Sunday, February 24, 2008

Hospo Dipo Milwi

This has to be seen (and heard) to be believed.
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4 comments:

Fr. Gregory Jensen said...

Bravo!

The parish I serve has had a long standing disagreement about whether or not to use a little Slavonic and Greek in the services. The argument, from a small minority, is that the use of anything other than English obstructs the evangelical mission of the Church as we try to reach out to Americans.

Evidently, the Soul Children of Chicago failed to get the memo that here in America only English is able to reach the hearts of Americans.

Thank you!

In Christ

February 25, 2008 at 12:27 AM
Felix Culpa said...

The great irony to me is that the English Only crowd is really not that much different than the Greek Only or Slavonic Only crowds: they all insist that only *their* language may be used liturgically, and that only *their* cultural heritage (be it American, Greek, Russian, Serbian, Bulgarian, etc) really matters.

The piece sung by the Soul Children, incidentally, is the 40x Lord, Have Mercies sung during the Litya at Vespers. They are singing in Slavonic (though their pronunciation isn't the greatest).

February 25, 2008 at 12:34 PM
Felix Culpa said...

Another point is that we can distinguish between outer and inner mission: that is, mission to non-Orthodox Americans and mission to half-Orthodox "ethnics." I don't know about the Greek situation, but every major urban center in both Europe and North America is flooded with new Russian "half-Orthodox" immigrants, to whom services in English would be largely incomprehensible. The prudent use of "traditional" languages can, based on context, itself be a strong, and sometimes essential, missionary tool.

February 25, 2008 at 12:39 PM
Felix Culpa said...

Correction: This is in fact from the Feast of the Elevation of the Cross, as a number of comments on YouTube attest.

Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa!

February 25, 2008 at 1:37 PM

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