Comments on: Language in American Orthodoxy, 1916

By: OrthodoxHistory.org » Blog Archive » The Feast Day of St. Raphael

OrthodoxHistory.org » Blog Archive » The Feast Day of St. Raphael — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 20:35:12 +0000

[...] consecration to the episcopate, this one on the stability of the Syrian Mission under his care, and this one on the widespread use of English in his [...]

By: Isa Almisry

Isa Almisry — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 17:29:10 +0000

A belated reply to Reader Mo: There were Arabic service books, but, given the situation with the Greek hiearchy, they were neither standardized nor of any quality (tending to be excessively literal), nor in great supply. The Christians at the time were modernizing Arabic (the Muslims didn’t join untill later), and the Russian Church provided schools where this could go on, and the fruit of this was just coming to power at the time of Ingrim. In fact, Sati Husri, one of the pivotal figures in Arab Nationalism, pointed to the Arab Patriarch of Antioch as “the first victory of Arab Nationalis.” He was, btw, Muslim.

By: Matthew Namee

Matthew Namee — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 13:14:16 +0000

Reader Mo, I consulted with a good friend who is very knowledgeable in the history of the Church of Antioch. Arabic was the primary liturgical language even during the so-called “Greek captivity” of the Patriarchate of Antioch. That said, Arabic was the language of the Muslim conquerers, and it was not a “sacred language” for Arabic-speaking Orthodox. My friend also reiterated that the Syro-Arabs who came to America “had no flag” — that is, they came not from an independent Syria or Lebanon, but from the Ottoman Empire. Whereas Byzantine Greek or Church Slavonic would have had both sacred and nationalistic connotations for the people who used them, Arabic would not.

By: Isa Almisry

Isa Almisry — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 00:41:12 +0000

I just came across an article written by none other than Isabel Hopgood (of translation fame) about the Arab Chrisitans (1899). On the Uniate Melchites she notes “In practice, they have lost nearly evertything except their vernacular language in the Church services.” (the article also has some interesting things to say about the return to Orthodoxy as it was going on).
http://books.google.com/books?id=lygPAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA508&dq=Orthodox+Hapgood+syro-Arabian&lr=#v=onepage&q=Orthodox%20Hapgood%20syro-Arabian&f=false

I recall hearing that the first mass of the Vatican in English on American TV was one that Bishop Sheen did, who also had Maronite or Melkite faculties. It is supposed to have some influence on the decision of Vatican II on the vernacular.

By: Isa Almisry

Isa Almisry — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 23:54:21 +0000

First DL elebrated all in English, or just partially?

For partial, the report of Fr. Kovrigin to the bishop of Alaska notes that the Gospel was done in English (in addition to Greek, Slavonic and Russian) for Pascha 1868 in SF. The bishop of Alaska, + Paul, reportedly consecrated Fr. Bjerring’s chapel on his way back to Russia. For the whole DL, Bjerring is a likely candidate, as he didn’t speak Slavonic nor Greek.

By: Reader Mo

Reader Mo — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 21:39:13 +0000

i was once told that the reason that the Syrians transitioned more quickly to English is because Arabic had not been the standard Liturgical language for very long. The services had always been in Greek until sometime in the late 1800′s, when a native-speaking Arab became Patriarch. Before that (I was told) Arabic was only used in Latin and Jacobite Churches, and Orthodox Churches used Greek. So they weren’t quite as attached to Arabic as a Liturgical language as, say, Greeks were to Greek. I don’t know how accurate this is. Do you folks? When I told this to my old Priest, he chuckled and said that the Arabs he grew up with seemed to think that Arabic was the language of God Himself and that it was absurd to think that they were not attached to Arabic as a Liturgical language. But the numbers you present here could be explained by the theory I presented above. I’d be interested to learn if this was the case.

By: Matthew Namee

Matthew Namee — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 13:08:27 +0000

I believe it would have been celebrated by Fr. Nicholas Bjerring in New York City in 1870.

By: Richard Barrett

Richard Barrett — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 11:18:17 +0000

Broad question — do we know when the first Divine Liturgy celebrated in English in the United States would have been?