[Fsfkkkjz]

I am hoping some here can give their input and suggestions with a situation I might be in.

I’ve been dating a non-native English speaking cradle Orthodox fellow (I’ll call him CG - not his initials - to make referring to him easier) for a little more than two months. He’s an immigrant from Eastern Europe, but has been here in the US some years. He attends a parish of his nationality that is very ethnic and has services virtually all in Slavonic. A bit of English is only used on major feast days (Pascha, Christmas, for example) when there are people attending who aren’t usually in church. It’s also Old Calendar. He occasionally attends an OCA parish in the area, but it’s also Slavonic and Old Calendar. This is a very promising relationship.

I’m a member at a standard suburban OCA parish (our priest is wonderful and I love my fellow parishioners) that has services all in English. This just isn't my parish, it's also my family, since I'm estranged from my bio family due to someone with substance abuse issues. Convert (5+ years ago). I have no, absolutely zilch, ability for foreign languages. If couldn’t even learn *Spanish,* there’s no way I’d be able to learn one that has a different alphabet! It’s just the way my brain works.

I’ve told CG more than once (when it was appopriate in conversation) that I have no ability for foreign languages and that I’m staying with my English-language parish, from right when we began dating. At dinner the other night with several others, he told us about a married couple who are friends of his that attend different churches on different calendars (because they like different chant styles), and said he didn’t know how they do it. I don’t know how they do it either, because trying to figure out the cooking with regards to long fasting periods (outside of Great Lent which the two calendars observe together) makes me crazy just thinking about it, plus celebrating Christmas, etc.

I talked to a very trusted woman at church last night, about this situation. She essentially said that if things got serious & permanent between us, the only real solution would be for him to attend my parish (at least most of the time) and we be on the New Calendar at home. He could fit well enough into my parish (he would certainly be far from the only person whose first language is something other than English), while I could not fit into his parish. My parish is truly pan-ethnic, and has a pretty decent number of immigrants who come 1) because they want their young children to grow up understanding the services and/or 2) they’re married to an American.

I can easily name right off the top of my head at least 10 couples I know of, either at my current parish or the previous one, where a non-native English speaking cradle Orthodox husband and only English-speaking convert (or inquirer) wife, came to an all English-speaking parish and joined it to stay. I know that in at least 4-5 of the couples the wife told the husband she would convert, but it HAD to be an all-English parish. In fact, my parish has a new couple that’s a “poster child” for this situation. Eastern European immigrant cradle Orthodox fellow marries an American Protestant woman with a lower-grammar school aged daughter from a previous marriage/relationship. They marry in the husband’s very ethnic, non-English parish - but the priest there told them himself that they needed an English-language parish for the good of the wife, her daughter, and their future children together (she’s pregnant).

CG has told me that church is for church - it’s not for people who want to speak their native language - there are social clubs and such for that. He's also made comments that lead me to believe he's doesn't consider the calendar a dogmatic issue.

I am definitely planning on talking to my parish priest about this when he comes to do my house blessing next week. It does seem that CG coming over to my OCA parish if things got serious between us is the only real solution to this, as it’s been the only solution with the other couples I have personal knowledge of. I would want one calendar in the home for the unity of the family (holiday and saints’ day celebrations) as well as for smoother running of the household. I’d be open to him attending his current parish sometimes, while I was at mine. Of course, this would be different if children came along (going to separate parishes), but we’re “older” (early 40s), so I don’t know if we’d have them. He’s visited my parish once and really liked my priest and everyone he met. I’ve not yet visited his parish - what’s he told me makes it sound hardly welcoming to *any* outsiders.

Any thoughts? I’m taking this relationship very slowly. This has already come up in a way since he was invited by the friends I spent Christmas with (family out of town) to come, but he rejected it on the grounds of “there will be nothing there I can eat” (since he was still in the midst of the Nativity Fast). The wife later told me she’d have been more than willing to make him salmon or lentil soup or something else fasting, but he didn’t want to be the only one not eating the meat.

