USING ORTHODOX TERMINOLOGY IN ENGLISH

     When those thinking in different paradigms say the same things, they are not saying the same things; so let's not confuse everyone with Western terms laden with distinctive meanings that conflict with Orthodox import.  (See an example HERE.)  The medium is much of the message, since it invokes an atmosphere, connotations, and a lot of background.

SEE HERE FOR ORTHODOX TERMINOLOGY

    The Orthodox in English-speaking countries have perpetuated Western terminology laden with misleading connotations and even denotations.  There have been several causes, aside from Western theological influences on Orthodoxy from the seventeenth cenutry on (as the result of the Dark Ages in the Balkans under Turkish hegemony).  First, translations of the Fathers misused Word for LOGOS, obscured the energy terms, and mistranslated energization formations of Greek (with e.g. likeness for assimilating and creature for creating).  Secondly, the non-native-speakers of English who established Orthodox theology in the English-speaking world naïvely took over these usages.  Unfortunately, they have been perpetuated by Orthodox writers.  The unfortunate result is that it is hard to get at the Orthodox phrónema in English translations of Orthodox writings and--what is even less forgivable--in Orthodox writings by native-speakers of English.  The facts are very different Grace as uncreated Energy is as much in conflict with the Latins' Sanctifying Grace (a created and inoperative [non-energetic] habit of a believer's soul) as with the Reformers' divine benignity.  Orthodox ontological Union with the uncreated Energies in the uncreated Light (théosis "Divinization") is as different from Thomas's virtual ("intentional" or conceptual) unity with God's Essence (apothéosis Deificatio) and the Reformers' virtual  ("covenantal") union with God as can be.  No honest or useful purpose is served by the obscurations that result from this humbuggery.

    To confuse energies with essence (in the Western manner) or nature with essence, would mean that the Orthodox differ radically from 2 Pet. 1:4, where he speaks of partaking of the divine Nature.

SEE THE POINT MADE HERE AND HERE (AND ON PAGES LINKED TO THEM)

     Many writers do not realize that they are saying things in THEIR thought world that mean OTHER things in other thought worlds.  If you call Dormition "Assumption," you mess up.  Let's see how much theology is packed into a single, by no means recherché, term.  (I lean on George Gabriel's Mary the untrodden portal of God.)  Dormition says that the Theotokos reposed (died); Assumption conveys that she did not die.  (Both say she was carried off to heaven--three days after dying in Orthodoxy.)  Why could the Virgin not die in some Latin theology?  It is because death is a punishment in Western thinking; and it would not be appropriate to allow a sinless person (both East and the Latin West agree on her "all-pure" sinlessness) to be punished.  Why is she freed from sin at her (immaculate) conception?  It is because in Western theology, newborns bear (by natural generation among the Latins, by divine imputation for the Reformers) Adam's guilt--a monstrous teaching.   Look how much is tied up  in simple terms!  None of the theological reasons of the West that would prohibit the Theotokos from living the way humans live apply in Orthodoxy, though we of course believe that she was endowed, as St. Luke's Gospel says in its first chapter, with special Graces for her momentous task:  She was born sinless like other newborns, lived a sinless life, and died a non-penal death like others humans.  Note that in Luke 1:43, St. Elizabeth called her "Mother of YHWH" (Jews were required to replace the ineffable divine name with [in most contexts] "my Lord"; today, they often say Ha Shem "the Name").  Note another important matter:  Since the Fall is ontological for the Orthodox (and immortality is not part of human nature), Salvation is ontological, as is Unity with God's Energies.  Since the Fall is will-based ("moral") for the Latins, Salvation is satisfying divine Justice and the ontological roles of the Incarnation and Resurrection are negligible--and thus horrifying for the Orthodox observer!  The West cannot get out of its cultural box to view our Faith the way both Christians and Greek-speaking pagans viewed it in the early centuries of the first millennium.  That a Protestant can believe that the Creator "of all that has been made" is a "Word" and that a "sacrament" is a virtual sermon is beyond the comprehension of the Orthodox--which hasn't prevented some Orthodox writers from mis- speaking in the same manner.

    One should not neglect the marvelous The liturgical dictionary of Eastern Christianity (The Liturgical Press, 1993), which has very few omissions; it gives liturgical terminology in Coptic, Ethiopian, Armenian, and Syrian, as well as of course in Greek and the Slavic languages.  See also the Orthodox miniglossary and the page giving approximate englishings of Greek psychological terms.  See also the page on this site for gremmies reading Orthodox writings, as well as HERE & HERE.

