Services Spoken In Greek or English?!

[AJB4]

Is it true that most Orthodox services are completely spoken in Greek? Say it ain't so! I couldn't hope to understand what they were saying...
except maybe the odd word like 'baptism' or 'Theotokos' or something like that.

[zebu]

This is not true. Except in Greece.

[AJB4]

This is not true. Except in Greece.
Oh good, thank you. It wouldn't be very welcoming to the public if they spoke anything outside the local languages. :D

[gzt]

Depends on the parish. That could only possibly be true in Greek parishes, and it has not been true of the Greek parishes I've been in. Here in America, almost always, you will find American spoken a good portion of the time, if not all the time.

[choirfiend]

It may depend if the church is mostly populated with Greek speakers, or not. There are some churches outside Russia that use slavonic, some churches outside Lebanon that use Arabic...But hopefully, and with time, good liturgical translations are being made in English for English-speaking countries.

[Dewi Sant]

Isn't it law to conduct services in the vernacular?


Basically, it depends upon the ethnicity of the parish. If it is a parish of 95% greek, then the whole liturgy may be in greek, but, if like my home parish it is about 40% greek, 10% indian, 20% russian 30% english, then it is said entirely in English aparat from the Creed and Lord's Prayer which is recited in every language present. Some of the hymns may be sung in Greek, but that adds to variety.

It really does depend upon the parish.

I have been to liturgies which are 100% english.

Theotokos is one of few greek words you will come across in the english liturgy.

[zhilan]

Yeah, it just depends on the parish. You should look for convert parishes. They will be all in English most likely. If you look for Antiochian it will likely be at least -mostly- in English. OCA is another good option.

[Ioan cel Nou]

My parish probably does the Liturgy in about 70-80% Romanian plus the remainder in English. Given that I'm one of only 3 or 4 non-Romanians in the parish, so far as I'm aware all of us speak Romanian pretty fluently and quite often I'm the only Englishman at the Liturgy at all, I'd say we do a pretty good job of introducing English. The idea is that as the parish ages (it's very new) and puts down roots, attracts converts, produces newer generations born here etc. that English will gradually take over. I'm happy about that but I will be sorry to see some of our Romanian music go. I much prefer Byzantine chant in Romanian over English, I'm afraid.

James

[Breaking Babylon]

In my ACROD parish we're all mostly converts, and the services are in English. To suit some of the cradles Father Mark will sometimes say a few things in Greek and Church Slavonic, but, it's only sometimes, and I personally like the diversity. For example, after extolling "Christ is baptized!" He repeated the same in Church Slavonic. On certain feast days I've heard him sing the Trisagion in Greek. I love it.

You'll notice, AJB4, that once you've gotten used to the Liturgy and where things are, that no matter what language is being spoken you have a good idea of what's being said.

[Mary of Bethany]

We're basically an all-English parish - but sometimes Father will say the Litanies (or other parts) in Slavonic if most of the people present are Russian speaking (for instance, some of the weekday liturgies). When receiving Communion, he says the words to the communicant in either English or Slavonic, as appropriate for each communicant.

Mary

[eoe]

It depens where you go. If you go to a Russian parish you will have no greek at all! Of course you might have some trouble with some slavonic....

At my parish - which is VERY Greek - we have the Liturgy in about 60% English and 40% Greek. Most of the Greek is in the responses and is very easily understood. There have been occaisions for vespers where only a very few people were present (like 5) that the service was in all Greek but that is a rarity (and I enjoy it honestly...)

The best advice is - GO. Find out what it is like for yourself. Do not rely on someone else to make an opinion for you. GO. See. Smell. Touch and feel.

Orthodoxy is not philosophical it is experiential. You do not learn about it by thinking about it - you learn by actually doing it.

Go.

[KoolKat]

here where i live we do services in Greek and English....... in the pews they have books that U can follow along......... i use them a lot!

also, Welcome to Orthodoxy!

-Kat

[Greg the byzantine]

It all depends on how "Greek" the community is. Our parish is mostly Immigrant and 1st generation Greeks and Cypriots so we have our Liturgy 90% in Greek. The next closest church is about 50% English 50% Greek. It really all depends on location and community

[KoolKat]

i agree with U 'cause if U go to a Serbian church most of the liturgy is in Serbian and if U go to a Russian church most of the liturgy will be in Russian unless the community has immagrants and 1st and 2nd Gen., well U know what i mean

[AJB4]

I don't think that there are many (if any) Greeks in our community. The parish is 'Greek Orthodox'. We only speak two languages in my country (English primarily in conversations, as well as New Zealand Māori occasionally for mainly cultural purposes; it's rarely used in a coversation unless you come from a Maori, and New Zealand is about 90% white European. My bet is that it would be about 90% English, 10% Greek, just for cultural purposes. :D

[ufonium2]

The parish we attend when visiting my husband's family has begun doing the sermon in both Greek and English, which is great, but the way they do it is excruciating! The priest reads a paragraph in English, then goes back and reads it in Greek. Then the next paragraph in English, and again in Greek, and so on. So whichever language you're listening to, there are multiple three-minute gaps between paragraphs filled with some language you don't understand. And if you're bilingual, you're hearing every paragraph twice!

