www.byzcath.org Forums Mysteries: The Life of Worship Vespers, Matins & the Divine Liturgy The Revised Divine Liturgy Question # 2 on the New Translation of the Liturgy

Thanks, Tony.
It's actually a music site, but is the only place that i've seen with English, Greek, and something "Slavish" all together.

The difference between prosti and vonmem occur in Greek as well, orthoi and proschomen and both go with sofia! at times.

Proschomen becomes vonmem in Slavonic as far as I can see and orthoi prosti. We see the orth* root in many English words like, Orthodox, orthopedic, orthodontic, etc. It means straight or right. Prost* is similar and we see it in prostop'inije, plain (or straight) chant, it can also mean simple (call someone sprosty and see).

Arise is a bit stretched (pardon the pun but it makes a point). Since pews and sitting in them has become custom, how else will one become attentive and "straight"? By stretching out in the pew and lying down? I don't think so. It is by standing up. So to render prosti/orthoi as "arise" is at least euphonous. I can't imagine many BCs would prefer "straight" or "up" or even "upright" in their parishes on Sunday.

To say "'Be Attentive' ... is more appropiate" for prosti/orthoi is a bigger stretch and less of a translation. Vonmem/proschomen is "let us attend." At least in the current BC texts I am familiar with the distinction between vonmem and prosti is maintained.

CHRIST IS RISEN! Nicholas asks "Why would the commission be instructed to work from a greek text, when the ruthenian recension normative books given in Rome are in slavonic?"

Because the Greek text is usually the original. There is nothing to be gained by producing an endless number of "translations" into English, made from, for instance: Greek, Church-Slavonic, Arabic, Syriac, Romanian, Ukrainian, Italian, Inuit, Chinese, Japanese and whatever else is going.

Granted that there are particular matters which can differ from one recension to another (for instance, the text of the ektene [after the Gospel] is highly variable), it is still sensible to begin by making a scientifically accurate translation from the best critical edition of the Greek text available, and then, if necessary, adjusting that translation to suit the needs of a particular Church.

The Old Rite is a special case (note, please, the expression "special case" is not in the least pejorative). Ideally, the best approach to the Old Rite for purposes of translation would be to establish the Greek texts from which the translators prior to Nikon were translating into Church Slavonic. This, however, is a large task and may not be entirely possible - although it is known that such texts existed and were in use relatively recently. Meanwhile, in a practical way, those who do not read Church Slavonic would still like to know what the Old Rite texts now in use mean. So an English translation directly from the Old Rite Church Slavonic text would be useful.

Another special case is the Menaion - the Church-Slavonic Menaion is much richer than the Greek one. In a few cases, it may be possible to establish an underlying Greek text, but in many cases there is no alternative but to translate from Church Slavonic. At the moment the only complete Menaion available in English is a translation from Church Slavonic, so we must use it and be grateful to the translator and the publishers. Another outfit has been promising a complete translation of the Menaion from the Greek for well over a decade, but so far there is no sign of it appearing.

Incognitus

I re-post this for new member Hopal who wants to know about the RDL.

U-C

I believe we are losing our identity.
We are truly becoming more Roman Catholic each year.

I remember when I was a child attending St Michaels in Pittston, we had a priest named Father Michael Wardy. A very good priest who was also a good husband, father, and grandfather.

No lawsuits, no embarrassing rumors of improper behaviour, just good people worshipping according to belief and tradition.

Perhaps, the Orthodox know more than we give them credit.

By the way, we knelt then which was a sign of respect and commitment.

Andrew,

We have lost our ethnic identity. The BCC used to be the greatest identifier for our Rusyn culture.

We used to be known as the Byzantine Ruthenian Metropolitan Province with Church Slavonic Liturgies as well as language schools, regular Rusyn, Slovak, Hungarian, et al., ethnic events, etc. This is now gone because of "modernization" & "americanization", and dare I say....."latinization".

I still would like to know why we have rid ourselves of our cultural traditions when other churches have further embraced theirs?

Examples:

Ridna skola in the UGCC, as well as the use of Ukrainian and Church Slavonic in UGCC and Ukrainian Orthodox Churches. (Just watch the EWTN special on the 100th anniversary of the Greek Catholic Church in America).

Look at the Serbian Orthodox Church, they have priests from Serbia that are teaching Serbian to the youth.

What about the use of Arabic in the Melkite Church in America? Open one of their Liturgical books and it's in Arabic.

And of course, the use of Greek in the Greek Orthodox Church. Do they still have manditory Greek school for the children?

Even the ethnic Roman Catholic churches keep their traditions. There are many tambura masses at the Croatian Church, polka masses, and regular masses entirely in Slovak and Polish.

Why is it ok for the others to keep their traditions, but when it comes to our Rusyn traditions, we have to lose ours?

It is very sad to know that one day, our traditions will be relegated to something only read in history books. Is it cultural genocide through forced modernization? Rusyn religious and cultural traditions are soon to be extinct if it keeps going this way.

This is the challenge confronting many Church traditions in the U.S. (I am very familiar with the struggles in the Lutheran churches over this.) How do you adapt to the "new world" without losing the "old world"?

The problem is that if you don't adapt, you lose the children (young people). I remember serving in an ethnic parish on Great and Holy Friday for Lamentations. The entire service was in the original language. The altar was filled with young boys and teenagers who were serving. As the service progressed, I quietly went to each young boy/teenager and asked them questions about the service. To a person, they reported that they had no idea what was going on, what the service was about or what was being said.

This is the problem -- I thoroughly suspect that these young boys/teenagers will stop attending church. Church for them was completely unrelated to their "normal lives" -- it was an ethnic thing they did with their parents and grandparents. But it was not "real".

