www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology "New Translation "of the Liturgy

Originally posted by byzanTN:
All these threads are running together, but a poster somewhere mentioned ICEL involvement in the translations. That raises a red flag with me, since ICEL is the group responsible for the horribly inaccurate translation of the Novus Ordo. I have heard ICEL has been "reformed" and is not as ideologically driven these days, but I don't know how trustworthy that body is. I do regard them with some suspicion until they prove they are capable of producing accurate translations. Does ICEL have anything to do with this, or was it IECL which is a different body? I could have misread this.

Originally posted by nicholas:
The IELC modeled the inclusive language translation of the Liturgy and other texts after the patterns established by ICEL (which Rome has now condemned).

djs writes that: "If the changes seem unwarranted, ill-considered, and disoriented (does you mean Latinized ?), it would be worthwhile to find out what the changes actually are, what the rationale is, what the considerations are".

Correct. But to do this, am I supposed to use a ouija board? The text itself is being guarded like the gold in Fort Knox, to say nothing of the rationale and the considerations!

This brings us back to the problem of translation. There can be no doubt that if Orthodoxy is to become truly American, it will be an English-speaking and an English-praying Orthodoxy. But precisely because of the tremendous importance of this linguistic integration and of all that we have said about the function of the liturgy in our "secularistic" predicament, the mere notion of translation is not sufficient. I have explained why, for as long as American Orthodoxy is only translated it is neither fully American nor fully Orthodox. It is not fully American because the literal translations of Byzantine or Russian texts (and these are the only translations we have so far) remain odd and alien to the genius of English language, result in�to say the truth Greek or Russian services in English, but not English services. And it is not fully Orthodox because what gives these texts their real power and fulfills their liturgical function�their beauty, is simply lost in these literal renderings. But again a situation which seems hopeless is hopeless only as long as we do not dare to take the problem in all its seriousness and apply to it the only remedy: the faith in the Church which "never grows old but always renews her youthfulness." And it means, in this particular case, that the true continuity with the living Tradition of the Church requires from us more than translation: a real re-creation of the same and eternal message, its true incarnation in English. One example will help to understand what I mean. Recently the diary of Dag Hammarskjo1d�a deeply poetical and mystical document in which the late Secretary General of the United Nations expressed his religious life, was translated from Swedish into English by the poet W. H. Auden. In his preface, Auden confesses that he does not know one single word in Swedish. He used a literal translation�but he recreated it and gave it, so to speak, a value and an existence, independent from the Swedish original. Yet he could do it only because he was in "sympathy" with the content of Hammarskjo1d's book, understood from "inside" his religious experience. Mutatis mutandis this example can be applied to our situation. The problem is not just to translate but to give again the hymns and the texts of the Byzantine liturgy the power they have in the original and which is rooted in the organic unity of meaning and "beauty." Yet to achieve this, one must go beyond the literal meaning and understand the place and the function of a given text or series of texts within the whole, their relation to the entire message of the service of which they are a part. Here again, the understanding of the whole precedes and conditions the real under-standing of any part of this whole. It provides us, first, with the criterion by which to judge what-in this particular "whole"�is essential and must be preserved and what is merely accidental, repetitious and of doubtful liturgical quality. It will, then, provide us with a method of translation which is not necessarily a blind "faithfulness" to the original' it may be that in order to convey the meaning and the power of the original, one has to paraphrase it and shorten it, rather than try to "squeeze" into the sober English the luxurious and untranslatable "richness" of the Byzantine text.

Thus, for example, if one understands the meaning of Palm Sunday as being the great messianic feast, the solemn liturgical affirmation of Christ�s Lordship in the world, and, therefore as the inauguration of the Holy Week, which is the fulfillment of Christ's victory over the "prince of this world," if one has, in other words, the vision of the whole�the interdependence of the Lazarus Saturday, the Palm Sunday and Pascha, one has the key to the proper "recreation" of the liturgy of Palm Sunday. One sees, first of all, the central position and function within the service of the messianic greetings: "Hosanna" and "Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord," the theme of Jerusalem as the Holy Sion, as the place where the history of salvation is to find its fulfillment, the constant reference to Zachariah�s dichotomy: "King" and "lowly" as reference to the Kingdom of peace and love which is being inaugurated, and, finally, the leit motiv of the whole service "Six days before the Passover" by which this feast is set as the "ante-feast" of the Holy Week, the real entrance of the Messiah into His glory. Then having "seen" all this, having truly entered the mind of the Church as she celebrates this feast and the mind of those who expressed this celebration, one will not simply translate, but, indeed, express the same celebration, although maybe in texts somewhat different from the original, shortened here, paraphrased there, omitted or even replaced in certain places. I do not claim to be a specialist in English, which is not my native tongue. But, as a very "tentative" example let me once more hint at what I mean by "re-creation." Here is one stichera of Palm Sunday in literal translation:

"Six days before the Passover, thy voice, O Lord, was heard in the depths of Hades, by which Thou hast risen Lazarus of four days; as to the children of Israel, they were shouting 'Hosanna'; O our God glory to Thee."

If we remember that this text is to he sung, and yet heard as a whole, all these "by which," "for which cause," "as to," the endless genitives, the heavy forms such as "for which cause, the Hebrew children, bearing branches of trees in their hands, exalted him with the shout," not only create an anticlimax to music (as if someone were singing a paragraph from a newspaper), but they simply do not communicate the synthetic image underlying these words. The structure of Greek language is different: there "for which cause," or "in which" never acquire the phonetical independence which they have in English: they frame the main word or symbol without burdening it to such a degree that it is completely lost in this heavy gravy. A first requirement, therefore, is to cut the Byzantine period into short affirmative (kerygmatic!) sentences, centering each in one clear image and by-passing all words or even images, that "fit" into the Greek, but dissolve the English sentence. A possible rendering could be then something like this:

Six days before Pascha
Thy voice was heard in Hades.
It raised Lazarus.
Hosanna, glory to thee..."

Another stichera from the same service in literal translation:

"When Thou was entering the Holy City sitting upon an ass, Thou was speeding to come to suffering in order to fulfill the Law and the Prophets. As to the Hebrew children, foretelling the victory of the Resurrection, they met Thee with branches and palms, saying, Blessed art Thou O Saviour, have mercy on us�"

Possible translation:

"Entering the Holy City
Riding upon an ass,
He was coming to suffer,
To fulfill the Law and the Prophets.
The palms and the branches
Announced the victory of the Resurrection.
Blessed art Thou, O Saviour,
Have mercy upon us."

Needless to say, this work of "re-creation" cannot be amateurish. The whole point of my thought is that it requires a very serious liturgical and theological study of the liturgy, of its structure, of its connotations. We need, indeed, a liturgical movement: the rediscovery of the meaning first, then its "reincarnation" in adequate words and categories. But nothing short of that serious and patient work will make our liturgy again what it has always meant to be and to fulfill in the Church.

Originally posted by ByzKat:
What if it were to turn out that the Oriental Congregation decided that "Lover of Mankind" was not the best translation of "Celovikol'ubce"?

Originally posted by nicholas:

Quote

Originally posted by ByzKat:
[b]What if it were to turn out that the Oriental Congregation decided that "Lover of Mankind" was not the best translation of "Celovikol'ubce"?

Is this just a suggestion? If the Oriental Congregation directed it the bishops can publish the letter and end all speculation. If Rome directed the change from �for He is gracious and loves mankind� to �for Christ is gracious and loves us all� they are violating their own directives. Avoiding the masculine pronoun �He� is vertical inclusive language. �Loves us all� is not a valid translation for �loves mankind.� [/b]