NEWS STORY: Greek Orthodox musicians debate conversion to English

c. 1999 Religion News Service UNDATED _ Whenever Greek Orthodox Christians have taken their religion to other countries, they have translated their liturgy and conducted religious services in the local vernacular. Yet when they came to the United States, immigrant congregations tended to retain the Greek language _ only slowly, and often reluctantly, switching to […]

c. 1999 Religion News Service

UNDATED _ Whenever Greek Orthodox Christians have taken their religion to other countries, they have translated their liturgy and conducted religious services in the local vernacular.

Yet when they came to the United States, immigrant congregations tended to retain the Greek language _ only slowly, and often reluctantly, switching to English.”Traditionally, we’ve been slower here to adapt to the native tongue,”said Vicki Pappas, chairwoman of the National Forum of Greek Orthodox Church Musicians.


Pappas, a leader in a movement to speed up the Greek church’s conversion to English, recently learned the National Forum will receive a $53,000 grant from the Archbishop Iakovos Leadership 100 Fund Inc., a national endowment fund for Greek Orthodox ministries, to address ways in which the church can strengthen the use of English in the writing and singing of church music.

The use of English varies from parish to parish, according to Pappas, as the parish priest is supposed to look at the makeup of his local church and reflect that in the service. “For example, at New York City parishes in which the membership is predominantly immigrant, the services would be conducted primarily in Greek,”said Pappas.”In other newer parishes further west, the predominant language is English. The great majority have this mixed bag of people, who still speak in Greek, and a lot of second and third generations and converts who don’t speak Greek.” The mixture scenario applies at SS. Constantine and Helen Greek Orthodox Church in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, where the Rev. Stephen Callos is pastor.”The Orthodox tradition, which goes back at least a thousand years to the conversion of the Slavs in the 10th century, was always to use the language of the people,”Callos said.”The tough part about our situation is that the language of the people within the congregation is not always the same.” The immigrants who founded the church want to preserve their culture and language. Their children and grandchildren have adopted English as their primary language and want to use it, said Callos. Both languages are incorporated into his church services.”We’re coming to the realization in this generation that we’re going to maybe lose a lot of the young people,”said Dennis Bell, the parish choir director.”We can’t expect them to worship in a foreign language, but the old-timers fear that by becoming an American church we’ll lose our identity. As a compromise, we have kept the Byzantine melodies that the people are familiar with, but we’re singing them in the language the people are familiar with.” Irene Theodore, who has sung in Cleveland-area Greek Orthodox choirs for 54 years, also would prefer to sing the liturgy in English.”I can internalize the words and the meaning of the liturgy more in English, because Greek is not my first language,”Theodore said.

Translating the Greek hymns into English is more complex than simply substituting dictionary definitions.”Here’s the issue we grapple with,” Pappas said.”When hymns were written in Greek, the music and text were perfectly married. When you work with an English translation, the original melody doesn’t fit the accent.” The musical portion of the Greek Orthodox liturgy is beautiful and inspirational even without the lyrics, according to Theodore.”I learned to sing phonetically,”Theodore said.”I was still able to get the spiritual meaning of it through the music itself. You can’t just plunk an English translation on the same music.” Pappas compared the Greek-to-English conversion of the liturgy with translating an opera written in Italian into English, which she calls”a much harsher language.””In opera, they have a lot more leeway with text, because it’s a generic story line,”said Pappas, speaking from her office at Indiana University in Bloomington, Ind.”But with us, we have to make sure we’re not destroying the theology of our faith. Then you have the public reaction to that translation. There are people who absolutely hate a Puccini opera translated in English.” Byzantine music gives the liturgy its unique characteristic, said Bert W. Moyar, a parishioner at SS. Constantine and Helen Church and treasurer of the national endowment fund backing Pappas’ project.”Young people need to understand their religion and the liturgy,”Moyar said.”We want to incorporate the heritage of the Byzantine music tradition and render this music in English so it’s theologically correct and as near to the beautiful Greek as possible.”

AMB END BARANICK

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