Share your venerable small traditions!

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Hi everyone,

In the Chaldean Aramaic liturgy, when the name of Jesus ( Ysho’ ) is mentioned, the congregation makes a small head bow in honor of His name. I think this traditional small gesture might be influenced somewhat by Phil. 2:10.

I would like for other Eastern/Oriental Catholic brethren on this forum to share with us those small venerable gestures or words that you find most beautiful in your own traditions 🙂

God bless,

Rony
 
Can Orthodox participate?

I always liked the Carpatho-Rusyn tradition of adjoining two extra verses to the confession of the penitent thief in the prayer before Holy Communion. This is common in the Ruthenian Catholic churches and some Orthodox churches of the Carpatho-Rusyn tradition; but in all other Byzantine churches I’ve been to, only the first verse is said.

O Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom. [sign of cross]
O Master, remember me when You come into Your kingdom [sign of cross]
O Holy One, remember me when You come into Your kingdom [sign of cross]

It lets me know I’m a sinner like the thief, but also God’s great mercy.
 
In smaller Ukrainian village churches and in some smaller churches in the US and Canada, during the Small Entrance the deacon moves through the church and allowes everyone to venerate the Holy Gospel, giving each person the appropriate seasonal greeting. This is one of my very favorite liturgical “acts” as a deacon.

I have always loved this very moving veneration of the Word, the presence of the Logos amongst His people. In some places the deacon goes to the center and the people come forward as well and he then gives them the greeting.
 
Whenever the Holy Trinity is mentioned, we make the sign of the cross.

When the priest censes the people, we bow and/or make the sign of the cross. I’m so used to doing this I can do it while wrangling a 2 year old, which is how my prirest knew I was the person who had emailed him about whether their liturgy was said in English two days before we showed up at the parish. 😃 (I had mentioned that we were Eastern Christians in my note to him.)

After the gospel, when the priest comes up to say the homily, he says, “Slava Isusu Christu” and the people respond, “Slava vo’ viki.”
 
I think this is unique to Latin Rite Catholics:

Before the priest or deacon reads the Gospel for the day, he traces a small cross on the Gospel to be read and continues tracing a small cross on his forehead, on his lips, and on his heart. I read somewhere that this is one of the oldest, if not the oldest, signage remembering Christ’s crucifixion? Its usage dates back to Apostolic times?

Of course, all the faithful imitate the act of the priest or deacon and trace with their thumb a small cross on their forehead, on their lips, and on their heart as well. This practice of the faithful could have begun as early!
 
ronyodish said:
Hi everyone,

In the Chaldean Aramaic liturgy, when the name of Jesus ( Ysho’ ) is mentioned, the congregation makes a small head bow in honor of His name. I think this traditional small gesture might be influenced somewhat by Phil. 2:10.

Rony
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It was my understanding that the name for Jesus in East Aramaic is Eeshoo. Do you guys not pronounce the EE or is it just not written?

(I spent some time with an ACOE offshoot church)
 
ronyodish said:
Hi everyone,

I would like for other Eastern/Oriental Catholic brethren on this forum to share with us those small venerable gestures or words that you find most beautiful in your own traditions 🙂

God bless,

Rony
Click to expand...
When the Trinity is mentioned in the Trisagion, Copts say “One” before every member of the Godhead. As in “One is the Holy Father… One is the Holy Son, One is the Holy Spirit… Amen. Blessed be the Lord forever Amen! Praise Him all you Angles, praise Him all you Hosts…”.

That was a liturgical adaption that came from living with Moslems where they were accused of being polytheists.
 
Addai said:
It was my understanding that the name for Jesus in East Aramaic is Eeshoo. Do you guys not pronounce the EE or is it just not written?

(I spent some time with an ACOE offshoot church)
Click to expand...
In Syriac (both dialects) the Name is spelled yodh-shin-wow-'ayn. The vowel on the initial yodh (or as some would say, yut) is an “eh” sound that is perhaps better represented by ê in French. I represent the Semitic letter 'ayn by ’ (apostrophe) since Indo-European languages have no equivalent.

In West Syriac the pronunciation would be yêshou’ and I believe it is the same in the Eastern dialect.
 
It was my understanding that the name for Jesus in East Aramaic is Eeshoo. Do you guys not pronounce the EE or is it just not written?
Click to expand...
(I spent some time with an ACOE offshoot church)
Click to expand...
Addai,

Eeshoo is fine. Both Assyrians and Chaldeans pronounce the double EE, and the Y is just another way of writing in English the EE pronunciation. The way it is written in Eastern Aramaic is with a Yodh, and there is no difference here between Chaldeans and Assyrians, except sometimes you will see a small Alap placed on top of the Yodh among Chaldeans. I’m not certain if Assyrians do likewise.

Alap is equivalent to an A, and it looks like this: http://www.learnassyrian.com/aramaic/alap.gif
Yodh is equivalent to a Y, and it looks like this:http://www.learnassyrian.com/aramaic/yodh.gif

The name of Jesus is written with a Waw as the letter before the final letter. In Eastern Aramaic, there is a vowel dot placed on top of the Waw, which then gives it an o sound. If the dot is placed underneath the Waw, then you get an oo sound. Therefore, it would seem best to say Eesho rather than Eeshoo.