[heilyprollecyspor]

I think that your thoughts are very one sided. It very much comes across its all about the way you think and what you want and under your rules. I am guessing that most people who will reply will be in your favour and recommend that the best solution is that he should go to your parish because its in English ... of course they would say that because that is the easiest solution always.

Also, your examples are based only on what you have observed (again) in your parish ... and what worked at your parish and what you think. To be honest the style you have written this in is almost encouraging or expecting everyone to just agree with you so that you can validate to yourelf your point of view ...

I wish to challenge that ... not because I am in favour of your friends church or the all Slavonic or nother approach. I suspect he is equally immoveable in his position and to which I equally dont agree with .. On the other hand, I really cant speak for the gentleman without hearing his own feelings on the matter.

Marriage is a "mini-church" - it is a micro-cosm of what our relationship to God should be ... if we cant sacrifice ourselves for the love of another ... then we are not really immitating Christ in his self-sacrifice for His bride the church ... and vice-versa, if your gentleman friend can not self-sacrifice himself for you then he too is not mirroring Christ etc ... the point is, the post takes the approach that ... HE needs to come to ME because my church is easier ... your premise was never about self-sacrifice as the number 1 key issue between you too...

Which says to me that you both do not truly understand the purpose of marriage yet ... and to that I suggest you read some articles writen by Father George Morelli on "Smart Marriage" - he really is good and he comes from a scientific background on the matter too.

Google Him.
With love ...

[ibupronec]

¡Hola Theodora!

I'm not entirely sure why you don't both go to the parish closest to you both and submit to their canons (regarding language, calendars and all). It would seem to me that once you both choose a place to settle down and live together, then that place will also be your parish and things would sort themselves out. Then, there would be no need to go to other Orthodox churches unless you were travelling out of town to visit relatives. In those situations, it would be a case of "when in Rome"*.


*A saying first attributed to St. Ambrose, when specifically talking about what to do when in a different church to your "local" one.

[raspirator]

Thank for your thoughts. I really don't know what the "other solution" would be. This conversation with my parish priest cannot come soon enough for me. I have a fair bit of knowledge of local parishes from talking with other local priests (as well as visits). In my area, aside from an Antiochian parish that has services half in Arabic and half in English (and is gradually switching to more English), I don't know of any other "half and half" language parishes. Pretty much every nationality has a parish (or two) in my area, with the Greek Archdiocese having the largest number of parishes, but all I come across are parishes that are either all English or virtually all other language (Greek, Slavonic, Serbian or Serbian/Slavonic, etc.). A wee bit of English might be added, but it appears to make up less than 10-20% of the service, from what priests tell me.

To top it off, the "Slavonic gentleman's" parish is not canonical. It's a nationalist breakaway church, established due to the politically messy situation in Eastern Europe. They're not in communion with anyone, although laity seem to be communed at canonical parishes, at the discretion of the canonical parishes' priests. His confessor/spiritual father is at the OCA parish with the Slavonic Liturgy, so there is some cross-jurisdictional movement already.

Note that I have not brought this up with the Slavonic gentleman. This has been going around in my brain for several weeks. This post was a lot of "thinking out loud."

[catarleriarly]

Very well said Jonathan, a wise man well beyond his years!

This is the principle of a love that could stand time because it involves sacrifice on behalf of both ... no such thing as "I" or "my" ...

Orthodoxy is not a cultural boundary or a date related church ...it is about being canonical and within the principles of the canons ...

If they love each other BOTH will sacrifice their respective parishes and test drive your idea ...

[Rasklad]

¡Hola Theodora!

I'm not entirely sure why you don't both go to the parish closest to you both and submit to their canons (regarding language, calendars and all). It would seem to me that once you both choose a place to settle down and live together, then that place will also be your parish and things would sort themselves out. Then, there would be no need to go to other Orthodox churches unless you were travelling out of town to visit relatives. In those situations, it would be a case of "when in Rome"*.

