Sacred Language - Christianity

Christianity

Christian rites, rituals, and ceremonies are not celebrated in one single sacred language. The Churches which trace their origin to the Apostles have continued to use the standard languages of the first few centuries AD.

These include:

• Ecclesiastical Latin in the Latin liturgical rites of the Catholic Church. (N.B. While Latin is still the official language of all formal works of the church, it has largely been replaced by the vernacular in liturgical use since 1964.)
• Koine Greek in several Eastern Orthodox Churches and Greek Catholic Church
• Church Slavonic in several Eastern Orthodox Churches
• Ancient Georgian in the Georgian Orthodox Church
• Classical Armenian in the Armenian Apostolic Church
• Ge'ez in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, Ethiopian Catholic Church and Eritrean Orthodox Church
• Coptic in Egyptian Christianity
• Syriac in Syriac Christianity represented by the Church of the East, Chaldean Catholic Church, and Syrian Catholic Church, and Syrian Orthodox Church.

The extensive use of the Greek in the Roman Liturgy has continued up to the present, in theory; it was used extensively on a regular basis during the Papal Mass, which has not been celebrated for some time. The continuous use of Greek in the Roman Liturgy came to be replaced in part by Latin by the reign of Pope Saint Damasus I. Gradually, the Roman Liturgy took on more and more Latin until, generally, only a few words of Hebrew and Greek remained. The adoption of Latin was further fostered when the Vetus Latina version of the Bible was edited and parts retranslated from the original Hebrew and Greek by Saint Jerome in his Vulgate. Latin continued as the Western Church's language of liturgy and communication. One simply practical reason for this may be that there were no standardized vernaculars throughout the Middle Ages. Church Slavonic was used for the celebration of the Roman Liturgy in the 9th century (twice, 867-873 and 880-885).

In the mid-sixteenth century the Council of Trent rejected a proposal to introduce national languages as this was seen, among other reasons, as potentially divisive to Catholic unity.

The vernacular was used in the rite of the Roman Liturgy only among certain Roman Rite Slavs of Croatia and Dalmatia, for example in the so-called Missale Romanum Glagolitice. The particular vernacular was also used in the inquiry of bride and bridegroom as to whether they accepted their marriage-vows itself.

Jesuit missionaries to China had sought, and for a short time, received permission to translate the Roman Missal into scholarly Classical Chinese. (See Chinese Rites controversy). However, ultimately permission was revoked. Among the Algonquin and Iroquois, the received permission to translate the propers of the Mass into the vernacular.

In the 20th c., Pope Pius XII granted permission for a few vernaculars to be used in a few rites, rituals, and ceremonies. This did not include the Roman Liturgy of the Mass.

The Catholic Church, long before the Second Œcumenical Council of the Vatican ('Vatican II') accepted and promoted the use of the non-vernacular liturgical languages listed above; vernacular (i.e. modern or native) languages were never used liturgically until 1964, when the first permissions were given for certain parts of the Roman Liturgy to be celebrated in certain approved vernacular translations. The use of vernacular language in liturgical practice created controversy for a majority of Catholics, and opposition to liturgical vernacular is a major tenet of the Catholic Traditionalist movement.

In the twentieth century, Vatican II set out to protect the use of Latin as a liturgical language. To a large degree, its prescription was initially disregarded and the vernacular became not only standard, but generally used exclusively in the liturgy. Latin, which remains the chief language of the Roman Rite, is the main language of the Roman Missal (the official book of liturgy for the Latin Rite) and of the Code of Canon Law, and use of liturgical Latin is still encouraged. Large-scale papal ceremonies often make use of it. Meanwhile, the numerous Eastern Catholic Churches in union with Rome each have their own respective 'parent-language'. As a subsidiary issue, unrelated to liturgy, the Eastern Code of Canon Law, for the sake of convenience, has been promulgated in Latin.

Eastern Orthodox Churches are varied in use of liturgical languages within their Church services. Koine Greek and Church Slavonic are the main sacred languages used in the Churches of the Eastern Orthodox communion. However, The Eastern Orthodox Church permits other languages to be used for liturgical worship, and each country often will have the liturgical services in their own language. This has led to a wide variety of languages used for liturgical worship, but there is still uniformity in the liturgical worship itself. So one can attend an Orthodox service in another location and the service will be (relatively) the same. Liturgical languages used in the Eastern Orthodox Church include (but are not limited to): Koine Greek, Church Slavonic, Romanian, Georgian, Arabic, Ukrainian, Bulgarian, Moldovan, Serbian, English, Spanish, French, Polish, Portuguese, Albanian, Finnish, Swedish, Chinese, Estonian, Korean, Japanese, many African dialects, and many other world languages.

Oriental Orthodox Churches regularly pray in the vernacular of the community within which a Church outside of its ancestral land is located. However some clergymen and communities prefer to retain their traditional language or use a combination of languages.

Many Anabaptist groups, such as the Amish, continue to use High German in their worship despite not speaking it amongst themselves.