Since he's basically reading the sermon straight from the notes anyway, I would prefer he read it in one language, and print it in the other in the bulletin. But that's just me.

[KoolKat]

i see....... anyway, talk to U later i have to go eat now,
bye!

-Kat

[Ilian]

Isn't it law to conduct services in the vernacular?

No.

[Mary of Bethany]

The parish we attend when visiting my husband's family has begun doing the sermon in both Greek and English, which is great, but the way they do it is excruciating! The priest reads a paragraph in English, then goes back and reads it in Greek. Then the next paragraph in English, and again in Greek, and so on. So whichever language you're listening to, there are multiple three-minute gaps between paragraphs filled with some language you don't understand. And if you're bilingual, you're hearing every paragraph twice!

Since he's basically reading the sermon straight from the notes anyway, I would prefer he read it in one language, and print it in the other in the bulletin. But that's just me.

The way we've started handling that in our parish is that as Father is giving the sermon in English, one of our Russian-speaking men is quietly interpreting his words to a group of the older Russian non-English speakers in our parish. So any who need to hear in Russian gather around that man and he interprets as Father speaks. It seems to work well, and doesn't cause that delay that you're getting.

Mary

[KoolKat]

i agree with U...... 'cause if someone was doing a sermon in two languages it would take 4ever!!!!

[Philothei]

I did a search in yahoo for Orthdox Churches in New Zeeland and I got two one ROCOR and one Antiochean Mission parish. Have you looked them up yet AJB4? You live in New Zeeland right?

God bless,
Philothei

[Ioan cel Nou]

i agree with U...... 'cause if someone was doing a sermon in two languages it would take 4ever!!!!
We have the readings in both languages (I read most things in English after the Romanian version, with the obvious exceptions of the homily and Gospel), the Lord's prayer, the Creed and, sometimes, the homily. Most of the time Father does the homily in Romanian only but even then they are unusually long for Orthodox ones (good job that he's generally interesting) but you're right, when he does them in both languages it does takle a long time. He doesn't cut from one language to another, though. Just does the whole thing in Romanian, then repeats in English. All the extra bits we do in English certainly must add 20 to 30 mins to the Liturgy, I'd guess, even though much of the English is instead of rather than in adition to the Romanian. Nobody complains, though, which is good because i always feel like he's doing it just for me which feels slightly uncomfortable.

James

[cobweb]

Ours is about 50% Greek and 50% English. Most of the folks are Greek, but we have about 5 different languages spoken at coffee hour.

[Akathist]

i agree with U 'cause if U go to a Serbian church most of the liturgy is in Serbian and if U go to a Russian church most of the liturgy will be in Russian unless the community has immagrants and 1st and 2nd Gen., well U know what i mean

Hi KoolKat!

A Serbian Church would use Church Slavanic (the same Church Slavanic a Russian Church would use.) The homily would be in Serbian if the congregation is mostly Serbian. The Serbian Church I visit once in a great while is like that. I don't speak Church Slavanic or Serbian myself so it is a lesson to me when I go about how someone whose english is not good would experience an English service. What I find interesting is that even though I don't know the language at all, I can follow the service and know about where we are.

There is an English/Church Slavanic book in the pews but I stopped following in it and just said the words in english very very quietly for the responses as I followed along.

My church is OCA and we have only one small part of the service in Slavanic. After singing (chanting) the prayer that starts with "Let us mystically put aside all earthly cares....." we sing (chant) this in Slavanic. We only have three regular attenders whose native language is Russian or Ukranian but to honor them we keep this one hymn in Church slavanic. I wonder if we will keep it when they are reposed, but I kind of hope we do.

[Michael the Iconographer]

It is the tradition of the Orthodox Church to have the services in the vernacular language of the people.

[Kristos]

I go to a Greek chruch, but they split it between Greek, English and Slavonic depending on the day. For example on the OC Navity of Christ, we did more Slavonic than usual. You would be surprised how quickly you can learn the Greek terms and eventhough I didn't appreciate it at first, I have come to love the melodies that accompany the Greek (many times the melodies must be changed for English because the words just don't fit).