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Coptic vs English
cyriliv
posted on Nov 13, 2003 - 05:05 PM
Hola, I hope you guys have been having a pleasent day in the Lord.
John and Viva_XHMI you guys have made wonderful posts, I agree with them both. But Viva_XHMI, your post formed a question in my mind:
You said that we as Coptic Orthodox Christians have two responsibilities: on is spiritual and the other is cultural, the spiritual one being more important. If our cultural responsibility is clashing with our spiritual responsibility, which is the case in many of our churches in the Diaspora, how do we rectify the situation? By "clashing", I mean that some people feel that they cannot pray in the liturgy because of the use of Coptic, and prayer in the liturgy is necessary for salvation. What do we do?
Eiryny nem Agapy
Kerelloc
_________________
Tradition is the living faith of the dead; traditionalism is the dead faith of the living.
Viva_XHMI
posted on Nov 13, 2003 - 05:12 PM
Hello my brothers and sisters in the Lord,
I thank you Paul very much for your 2 extremely important questions.. I would suggest to open a new debate titled "The Coptic Culture"
Mathitis, John and Cyril, I will clarify some opinions as soon as I can since I'm busy now.. Please keep posting more views since I think the topic is important
pray for me
mourad
posted on Nov 14, 2003 - 02:22 AM
hiyas fellas,
first post here on the board,
just wanted to say that... amin amin amin ton thanaton is pure greek, in fact, as i'm sure most of you already knew, most of the congregational responses and deacon responses are greek; they were used to TRANSLATE what the coptic priest was saying, hence the repitions we have in the seven short prayers and the such.
all of this to say that our fathers from the early churches seem to have placed a huge emphasis on understanding and meaning in prayer through chanting.
mourad
mourad
posted on Nov 14, 2003 - 02:40 AM
alright,
but in reply to that...
the only reason why i think Coptic lived on is b/c there was still a good amount of coptic speaking copts... please dont think i'm for the whole "ERADICATE COPTIC" attitude, i just think education is called for b4 we can really start worshipping in coptic whole-heartedly-all-together.
just a two cents worth,
every blessing,
mourad
miina
posted on Nov 22, 2003 - 12:16 PM
i thought this problem was only in sydney. i guess not.
our english church was started by abouna tadros malaty, sent by the pope.
ever since then we have been praying an english mass every week, i personally love coptic, but everythign is done in english, even taishori and hiten.
our amir khedma (head of servants) is a very very spritually and holy man, extremely knowledgable, and well respected, but he wants everything to be in english so people can understand.
i have never agreed with him, but i feel bad going against him.
PaulS
posted on Nov 22, 2003 - 06:51 PM
Mourad,
I'd like to point out that the very same view you mentioned was applied to Coptic music by a heretic. Arius, the proprietor of the Arian heresy, adapted popular people's music to religious services to encourage easier worship among the common believers.
Not that you or anyone with this idea is a heretic... I'm just pointing out a historical fact.
Additionally, it is not fair to say our hymns were translated into Greek to help people understand. This was mostly done by Mu'allim Takla in the mid-19th century, at which point most people in Egypt did not speak Greek (Muslims had been living in our lands now for more than 10 centuries!) Rather, Mu'allim Takla did this at the behest of Pope Cyril V, who believed Coptic hymns and practice were being butchered all over Egypt by the untrained. It was more a method of standardization than a dumbing down of the text to help people understand. At the time, the Ottoman sultans gave the Ecumenical Patriarch of the Greek Orthodox Church much power over Orthodox Christian affairs in Ottoman lands. This was the ta'if system, under which the Sultan would appoint rulers or governors for each class of people in the Ottoman Empire and then rule indirectly through those rulers. Pope Cyril and Mu'allim Takla were simply making our prayers closer while at the same time weeding out the cacophony of Coptic methods of chant at the time.
The other Greek hymns in our church were not adapted to help people understand, either. They actually had Greco-pagan origins! If anything, our Coptic Church has influenced and been influenced by other Christian and pagan traditions in the area around us, nothing more.
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PaulS
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Keyro
posted on Nov 22, 2003 - 10:31 PM
George,
Your message seemed to be very strong, and perhaps the method of expressing what you feel should be discussed seriously over a cup of coffee with the deacons in your church rather than on the internet, where they are not aware of your desire to sing the hymns in Coptic. I never usually reply to these kinds of messages.... but I have a strong standpoint on thr issue. I am the son of an Abouna here in Halifax,Canada. The Arabic that I speak is very broken and my knowledge of Coptic is very little (many frown upon it, but the fruits of what I have learned from this experience have been very beneficial to my knowledge of our church). I have gone through a struggle for many years in which I would go to church in a habitual manner, in which I found no value. Only recently have I established a desire for true and holy relationship with God. In doing so, I questioned myself often..... very often. I wanted to know why I went to church and why I said the things I said in mass. I have been going to church for 18 years and can recite to you many hymns in Coptic and Arabic, but cannot tell you what they mean in english! It is VERY dangerous to do this!!! You will see why in a minute. Where you live, English is the primary language hence it is likely for one to assume that everyone has been exposed to it and must have a common foundation to what they can understand in the english mass. If Everyone can HEAR what is being said, then there is a great probability that they can UNDERSTAND what is being said! It is VERY important to understand what is being said in the liturgy. In Matthew 6: 7, Jesus says: " And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do. For they think that they will be heard for their many words." The danger of Praying in Coptic and Arabic very often is that the vain repetition may arise, in which we get dragged out of bed to go to a mass, that in 10 years, we may no longer understand. I am not saying that we should not pray in Coptic or Arabic. If we are to pray with those languages, we should at least be able to offer our prayers to God saying our words with conviction, knowing what we are asking our Father for, while CONSTANTLY taking caution not to fall into saying things very robotically in any language! I would like to learn Coptic very much and am not in any way trying to object to it's usage. It does make sense however that because English is the most common language, that it may trigger more minds during the liturgy to reach an epiphany in which they may hear a striking phrase that at most times passed over their heads (It can even be like that of Saint Anthony's). I find the importance of the english language very vital to our church today due to the fact that the new generation advances far too quickly to even bother understanding the mass in their native language (english in america) and attempts to learn the important "faith books" in Coptic, which is once again the trigger for vain repetitions which can over time turn our youth into robots. I hope that this helped, but I strongly urge you to talk with the deacons about 1 or 2 Coptic masses/ (portions of masses) every couple of weeks in order to perserve the beauty that you find in language and culture that embodies the church. Keep in mind: The language and tunes are very beautiful.... but WHY are you doing it? is the real question.
