www.byzcath.org Forums Mysteries: The Life of Worship Vespers, Matins & the Divine Liturgy The Revised Divine Liturgy Whew! I just had the worst nightmare!

Whew! I just had the worst nightmare! The nightmare started with being at Divine Liturgy. Everything was fine until the end of Liturgy when a few of us noticed our red books were being collected and replaced with these green ones. There was no warning whatsoever. The following week we were to start using the new green books. A quick glance at the new book, you could easily see something was missing! The words in church Slavonic- GONE! How could this be? Ours is the Slavonic Rite!!! IF THAT WASN�T ENOUGH � the nightmare continued! Week after week, it all began to unravel and continued to beat upon what we had known as our Divine Liturgy. Beautiful hymns once chanted were replaced with awkward melodies and words that are foreign. What use to be a blend of people chanting while priests praying in lower chanting, has now been reduced to priest RECITING prayers (just like you�d find in a Roman Catholic or Protestant church) while people sit in silence (or rather fidgeting and talking amongst themselves) AND IF THAT WASN�T ENOUGH � the wording!! THAT ALONE was awful. MANY changes there. AND WHY? TO FIT INTO POLITICAL CORRECTNESS. Examples included eliminating ANY reference to mankind, changes from sons to children� Not just in the hymns, but the Epistle readings, and the Gospel and the sermons. In the Slavonic rite we have a reference to the Mother of God � Bohorodicu, yet in this nightmare, it was changed to the Greek word Theotokos. There was even a noticeable decrease in the use of incense. For those souls who noticed and were truly hurt and utterly lost, in response to any questions, the reaction was �deal with it� �this is better translation� �this is getting back to what is ours� � any and all concerns were dismissed and turned around like somehow WE have a problem and are the ones at fault. When further probing from the people hurt came and it was clear we would never agree with such explanations, obedience was thrown at us. In real life, a church always would have their spiritual leaders lead in such times. But, the nightmare continued, many of the priests and even a bishop was found to be converts and therefore not interested in preserving what was ours.
This particular nightmare seems as though I would never wake up from it and it went on for what seemed like a whole year. By thankfully, I woke up and look forward to next Sunday when I know all will be well. Whew!

In general, I sympathize with the previous post. But on the specific matter of "Theotokos", I must agree with the compilers of the RDL - "Bohoroditsa" does not mean "Mother of God"; it means "Theotokos." Pope John Paul II realized the importance of this word and went out of his way many times to stress it and use it.

If you can cope with "transubstantiation",you can certainly cope with "Theotokos".

Fr. Serge

Bohoroditsa translates (and obviously does not transliterate) Theotokos, but what does it mean?

Dn. Anthony

Hello from Florida
From what I remember from Seminary, "Theotokos" or "Bohorodice" means "God Bearer" -- I wish I could shed more light on the root words -- Theos (God) tokos -- from ??
We sing "Bohorodice Divo -- Oh Godbearer, virgin..."
Andy Kovaly

C^ABA ICYCY XPUCTY !

��For those souls who noticed and were truly hurt and utterly lost, in response to any questions, the reaction was �deal with it� �this is better translation� �this is getting back to what is ours� � any and all concerns were dismissed and turned around like somehow WE have a problem and are the ones at fault. When further probing from the people hurt came and it was clear we would never agree with such explanations, obedience was thrown at us. In real life, a church always would have their spiritual leaders lead in such times. But, the nightmare continued,�� quote of true faith

The nightmare is contagious. Ruthenians and Ukrainians have a common plague, their new parish despots. While we are told to imitate Christ they imitate Pharisees, pristine outside rotten within. No preparatory explanatory groundwork, just iron fisted change. They again assume the role of intellectuals looking on their faithful as dumb peasants who are only wanted to pray, pay and obey. We come to bury our mothers and find the holy mother church doesn�t comfort the living, and use the dead to show who is in control. Our children come for crowning and leave feeling a J P (justice of the peace) will be more in tune with their needs. Joyful singing of dear melodies and languages are replaced for a chanted dialog between two soloists. Why is one 3 hour Sunday Liturgy serving 30 people more orthodox than two tandem 90 minute Liturgies which use to serve 300?

