Vernacular as the Orthodox Patristic Tradition
It is commonly said that the Church began at Pentecost. This is when our Lord sent the Holy Ghost to descend upon the Apostles and grant them the gift of tongues, allowing them to spread the Gospel to every man “in his own language.” (Acts 2:6)
… in his own language …
If it can be said that the Church began at Pentecost, that means the Church began with vernacular. The Church did not come forth giving the people an obligation to learn a new language in order to come to the True Faith. Rather, the Church initiated her ministry condescending to the common man and offered to them the faith proactively. The Church took on a new responsibility which the Jews did not seek to fulfill, the Church placed upon her own shoulders more weight with the intention of giving all she had for the salvation of the nations. The division of Babel was reversed and all were united, not in language, but in faith. The faith multiplied across the languages. We explicitly say this in the Kontakion for Pentecost: “When the Most High came down and confounded tongues of men at Babel, He divided the nations. When He dispensed the tongues of fire, He called all to unity, and with one voice we glorify the All-Holy Spirit.” This was the intention of God when He said “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:” (Matthew 28:19)
When the Orthodox Church travels to a new land, it meets new people and a new language. What does that mean? It means another realm to populate with the Grace from above. Not another culture to destroy, but another land to sanctify. With every nation we travel to, we seek to baptize not just individuals, but the whole totality of the people. This includes their language.
In the beginning, the Church spread using Greek. This was true even in Rome. A little over 100 years after Saint Peter’s martyrdom, Pope Saint Victor I initiated the transition of the Orthodox Patriarchate of Rome from Greek language Liturgies to Latin, the Lingua Franca of Western Europe.
The earliest translation of the Gospels from Greek was the Diatessaron, a harmonious text of the Gospels in one book. It was written in the Syriac Language AD 170. Although it was a paraphrase, this was the primary text of the Scriptures utilized in the Syriac Language for about 2–3 centuries until Bishop Rabbula of Edessa decreed that the four separate Gospels be used in the Syriac language Churches sometime between AD 411 and AD 435. It was so necessary to use the common language for the Assyrians that they used a Gospel Harmony (the Diatessaron) in Syriac rather than the four Gospels in another language. By the grace of God, of course, the four Gospels would be later introduced.
It was AD 382 when Saint Jerome received the commission from Pope Damasus to revise the pre-existing Vetus Latina Gospels into the Biblia Vulgata which translates to “Bible in the common tongue.” The obvious intention was that a single well produced Bible for all the people to read even on their own. The Vetus Latina was produced by multiple anonymous translators. Saint Augustine complained about its variance in quality in De Doctrina Christiana. Saint Jerome’s Vulgate was thence used by the Latins for another 1200 years, and most modern Bibles are based on it.
Nowadays, many Churches who won’t use the common tongue for the Liturgy will “at least” chant the Gospel and the Epistles in two languages because these are the bare minimum for what should be heard by the people, or so is their logic. So a standardized translation of the Scriptures in the common tongue is obviously invaluable for the people to know the message of Jesus Christ.
In another part of the world, the Christian faith was just arriving in Iberia through Saint Nino in Georgia and Saint Gregory the Illuminator in Armenia. Saint Nino’s efforts caused Saint Mirian III and Saint Nana to convert to the Orthodox faith and bring the entire nation of Georgia to Christ in 326. Saint Gregory the Illuminator converted King Tiridates III of Armenia in 301 and he made the Orthodox Church the state religion. Recognizing that the Liturgy and Scriptures were largely unintelligible to the faithful, Saint Mesrop Mashtots assisted in inventing a national alphabet for the Armenians in around 405, which would eventually develop into the scripts for both the Armenian and Georgian Languages. This was a sooner effort in vernacularization than even in the West. This was explicitly an effort of the Church, thereby tying Armenian and Georgian societies to the Church by having their languages originate in the efforts of the Church. The first sentence ever written in Early Armenian was written by Saint Mesrop, which was the opening line of the Book of Proverbs.
