In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Brothers and sisters,
on the day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit descended on the Apostles and they began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them. However, it was not only the Apostles who received this spiritual gift to speak with other tongues. In the first years of the apostolic Church those who were baptised immediately received the visible gifts of the Holy Spirit. One of such amazing gifts was the gift of speaking tongues.
How did this gift manifest itself? Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, a person loudly praised God in a different language, prayed, spoke about spiritual mysterious things, but often he himself didn’t understand what he was saying.
St Paul speaks much about this in his first epistle to Corinthians. In Corinth many were speaking tongues, and they were really fascinated with this gift, regarding it as the most sublime. St Paul corrects them in his epistle and explains, that there are other spiritual gifts, that are more important and more edifying for the Church. He says:
“For he who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men but to God, for no one understands him…He who speaks in a tongue edifies himself (and not the Church). But now, brethren, if I come to you speaking with tongues, what shall I profit you unless I speak to you either by revelation, by knowledge, by prophesying, or by teaching?… So, likewise you, unless you utter by the tongue words easy to understand, how will it be known what is spoken? For you will be speaking into the air. For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my understanding is unfruitful. What is the conclusion then? I will pray with the spirit, and I will also pray with the understanding. I will sing with the spirit, and I will also sing with the understanding. Otherwise, if you bless God with the spirit… you indeed give thanks well, but the other is not edified. I thank my God I speak with tongues more than you all; yet in the church I would rather speak five words with my understanding, that I may teach others also, than ten thousand words in a tongue”. (1Cor. 14, 2-19)
We can see in St Paul’s instruction that his principal goal is the edification of the Christian community. The benefit of the Church is what he constantly has in mind. And this is what our attention also should always be directed to. What is read in the church should be edifying for the audience, and to this end it must be understandable.
Why do I recall these instructions of St Paul? Because something similar happens to us as well. Quite often, when they read or sing in our church, both the one who reads doesn’t understand the meaning of the words and the majority of people don’t understand it either, since Church-Slavonic is not easily understood by many.
That’s why the words of the apostle to the Corinthians “you indeed give thanks well, but the other is not edified” perfectly fit to us.
Very often the same can be addressed to those who read and sing in our churches: ‘you read the sacred words of the holy books, you do well, but only a few benefit from it, while many don’t understand anything’.
Ancient Church-Slavonic is a spiritual and cultural treasure of the Russian Church, which we through all means must cherish and preserve. We must encourage young people to learn reading in Slavonic. But if even those who are fluent in Russian, often don’t understand Slavonic well, how can we expect those who don’t even have Russian background to understand Slavonic? For those who don’t speak Russian, it’s unrealistic to learn Slavonic well enough to understand the church services. Can we just ignore their spiritual needs?
We need to look after the younger generation and converts to Orthodoxy who don’t understand Slavonic, otherwise they will forever stay in the back of the church, feeling lost or bored. It is necessary to make our church services understandable for the young people. Young people do not attend church services well. Even though there may be different reasons for this, undoubtedly, the language barrier is one of them. Because they don’t get anything, they lose interest in going to church. Having some English, hopefully they can start getting involved in reading and singing and feel they belong to their church, and grow spiritually.
Orthodox service is quite long. There is enough room to share between Slavonic and English for mutual benefit. Some elements of service are even repeated two or three times, in such case alternating between Slavonic and English would be especially beneficial for all. I heard from one priest in America that when they started to alternate Slavonic and English in his parish, the parishioners shared with him that they started to understand Slavonic better, the full meaning dawned on them.
Sometimes we hear voices saying that we shouldn’t use any English in church. Would it be the right direction to choose?
St. Paul explains in the same epistle that the Church is one body in which all members are connected with each other. The force that binds all members together, that keeps the body of the Church whole, is mutual love. The main characteristic of love is that it doesn’t seek its own interest but that of your neighbour. “Love doesn’t seek its own thing” (1Cor. 13:5). And if we ignore other people’s needs, this is far from Christian love.
I am afraid that we are losing the point. Our Lord Jesus Christ says: “This is My commandment that you love one another” (John 15:12). Let us always put the commandment of love as the foundation of all our actions, following the call of the Apostle: “Let all that you do be done with love” (1Cor. 16:14).
Amen
Bishop Andrei
