Let your prayers be simple..

ICON Post on "Worship language"

Below is a post I submitted to ICON regarding the importance of Language in worship.


Dear All,
I find this to be an interesting thread, being a member of the "younger generation" that these posts refer to, I feel obliged to comment. So far I see two viewpoints expressed; the first being that we should embrace worship in the English language, and let Malayalam fade away, and the second being that Malayalam must be maintained because it's a part of our "tradition." I can't say I agree completely with either view.

In the case of the former, It's true that many of the 2nd generation members of our Church in America are not fluent in Malayalam. English services should be offered to better help them understand the Liturgy, and experience it on a deeper level. However, the church in America hasn't yet reached a point where a majority of it's members don't speak/read/write Malayalam. Services are necessary in both languages. I'm also greatly in favor of offering Malayalm classes to kids starting at a young age. Certain parishes in my region have implemented this concept with great success. Books like "The Living Sacrifice" should also be encouraged.

In the case of the second view, are we able to draw a distinction between culture and faith?
Ms.--- writes "The beauty of our tradition as "Orthodox" christians is that we keep the traditional worship.." If I had read that phrase by itself, I would be inclined to agree. In context, however, the assertion is a slippery slope at best. Malayalam, or any particular language for that matter, cannot be labelled a "Tradition" of the Orthodox Church. Our Tradition is the Holy and Divine Liturgy that has been entrusted to us by the Lord. The church accommodates the language of whatever culture she finds herself in. If our forebears had entertained such ideas about language being an integral part of the liturgy, we would still be worshiping in Syriac, not Malayalam. I am in no way trying to minimize the importance of knowing one's roots and learning about our heritage, but it shouldn't be warped into ethnocentrism. Another statement that somewhat irked me :"The new youngsters do not know the traditional aspects of our church." I am not entirely sure what "traditional aspects" means here, but I do know some 'youngsters' who would take great offense to this. All our seminarians were youngsters once, and I am convinced that we of the younger generation have a passion and thirst for Orthodoxy that's going to lead the church for years to come.

With all of this being said, I have a question to pose to ICON readers. Let us assume, for the sake of argument, that you live in an area that has no Malankara Orthodox parishes nearby. There are, however, both a Marthoma Parish, and a Coptic Orthodox parish within a reasonable distance. My question is, which would you attend, and why? I look forward to reading your replies.

Hymns?

So I found my old microphone a couple of days ago and decided to make a feeble attempt at a few liturgical hymns. I recorded higher and lower harmonies separately, then merged them in sound recorder. And yes, I'll admit it, I did shed a tear when singing "Karuna Kaddale." Listen and Critique!

How did the apostles worship?

For the longest time, I thought our worship was something we acquired over the centuries, invented by the church as it went along. "Surely," I thought, "The apostles and the early church worshiped spontaneously, with random clapping, shuddering, speaking in tongues, etc."

But then, I stumbled on Liturgica.com . Thanks to this amazing website, and some Coptic videos on youtube, I discovered that I couldn't have been more wrong about worship in the Early Church.
It turns out the apostles worshiped much the same way as we Orthodox do today. There was a clear-cut order and structure to their prayers and hymns.

I decided to test what I read online against scripture, to see if could find a biblical foundation for Liturgical Worship. Here's what I discovered:

I. The Old Testament.
- The Lord clearly dictates to the Israelites how they should go about worshiping him. Sacrificial
rituals and the priestly office are described in great detail. (Exodus Ch.26-28, Leviticus
Ch.16). The writer of Hebrews mentions that all the liturgical rituals and artifacts mentioned in
the Old Testament are a "copy and shadow of what is in heaven." (Hebrews 8:5) It would
seem that the Lord wanted the Israelites to have something as close to Heavenly worship as
possible.

- The Prophet Isaiah Describes a vision that he saw in the Temple (Isaiah Ch. 6.) In it, he
sees heaven opened up, and the angels worshiping God. The "Holy, Holy, Holy.." chant of
the angels is mentioned, and it's interesting to see that "the temple was filled with smoke." At
one point, probably the most important part of the vision, an Angel flies down "with a live coal
in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar." The coal was placed in Isaiah's
mouth, for the remission of his sins.

Sound Familiar? Let's go on to the New Testament.

II. The New Testament.
- Christ explicitly states that he has not come to do away with the law and the teachings of the
prophets, "but to fulfill them"(Mathew 5:17.) The Gospels show that the Lord reguarly took
part in Jewish worship by attending Feasts in the Temple (John 7:14, 12:12), and regulary
visiting and preaching in the synagogues (Mathew 4:23, 9:35.)

-The Apostles continued to worship as Jews even after the ascension of Christ. In the Book of
Acts, we see the Apostles Peter and John going up to the temple for the ninth hour of prayer
(Acts 3:1.) At many times church leaders are shown praying at "liturgical hours"(Acts 10:2-3,
9.) On top of that, it seems that the New Testament church observed some sort of church
calendar, since St.Paul seems determined at one point to be in Jerusalem for the feast of
Pentecost (Acts 18:21, 20:16.)

-The book of Revelations is a liturgical goldmine, especially the eighth chapter. We see an Altar
(verse 3,) Angels serving and offering incense with a censer (verse 3) In Chapter six, we see
the communion of the departed (verses 9-11.) Ch.5:11 shows us the liturgical
nature of heavenly prayer.

Imagine my amazement! Suddenly, it became quite clear why the church continued to practice this ancient form of worship for millenia. If it's good enough for the apostles, it's good enough for me! :)