“Ճանաչել զիմաստութիւն եւ զխրատ, իմանալ զբանս հանճարոյ:”
“To know wisdom and instruction; to perceive the words of understanding” (Proverbs 1:2)
Saint Frumentius lived in Ethiopia as a captured slave for years raising the Prince in the court and educating him, and was only permitted to return home after King Ezana of Axum came of age. Eager for their conversion, Saint Frumentius asked Saint Athanasius the Great to send a Bishop to Ethiopia, at which point he himself was consecrated the Bishop to baptize the nation. He was dispatched at once and baptized King Ezana and bringing Orthodoxy to the land in 326, which marks the beginning of Ge’ez Literature. The literary expansion of Ge’ez coincided with the Christianization of Ethiopia. Local Ethiopian sources say Saint Frumentius used Ge’ez in his Liturgies. So vernacularization began immediately upon receiving the Christian faith in Ethiopia.
Do you see the example being set here? Very early on, it was the intention of the Church to have all the people speak their own language in the Church. Nations were baptized, and work began on using their language in the Church. These days, nations don’t come into the Church all at once, but we are in a better position to use the languages of the world in our evangelical mission.
Let’s take a step back to the Gospel of Saint Matthew. There is patristic evidence that says the Gospel of Saint Matthew was originally written in Hebrew or Aramaic. Papias of Hierapolis (+150) seems to be the earliest one to claim the Gospel of Saint Matthew was not originally written in Greek. Others have professed the same, such as Saint Jerome who said “Matthew, who is also Levi, and who from a publican came to be an apostle, first of all composed a Gospel of Christ in Judaea in the Hebrew language and characters for the benefit of those of the circumcision who had believed.” Saint Irenaeus of Lyons concurs saying “Matthew also issued a written gospel among the Hebrews in their own dialect.” The historian priest Origen wrote “First to be written was by Matthew, who was once a tax collector but later an apostle of Jesus Christ, who published it in Hebrew for Jewish believers.”
It has been suggested that Saint Matthew began writing the Gospel while Jesus was conducting His three year ministry because he interpreted the actions of the Messiah as being a major event in Jewish history. As such, he wrote his Gospel in the language of the Old Testament Scripture: Hebrew. He did this because he believed he was writing Scripture and that his Gospel ought to be treated as Scripture. The manuscripts of the original Hebrew text were most likely destroyed during the sack of Jerusalem in AD 70, when the Hebrew Orthodox Christians were wiped out. Seraphim Hamilton suggests that Saint Matthew did not translate his Gospel to Greek, but simply rewrote it in Greek, and the Greek version was transmitted across all the Christian communities because it was the Lingua Franca of the Empire, allowing the Gospel to be preserved.
This would all mean that Saint James, the Brother of the Lord, had the Liturgies of Jerusalem done in Hebrew as well so that all the Hebrew Orthodox Christians would hear the message of the Messiah in their own language. Traditionally, it is believed that the Liturgy of Saint James was the first Liturgy, and that Christ pulled Saint James aside and gave him the Liturgy so that all the Apostles would know how to worship Him and offer Him the sacrifice of praise. This appears to be corroborated by Saint Epiphanius in Anacephalaeosis VI who says that Saint James “was the first to receive the episcopal throne, the first to whom the Lord entrusted His throne on earth.” Only after the destruction of Jerusalem did the Hebrews lose their vernacular in the Church because the Greeks only sent their own Bishops to maintain the fallen See. I would like to clarify, however, that this is all speculation on my part, and I have no conclusive evidence that this was how the Church in Jerusalem operated before the destruction of the Temple.
In Homily 35 on First Corinthians, Saint John Chrysostom discusses the importance of the laity understanding the words being spoken in the Church. So he says, “if you shall bless in a barbarian tongue, not knowing what you say, nor able to interpret, the layman cannot respond the Amen. For not hearing the words, ‘forever and ever,’ which are at the end , he does not say the Amen.”
It is not a small thing that the people do not understand the blessings. It is incredibly harmful, and so the clergy must be cognizant of this when they Liturgize in a foreign land. If they cannot even understand “unto the ages of ages,” they cannot reply with “amen.”
Saint Cyril of Alexandria spoke on vernacular in the Church while explaining 1 Corinthians 14. The bolded text is my own emphasis.
On 1 Cor 14:9–11: “Some who regularly went to Church possessed the ability to speak in tongues by the activity of the Ghost. Now in Church, one should offer prayers and, more importantly, make petitions and sing psalms in the language of those present, but they did not do so. They took pride only in the gift of tongues and did not offer prayers or psalms. Paul teaches that if the hearers do not know the language in which the possessor of the gift is speaking, there is no benefit from this activity. After all, there are multitudes of nations and many human languages, and there is no example of a rational or human creature that is without language.
