Non vernacular services in Orthodox countries

[gzt]

And the Romanians say Născătoare de Dumnezeu. So it's funny to me that the English don't translate it, and somewhat more amusing that we often translate from Slavic texts, so we're translating what was in the text in *Slavonic* into a *Greek* word rather than retaining what was written or translating into English.

 

[All4Christ]

So it's funny to me that the English don't translate it, and somewhat more amusing that we often translate from Slavic texts, so we're translating what was in the text in *Slavonic* into a *Greek* word rather than retaining what was written or translating into English.

Hence my confusion!

 

[CJtheSearcher]

@CJtheSearcher

In short: if native language is Russian and live in Russia or Belarussia or Ukraine - so there is only one problem to understand service in Church - wish. If you wish so will find way to understand. Old slavonic and modern Russian are not 2 different languages - one comes from another.
Just by the way, service is on Modern Russian almost in my parish.

So your parish worships in the vernacular? Interesting! Hmm...I'm starting to wonder about my Belorussian coworker's experience. She said that her old parish and other Belorussian parishes worshiped in old Slavonic.

 

[Llauralin]

In Georgia they worship in Georgian, but there was a period before the Communist revolution where they were required to worship in Slavonic for political reasons, and it was really difficult, and apparently drove people away. From what I gathered, they have strongly negative feelings about the cultural imperialism of 19th Century Russia. They'd be Orthodox but not go to church except for things like baptisms, and continued that under communism, until the past few decades. They've restored the old diocese and liturgical traditions.

Albanian Orthodox in Albania worship primarily in their own language, and have been publishing a lot of liturgical texts for the past few decades, since coming out of a crushing atheist communism.

Apparently in Kosovo they're apparently worshiping in a mix of Slavonic and Serbian. I can't tell the difference, so I'm not sure what the mix is.

In Project Mexico they're worshipping primarily in Spanish, and some of the parishes in the Southwest US are experimenting with integrating more Spanish into the services, or having liturgy once a month or so in Spanish. at the little monastery in northern New Mexico they're using Spanish, Slavonic, and English.

EDIT: To clarify, of those only Georgia is actually an "Orthodox country."