*A saying first attributed to St. Ambrose, when specifically talking about what to do when in a different church to your "local" one.

Hello JM - well, my parish is my local parish since I'm only several miles away. His parish is about an hour's drive from where he lives - and he lives 30-45 minutes from me. If married, we'd have to pick somewhere in the middle between where he lives now and where I am, since I live 8 miles from work and he's very close to his office, as well. That still puts my parish pretty close. His parish is waaaaay on the other side of the metro area. The parishes closer to him are two GOA parishes with services virtually entirely in Greek, at one of which (when I was still a catechumen and didn't know any better), I was asked to not come to the YAL (young adult league) events/meetings because I wasn't Greek (after two meetings when no one other than the young priest spoke to me). Greek priest was appalled, but not much he could do about it. I had the same experience at another Greek parish in the area. I've even been followed into the bathroom by a woman very intent on finding out my ethnic background. In my experience with multiple Greek parishes in my area: non-Greek background=being totally shunned and/or incessant grilling (some of these women would make excellent police interrogators). No, thank you.

[Todilrdc]

Our parish is Russian/English 75%/25% and we do services accordingly. Although not all English only speakers can make this work many of our 'mixed' couples do get by quite well.

However we recently had one of our mixed couples- he Russian, she Canadian- move to another city where the Russian parishes of both jurisdictions offer very little English. Gradually the wife stopped attending church for the most part.

The husband then spoke to me about this situation and I recommended they visit a very spiritual parish in the city where they live that uses English. From what he tells me this has worked out quite well for both of them and they both now regularly attend.

Of course many things here come into play- temperament being a big one. Great sensitivity has to be given to those new Russians who basically have returned to the Church. Part of this involves the Calendar (Julian if you're Russian) and certain spiritual routines such as fasting and preparation for communion.

Basically a change is possible if one deals with where the Russian spouse is coming from in a very positive way (we have lots of negative attitudes towards what we regard as foreign taught us as cultural values). If we come from this positive direction then it is possible to show- patiently & lovingly- that other and valid regimes also exist in Orthodoxy which is what for example your English parish follows.

As for the fasting regime- at some point one Calendar will need to be followed.

In Christ- Fr Raphael

[antipenq]

Father/Theodora,

There is one consideration NOT addressed in this post which affects the style of advise that priests and other people will or should offer.

The gentleman does not belong to a Canonical church ... but is 'warming' to OCA, sort of. To me this is a recipe for disaster if not addressed properly ... they say that our desire to come to church should be for God first and everything else second. I would hope that he would desire OCA for the right reasons which are his understanding of what it means to be canonical and to address the issue of whether he believes he is part of a non-canonical church.

How that is addressed by Theodora is probably more critical at this point (since it is a much bigger and more important hurdle) than which parish they should both go to.

I hope Father Raphael can offer some good advise ...

[pkopwqzsdcvbn]

The "Slavonic Gentleman's" church is not a one of the "let's be more Orthodox than everyone else" splinter groups. Without going into too much detail, it's matter of church administrations and bishops fighting over "turf," as someone else described it, in the "old country." It had everything to do with politics, not theology. And still does. Goes back decades. Many people he knows of his nationality belongs to this church in the States.

But yes, him not being a member of a canonical church is a matter of concern to me. At least at the OCA parish with the Slavonic Liturgy he's attended (and where his spiritual father/confessor is), there seems to be not much concern with his status individually. To become a member of the OCA, such as my parish, I would think it wouldn't be much more than a matter of Confession (his spiritual father advising my parish priest of it) and Communion.