If someone does not happen to know the meaning of another’s words and they do not know each other’s language who one speaks, they will be foreigners to one another, even though they speak their own languages correctly. Therefor, those who want to teach others must produce speech that is comprehensible to their hearers. If their utterance is meaningless and the language is unknown, then they have labored in vain and assaulted the hearing of the listener with a pointless cacophony.
He says that those who want to teach must speak words that are comprehensible to the hearers or else they labor in vain. That is because the one who speaks only in tongues does not edify the Church.”
I myself cannot state it any more clearly. If you use a foreign language in the Church, you do not seek to edify the people and labor in vain. Why even serve the Church then if you do not fight for the salvation of all men?
The most well known example of vernacular being utilized in evangelization begins with the example of Saint Rastislav of Moravia. He made a deal to be baptized into the Great Church of Christ in order to have the support of Louis the German, King of East Francia. He began the work of baptizing his nation, but he complained that the only missionaries to his land were Germans speaking Latin, not knowing how to communicate with the Czechs, leaving them ultimately without the Gospel. After a long struggle to be free from the political rule of the Franks, he spoke with his own Orthodox Patriarch, the Pope of Rome, to send teachers of the Christian faith to his land. He was met with no success, evidently the task had been left up to the Franks with whom he initially disagreed. He dismissed the Frankish missionaries and sought out Saint Photius the Great, Patriarch of Constantinople, requesting teachers of the Christian faith to educate local Moravians to be priests. He emphasized that they needed to be capable of working in the Slavic Language. Saint Photius answered the call and dispatched the brothers, Saints Cyril and Methodius to fulfill this duty.
Saints Constantine and Methodius already knew the slavic dialect spoken in Thessaloniki, and constructed the Glagolitic alphabet to inscribe the Slavonic language. Equipped with a new script, they translated the Gospels and necessary Liturgical books into Old Church Slavonic then made their way to Moravia. They were met with great success in evangelizing in Moravia, but conflicted with the Frankish missionaries who insisted on using Latin. They were Trilingualist heretics who believed the only languages for use in the Church were the languages written on the Title of the Cross: Hebrew, Latin, and Greek.
Saints Constantine and Methodius rebuked them, saying “Are you not ashamed to decree only three languages (Hebrew, Greek and Latin), deciding that all other peoples and races should remain blind and deaf! Tell me: do you hold this because you consider God is so weak that he cannot grant it, or so envious that he does not wish it?”
Thus they bore the belief of Saint Paul who said “Yet in the church I had rather speak five words with my understanding, that by my voice I might teach others also, than ten thousand words in an unknown tongue.” (1 Corinthians 14:19)
The friction between the Blessed Apostles to the Slavs and the Franks were unbearable, and so the Saints sought a solution to the canonical Patriarch: Pope Nicholas I. He invited them to Rome where they spoke to him about their mission and the dispute with Archbishop Adalwin of Salzburg, who claimed exclusive ecclesiastical control over Moravia and wished to exclusively use Latin. They arrived in Rome in 868, at which time a new Pope had been appointed: Pope Adrian II. Pope Adrian was impressed by the mission of the blessed brothers, and appointed Saint Methodius as Archbishop of Sirmium with jurisdiction over all of Moravia. Saint Constantine, however, was nearing the end of his life, and received monastic tonsure with the name Cyril.
Pope Adrian II blessed the new Slavonic Liturgy. Saint Methodius, now empowered by the blessing of the canonical Patriarch and a firm rebuke of the Trilingualist heresy, returned to the Slavs with five disciples: Saint Naum, Saint Gorazd, Saint Clement, Saint Angelar, and Saint Sava. Initially, Saint Methodius went to Pannonia where he was kidnapped and brought before the Franks to be judged for bringing discord to the Slavic dioceses in spite of the blessing he had from Rome. Saint Methodius was declared an intruder, “deposed,” and sent to Germany where he was imprisoned in a monastery for 2 1/2 years. Upon hearing of this, the Pope ordered Bishop Paul of Ancona to retrieve Saint Methodius, punish those who persecuted him, and command them to appear before Pope John VIII. Sadly, however, the Pope forbade him to continue using Slavonic in 873. Saint Methodius did not stop, and thus was summoned before the Pope on charges of heresy in 878. Masterfully defending himself, he was cleared of all charges and blessed to continue using Slavonic in the Liturgy. Saint Cyril appointed Saint Gorazd as his successor in Moravia, but after Saint Cyril’s death in 885, Pope Stephen V would not recognize Saint Gorazd, instead appointing Bishop Witching of Nitria. Witching had traveling to Rome accusing Saint Cyril of heresy, and Pope Stephen V believed him and forbade the Slavonic Liturgy. This allowed Bishop Witching’s power grab in Moravia where he drove out Saint Gorazd. Saint Gorazd went to Bulgaria where Saint Clement was ruling. It was in Ohrid that they developed the Slavonic script which would become the official script of all the Slavic languages except for in the lands under Frankish dominion. Old Church Slavonic would become the groundwork for all Slavic Liturgies from thence onwards.
