Sts. Tikhon & John of San Francisco on the Western Rite

[Holdfast]

I, for one, love the various liturgical languages, chants, typicons, traditions and many differing expressions that our church has developed for worship. It's all part of our wonderful inheritance.
That being said, the adherence of these rites to the letter is not THE tradition. The tradition we need to watch most closely is the Apostolic Tradition. As much as our rites conform to this, are they orthodox. Remember the Greeks changed the sign of the cross, processional direction after baptism ect to the way most perform it today. And both ways are completely orthodox, in my opinion.
No one is suggesting, at least I'm not, that the WR be in "modern" vernacular. And the texts I've seen from the TOC (not sure why the continued mention of the new calandarist churches and their "WR" on an intra TOC polemics forum) are both in old English and very beautiful.
Jean,
It has taken more than 4 decades but they have been translated. See St.Gregory's press for some of the works avaliable. Also, don't forget to include in your list St. Augistine (of Canterbery) who was sent at the request of St. Gregory the dialogist to evangelize the Anglo Saxon people of England and who's work later spread to enlighten much of northern europe.

[Jean-Serge]

Antiochian parishes use liturgical Arabic, which is not spoken today.

Liturgical Greek is also not spoken today, so some of the Divine Liturgy in Greek is not understandable to native Greek peoples.

Church Slavonic is also not modern day Russian.

The older form of English employed by HOCNA (so called King James English) is not consistent. This was noticeable in their book of Psalms and in their Divine Liturgy, where there are many errors.

How do you define liturgical Arabic? There is classical arabic that is the Arabic of the Coran more or less that any Arab should understand because they teach them in school. It differs from local forms but I do not know in which extent. Church Slavonic is in fact an anomaly because it was never a spoken language, but an invented language for missionary purpose. All the ther "liturgical" languages were in fact spoken languages at the time when they were used.

[Maria]

Antiochian parishes use liturgical Arabic, which is not spoken today.

Liturgical Greek is also not spoken today, so some of the Divine Liturgy in Greek is not understandable to native Greek peoples.

Church Slavonic is also not modern day Russian.

The older form of English employed by HOCNA (so called King James English) is not consistent. This was noticeable in their book of Psalms and in their Divine Liturgy, where there are many errors.

How do you define liturgical Arabic? There is classical arabic that is the Arabic of the Coran more or less that any Arab should understand because they teach them in school. It differs from local forms but I do not know in which extent. Church Slavonic is in fact an anomaly because it was never a spoken language, but an invented language for missionary purpose. All the ther "liturgical" languages were in fact spoken languages at the time when they were used.

Isn't it true that the Slavs at that time did not have a universal written language, but only a spoken language? Sts. Cyril and Methodios translated the Bible and Holy Services from Greek to Church Slavonic for the peoples. In so doing, they used the Greek alphabet and invented new symbols for the Slavonic sounds that were not found in Greek.

Russian is a modern language.

From Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Slavonic_language

• Church Slavonic represents a later stage of Old Church Slavonic, and is the continuation of the liturgical tradition introduced by the Thessaloniki brothers Cyril and Methodius in the late 9th century in Nitra, a principal town and religious and scholarly center of Great Moravia (present-day Slovakia), who produced the first Slavic translations of the Scripture and liturgy from Ancient Greek. By the early 12th century, individual Slavic languages started to emerge, and the liturgical language was modified in pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary and orthography according to the local vernacular usage. These modified varieties or recensions eventually stabilized and their regularized forms were used by the scribes to produce new translations of liturgical material from Ancient Greek, or Latin in case of Croatian Church Slavonic.

St. Innocent of Alaska did the same for the Alaskan Native Peoples. Many priests were linguists and that was important in helping Native Peoples who were illiterate. Like Sts. Cyril and Methodius, St. Innocent invented their written language as they did not have one that could be used to translate the Holy Bible and the Holy Services.

[Lydia]

Yep. A New Calendar GREEK Parish that used about 70% english, 30% GREEK and Arabic Slavonic and Romanian. Very multi-ethnic with a priest who had lived in GREECE 20 years, but was from California. I think the Liturgy should be in the people's language, but I just don't think it should be "vulgar" as in common or profane language. Our every day english is literally "profane" as in "outside the temple", which is what profane means. I just think Liturgies should have Liturgical languages.

I agree 100%.

[Lydia]

I, for one, love the various liturgical languages, chants, typicons, traditions and many differing expressions that our church has developed for worship. It's all part of our wonderful inheritance.
That being said, the adherence of these rites to the letter is not THE tradition. The tradition we need to watch most closely is the Apostolic Tradition. As much as our rites conform to this, are they orthodox. Remember the Greeks changed the sign of the cross, processional direction after baptism ect to the way most perform it today. And both ways are completely orthodox, in my opinion.
No one is suggesting, at least I'm not, that the WR be in "modern" vernacular. And the texts I've seen from the TOC (not sure why the continued mention of the new calandarist churches and their "WR" on an intra TOC polemics forum) are both in old English and very beautiful.
Jean,
It has taken more than 4 decades but they have been translated. See St.Gregory's press for some of the works avaliable. Also, don't forget to include in your list St. Augistine (of Canterbery) who was sent at the request of St. Gregory the dialogist to evangelize the Anglo Saxon people of England and who's work later spread to enlighten much of northern europe.

Well said.
What a wonderful photograph of St. Philaret!

[Justice]

There are Pre-schism western rites that are still performed today, such as The Mozarabic-Visigothic. Could these not be "adjusted?'
The arguments in favor of Western Rites that I have heard are to make the liturgy more comfortable for converts. My experience has been that it is not the Divine Liturgy that is a difficulty but rather, the use of languages like Slavonic or Ancient Greek (rather than native languages.)

Acutally, the Mozarabic rite suffered from later additions that make it no longer original. Additionnally, a rite is not only the liturgy (mass), but also the other services, the way of singing, the liturgical ornaments, the gestures etc. I doubt it is possible to find the original things of these Western Rite. Moreover, who would need this since they haven't been used for century and are forgotten by any inquirer to orthdoxy. They would seem as exotic as byzantine rite. The difficulty is like Lydia stressed the celbration in missionary context in non native languages, which is the best way not to be missionary. All the missionaries translated in what was the common language of their time and place : Saint Etienne of Perm in Zyriane for the Zyrianes, Romanian switched to Romanian in the 18th century, Arabs abandonned Greek for Arab etc.

Such a shame, it's a beautiful rite.

[Justice]

I think the Liturgy should be in the people's language.

I agree, having the liturgy in another language could make the experience less enjoyable for some parishioners and might steer them away from Orthodoxy. I myself will always advocate for the common language.