ΕΩΝΙΑ Η ΜΝΥΜΗ !
He will be missed!
Posted on 12/05/2008 9:53:56 AM PST by Kolokotronis
This morning, His Eminence Archbishop Demetrios of America received the sad news of the passing of Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Russia. Archbishop Demetrios, who has known the late Patriarch for many years, had been with him in Moscow last May, and recently at the Synaxis of the Heads of the Autocephalous Churches in the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, said in his letter of condolence to the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church:
On behalf of the Holy Eparchial Synod and the Clergy and Lay Faithful of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, I am offering our profound condolences on the falling asleep in the Lord of the most blessed Father of the Russian Orthodox Church, the deeply beloved and respected late Patriarch Alexy II. The passing of the Patriarch is a deeply felt wound not only for the pious Russian People, but for all Orthodox Christians who have admired his wise and pastoral stewardship of the Russian Orthodox Church during this most significant period of Her rebirth, after decades of very harsh times for Her.
Having learned that only yesterday the Patriarch served the Divine Liturgy for the Entrance of the Virgin Mary into the Temple, we take a measure of comfort from the knowledge that he is now within the Holy of Holies not-made-by-hands, and in the presence of the Theotokos and her Lord and Son.
Your Eminences and dearly beloved and respected brothers in the Lord, as you reflect on this incalculable loss, prepare to bid farewell to the beloved Patriarch Alexy II, and face the extraordinary task of electing his successor, please be assured of our prayers for you and all the pious Russian People. As we remember you in this time of national grief and mourning, we shall also offer our fervent supplications to God for him, that he may find the reward of “the faithful and wise steward” that he most surely was, and that he may rest in the blessed hope of the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. May his memory, the memory of this exceptional leader of the Church, be eternal.
Archbishop Demetrios will attend a Memorial Service this evening at the St. Nicholas Russian Orthodox Cathedral of the Moscow Patriarchate in New York City.
Orthodox Ping
The awkward headline you posted makes it sound like Moscow's patriarch was caught snoozing during this morning's mass -- and Archbishop Demetrios is not happy about it.
Actually, the headline as written makes perfect sense to any Orthodox Christian who reads it.
And the Orthodox don’t celebrate “mass”; they celebrate the Divine Liturgy.
One of John Paul II’s regrets was never getting that face to face meeting with Alexy II. They are now having that meeting.
“The awkward headline you posted makes it sound like Moscow’s patriarch was caught snoozing during this morning’s mass — and Archbishop Demetrios is not happy about it.”
Disrespectful little Catholic aren’t you!
There were other threads about His Holiness Alexy II's passing, and they all received more replies than this thread -- perhaps because the title of the thread made it clear what had happened.
If it makes you feel better, as a Catholic I get annoyed when they refer to my church leaders with headlines "Paul Cardinal Smith", as if the man's middle name is "Cardinal". It's not, it's his title. Whoever decided that Catholic Cardinals should have their title placed in the middle of their names is foolish.
Note the original title of this article was the far more obvious:
“Passing of Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and all Russia - Archbishop Demetrios Expresses Condolences to the Russian Church”
So the Greek Orthodox Church isn’t to blame for the misleading language here — the poster on FR is.
Even the Slavonic synonym for the Divine Liturgy is служба Божiя (sluzhba Bozhiya) or God's service, and performing the liturgy is богослужение (bogosluzheniye), which means serving God, divine service.
There is no celebrabration. Just service. And service is served, not celebrated.
The common Orthodox cusotm is to say that someone is, or has fallen asleep (in Christ) rather than passed away or died. I agree that for a western mindset not secifying the “in Christ” could be misconstrued as literally falling asleep.
“So the Greek Orthodox Church isn’t to blame for the misleading language here — the poster on FR is.”
Yeah, Right, little Catholic! Its not the fault of Holy Orthodoxy, or mine, that your education in the terminology of The Church is lacking or that you weren’t taught appropriate respect. I’m sure your parish priest would be proud of your disrespect and the marvelous job the Church of Rome apparently did with your upbringing. What an example of American RC youth!
For Metropolitan Jonah’s (OCA) message of condolence at the falling asleep of Patriarch Alexy, see
The term “falling asleep” is not only the usual term for dying used by Orthodox Christians, but it is also Scriptural!!
If those Western Christians who do not understand the term will go back and read the Epistles of Paul, that will remedy their lack of understanding.
Thanks HS!