This long story was written out in order to give you a greater understanding of the issue around vernacular. Saint Rastislav understood that his people could not understand the Christian faith without the use of their own language, but the ridiculous Franks were not satisfied with their Christianization if it was not on their own terms, with their own domination. The usage of foreign languages has an obvious intention: control. They don’t have the best interests of the people in mind, but only the best interests of themselves. Out of pride, they even disobeyed or manipulated their canonical Patriarch in order to get their way. They wanted the destruction of Slavonic at the cost of the spiritual state of the people they sought to “help.” It’s no wonder that the Czech Lands were one of the epicenters of the Protestant reformation, given that the church of Rome never cared to teach them in their own language.
We can see examples of this foreign chauvinism in the nations even today. Rather than use the languages of the people, they maintain their control of the Church by keeping out those who they don’t want. Recently, the last native British bishop in the world reposed: Metropolitan Kallistos Ware. For some groups, it’s just easier to import a foreign hierarch than raise native clergy and monastics. In Jerusalem, this was explicitly made clear. The Antiochian Orthodox Church had elected it’s first native Arab Patriarch after centuries of Greek rule. Jerusalem was not happy about this at all, and the Greek Patriarch Timotheos said “Our flock is fairly large, but all Arabs. We must be careful to look after them, in order to avoid here what happened in Antiochia.” Nowadays, the Holy Synod of Jerusalem is controlled by the all Greek Brotherhood of the Holy Sepulchre. It seems as though we have hierarchs nowadays who adopted the destructive ideology of those perfidious Franks.
Saint Nikodemos records a short anecdote concerning Saint Sabbas the Sanctified in the Divine Rudder of the Holy Orthodox Catholic Church. Saint Nikodemos was discussing the language in which the Trisagion ought to be chanted in, arguing that it ought to be chanted exclusively in Greek. Here is what he says “Thenceforth, therefore, the Emperor ordered that this hymn should be chanted everywhere in the Greek tongue. Hence it was too that even of old St. Sabbas the Great permitted the Armenian Christians to chant their service in the Armenian language, except for the Trisagion, which they were permitted to chant not in Armenian, but only in Greek. Accordingly, even
to this day the Latins in the litany of their sepultural ceremony chant the Trisagion in Greek, and not in Latin out of respect for the language in which it was uttered by God.”
I will make no comment on the argument of Saint Nikodemos, except that Bishops on non-Greek flocks do indeed chant the Trisagion in Greek, but only silently, while the choir chants it in the local language. The relevant portion here is the anecdote of Saint Sabbas who allowed the Armenian monks under him to celebrate the Liturgy in the Armenian language, and not Greek as would have been most common in the Holy Land at the time. It would have been expected that the Armenians already knew Greek, given that it was the lingua franca of the time and this is probably the language Saint Sabbas and all his monks used conversationally. Despite this, he allowed the Liturgy to be celebrated in Armenian out of the desire of the Armenian monks.
In the lands of the Romanians, which were constantly divided in the many states, Church Slavonic was used in the Liturgy. The Patriarchate of Constantinople appointed Greek Bishops to the Romanian lands, who opposed the introduction of Romanian into the Liturgy due to Romanian being a supposedly insufficient language to express divine things. The Metropolitanate of Wallachia was the greatest opposition to this in the beginning, but that did not distress Deacon Coresi, who traveled to Transylvania where he translated the four Gospels to Romanian for the first time in 1561. Later, the Apostol was translated in 1563, the Psalter and Liturgy in 1570, and multi language service books in 1577 and 1580. Deacon Coresi was the foundation of Romanian Literature and laid the groundwork for Romanian Liturgical life in the coming centuries.
