Posted on 05/07/2010 3:13:45 PM PDT by NYer
VATICAN CITY (Zenit.org) - The time is now for the Orthodox and Catholic Churches to take a step toward unity, and for Benedict XVI and the Orthodox patriarch of Moscow to meet, says the Patriarchal Exarch of All Belarus.
Metropolitan Filaret of Minsk and Sluck said this Tuesday at the international conference held in Rome on "The Poor Are the Precious Treasure of the Church: Orthodox and Catholics Together on the Path of Charity."
During the conference, which was promoted by the Sant'Egidio Community, participants reflected on the reception of the most frail in our societies, the testimony of the Fathers of the Church, and the challenges dictated by new social problems.
According to Metropolitan Filaret, the time has come to take decisive steps toward unity, reported the country's Catholic news service.
The Orthodox leader added that both Churches seek to establish full unity, and stressed that he has come to this conclusion based on the fraternal dialogue and the meetings that they have held with representatives of the Catholic Church.
If Benedict XVI and Orthodox Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia were to meet, it would be a first for the two pastors of Rome and Moscow.
Metropolitan Filaret's statements coincide with the announcement of the "Days of Russian Culture and Spirituality in the Vatican," which will be held May 19-20, and which will culminate with a concert offered to Benedict XVI by Kirill I.
The musical event will include compositions of Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, president of the Department for Foreign Relations of the Patriarchy of Moscow.
On Wednesday, Metropolitan Filaret visited the Holy Shroud of Turin and Cardinal Severino Poletto, archbishop of Turin.
(Excerpt) Read more at catholic.org ...
The time is now for the Orthodox and Catholic Churches to take a step toward unity, and for Benedict XVI and the Orthodox patriarch of Moscow to meet, says the Patriarchal Exarch of All Belarus.The Orthodox leader added that both Churches seek to establish full unity, and stressed that he has come to this conclusion based on the fraternal dialogue and the meetings that they have held with representatives of the Catholic Church.
Metropolitan Filaret of Minsk and Sluck.
Be still my heart.
Sluck? I didn’t even know there was a town named Sluck.
Things. Are. Coming. Together.
Why are they translitertaing a Belarusian town using Polish spelling?!
Ignorance knows no bounds.
Well said.
From 1320–1330 it was part of the domain of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Later it was owned by the Radziwiłł family, which transformed the city into a center of the Polish Reformed Church with a Gymnasium that existed till 1918.Following the 17th century the town became famous for its manufactories of kontusz belts, some of the most expensive and luxurious pieces of garment of the szlachta.
Alex, that's an absurd argument, imo. Parts of Greece were Serbia in the 14th century. Good part of Ukraine was Polish over the course of history and Gdańsk was German (Danzig), as was Russian Kaliningrad (Königsberg), and so on.
We don't spell names of formerly Serb-held territories in Greece the Serbian way, nor Ukrainian names the Polish way. Nor do we list Danzig and Köningsberg on our maps.
The fact that every Tom, Dick and Harry claimed Slutsk at one time or another doesn't justify spelling a Belarusian city the way it was spelled in Polish.
I agree, as a general rule. I am simply trying to explain where the “C” for the sound of “ts” came from. Whoever put the article together probably cross-checked with a Polish source.
But I can commiserate with the Poles on that, each time as I try to spell what to me will forever be Kiev the Ukrainian way. Is it Y before I? I before Y? Can that whiff of breath at the end really qualify for a V? Seriously?
Mine, as well.
Yes it is Y before I because the Ukrianian и is transliterated as y rather than i and their ї as ji (pronouced as yi), so when they write Київ it is really supposed to be transliterated as Kyjiv instead of Kyiv. If you pronounce the ï as yi then the name becomes Kiyiv, which is very close to what the rest of the world calls it, namely Kiyev.
The same problem exists with Serbian, which is automatically transliterated into Croatian. Naturally, on English keyboards, the diacriticals used in the Croatian alphabet are eliminated for added confusion and tongue twisting. That way names like Шешељ (Шешель) become Šešelj which is then "stripped" to Seselj.
Reminds me of a joke at the expense of the Ukrainian accent:
Ay hou tu Kyeu (I go to Kiev)
and not "v Kyivi." Go figure. Seems to me they just made up an alphabet just to be different from Russians.
Cute. Czechs, Slovaks and Ukrianians substitute "h" for "g". Thus, grad becomes hrad, Gospod becomes Hospod. But the Russians seem to do the reverse (i.e. Гимн), or my favorite: Gitlyer!
The Serbs are no better. They лиз (lease) their cars. And Tina Turner becomes Тина Тарнер. We took out ъ for those pesky half sounds long time ago, pretend they don't exist, and substitute them with A's and I's, so we have Димитри but complain that the word Serb doesn't have an e! :)
Having lived in Bulgaria and reached fluency in the language, I cannot imagine southern Slav languages withour it.
G and H are indeed very confusing. Gitler, O'Genri, etc. I am not sure what is the history of it. It could be that more Russians softened their G a la Ukraine a few centuries back, because all occurences of H in German or English was trasnliterated with 'Г', which now, nominally, is strictly G sound like G in 'God'.
Until 1868 the Serbs used гражданскій шрифтъ, identical to the one used in Russia until 1917. Unlike the Bulgarians, the Serbs wrote Cepбiя, but the adjective, over the course of the last few decades dropped the "e" because it was never pronounced. Thus while the country was still spelled with an "e" between C and p, the adjective lost it, i.e. србскій.
However, the appearance of ъ, besides being always at the end of a word ending in a consonant, also appeared sporadically where two or three consonants were bunched together, such as the word died, namely умъро. This form was retained even after the orthographic reform but not for long. Today the word appears without it as умро.
In other instances, the Serbs would use Russian forms with an "e' between consonants, such as терговец, even though the Russian word has an "o" rather than an "e." The Bulgarians, on the other hand, are completely consistent when it comes to using the hard sign as a half-sound. They spell the word as търговец.
Serbian Cyrillic contains 30 letters corresponding to 30 sounds. But Serbian has more than 30 sounds. Take for instance the word finger (прст, it used to be spelled перст, but the Bulgarians spell it as пръст with the ъ on between the second and third consonants rather than the first and second).
It is hard to say if half sounds need to be written since the consonants can only be pronounced a certain way. Look at the Semiotic alphabets; they have only consonants with vowels being added by diacritical dots. This the word shp could mean ship, shape, or shop depending where one places the dots.
I suppose it saves on printing but it is not phonetic. My favorite is the Serbian word for cape or ness (Russain несс). The Serbian word is рт. It is pronounced like "ert." The first consonant is clearly not a clean "r".
I suppose every language has its peculiarities to which one gets accustomed and then they seem normal, even those that are "phonetic." In Japanese, vowels i and u are often not pronounced following certain consonants. Thus sumo is pronounced simply as smo; gozaimasu is gozaimas, shitake mushrooms are simply shtake, and mashita is mashta.
English is an incredible orthographic solution. English has no spelling rules, but the multitude of sounds is written by only 27 letters, no diacriticals and all etymological roots of the words are retained. That is a lot more ingenious then any phonetic alphabet.
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