My parish even has several Ethiopian families - there is an Ethiopian parish somewhere in the area, but the families (immigrants) do not understand the liturgical language, and as they speak English quite well, wanted to attend a church whose services the adults would understand, as well as their children. Our priest was unsure of how to commune these families. The bishop advised that children (up until 10-11) can commune without Confession. Above that age, as well as the adults, they must go to Confession before they can receive Communion (or continue to receive, in the case of the children). The Ethiopian Orthodox have an interesting tradition with regards to Confession and Communion. You tend to only go to Confession once in your life, around the age of 60-65. Then you go to Communion for the rest of your life. A 30-something woman in one of the families told me that back home she had asked the priest about going to Confession. The priest told her he didn't see the point, since she would keep sinning anyway. However, the adults have had their first Confession within the past year (after taking several years to get to that point), are now on the customary Confession schedule in my parish, and take Communion pretty much every week like most everyone else. They've been intergrated well into the life of the parish, one of the women among our Sunday School teachers (for the wee kiddies).

So, if my parish can integrate Ethiopian Orthodox into the life of the parish, in addition to a good number from Eastern Europe, I think the Slavonic Gentleman would fit in just fine.

[uranbigis]

Vasiliki wrote:


The gentleman does not belong to a Canonical church. Pastorally we need to look to the specifics of the situation. Ie don't begin with the idea of a generic 'not-canonical' since this actually describes a whole spectrum of situations.

About such cultural schisms-communion could well be possible for the laity. Some of the groups however go so far that this could be a problem

Ultimately the only way such situations can be determined is by the guidance or policy set by the bishop or church one is part of.

In Christ- Fr Raphael

[Espacamlisa]

Update:

My house blessing today and I expressed my concerns to my priest afterwards. His response:

1. Too early to bring it up now (at several months). Definitely bring up the issues if/when marriage is mentioned.

2. Due to factors involved (I don't understand foreign languages, his parish has services entirely in Slavonic and sermon in native language), he’s going to be the one to have to make more compromises about the church issue if we got married. He would have to join my parish and attend with me most Sundays/feast days, and be on the New Calendar at home. If he wanted to also attend services for Old Calendar Christmas, etc., my priest said he has no problem at all with that - there are some current parishioners who were raised in the Serbian Church who go to Old Calendar Christmas services. However, I have been very upfront about my difficulty with other languages, so the Slavonic Gentleman cannot claim to be unaware of my stance on these issues.

[Chooriwrocafn]

Update:

My house blessing today and I expressed my concerns to my priest afterwards. His response:

1. Too early to bring it up now (at several months). Definitely bring up the issues if/when marriage is mentioned.

2. Due to factors involved (I don't understand foreign languages, his parish has services entirely in Slavonic and sermon in native language), he’s going to be the one to have to make more compromises about the church issue if we got married. He would have to join my parish and attend with me most Sundays/feast days, and be on the New Calendar at home. If he wanted to also attend services for Old Calendar Christmas, etc., my priest said he has no problem at all with that - there are some current parishioners who were raised in the Serbian Church who go to Old Calendar Christmas services. However, I have been very upfront about my difficulty with other languages, so the Slavonic Gentleman cannot claim to be unaware of my stance on these issues.

Hi Theodora, I am very suprised by the response in #1 ... honestly, why leave a glaring issue alone and address it at a point where emotions and feelings will be so closely linked in the situation that both parties could particulary get hurt ... however, this is my logic and logic is not always the best.

I am old fashioned I believe that guys should do the chasing and sacrificing ... this is my opinion and up until my divorce (which I told you in PM) I never really knew that I had a right to feel that way. In the gospel of Matthew (mentioned it in another post) the MALE is asked to leave his parents behind and join to his wife ... and if we think about Christ that is exactly what He did - He left His father in heaven to be with his bride ... but the choice has to be done out of love and the guy needs to recognise why he is doing it ... on the other hand, it doesnt give us the right to manipulate and taunt men - I say this because sometimes we women can be demanding because of our own prides ... we shouldnt have this pride .. we should just stay humble and open to our men ... and in a spirit of love just encourage our man towards his greater calling which is salvation of soul!

Enough from me ...good lucj Theodora you are in my prayers!