Saint Dosoftei was invested in the translation of Slavonic literature into the common tongue all his life. It wasn’t until he was enthroned as Metropolitan of Moldovia, however, that he began to employ Romanian Liturgically. It is possible that he did this intentionally for fear of hierarchical backlash at the introduction of Romanian, and thus wanted to wait until he was the sole ruler of his Diocese. Having restored the Vasile Lupu printing press, he started publishing Liturgical books in Romanian and replacing Church Slavonic. He was met with opposition from his own clergy on accusations of heresy, but he used the words of the Blessed Apostle Paul to justify himself: “He that speaketh in an unknown tongue edifieth himself; but he that prophesieth edifieth the Church.” (1 Corinthians 14:4)
In 1679, he published the Divine Liturgy in Romanian, which was the second Romanian translation to ever exist, after Deacon Coresi’s translation. He published the Psalter in 1680. He sought the assistance of Patriarch Joachim of Moscow to donate printing presses for the purposes of producing more translations, which the Russian Patriarch granted with enthusiasm. Over the course of his life, Saint Dosoftei translated the Lives and Feasts of the Saints in 4 Volumes, translated from Greek and Slavonic. He also translated numerous patristic writings of a dogmatic and liturgical character. In 1693, he translated the Anthologion. That was the same year he reposed in the Lord.
Saint Dosoftei revolutionized the Church in the Romanian lands by introducing the language to the Church and dedicating his whole life to translating Liturgical and patristic texts, thus making his effort impossible to reverse because of how deeply he ingrained it.
Saint Anthimus was a Georgian who was captured and enslaved by the Turks from whom he escaped and took refuge in the Patriarchate of Constantinople. While there, he learned Greek, Turkish, Slavonic, Arabic, and even Romanian. He was invited to Wallachia by Saint Constantine Brancoveanu where he produced 63 books in multiple languages. He became an abbot at Snagov Monastery and then later Bishop of Ramnic, and for his service was elected Metropolitan of Wallachia. He took his duties as Bishop seriously, and eventually noticed a truth that could not be avoided: Romanians were not educated on the Gospel. He began the work of introducing Romanian to the Church in Wallachia saying “Our Romanians stand in the Church like oxen, not understanding what is being read and what is being sung and they leave the Church having gained nothing. I decided to convert the books from the Slavonic and Greek languages into our silly Romanian language, but they are ours to bring to the light!”
You can see something clear in his sentiment, he agreed with the Greek Bishops that Romanian was a less than capable language, and although he thought Romanian was silly or even stupid, he nevertheless thought it was more important to use the language so that the people can be edified in the Church. Despite what some people say, insufficiency of a language was not an excuse not to translate the divine texts and use them liturgically.
The Orthodox Church thereby was the primary initiator of Romanian as a literary language in the lands of the Romanians. It therefore is much like Georgia and Armenia in that the language is almost intrinsically tied with the Church, and thus so is their national identity. How powerful is the Church that a nation’s identity could subsist in it because she fulfilled the mission of our Lord in the nations!
Who is a greater model of a missionary than Saint Nicholas of Japan? While a hieromonk, he met Saint Innocent of Alaska who taught him that is was necessary to continue his apostolic deeds “even to the end of the earth.” Arriving in Japan in 1861, it took 8 years of Saint Nicholas’ life to familiarize himself with the country, its people, and its language. By 1868, he had already mastered spoken Japanese, and pursued even further so that Japan would have a Liturgical language, and thus began translating the Scriptures and services into Classical Japanese. By 1880, he was consecrated a Bishop. Soon afterwards, he ordained the first Chinese Orthodox priest, Saint Mitrophan Yang. Saint Nicholas’ efforts greatly accelerated the growth of the mission in Japan, and by 1911, there were 266 Orthodox parishes and over 30,000 Orthodox faithful in the pagan nation. He reposed in 1912.
Saint Nicholas of Japan is an example like none other. He spent 8 years almost completely out of his element in a land with which he was unfamiliar, training himself in order to save the Japanese people. He not only learned the language of the people, but he learned even an ancient version of Japanese so that the people of Japan could participate fully in the Church’s mindset and lifestyle, providing for them a Liturgical language much like Koine Greek is for the Greeks and Slavonic is for the Slavs. In 51 years of ministry, he went from a mission of less than a household to tens of thousands of pious faithful. Would it have happened if he did not use the language of the people?