Waw is equivalent to a W and it is written like this:http://www.learnassyrian.com/aramaic/waw.gif

As far as the ending letter of the name of Jesus, Chaldeans tend to pronounce it like this: Eesho**’ or Ysho’**. Among Chaldeans, the **’ ** at the end is a sound made with one’s throat rather than one’s tongue. It is the letter aih (or 'aih). Assyrians tend to pronounce this letter more softly than we Chaldeans do.

Aih has no English equivalent, and it looks like this:http://www.learnassyrian.com/aramaic/aih.gif

In general, Assyrians and Chaldeans use the same Eastern Aramaic script, but there is a slight difference in pronunciation between them. This difference is lighter than the difference between Eastern Aramaic versus Western Aramaic, which is a difference not only in pronunciation but script as well. Though I should point out that there is also a common base script between Eastern and Western Aramaic known as Estrangela (Estrangelo).

Here is a site that teaches Eastern Aramaic: learnassyrian.com/aramaic

I hope I have not bored you with this long-winded explanation 😃

God bless,

Rony
 
In Syriac (both dialects) the Name is spelled yodh-shin-wow-'ayn. The vowel on the initial yodh (or as some would say, yut) is an “eh” sound that is perhaps better represented by ê in French. I represent the Semitic letter 'ayn by ’ (apostrophe) since Indo-European languages have no equivalent.
Click to expand...
In West Syriac the pronunciation would be yêshou’ and I believe it is the same in the Eastern dialect.
Click to expand...
malphono,

Thank you for the additional (name removed by moderator)ut. In Eastern Aramaic (Eastern Syriac), we have a dot underneath the Yodh in the name of Jesus, which gives us a deeper E sound as in EE.

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

So putting a Y and then an E like what you did here: **yêshou’ **also looks good to me. Ye or Ee are both good.

God bless,

Rony
 
For the reading of the Gospel, the Great Entrance and during the Creed, we have a member of the parish carry the trojca (3-branch candlestick) and stand in front of the Tetrapod. This symbolizes the 3 members of the Trinity but the fact that they are one as the 3 branches come together as one at the bottom.

If the Liturgy is for a particular family, we have the head of the family carry the Trojca and then the other members of the family carry individual candles. We also have one guy who brings his little boy who about 8, we let the dad carry the Trojca and his son carries a single candle… REALLY brings tears to the eyes of the Babas and smiles to everyone else because the little boy is so serious about it all. The boy has been asked to be an altar serverer but he doesn’t want to stop carrying his candle with his dad…

this is what the Trojca looks like…

http://www.holoviak.com/acatalog/T-55.jpg
 
I only witnessed this once, but I was really impressed. At an Antiochian Orthodox churching, the priest walked around the church with the infant, and then made the sign of the cross with the infant over the congregation, to which everyone made the sign!
 
Patchunky said:
For the reading of the Gospel, the Great Entrance and during the Creed, we have a member of the parish carry the trojca (3-branch candlestick) and stand in front of the Tetrapod. This symbolizes the 3 members of the Trinity but the fact that they are one as the 3 branches come together as one at the bottom.

If the Liturgy is for a particular family, we have the head of the family carry the Trojca and then the other members of the family carry individual candles. We also have one guy who brings his little boy who about 8, we let the dad carry the Trojca and his son carries a single candle… REALLY brings tears to the eyes of the Babas and smiles to everyone else because the little boy is so serious about it all. The boy has been asked to be an altar serverer but he doesn’t want to stop carrying his candle with his dad…

this is what the Trojca looks like…

http://www.holoviak.com/acatalog/T-55.jpg
Click to expand...
Oh, that’s what that is called! We also have that at our church, and I have wondered about it, but never asked our priest. :o
 
In honor of the Holy ground that is the Church, in imitation of the instruction given to Moses, Coptic priests perform the Liturgy barefoot. The Syrians and Armenians have (for lack of a better word), “holy shoes,”😃 worn for the same reason that Copts go barefoot.

This is a tradition unique to the Orientals.

Blessings,
Marduk
 
mardukm said:
In honor of the Holy ground that is the Church, in imitation of the instruction given to Moses, Coptic priests perform the Liturgy barefoot. The Syrians and Armenians have (for lack of a better word), “holy shoes,”😃 worn for the same reason that Copts go barefoot.

This is a tradition unique to the Orientals.

Blessings,
Marduk
Click to expand...
No Nike?

Must be a Greek thing.
 
Madaglan said:
No Nike?

Must be a Greek thing.
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:rotfl:
That was a good one.

I was expecting someone to catch on with my joke about “holy shoes” (liturgical slippers, actually) and say something like, “I go to Church with holy shoes too! Except they’re not liturgical - they just have holes in 'em.” 😃

Blessings,
Marduk
 
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