:: St. Stephen's Musings ::

:: Friday, April 30, 2004 ::

Liturgical Gripes Part II:
The inanity of the "ita erat quando hic adveni" argument

What follows are a couple of liturgical problems in contemporary Orthodoxy that are much more serious in nature than the one I mentioned in Part I.

This may begin to highlight why I believe (as the subtitle of this post hints) the mindlessness of those in our parishes who accept the status quo and our lack of prayer in regards to the practical problems of parish life will have (and already have had) serious consequences.

1) The mind boggling number of horrific English translations of the services floating around, particularly in the Greek and Antiochian jurisdictions, is nothing short of astonishing.

This is actually two separate problems (the differences between the translations and the quality) but when considered together there are two obvious and practical problems:

a) It is difficult to memorize and properly understand the services when the English prose is either sloppily translated or doesn't match the chant meter because the words are being "squeezed" into the music.

b) Anyone who has been to a pan-Orthodox service knows it is practically impossible to say the pre-communion prayers, the Lord's Prayer, the Creed, or any other congregational prayer because everyone uses their own local version.

2) The unbelievable number of parishes on the East Coast and Canada that refuse to use English in their services (even though their parishes are composed of a majority of native English speakers) and argue on the historically specious and theologically ludicrous grounds that continual use of foreign languages in the Liturgy "preserves Orthodoxy" is a scandal.

While I'm optimistic that this is changing, I sympathize with the visitors to our parishes who wonder when this will change. This is a key example of how phyletism still exists and how it cripples our ability to serve our communities.

:: Karl :: 10:22:00 AM [Link] ::