Saint Innocent of Alaska was Fr John Veniaminov when he volunteered to travel to the Aleutian Islands of Alaska with his wife, brother, and infant son. He arrived in 1824 and immediately began working on constructing a parish and studying the local languages and dialects of the Alaskan Indians. By 1828, he had already mastered 6 dialects of Aleut and translated the Gospel of Saint Matthew and some service books into the Unagan dialect using an alphabet he created with Cyrillic letters. In 1834, he was transferred to Sitka Island where he again began work on learning the language and customs of the Tlingit people. In 1838, he was in Moscow when he received notice that his wife had died. In 1840, he was tonsured a monk and consecrated a Bishop of the Aleutian Islands in Russian America. He finally made it back to Sitka in 1841 where he spent the next 9 years on missionary journeys to remote areas. During the course of his service, he produced many writings on the languages of the Indians in Alaska. He was elevated to Archbishop in 1850, and later devoted much energy into translating the Bible and service books into the Yakut language. In 1867, he was appointed Metropolitan of Moscow and thus left his service in Alaska.
Saint Sebastian was born in America to Serbian immigrants. He was born and baptized in 1863. In 1872, Bishop John Mitropolsky was transferred to California, a man of a strong missionary disposition who wished to convert all of America. He attended the Mission School of Bishop John where he learned the traditional subjects alongside Russian, Church Slavonic, and Greek. In 1888, he was tonsured a monk, ordained a deacon, and received the blessing to return to California where Bishop Vladimir Sokolovsky had been assigned the same year. Bishop Vladimir had learned from Saint Nicholas of Japan that when the Orthodox Christian Faith is brought to new territories, it must be made available in the local languages. He became the first Orthodox hierarch in North America to preach and serve in English. He also required his priests to serve in English. Saint Sebastian said: “ The bishop paid special attention in the temple to preaching the word of God in English, which was the language commonly understood. To this end the bishop himself, although not completely familiar with the English language, improvised talks in English, which the people readily heard.” Saint Sebastian was assigned as the English language preacher of Francisco Cathedral. In 1892, Saint Sebastian was ordained a priest by Bishop Nicholas Ziorov of Alaska. Saint Sebastian was assigned as the missionary priest of California and the Pacific Northwest. In 1894, he assisted Bishop Nicholas in the consecration of a new temple in Jackson where many Serbs lived and began new translations of the services for the sake of the non-Serbs who traveled there. In the Churches, Saint Sebastian taught the ethnic Orthodox the English language so that they could integrate properly into America. By the end of the 19th century, Saint Sebastian had composed one of the first English language translations of the Liturgy. In 1900, He began writing books about Orthodoxy in the English language including catechisms for those who had strayed and those who were new to the faith.
Saint Sebastian showed how far missionary zeal will go. Although English was his native language, he learned foreign languages in order to assist the ethnic Orthodox in integrating into the American society, and was a bridge between the Old World Orthodox and new converts.
Saint Raphael of Brooklyn was transferred to America in 1895. In 1904, he was the first Orthodox Bishop consecrated on American soil. For the next ten years, Saint Raphael served the Arab Orthodox communities of America. Saint Raphael was concerned about the future of American Orthodoxy because Arab Orthodox children were now attending the services of the heretics due to their use of English. Saint Raphael thus began the transition of liturgical life among the Orthodox Arabs to English. His efforts can be seen today in the Antiochian Archdiocese of North America, which uses almost exclusively English. Taking note of Saint Paul’s instruction to pray in the language of the people (1 Cor 14:15–19), Saint Raphael recommended the use of Isabel Hapgood’s English language Service book. By the time of Saint Raphael’s repose, over half of his Arab Orthodox parishes used exclusively English (13/25), and 84% used at least some English (21/25).
Saint Raphael displays what people nowadays call “common sense.” If the children are not learning the language or are not being attentive to the services, ought not something be done for the next generation of Orthodox Christians? And now Saint Raphael’s work has partly met its fulfillment in the Antiochian Orthodox Archdiocese which uses English and is one of the most convert-heavy jurisdictions in America, alongside the autocephalous Orthodox Church in America.
It seems obvious to me that the Orthodox tradition heavily leans towards the use of the local languages, not only in books, but in Liturgizing, as key to the fulfillment of the Great Commission. I believe an acknowledgement of this is the beginning of what it takes to convert the heterodox nations in the modern day.
Through the prayers of our holy fathers, O Lord Jesus Christ, our God, have mercy on us and save us.
Kaleb of Atlanta
