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Christ is risen!
My parents are from Romania so I know the language and have also inherited the religion. I was born and raised in Italy and have recently moved to Germany. I go to a local church that celebrates all the prayers in Romanian.
I have a Catholic friend, who also pushed me to the right path again. I convinced him to try and go to an orthodox liturgy and have only then realised what a massive problem we have. Because he would like to understand the prayers, I have tried to search for a church that celebrates the liturgy in either German or English in my area. I then found out that the nearest church that meets this criteria is 500km away.
In case someone wants to become orthodox, it is massively hard in comparison to Protestant churches for example.
Fixing this would not even be that hard; a couple of small churches build strategically would suffice from my point of view.
How do you feel about this? Have you had this happen?
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I will speak from the American experience, which has lived out immigration of this kind awhile longer than Western Europe. You're in a transitional period that lasts about two generations. As much as we might wish everything to adapt and go native immediately, a community is also the people who compose it. Today, those people are immigrants whose native language is Romanian. Unsurprisingly, therefore, their church resembles them because it is them. As time passes, another generation grows up alongside them, which will be Romanian, yes. But it will be Romanians born or raised in Germany, whose friendships and marriages make them equally part of Germany. The church shall begin to resemble them, too, because the church will be them, too. A wise community doesn't resist this because it is simply the way of life.
You will be restless and impatient for this kind of change, undoubtedly. I'm given to understand yours already is a much more cosmopolitan generation of European. Your generation is the generation of the European Union, when for the first time anyone and everyone could simply travel and work and live anywhere. America saw a similar new reality begin 75 years ago, which also brought new challenges to our families and churches. However, everything does adapt. No, never as quickly or comfortably as we want, but it does adapt.
You are that adaptation. You are the transition. By being yourself the way you are, by expressing and sharing your faith freely, you are the bricks that are building up a new situation where what you ask for is able, eventually, to exist. Oh, yes, it would be wonderful if it already existed. You may correctly wish it already existed. But without you being you the way you are right now, here today, doing what you're doing, it never shall exist.
As individuals, we are accustomed to count in years. However, God in the Scriptures far more often counts in generations. There is a profound truth in that. Doubtlessly, it is why everywhere in the world has a version of the saying:
We prosper when men plant trees whose shade only their grandchildren shall live to enjoy.
Continue to plant that tree, my dear friend, because Christ is risen!
Wow, that was a well worded, beautiful explanation!
Would like to point out that this gen of europeans is certainly not the first generation defined by free movement within the EU. And that this generation of europeans are politically moving right, which means less EU and less open borders between EU countries.
My math is old-fashioned, I suppose. For me, the European Union, having been founded in 1993, is only one generation old.
What I meant to say is somewhat different. I do not wish to change languages in which the liturgy takes place. What I wish, is for people who are not orthodox to be able to integrate themselves into orthodoxy. In order for this to happen, new communities can grow. While it is true that the church is going to change according to the generation, the language might pertain. Most people from eastern countries tend to teach their children their language. I am speaking from experience. Thus, this does not need to happen necessarily.
We have had a similar situation in the US. But there are thankfully plenty of parishes nowadays doing the services partly or fully in English. (Now we need to work on availability of Spanish too.)
Some people are focused on maintaining their community as it used to be back home. That's an understandable social and psychological drive. They know they risk losing their children to the surrounding non-Orthodox society, so they try harder to emphasize the language and traditions in them, but often to no avail.
Some communities have a large number of immigrants. Switching to a local language would leave them underserved.
So partly it's a pastoral problem, dealing with the conflicting needs of the local mixed community. But it's also a practical problem: there's a huge amount of material to translate. And poor quality translations can be unhelpful.
Some people think the beauty of the services is enough, irrespective of any language barrier. I'd say, to a degree, sure. But I'm not really sympathetic to that view overall. The services aren't magic. The words are there to convey meaning. We don't just babble away in nonsense sounds. Feelings of awe without being directed by actual meaning are shallow and liable to lead one astray. We need real nourishing food, not just an aesthetic experience.
What could happen is to simply build new communities in the local language itself. I do not think that this is impossible, although it may be hard
My own eparchy has the same issue. I am Maronite (Eastern Catholic) in Canada, and all our parishes serve liturgy almost exclusively in Arabic. I agree with you; when an Eastern Christian community has more than one parish in a city, at least one of these parishes should serve liturgy in the local language.
