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Even in my Greek Orthodox parish, the majority of the Liturgy is said in English because the majority of the people there speak only English, or at least don't understand or speak Greek.

Most interesting! If you don't mind my asking, how long ago did the Greek Orthodox Church adopt the vernacular language of each country? This switch in the RC Church has been the source of much consternation. Translating Latin text into meaningful English (or any other language), has contributed significantly to the outcry from the traditionalists who weigh each word. In the process, the more liberal members of the ICEL committee, successfully implemented 'non inclusive' language. This only served to antagonize the purists. During the process of examining proposed revisions of the ICEL texts used in the English-speaking Church since 1973, it became clear that the issues surrounding translation are far deeper than matters of linguistic style; they involve substantial matters of Catholic doctrine.

Since the Maronite tradition is still new to me, I was intrigued to hear, recently, that the children of the parish would prefer to have the entire liturgy in English. From what I have understood, in many Maronite parishes, two liturgies are offered up each week. One in Syriac/Aramaic/Arabic and another in English. Our parish blends the languages together. The Entrance Rite is in Syriac, the Trisagion, Consecration and Epiclesis are in Aramaic, the readings are in Arabic and English. The balance of the liturgy is in English, with several responses in Syriac.

Father has explained to the children that these languages are their heritage and must not be lost. How did the Orthodox Churches handle this transition and does your parish also offer the Divine Liturgy in Greek?

Many, many GOA parishes have the Liturgy, or substantial parts of it in English. The Orthodox Church has always prayed the Liturgy in the language of the people. In America, when the Greek Orthodox parishes were established and for a century thereafter, all the parishioners spoke Greek, or learned fast enough Greek to understand the Liturgy. After the 1950s, the increasing number of mixed marriages (for us that is when a non-Greek marries a Greek!) brought huge numbers of non Greek speakers into the Church. The Archdiocese recognized the reality of the "ethnic" make up of the parishes and suggested that the Liturgy be prayed as is traditional, in the language of the people in the pews, but to retain the Greek heritage of the Church so far as is possible. Over the last 30 years, Greek as the liturgical language has all but disappeared in some parishes, mostly west of the Mississippi. A few parishes in big city Greek ghettos still pray the entire liturgy in Greek. Most have a mixture, some less English than Greek, some, like my parish, more English (a lot more in our case) than Greek. In our parish, since the weekday liturgies are attended mostly by old Greeks, the liturgy is prayed in Greek.

You know, if the Church were all about me, I would have it all in Greek, but it isn't and that frankly would be un Orthodox and wrong. Every Sunday I see 100% non Greek families worshiping God in our parish. The overwhelming number of converts we have wouldn't be there if it was all in Greek (though to be fair to them, a number of the adults and children are taking Greek lessons. One god daughter is driving me nuts to practice with me!). In the old days, converts used to say you had to become a Greek to become Orthodox and of course that's absurd, but once upon a time, it was a practical reality.

Let me relate a short story. About two years ago I and another attorney, who, coincidentally is Syrian and Orthodox, were preparing a 95 year old Syrian immigrant lady for a trial. During the prep, the Antiochian Archmandrite who serves in our parish came into the office. We introduced him t our client and the old lady began to tell the Abuna about coming to our town from Syria in the 1930s. She said "We didn't have a church of our own so we went to the Greeks' church." Several weeks later the women's society at church had a baby shower for a young Lebanese immigrant couple expecting their first child. The young husband got up to thank everyone and spoke about how much they loved "their" parish. The young wife's parents from the old country were there; couldn't speak a word of English, but said in Lebanese that the father said he and his wife were so happy that their children were safe within an Orthodox community, that they had a little piece of home here in America to hold onto. 70 years can make for a lot of change, for us for the good.

You related how the children of the parish want the liturgy in English but the priest told them that Arabic/Syriac was their heritage. Frankly, that mentality in a priest, even more so in an Archdiocese, bothers me. I have argued time and again in Diocesan Councils that it is no longer the role of the Greek Orthodox Church in America to inculcate Greekiness. That is my job, not the Churches' and I've done a damn fine job of it with my boys. I can see no earthly reason why John Doe, Anglo Saxon American Orthodox, should subsidize an effort by the Church to discharge a duty I owe to my children. If the GOA were still an immigrant community, that would be one thing, but we are not. We are an Orthodox Community made up of a broad spectrum of races and nationalities. We have an Hellenic character and tradition, which I pray will last long after I am gone. But Hellenism was and is always inclusive of all people who wish to embrace Hellenism (quite different from Greekiness or Greek chauvinism). How did you like that rant? :)

MarMema pinged me, so I thought I'd weigh in with a few helpful comments.

The use of the vernacular was the normative practice of the Orthodox Church from the beginning: hence the services were done in Latin in the West, Greek in most of the East, Syriac in regions of the East where Greek was not generally know, Coptic in Egypt, Georgian in Georgia, Armenian in Armenia and so forth. When the Nestorians and Monophysite separated most of the Syriac, Coptic and Armenian speakers left the Church.

SS. Cyril and Methodius translated the services and Scriptures into a constructed slavic language which could be understood by all the Slavs whom the Evangelized (who spoke slightly different dialects).

The freezing of the Russian liturgy in Church Slavonic represents a phenomenon similar to that found in Greek, where the Liturgy is still in koine rather than demotike, though changes in Russian have made it less intelligible. The Russian missionaries always translated the services and Scriptures into the languages of the Siberian, then Alaskan peoples. St. Tikhon, Patriarch of Moscow, Confessor of the Bolshevik Yoke, when he was the Archbishop of Alaska and All-North-America commissioned a translation of the services into English (Hapgood's Service Book) which subsequently became the inspiration, if not basis, for most of the subsequent translations into Early Modern English. (As for example Bishop BASIL Essy's Liturgicon, or the Psalter and Great Horologion translated by the monks of Holy Transfiguration Monastery). The preference fore Early Modern English as opposed to modern vernacular English, follows the wisdom of St. Nicholas of Japan, who in the late 19th century translated the services and Scriptures into the same style of archaic, high-liturgical Japanese used in Buddhist and Shinto liturgies.

The Greek experience under the Turkokratia in which culture and Church became inextricably joined in the popular mind, leaving the immigrant churches in North America trying to cling to Greek which was no longer the language of their faithful is actually an aberation.

The Antiochian Archdiocese and the OCA (formerly the Metropolia) have been using English in North America for decades. The Greeks are running behind on this for the reason just noted.

On another matter: I am not throughly versed on all of the various Western conceptions of salvation, but my last priest, who is now the Dean of St. Herman's Seminary, Kodiak, AK, who converted from Anglicanism and was well-versed in both Western and Eastern theologies was of the opinion that the only Western idea which really resembled theosis was Charles Wesley's understanding of sanctification. Of course, maybe this isn't surprising: there is good evidence that Wesley read a great deal of the Greek Fathers, especially Chrysostom.