The issue of the language of worship was touched upon by the Orthodox Church of Ukraine. The OCU explains that the question of what language to pray in sounds a bit strange, because we do not ask what language is better for us to speak with mothers, fathers, children, and other relatives. Therefore, without a doubt, we should offer prayers to God in our native language, which flows from the heart, from the soul, which is clear and easy, which lives in us and imparts to us knowledge about our faith, our history, traditions, about who we are.
That’s according to a post on the OCU’s Facebook page.
The OCU says one should not listen to those who convince them of some “correct” or “canonical” languages for worship or for knowledge of and communion with God. “The Lord hears the prayers of the faithful no matter what language they use. Sincere and thoughtful prayer is really possible in the language that is native to a person. ”
“From the first words of the book of Genesis we learn that the Lord in Paradise spoke with the people created by Him, and they spoke with Him directly (Gen. 1:28-29; 3:8-12, etc.),” stresses the Ukrainian Church . “That is, from the moment of creation of the world there were no language obstacles, there was no mediator or translator between the person and their Creator. Even after the fall, as well as after the division and settlement of the nations, the Lord, as a loving Father of His creation, did not cease to communicate and speak with His chosen people, and they had the opportunity to speak to Him in their native tongues.”
The OCU noted that when Jesus Christ lived among the people, the people at that time spoke different languages. But in carrying out the salvation mission on earth, Jesus Christ never restricted anyone based on language: in the temple He read the Scriptures in the language in which they were written; He spoke to people in a language they could understand; He communicated and listened to all who came in faith and turned to Him; He did not drive anyone away from Himself because someone addressed Him in the “wrong” language.
The Bible also says that ten days after the Lord’s Ascension, enjoying the grace of the Holy Spirit, the apostles began to preach in different languages, and all who were then in Jerusalem – residents and guests – heard the sermon in their own language. Thus, every nation, every people can pray in its own, understandable language, because then the words of prayer reveal their meaning and sense to the worshipers.
Holy Apostle Paul wrote on this subject: “Now, brothers and sisters, if I come to you and speak in tongues, what good will I be to you?… You will just be speaking into the air… For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful… In the church I would rather speak five intelligible words to instruct others than ten thousand words in a tongue.”(1 Corinthians 14:6, 9, 14, 19).
“If worship in temples is performed in a language that is incomprehensible to people (dead, limited in use, or foreign), the meaning that the Church seeks to convey to the faithful gets lost. In the same way that unity, integrity, and harmony disappear, so is the unique connection between the Church and its faithful broken. Then, later, the believers of such a Church ‘disappear’ themselves because it becomes alien, distant, incomprehensible and irrelevant to them,” the Orthodox Church of Ukraine emphasizes. “This is what our spiritual occupiers and atheists have been striving for over the decades, banning the Ukrainian language of worship, destroying translations and liturgical texts in Ukrainian, humiliating our language and claiming that our people’s tongue is ‘low-grade or street-market,’ that people ‘can only argue in it, while praying in it is a great sin.”
At the same time, the OCU noted that thanks to God, today Ukrainians have the opportunity to pray freely in their native language in the independent local Orthodox Church of Ukraine.
“It simply came to our notice then. But we are on the true path to God, and therefore we have no right to depart from Him. Because we are faithful and conscious children of our native, God-given Ukraine, our native Orthodox Church of Ukraine!” the OCU concluded.
It should be noted that the head of the ROCinU, Metropolitan Onufriy, has a completely different stance on his native language. Not so long ago, Onufriy (Berezovsky) and several ROCinU bishops prayed in Romanian in Bukovyna. However, the Moscow Patriarchate shuns the Ukrainian language in worship. It turns out that even Romanians, according to the ROCinU, can pray in their native language, while Ukrainians should listen to the archaic and not always clear Church Slavonic.
It is worth recalling that in 2019, head of the ROCinU Onufriy emphasized that all churches worship in languages ”which no one speaks,” and that in Ukraine they serve in “Church Slavonic.” Also in 2016, he stated that the language of worship should be Church Slavonic only, because in Ukrainian, in his words, “not everyone will be willing to worship.” He is convinced that Church Slavonic is “the best language for prayer” and that “there is no better language for prayer.”
