More on Liturgical Language

One thing I forgot to mention in my other entry on this topic was history. One of the reasons that the church of the east spread the way it did was that it did not force the faithful to learn a new language. At that point in history, the church of Rome functioned in Latin everywhere in the world but the Church of Byzantium used the vernacular. When Cyril & Methodius came to Kiev they did not force the people there to learn Greek. No, they learned the language of the people and in fact wrote it down for the first time.

So now fast forward to the new world. The Orthodox Church arrives and first is strictly an immigrant church so they stayed with the language of the faithful, Russian, Greek, Romanian, Arabic etc. But now, some two hundred years hence, and we still look upon ourselves as an immigrant church. If we want to remain that way fine keep praying in Greek, Russian, etc. However if we want to mainstream, and not loose the next generation, then a change must be made. I am not saying to throw out all of the language and switch directly to English, but there needs to be a balance between English and whatever other language you wish to use. I said it before language is culture and we need to hold on to that.

My family came to Nova Scotia from Scotland many years ago. They settled in Cape Breton and began their lives. After a fashion my grandfather came to America to find work. He spoke English. Rumor has it his mother spoke Scots Gaelic. No one in my family speaks Scots Gaelic anymore. In fact Gaelic is in decline in the world and is in danger of being lost forever. More than that, the area in Scotland where my family comes from they speak what is called Scots. But you would be hard pressed to find anyone who still speaks that language. So we need to hold on to language, and we Americans needs to learn more than just the bad English we speak now. But there needs to be a balance.

So there you have it another rant on Language. Maybe it’s the heat!