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Most churches, especially in smaller cities in Western countries, celebrate only in their original language. My friends also wanted to convert to Orthodoxy from Catholicism but weren't sure of doing it because of the language barier. Important is to explain that it's not about the language but about the litrugy and that they should try it because the Holy Spirit is in the liturgy. Even though not understanding the language might seem like a problem at first most of my friends that went to Orthodox liturgy never wanted to go to another one (catholic or protestan) again
What country are you from?
It’s not about just the city. Check Google maps. I live in NRW, one of the more densely populated regions in germany
I understand that, but the fact is that even though they might not understand everything they will probably like it. It's a service in which the Holy Spirit can be found and I'm sure they'll enjoy it even though they might not undenrstand every single word
I am sure that he will like it, but he will not understand anything. German and Romanian are languages that do not have anything in common.
Belgium
In what language does the church you go to celebrate the liturgy?
Ukrainian, so pretty different from Dutch and English that my friends know lol
Malaysian Chinese - Baptized into the Russian Orthodox Church. Here we have two priests- a local Malaysian priest who conducts the liturgy largely in English, and a Russian Archimandrite who does it in Slavonic. We also have Slavonic-English service books, so it wasn’t that hard to follow along. It helps that the Liturgy of St John Chrysostom is standardized, so we know where we are and what to do most of the time.
You could ask your priest about the possibility of serving liturgies in German or English in addition to Romanian. This is what many Greek churches do in the UK.
Eh, might try to. No idea whether that would work, as I do not think that the liturgy can take place in another language just because of one person
It's always worth asking about, especially if you pitch it as a way to introduce more people to the Church in their native tongue.
I feel that everything in Orthodoxy is massively hard compared to Protestantism.
However, here in Arizona (USA) we have quite a few small mission parishes meeting in weird little places. My church worships in a small converted office space with an affordable interior. We are actually a Romanian mission parish now under the OCA. We are mostly converts with a few wonderful Romanians from the old country. All services are in English. Visitors from Protestant churches still appreciate the beauty of the liturgy here even though it’s kinda ghetto compared to the big churches.
I personally felt that the church was a little more approachable with noisy kids than the more proper temples.
Do you feel that God is calling you to start an English/German mission? Orthodoxy has a vibrant missionary spirit when people respond to God’s calling.
The Romanian liturgy itself takes place in a rented Catholic Church where I am. May I ask what the OCA is? Is the idea that the patriarchate could invest money into building churches in different counties, trying to explain others why orthodoxy is the correct religion? Idk. I kind of feel like both orthodoxy and catholics do not try hard enough to keep the people from Protestants. They often try to manipulate you into thinking things that are essentially wrong. For instance, why should Jesus not be in trinity? Because only a superior can command you to do something? What…
Yeah - lazy religion is always bad. Protestants are no different after a few generations, but they have the advantage of coming up with some new flavor of themselves every few years to get people excited. I think if you read the fathers themselves you will find much richer explanations and examples.
The OCA (Orthodox Church in America) is a jurisdiction here in the USA that was originally under the Moscow Patriarch but was granted independence back in the 70s.
Mission work is both bottom-up and top-down. It is wonderful and good when there is a very enthusiastic bishop that initiates the mission work, however it also happens when someone simply asks for a blessing to start a mission parish and is granted permission. In either case there may not be very much $$$ so it is very hard work, especially for the priest as they may have a normal job alongside being a priest.
Sometimes you don’t have to work very hard to explain why Orthodoxy is the true way. I think it’s most important to simply work hard to make the services understandable and beautiful and then also try to create social space for people to ask questions. Nowadays lots of people are just walking in to churches, they just need to be welcomed and have space to ask questions and get reasonable responses (I don’t know is a reasonable response).
Does it really cost that much if all the orthodox countries would help out in building a couple of small churches in the world? Is money really a factor when we consider that. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, [20] teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age.
I think it is primarily the work/responsibility of those starting the parish to make it happen (with the blessing of a bishop). I think this is consistent with the pattern laid down in Acts. Also, it encourages the initial members to really make the church theirs, which is important. Everything will always be difficult if we are going the right way.
My personal experience as an Orthodox christian who emigrated westwards is that what Orthodoxy exists outside of our 'area' is basically an entirely different religion. Or, at best, a very diluted version of the same one.