Pray for me,
Keyrillos Rizg
DJFadzz
posted on Nov 23, 2003 - 10:49 PM
Dear all,
I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed reading all your replies.. and I have to agree with most of what has been said.
I have nothing to add... but to voice that I totally agree with Keyro... and that is why I believe the altenration between languages is important after examining the real reasons.. and they are all valid reasons.. but one has to weigh the benefits over the costs..
What determines how we view the importance of the reasons we make is our individuality... Now the main question I would like to pose is how much individuality should we have within the church?
Where I am, we have a very large Ethiopian community in our church, which is very rare for any church here in North America and is certainly due to the efforts and love of our priest here. We are blessed with their presence and they attend the liturgies regularly despite the fact that our rituals are very different even within the same coptic church. In fact, a few of them know Coptic and Arabic responses and congregation hymns and participate in the liturgy. When I look at our brothers the Ethiopians joining in our liturgy.. overcoming the language barrier, there are a lot of lessons to be taught there.
I was blessed by serving with Bishop Youssef this weekend in the liturgy and I noticed that there was a particular pattern in saying certain things in English in the liturgy... It's not by 'mazaag' or by 'randomness' .. I am very sure that there are certain obligations that must be met.
Thank you all and God bless you
Pi ogai `m`p=[c
Fady
p.s. forgive me if my coptic spelling is rusty
Mathitis
posted on Nov 24, 2003 - 01:10 AM
i agree with you, DJ F.
the Alternation and pattern are very important, b/c it'll help us to gain more spirituality fro mthe masses, in my opinion.
_________________
For by your words you shall be justified, and by your words you shall be condemned. - Matthew 12:37
+ To Protect and Preserve +
HCOC: Sing it! Live it! Love it!
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Mekha
posted on Nov 24, 2003 - 01:24 AM
Dear all,
I think we should change one small thing and this goes to me before anyone else...
Learn coptic to praise
and not praise to learn coptic
God bless all of you
And pray for me
_________________
"Love is patient.Love shows no sign of envy or pride.Love displays no anger.Love is blind to wrongdoing.Love is very forgiving.Love takes no delight in evil.Love rejoices in the truth.Love always protects, always trusts....Together Love,Faith and Hope can never be broken.But of all these things the greatest will forever be LOVE." First Corinthians
geomekhaiel
posted on Nov 24, 2003 - 01:51 AM
There are many things that I found benefitting, but I again have to be stubborn about this issue because I feel that in the case that some are making (which is a strong and good one, and I am thankful that they made it because it reminds us that we have to understand what we are saying), but this is one thing that should not be tampered with, because if the case is that we should understand everything we say (which is correct) and not pray what some would call "a dead language," then what is the point of any of us to learn Coptic. (Sorry if what I am about to say upsets anyone), but I can't be 100% sure that what I am about to should REALLY be added, but i would think that 90% of ALL people that say that Coptic is really a dead language are same exact people who know a lot of the COPTIC HYMNS. YUP. That's the truth of the matter. (There are of course exceptions)
Sorry if I made anyone mad, but I really wanted to speak my mind
Pray for me
Your Servant,
George
samwasfi
posted on Sep 12, 2005 - 12:29 AM
Greetings to all, I have read many of what was written regarding the use or the excessive use of the English language within the Liturgical prayers. It is important for me to begin by saying that, what has perpetually distinguished the Coptic Church from others is not the Coptic language! When we identify ourselves as Copts, we are not (for the most part) simply referring to a group of people who pray in Coptic. The obsession with the Coptic language among the youth today has been a rapidly flourishing ideology. In my personal opinion it is a cultic thinking, spiritual delusion, and the glorification of what is temporal. You must consider that, although our Lord Jesus Christ spoke in Aramaic, essentially all the New Testament was written in Greek. If one is to truly understand the underlined meaning of this, we can begin to understand our false position. We are Orthodox because of our theological beliefs and our sacramental life. Everything that defines Orthodoxy is formulated within these two significant elements. If we pray in Coptic or Greek or Hebrew or Aramaic or Slavonic or Syrian or English, we are still what Orthodoxy is. In fact, orthodox churches do use these languages in their liturgical services. So, Who is more Orthodox?(If it is through language that we become orthodox) And why? The question should be: how do we live as Orthodox Christian in a pluralistic and secular world?
Please reconsider your stance on this issue!
Sameh Wasfi
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