A Publication of the ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN LAITY
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| Volume 6 Number 34 - Tuesday, August 24th, 2004 |
A Publication of the ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN LAITY |
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The Orthodox Christian News Service |
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Response to Need for Continued Teaching of Hellenic Language To whom it may concern, Because some have taken offense to my use of the word 'gulag', I have replaced it with the more benign term 'ethnic club.' It think it is an appropriate choice of words if we seriously consider what Mr. Karras is advocating in the letter he sent to the Orthodox Christian News Service last week. I sincerely appreciate the heartfelt words of Mr. Karras and his insistence that the Greek language be maintained here at the seminary and across our beloved parishes. However, I think it is necessary to clarify some confusion Mr. Karras has expressed in his letter. First, no one that I am aware of at this school is seeking the elimination of New Testament Greek and Patristic Greek from the curriculum. It goes without saying why these languages are absolutely necessary to our spiritual and mental formation as teachers of the Holy Scriptures and our rich Patristic tradition. On the other hand, many students at this school question the need to learn Modern Greek, which comprises a large percentage of our curriculum. In the United States, more than 80% of the population speaks English. The remainder speaks Spanish and Chinese. These percentages may be confirmed by the latest census data. Far less than 1% speaks Modern Greek. Therefore, we must ask ourselves - is the study of Modern Greek preparing us to spread the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ and his Holy Church to the vast majority of our nation? The answer is very clear. Moreover, the Liturgical Greek that we hear in some parishes cannot be readily understood even by Modern Greek speakers. Moreover, of course, visitors and non-Greek converts are even more confused. I challenge the readers of this letter to ask the young children and teenagers within their parishes if they can understand what is being said during the Divine Liturgy when it is in Liturgical Greek. I strongly suspect that the vast majority cannot. I have also visited many Greek Orthodox parishes and have observed that the majority who attend are often late middle-aged or senior citizens who are first or second generation Greek-Americans. Teenagers and young adults are almost non-existent. Common sense tells us that unless we do something different very soon, our church is going to be facing a crisis of membership within the next few decades. If we follow the advice of Mr. Karras and continue to hold on to liturgical Greek out of mere habit or for reasons of sentimentality and Hellenic national pride, we will soon be in a world of hurt. Our Church will continue to decrease in membership and we will become less and less relevant to America as a whole. If any modern language should be taught at this seminary, it should be Spanish. We should immediately begin the process of making Spanish translations of the Fathers and our liturgical services readily available. If we are to persist as a viable witness of our Savior Jesus Christ, we must position ourselves to meet the coming linguistic realities of this nation, continent, and hemisphere. I truly feel sympathy for individuals like Mr. Karras who want to cling to the past at the expense of reality. I truly appreciate the contribution that his Greek ancestors made in establishing Orthodoxy on this continent. However, we must not forget that it was the Russian Orthodox missionaries of the nineteenth century who had the sense and foresight to advocate the adoption of English upon the transfer of Alaska from Russia to the United States. Like Mr. Karras, I am sure that they were saddened by the loss of Church Slavonic as their liturgical language. However, in Christ-like love they put aside their own sentimentality and Slavonic national pride for the sake of English-speaking America. Only now is the Orthodox Church in America finally realizing their forward-thinking vision. Out of love and compassion for our nation in desperate need of truth, we must do the same. With Love in Jesus Christ,
Bob Smith |
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