They tell us the Pontiff wants us to recapture our original ways, but he never said when that was. The first millennium? During the migration of refugees from Roman persecution and Byzantine heresies? The bi-ritual mission of Ss. Cyril and Methodius? The policy of governmental privilege for church maintained civil obedience? The patriarchal death grip prolonging adequated chauvinism? Protection seekers uniting the unlikely? Nicon Helenization? Peter I westernization? Catherine II reformation? Mohila counterreformation? Muscovite sister church persecution? Catholic proselytizing? Augustinian erroneous predestination? Authrosyphoras Orthodoxy? Sheptytsky�s line of demarcation? Slipyj�s call to order? When the people of the Ukrainian catholic churches of the orthodox faith amalgamating their celebration of the Millennium of Rus� Christendom despite clergy enmity, causing world wide recognition of the persecuted Catacomb Church? Today�s arrogant revival of orthodoxy?

On his birthday (March 10) let us recall our bard Taras Shevchenko�s muse, for us to study others in order to learn to think. In his epic poem HERETIC he hailed the �Holy Czech, Great Martyr, Glorious (Saint) Hus! I pray that all Slavs become as heretical as this Great Heretic��. Would they ask today �WWJD?� (What would Jesus Do?)

Is our cross to have foreign ideals of orthodoxy shoved down the thoughts of our people until there are no cradle faithful left breathing with two lounges? Is there enough Moslem entrepreneurs to buy our temples to turn them into middle eastern restaurants? How else but real-estate sales can these new boys playing priest support themselves without any real world job skills?

Such a tantrum and nothing said makes any sense!

If Bohorodice is a correct translation of Theotokos it would not mean God-bearer but Birthgiver of God. The "tokos" in Theotokos comes from tiktein, to give childbirth, and is related to the noun teknon, child.

What is the name and location of this parish?

Ung

"Mother of God" has served the English usage of the Old Rite parish of Erie quite well. While the Old Rite prayerbook published by the wonderful parish of the Nativity does not completely avoid the use of Theotokos, far and away the translation of "Bohoroditsa" is usually "Mother of God" in the Erie prayerbook and the other Old Rite liturgical works published by Nativity.

I daresay Hieromonk German and Fathers Pimen and Theodore are definitely three of the most competent readers of Slavonic I have encountered in my life.
FDRLB

They certainly are. Three of their liturgical books are in front of me on my work table. But we may note, along with Diak, that they do find it necessary to use "Theotokos" part of the time, and they have not explained how they decide when to use it and when not to use it.

Meanwhile, this is a dogmatic term (cf. Council of Chalcedon) and John Paul II went to considerable trouble to restore it to the common Catholic vocabulary. Once again, "Theotokos" and "Mother of God" are not synonyms, even though they both refer to the same person.

Fr. Serge

Very well said. It seems our Slav fore-bearers more often preferred to translate than transliterate. And in the rendering of even some important terms in certain instances, they recast them for Slav sensibilities. The rendering of orthodoxōn as pravoslavnich is another example.

The RDL question ( link ) then is, what should be our primary source for translating our liturgy, the Greek usage, or our Recension which is transmitted to us in Slavonic?

When I hear Bohorodice I hear God-birther and thus, Birthgiver of God. And that conveys meanings in English that, though still a theological-mystery, immediately can be processed further by the English speaker where Theotokos cannot.

Theotokos was not transmitted to us through the Slavonic. Though it is original, and venerable and unassailable, we have a precedent in the Slavonic rendering that points us, properly I would say, to Birthgiver of God as the proper and perhaps even best translation.

Some previous discussions on this topic are link , link and link .

Dn. Anthony

I believe that the ACROD uses Birth-Giver rather than Theotokos in their books.

Ung

The OCA Romanian translation uses "Birthgiver."

Wow! I had a similar nightmare but when I woke up, all was good for me. I was in the Holy Orthodox Church!

I find this kind of triumphalistic post very disturbing to me. All Churches struggle. The OCA right now is struggling tremendously with charges of corruption, etc. at the higest levels. Yet no one is writing emails rejoicing at the fact that they are Byzantine Catholic. Why is it tolerated when someone does the opposite. NO wonder my young students are turned off by Christianity and by Christians.

Can we PLEASE not rejoice at the struggles of our fellow brothers and sisters? PLEASE -- I appeal to you by all that is good and holy in the Gospel to refrain from this kind of vicious attacks.