Translations: So Far, Yet So Far to Go

“Let us with one mouth and one heart confess…Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Trinity One in Essence and Undivided” (Divine Liturgy prelude to the Nicene Creed)

The first American-born bishop of the Orthodox Church in America, Benjamin of Pittsburgh, created the first bilingual Orthodox service book in both Russian and English. I still own the copy that my grandfather gave me as a child. It contained morning and evening prayers, the Divine Liturgy, and certain verses of the special feast day hymns. There have been countless versions created by committee or by individuals since the 1930’s. There are more than a few declaring themselves to contain The Official Translation stamped by the reigning prelate. How many commissions, committees, departments and colloquia determined to produce le mot juste, and yet like any sensible priest I fall back on that American Orthodox liturgical version of the King James Bible, the inimitable Isabel Hapgood translation. To our chagrin, because of the inability to come to a decision that takes into account the actual practical usage in parishes across the continent, with each claiming to be the last word on translation, it will be quite a while before we can truly pray “with one voice.” More, each insists on being crowned the “official version,” especially when it can have the endorsement of an influential hierarch; yet they all fail the stated goal. Unlike Greek, Arabic or Church Slavonic, where what is chanted, recited or sung, every “jot and tittle” has been tried, tested and utilized for centuries without alterations, additions, or amendments, and shall be “now and forever and unto ages of ages,” it is not so in English. “Debts” or “trespasses”? “Thou” or “You”? Even when writing the sacred words, do we use capital letter or small case when referring to the deity? Dare I mention pronouns in the same regard?

Just the variety of translations among the Orthodox Church in America texts, set aside trying to correlate with the other Orthodox Christian jurisdictions on the continent, only emphasizes to ourselves and advertises to the English-speaking Christian world at large our inability to come together in completely unified prayer. Hearing uncertainty and hesitation in liturgical singing is like watching chickens running. They don’t do it with grace, but they ought to be complimented for trying.

Perhaps one positive element to our linguistic dilemma is that living languages do evolve and morph through the years, especially in times such as these. We are in a state of transition that makes it difficult for any translator to present a text that will be acceptable for a generation or more. The world is in freefall comparable to the time when the western civilization entered the Renaissance from the medieval period.

Why should it matter? It is of concern because language is or ought to be a vehicle of communication, a way of expressing our emotions, intentions and feelings collectively to the Holy Trinity. We together form a single choir—not just in a cathedral, church or monastery, but across the continent, lifting up our songs of praise with a harmony of beautiful phrases, raising our voices together to the God we love in the finest way that we can muster. We want Him to know of our dedication, affection, loyalty and honor; thanking Father, Son and Holy Spirit for all that we receive. The sound should be as simple, as free as the air we breathe. Prayer itself is transported on the invisible wings of our enthusiasm, and the emotions, attitude and rationale ought to utter words just as we use lyrics spontaneously and freely. The texts like the clergy are but vehicles of worship and must not call attention to themselves. Making prayer is making love—not in the worldly meaning, but by our pure and wholesome emotional and transcendent thanks offering to the Source of all that is. We’ve got to find the way to do it right.