Is it any wonder that this particular church has lost entire generations?

The Church is a living organism -- the Church in America has to be American. It has to find a way to sanctify American culture so that our young people see a connection between what happens in Church and their own lives. If we don't do this, we will close many churches -- not because of the RDL but because we have allowed the Church to become irrelevant.

A polka mass is a Polish tradition? Really? News to me.

I never said polka masses were Polish. They are Slovenian...go to Cleveland & Pittsburgh (and points in between), you'll find 'em.

I write as one with no Eastern European connections whatever.
I am all in favor of people trying to retain their ethic cultures
and identities in America. However, to use the Eastern Catholic
and Orthodox Churches as a focus and tool to retain these cultural traditions can, as far as I can see, have only one outcome: the disappearance of those churches. All churches exist
for the service of God, not ethnicities.

My suggestion: as to languages, mix and match. Have settings of
the fixed parts of the Liturgy in both English and the "old"
language. Let the priest and choir or cantors use a different
mix each week. That way the young people will know what is being
said.

I also submit, speaking as an ex-Latin now in a Slavic church,
the troparia, kontakia and stichera should always, or almost
always, be in English. How can young people's hearts and minds
be moved by this great liturgical poetry if they can't understand
it. And if their hearts and minds be not moved, how are we going
to keep them?

Edmac

One of the key points missing in this discussion is that the traditions you mentioned continue to have NEW immigrants coming from the old country.

It is these NEW immigrants who keep the "older" cultural traditions alive. The situation with the Rusyns is different in that there are not massive NEW immigrants coming. In this respect, the Rusyn situation is much more like the German Lutheran situation.

For crying out loud, why do we keep talking about this like the answer is some mystery.

There's no reason why the Greek Catholic parishes can't have at least one church in the Cleveland and Pittsburgh areas for example that would thrive with being ethnic (slavic) churches. There are the populations and the desire for these heritages in these and a few other areas. The parish I now attend, Pokrova, has everything, sermon included, in Ukrainian. I guarantee you that on Easter and Christmas there is no other Greek Catholic parish in the state of Ohio that has more people, and I have to believe that Sunday attendance is the highest as well. My 5 and 2 year old boys don't have any issues with the Ukrainian sermons, troparia, etc. by the way. Vony rozumyty duzhe dobre! Why would we not have at least one parish in Pittsburgh and Cleveland for example to serve these communities?

Does that mean that in Marietta, OH for example where they probably don't even have a clue as to what a pyrohy is that they should have Ukrainian speaking churches? Of course not! Obviously if the church is to grow we need to have the majority of churches across the US having English liturgies and English everything. If we are going to truly evangelize to others in this country, then English has to be way in these parishes period. I don't understand how anyone could debate the fact that if Greek Catholicism is to grow here in the US that English is how it will be done. If the US were a Swahili speaking nation then Swahili is how it would be done. It's not that difficult to figure out, really.

Furthermore, there's no reason why we shouldn't be reaching out to say the Spanish speaking communities and evangelizing and growing the Greek Catholic faith in those communities. This is a growing demographic and should be evangelized as well.

Sts Cyril and Methodius understood this. They conformed to the local population and got pretty good results by the way. However, I'd be willing to bet that if there were pockets of Greek speaking people they would have kept the original Greek language in those parishes and those parishes only.

The BCA could have achieved this by properly analyzing existing parishes and putting together a comprehensive evangelization plan to create and nurture parishes in English and in other specific areas Spanish would have been appropriate as well. But no, they were too busy revising and secularizing for anything like that. What a waste of time and money and what a great opportunity missed out on.

Monomakh

Father,

It all depends on what you mean by adapt. I agree with you if you mean adapt in terms of language. It's ludicrous to expect a Rusyn or Ukrainian parish to thrive in an area where no one speak these languages and to generations that can't even understand Slava Isusu Christu. That's why introducing English in order to grow is what is needed in the US. But if adapt means to also secularize wording, rubrics, fasting cycles, in and out in under an hour, etc. then I would disagree.

Overall I think that if your post is only speaking about language that you are correct. However the existing issue is this, can you name three things that the BCA has done to remain relevant to its youth and can you point out the corresponding success stories to these three things? Sadly I doubt that anyone can. If the BCA is going to be completely focused on English, then where is the world is the plan to reach out to English speaking people? It seems that the BCA wandered half way down the path and stopped. Thus the decrease in attendance, vocations, baptisms, etc. Having relevant language is not the whole solution, as evidenced by the current state of the BCA, evangelization must occur as well. What is the plan for this? This is what saddens and upsets me the most about the RDL, Father. The BCA should have used the time and money on evangelizing rather than dividing and revising.


Monomakh

I disagree, there are many new Rusyn immigrants from Slovakia, Ukraine and Poland that speak Rusyn and want to, but they cannot do this through the church....Fortunately, we have the Carpatho-Rusyn Society propagating these events for them and us.

Cleveland, Chicago, New York and Minneapolis have many new immigrant Rusyns. Pittsburgh does not because of the bad job market. My cousin from Rokytov pri Humennom is a perfect example of this. He lives and works in the New York area because the jobs are there. He is Rusyn, speaks Rusyn, but there isn't a prominent Rusyn association (either church or cultural) for him to go, so he has to hang with his fellow countrymen in the Slovak associations there. (As a note, he is in his mid 40's and only began to speak Slovak when he went to school).

It seems to be the same old situation that since Rusyns are just a minority in these countries and thus do not have their own country, they should just be happy to have some association whether is be Polish, Slovak or Ukrainian.

I am fascinated about the news that there are "many" Rusyn immigrants. Can you share actual numbers please? Also, please give a source for these numbers so that I can research this? Thanks!