The Battle Over Language

It isn’t enough that the various Orthodox jurisdictions in America argue over their ‘native’ language vs English in worship. In America we even argue over which English is best. I’ve heard it all my life. Do we call God, You or Thee? It might be hard to believe, but the fight over language is not a new problem.

Today is the commemoration of Saints Cyril of Methodius, the Enlighteners of the Slavs. These holy brothers were sent as emissaries of the Church to the Slavic people to preach Christ. As part of their mission, they created an alphabet to translate the scriptures and worship of the Church into the vernacular of the people. It would have been useless to speak in a language the people didn’t understand. Back ‘home’ this idea was not well received. You can read a brief explanation using the above link.

Suffice it to say, for more than a thousand years, the Church has argued about language. In the Roman West it wasn’t until the 1960’s that English worship took hold. At least in the Orthodox East, at first, the language of worship matched the language of the people. The Slavs worshipped in Slavonic. The Greeks worshipped in Greek, etc., but something changed.

It is well known that every language develops in time. English today was not the same two hundred years ago, let alone two thousand years ago. Here we are in 2023 and language is still an issue. The Slavs might be worshipping in Slavonic and the Greeks might be using Greek, but both are using ancient forms of their language nobody understands.

So, let’s talk about a solution. Since every language continues to evolve and change with time, we must remove the stagnation from our language of worship and regularly ‘refresh’ every translation. Let me get back to the whole “Thee or You” argument.

“Thee” is archaic and not in use. Those who insist on its usage believe that it elevates God. “I would NEVER use such familiarity as “You” when I speak to God.” The humor of the argument is that “Thee” IS the familiar usage of the older form of English. By refusing to switch to “You” we are in fact going against the original intent of the term. But that is not really the issue.

I believe the battle of language has nothing to do with how we speak to God. I believe it is all about exclusion. By using a language nobody understands, we limit who enters the Church. When Christ commanded us to “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations,” (Matthew 28.19) that requires that we preach in the language of the people.

Language is not sacred. God is.