www.byzcath.org Forums Mysteries: The Life of Worship Vespers, Matins & the Divine Liturgy The Revised Divine Liturgy Does the RDL conform more to Orthodox usage?

Fr. Deacon,

Today, Aramaic is considered to be "endangered" in terms of modern usage. But, it is used liturgically by the Maronites. Koine Greek is used liturgically by the Greek Orthodox Church, and by Catholic Eastern Churches of Greek usage. In Greek Orthodoxy, modern Greek is banned from use in the Liturgy (per Wikipedia). The use of "dead" or, in the case of Aramaic, "near dead" languages, in Liturgy, in addition to having an ethos of sacrality, provides the benefit of an inbuilt protection against ambiguities and heretical mistranslations which can occur with ongoing re-translations into common modern parlance. "Dead" language liturgical translations can be used as a point of reference for theological instruction. This was always the argument for retaining Latin in the Western Liturgy. With Elizabethan English being a "near dead" usage, the same argument can be made for using it liturgically. It is highly unlikely that understanding of the meaning of words used in Elizabethan English will "evolve" as is the case with modern English words. Just my two cents.

Dn. Robert

I was under the impression that every priest in the Pittsburgh Archeparchy is now under the threat of pension loss if they did not follow the RDL to the letter. How are varations allowed?

Etnick,

If priests are now being threated with reprisals for refusing to serve the RDL, who will serve these parishes in the Pittsburgh Archeparchy? Are we to assume that we will be served only by Roman Bi-Ritual priests now? Oy Vay, indeed!

Ung

Pensions? You have to be retired to get a pension, don't you? Retired priests?? In the Pittsburgh Archeparchy??

Is this threat hearsay, or do you have something to back it up?

Fr Deacon Paul

Aramaic is still spoken in the street, although in very few places! Where it remains in popular use, it's also called Sureth.

Koine I'm not so sure about - it seems to have been a quasi-artificial form of "commercial Greek" used in the Mediterranean world, which is probably why it was used for the New Testament - so that people in the Mediterranean world could read it with relative fluency. In the street, though, people (many of whom could not read at all) would have spoken the local variety of Greek.

Aramaic is still used liturgically by the Chaldeans, the Nestorians, and to some extent the Syro-Malabarese. The Syro-Malabarese would have little or no understanding of it; the Chaldeans and Nestorians who remain on their native heaths would have a reasonable understanding. There are a very few places (Ma'aloula comes to mind) where the Greek-Catholics make some liturgical use of Aramaic - these are places where Aramaic is spoken to some extent.

Aramaic is also used by the Syrian Catholic Church and the non-Chalcedonian Syrian Orthodox Church.

Modern Greek culture is negative about using modern Greek liturgically for several reasons - one of which is that there are still several forms of "modern" Greek, even in Greece itself. Another is that trying to translate the service-books (including poetic material written for Byzantine metre) into "modern" Greek is a daunting idea. In addition, Christian Greece are very proud that the New Testament is written in Greek, and are not anxious to reject it.

For all the claims that Elizabethan/Jacobean English is dead or "near dead", the King James Bible rolls along, outselling all the "modern" translations - the bulk of the English-speaking Christian population seems happy with it. There are some individual words and turns of phrase in the King James Bible which are a challenge, but most of it can be read with good comprehension by any high school graduate.

By no coincidence at all, every now and then somebody will produce yet another attempt to rewrite Shakespeare in "modern" English - it flops; most people who like Shakespeare like the original.

Fr. Serge

Out with modernity!

Dn. Robert

Originally posted by Father Deacon Lance:

I challenge this only because it is an assertion so often made that it risks being taken as a truism.

It is true that common people spoke Aramaic and Koine Greek. What is NOT true is that the writings of the New Testament are the same kind of Greek that was spoken in the streets.

I have read Xenophon's Anabasis (early Helenistic) and parts of Plato's Dialogues (Attic), and copies of non-literary papyri (real street Greek), as well as most of the New Testament. I can tell you with a high degree of certainty that most of the New Testament is written in a form of Koine Greek which is somewhere in between the classical Attic dialect and the papyri. It is really unique in Greek literature because it is so deeply Hebraic in it's phraseology, syntax, and figures of speech, and not only when the writers are quoting the Septuagint. Yet it frequently rises to levels of poetry that educated Greeks are justly proud of to this day.

If then our liturgical language is to be faithful to it's ultimate Source, the Holy Bible, it ought not to be in the colloquial vernacular of our age - let alone in what George Orwell famously called "Newspeak" - but in a moderately elevated, distinctly biblical (Hebraic), and poetic diction that will endure "from generation to generation."

This means a distinctly liturgical English, the sacred form of our language associated with Holy Scripture and prayer. The model is the traditional version of the Lord's Prayer. Fine exemplars already exist in Isabel Hapgood's pioneering translation, in the service books of the Antiochian Archdiocese, the OCA, ROCOR, and others; as well as in Arcbishop JOSEPH (Raya's) revised translation of the Divine Liturgy published in 2000.

