bad mistake since we just didn't understand a word of it and would have been much better off with Ukrainian.

BTW, the Ukrainian used in the liturgy in the UGCC is an anachronistic Ukrainian that keeps many Slavonic words, it is not modern Ukrainian.

There is a translation in modern Ukrainian promoted, in the main, by our Basilian canons regular that is full of grammatical errors and is otherwise rather disgusting.

Our "Orthodox in communion with Rome" crowd doesn't like it primarily because of the ending it employs for the doxology "unto the eternal ages" rather than "unto the ages of ages."

In my in-laws' parish, they have both Ukrainian and English for the Creed, Our Father, the Epistle and Gospel.

I think it would be much better to have one complete Divine Liturgy in English, if the Our Father in Ukrainian is too difficult for some.

But for us in Toronto a "convert" is someone who tried the new calendar, but felt guilty about it and returned to the Julian calendar . . .

Alex

Some would say there is no such thing...only magyarized rusyns...

Chris the Hungarian

Dear Chris,

And who do you say that you are?

I believe in referring to each person in terms of the identity that they themselves hold.

Alex

I completely agree!!! I am Hungarian and proud of it!!!

Good one. Thanks for the laugh.

Although I am still waiting for Fr. John Tataryn to see the light.

MagyarOrosz!

Ung

Is there like a ritual cleansing ceremony for such people? You don't just let them back in do you?