Even the holy Apostles had difficulty understanding that phrase: In John 11 they were thinking of physical sleep when our Lord announced “our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep”.
For example:
NEW YORK: December 5, 2008 Metropolitan Hilarion Will Celebrate Divine Liturgy for the Dead on Saturday at St Seraphim Church in Sea Cliff, NYOn Saturday, December 6, 2008, the feast day of St Mitrophan of Voronezh, His Eminence Metropolitan Hilarion will celebrate Divine Liturgy for the dead at St Seraphim of Sarov Church in Sea Cliff, NY, with special commemoration of the newly-reposed Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Russia, and the late Bishop Mitrophan (Znosko-Borovsky, +2002) of blessed memory, who celebrated his namesday on this day.
The greeting of His Eminence will commence at 9:30 am.
I wouldn’t attribute it to a lack of education, unless you believe that an uneducated person has risen to such a position in ROCOR.
If anything, I think it’s the growing informality of the American version of English.
You are probably right there. You can't take the language you use in the supermarket and apply it to God. This is where the Serbs are sadly mistaken when they insist on the liturgy in vernacular Serbian.
If we are going to speak to God the way we speak to our buddies, the sense of reverence is brought down to the level of the market if not the sewer.
The whole Serbian linguistic reform from mid 1850's to now has been nothing but a steady deconstruction of a language into a free-for-all coupled with incredible illiteracy (illiteracy in a language that is supposed to be "phonetic!")
English is no different.
Before Christ’s Resurrection, several people were confused by Christ saying that one who died had fallen asleep, or even found it ridiculous.
However, after Christ’s Resurrection, saying that a Christian who had died had fallen asleep is a statement of faith, since we believe that Christ has conquered death by his Cross and Resurrection. Thus death becomes merely a rest for those who die in faith.
Around here (the Orthodox Church in America in my part of the US), we say that a priest serves Divine Liturgy. However, we say that two priests concelebrate Divine Liturgy, and that both priests—and even a deacon and the faithful participating in a Liturgy—are concelebrants.
So we seem to have both usages, a least in part.
Again, English tends to change the meaning and the flavor of original Greek Christianity, and there is no attempt among OCA to choose the correct terminology.
This reminds me of the Vatican II Missal translated into American English that has been in use now for over 40 years.
When the priest says in English "Peace be with you" the people respond "and also with you" instead (as it reads in Latin) "and with your spirit." It's not just wrong, it's a fraud!
We Serbs don't "serve" Slava, we celebrate the Celebration. Likewise we don't celebrate the divine liturgy, we serve the service.
What would you call the priests, deacons, and laity that we call “concelebrants”?
By the way, the local Greek Metropolitan also referred to priests as “concelebrating” the Liturgy in a letter to his priests. So this English-language usage is not confined to the OCA, ROCOR, and presumably the Antiochians.
When I was received into the Orthodox Church, I went back to an English-language Liturgy that says “and with your spirit” as when I was a very young Lutheran. Good!!
In the late 1970s, the Lutheran churches (under Vatican II influence) went to “and with you too”. Then, in 2007, the ELCA went to a heretical, feminist “liturgy” that made “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” optional. That was the last straw that drove me out of the Lutheran church, but by that time I was basically Orthodox anyway, so I just went home.
Seriously, it is obvious that the American English use of "celebrate" means something different than the traditional meaning. No one is confusing what happens in the Liturgy with some sort of party. To me, "celebrate" in this sense means a service that is part of something much larger, perhaps even the Divine Liturgy served in the Church Triumphant.
This is quite different from what kosta mentioned about using vernacular language as part of the Divine Liturgy, indeed if I hear one more priest talk about how substituting "You" for "Thou" would make the Divine Liturgy more "approachable", I think I'll scream.
This really isn't a Liturgical question since the term never arises during the Liturgy itself, only how one refers to the clergy serving the Liturgy.
Gentlemen, we have much bigger hairs that need splitting!
Aye, when it comes to the heart of the sacred mysteries (the Institution narrative) and the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist the issue is precisely the one that Bill Clinton stated (in a very different context, mind you!) when he said "it depends on the meaning of is"
HS, remember that the LCMS calls the Eucharistic liturgy "Divine Service" quite intentionally.
A quick excursus: The litmus test for me in selecting a children's picture Bible or similar literature is "the meaning of is". It is tragic that so many Zwinglian insist on rendering "is" as "represents" or "is a symbol of" or "reminds you" rather than simply IS.
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