This heritage of biblical / liturgical English is already part of all of us who speak English. The "sacral" form of our language will, I am persuaded, ultimately win the battle for the hearts and minds of Christians in all English-speaking countries.

I agree; I have argued this point before: link1, link2, link3.

Also, thanks for the additional references and your appraisal.

My point is the Apostles could have kept everything in Hebrew, their sacral language, they did not. SS. Cyril and Methodius could have simply taught the Slavs Greek, they did not. Thankfully the Church has not followed the lead of King James only-Protestants. It is the Liturgy that sanctifies the language, not the language that sanctifies the Liturgy. ANd no I don't think we should use slang or excessively dumbed-down language. But the language style of the RSV/NAB/JB is fine in my opinion and obviuosly that of the Church.

I disagree. After living with the RDL for more than a year, I still think it plays out badly in our beloved Divine Liturgy. It sounds bad, it's bad English and it takes away from the poetic nature of our Liturgy.

Our Liturgy is supposed to transcend us from our Earthly Cares -- instead, our noses are rubbed in it -- and boy does it stink!

Isabel Hapgood's Service Book is now over a hundred years old - and has done the Church good service; to this day there are still a few things that are best found in Hapgood.

However, I would suggest that she was far too enamoured of Anglicanism (she was an Anglican) in her choice of language, her use of the Psalms, etc. - I'm being unfair, since we have a greater range of choice available than she did.

About ten years before Hapgood, that Greek-English Service Book that Eastern Christian publications has just reprinted appeared - it's also quite useful, and if one looks carefully, one realizes that it is the "Mother text" for several widespread English translations of the twentieth century.

Fr. Serge

A valid point. My comment was in the context of the links I provided and the thread where they are posted. There, as elsewhere, a phenomenon occurs common to justifications of the RDL: an assertion is made as though certain and universally accepted that corroborates the RDL translation, when in fact there are significant issues not mentioned that weaken or even contradict the assertion.

Thus the Koine/street-language argument. Another previously encountered: that the Greek anthropos does not have a male-only/male-and-female ambiguity as does the English man, which was easily demonstrated to be incorrect by instances of use in scripture (One finds this latter incorrect assertion also on the DVD produced by the Metropolia). Another is the necessity and approach to "inclusivity" without any tangible indication of who proposed it and its factual basis.

I believe there are many other questionable explanations and "facts" that are the foundation of issues and motivations that resulted in the RDL. Some have been raised on this forum and elsewhere; there are others.

The lack of response or indicated concern or clarification or dialog from the Metropolia seems to arise from a position of totalitarianism on this issue. Obedience is invoked but too often against the wrong people. As the father of a family I have often cited to my children the validity of the principle of RHIP, rank has its privileges; but I am then also quick to point out the other, necessary, side to that coin which is (for lack of a better succinct phrase )the principle of noblesse oblige.

But I digress ...

RHIP, yes, that's true. But rank also has duties and obligations, and the privileges don't begin to compensate for the duties and obligations!

Fr. Serge

Yes, thank you, precisely my point (expanded).

Is a lack of response, conciliarity, and dialogue on the issue of RDL (or any issue) a surprise? Obedience in faith is one thing, but "pray, pay, and obey" should be long dead.

Fr. Deacon Lance,

And my point is so what?

In your original post you attempted to credit the RDL with restoring five elements. That is false. And that is the whole point I am trying to make. The RDL restores nothing that was not already there with the 1942 and 1964 Liturgicons. You are making the same mistake that Father Petras routinely makes, comparing the apple of the “RDL” to the orange of the “as celebrated” when the correct comparison is to compare the apple of the “RDL” to the apples of the 1942 and 1964 Liturgicons. One might compare the “as celebrated” before and after the RDL to see how many parishes now use the proper prosphora (i.e., no “pre-cut”), teplota, and put the ablutions in the correct place but the cause of those who have now started doing them correctly would not be the RDL (since it did not restore these) but rather education, and the example and encouragement of the bishops.

Look at another example. If someone were to approach you and give credit to the version of the New American Bible published in 2000 for “restoring the seven missing books to the Old Testament” you’d probably roll your eyes at how silly that sounded. Then you’d point out that these seven books were in the original 1970 edition, the Douay-Rheims edition, and the Vulgate (etc.). And then if the some person said that “well the hierarchs involved with the NAB actually wanted to see these books in the Bible and used in liturgical worship” you’d roll your eyes again and explain that 1) the books were already there and 2) you can’t give credit to the bishops of the 2000 edition of the NAB for “restoring” these seven OT book when they were already present in the previous editions.

A fictitious but logical parallel here would you to be giving credit to the hierarchs who approved the 2000 edition of the NAB for restoring these seven Old Testament books while ignoring the little matter of them removing other books and insisting on changing the texts rather then translating them accurately. One could credit them for good intentions, and credit their love for the Lord but it would be clear that the bishops who mandated the changes were in error.

John