On Christian Liturgical Languages

Vladyslav Nazarchuk

Among conservatives, many have interest in the political manifestations of their beliefs, but significantly fewer have the care or knowledge to see conservatism be brought about in religion. Meanwhile, it seems preserving tradition in religious matters is so much more important than preserving it in political matters, for the Church deals with things eternal and divine, while politics manages the worldly. Moreover, Christianity can be traced back much further than the politics of our country; both, however, seem to have taken their share of being battered in the storms of time. In this article, I will discuss one aspect of Christian worship that I believe is in dire need of improvement, so that it can aptly reflect the nobleness of Christianity.

To begin, one assumption we will have to make is that religious services have a certain worth associated with them; that is, they serve to achieve something in the spiritual, but real, world, aside from all the physical things they employ. For that is the basis of Christianity, and, if one rejects the basic tenets of a religion, his opinion about how its services should work is objectively meaningless, much like if one protested the demolition of his own house and then tried to instruct the construction workers on how best to demolish it, he would surely look quite foolish. We must believe, to answer this question from a Christian point of view, that a liturgy is not simply a social gathering, but a real, mystic ritual with tangible effects, for this fact cannot be avoided if one is to call oneself a Christian.

Since clearly the liturgy must use language, for that is how humans speak to God in most cases, the choice of the language used is an important consideration. For it cannot be denied that different languages have different traits, which make them better or worse for certain applications. And in terms of how well a language is suited for religious needs, there must be some differences also. After all, we must remember that it has been the tradition of both Eastern and Western Christendom to have a special language designated for liturgical services for so many years, which remained even after no longer being spoken by the parishioners. Only after the Protestant and Anglican reformations had this tradition been cast into doubt.

Though, as evidenced by modernity, many people disagree that the liturgical language could and should be different from the vernacular; thus, I will address some common protests. First, political theorists would surely say that the clergy keeping the liturgical language incomprehensible to the common people is a way of retaining their political power, as if somehow mathematicians hold power over the common man because the general population doesn’t understand the language of higher mathematics. Perhaps this was true for some places and times in the past, but, principally, Christian worship is not concerned with political power or power in the clerical hierarchy; rather, it only is concerned with how best to worship God. Besides, today, there is nothing preventing anyone from learning the liturgical language if he so wishes, and Bibles and personal prayers certainly have translations into any vernacular language.

Some will also say that it doesn’t make sense for the people attending the liturgy to not at all understand what the priests are saying; doesn’t that absolutely defeat the point of people coming at all? I answer that, a liturgy is a special occasion which is performed by priests, who call out to God, while the lay people stand behind them, to worship themselves, to share in Holy Communion, to receive grace, and to support the priests as an army of faithful behind their backs. Still, priests’ praying to God is the main part of the liturgy, and the role of the people, while still very important, is secondary. After all, there can be a service even if no one attends, but there cannot be a service without the priest himself. Hence, the people must be content with what is good in principle. Nevertheless, several things can be done to make the liturgy more accessible to the people. For instance, the sermon is a good opportunity for the priest to retell the day’s Bible passages, previously read in the liturgical language, in the vernacular. Besides, even if the language is foreign, other things that can be in a church, like music, art, and incense, are understood by all men alike, and, needless to say, Holy Communion remains for all.

Quite simply, with the liturgy being one of the most impactful ways of communication with God for Christians, I think (and, of course, literally everyone in history at a certain point in time thought) that it is better to use a language which manages to convey things deeper, loftier, and more beautiful and profound, and this is what church languages are for. And it would be very untrue to say that all languages are equal in all their properties, for they all have their differences, and this is what makes it worthwhile to learn and study them and have them exist in the world. But for the narrow purpose of the most institutionalized form of Christian worship, we have to simply select those most appropriate for the task.

What languages should be used, then, in Christian churches? One does not have to invent anything new: it is said all answers are already written down in the books of history. Western Christendom, as well as the Americas, shall generally use Latin, and Eastern Christendom shall use either Koine Greek, Old Church Slavonic, or another old language that has been used traditionally and reputably, like Old Georgian in the Georgian Orthodox Church; all according to the culture of the country.

Of course, the concept of a liturgical language is foreign to many Christians today. However, if clerics manage to put even the tiniest bit of effort towards their faith and revive the powerful languages of the past, we will certainly see what we have been missing out on. And English, while wonderful, is not the best language for liturgy: think of how much better aesthetically sounds “Iesu” than “Jesus,” and how “Allelouia” is a much more beautiful spelling than “Hellelujah”!

For matters of the Church cannot fall into civil hands and be determined by civil considerations: Christians must arrange clerical matters such that they are best for their divine function. For instance, in my dearest Ukraine, the “Orthodox Church of Ukraine,” as opposed to the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church, in a nationalistic spirit, has been using Ukrainian rather than Old Church Slavonic in its liturgy, which I think is a movement down the wrong path. After all, we can love our country and our vernacular language, and not use it in our churches, for we are showing even greater respect to our homelands by using languages which lie in the deepest roots of their Christian cultural traditions.

Note that I never intended to imply that conducting a liturgy in the vernacular makes the liturgy invalid in any way; only that it is worse, and can be made better.

Christians of the past had a fair amount of sense about these things, and, for the love of their Church, they used their respective liturgical languages. So may we hopefully revive the sensible traditions of the Christian past, and behold glory once again in our churches, making our liturgies great again.