     Since the words we use to characterize an entity or a situation lend it a certain flavor that is vital for good communication, it is important to pick the words that convey the flavor we want.  Words have great power to color our thinking.  The heart is the locus of the noûs or transrational mind for the Orthodox; but when we use the term, we mustn't forget that it is the seat of the will for Augustine and many Protestants, including some Puritans (e.g. John Cotton, who, incidentally, affirmed that will "rules all"), . . . though many of the Puritans accepted that the heart is the seat of the affections (emotions) . . . which agrees with the everyday current usage of current English.

     Many writers depart from the traditional liturgical and theological terms, predestinate and communicate (for receiving the Holy Commu-_- nion), and use predestine and commune.  There are good reasons for preferring the traditional religious usages to current secular usages.

     It should be observed that the Western concept of the "supernat- ural" (the Latins have two uses of the terminology, each with two subdivisions) is pretty much absent in the East, where the distinction between uncreated and created is supplemented by transcendent noëtic or gnostic apprehension. Note that gnostic has a Christian sense wholly at variance with the Gnostics' denial of the worth of materiality and time for religion.  A similar difference occurs in the uses of érws "love by attraction."  (For the Greek words for love [and charity; and with corresponding verbs for charity, cherish, etc.], CLICK HERE.]  From eternity--what has neither beginning nor end, what is timeless--it is necessary to distinguish æviternity or sempiternity [which has a beginning but no end].  In the West, one must avoid confusing what is supernatural  from what is præternatural--the life of Heaven, that of the unembodied beings (Angels, Cherubim, Seraphim) and that of re-embodied human beings.  What is præternatural is not counter-natural.   The same is true of immortality, which is not by nature but is not contrary to nature, since it supplements, enhances, and perpetuates something that is natural.  On rite and ceremony, see below.

     Ontological Mysteries ("sacraments") without the volitional dimension are magic.  Basing everything uncritically on exerience is superstition.

    What can be said about the difference between dogma (a changeless truth of the essence of Christianity—a dýnamis in the Hellenistic and Biblical sense) and doctrine a (true or false) energization of a dogma, i.e. a clarification of it for its being intelligible to worshipers?  The problem lies with the latter.  The holistic nature of Orthodoxy theology has prevented it from making a dogma : doctrine distinction because of the way the West treats it as a distinction between required and optional--which is quite un-Orthodox.  Greek has dýnamis-enéryeia pairs like dídaxis : dídagma "instruction" as the doing (energization) and the result, respectively; the former does not seem to occur in Patristic Greek, but anyone would have understood its sense.   Note that this pair refers to the mode of teaching.  Doctrines are teachings.  The ancients used didaché or didaskalía, the latter covering secular teach- ing; modern Greek theologians have used mathémata "teachings."  A didaskálion is a "lesson" or "science" in Classical Greek.  Of course, it would come across as wholly absurd to translate the Greek or its Latin equivalent (scientia "knowledge, science") as science in English when it refers to theology.  When referring to theology, the Greek and Latin expressions are studies or disciplines in English.  Didachaí (cf. mathémata) are teachings that can be true or false; the term certainly does not carry overtones of "optional teaching" or "one among many acceptable teachings" contrasting with a required dogma.  Both are viewed as non-optional by their proponents.  One has read that the Dormition is an optional Orthodox belief; this Western outlook is utterly untenable in holy Orthodoxy.  I think that without its Western connotations, the dýnamis-energy distinction is as essential as any other such distinctions (SEE HERE).  And the energy concept and terminology are certainly is Biblical (26 times in St. Paul alone).  So long as they are not construed as required : optional in the Western manner but as dýnamis : enéryeia, in the Greek manner, I think that  dógma : didaché signify a very important contrast--one that is basic to Greek ontology.

     Because of the old analogy of the Tree in the Garden of Evil that Eve and Adam ate the fruit of and the Cross on which our Savior died, one often refers to His Death on the "Tree."  The Greek word means "wood" as well as "Tree"; dying "on the Wood" sounds better than--what is meaningless apart from the analogical context--"on the Tree."   Various absurdities abound, some discussed above or below.  But "to the ages of ages" at end  of prayers is without coherent meaning in English.  Try "throughout the eons."  When ages (pronounced ajiz) is sung with a long "uhhh" in the second syllable, it sounds like the singer needs a throat operation.

     When there is no non-misleading gloss in English of an Orthodox term, it is  recommended to use the proper Greek (or Slavic) term and to place after it in parentheses a brief rendering or explanation until such time as  the word has become quite at home in English; when the previously foreign term is already at home in English, it will be listed as such in the middle column, with or without its English gloss.  L is for Lordsday (in Slavic languages:  "Resurrectionday"); Sa is for Sabbath (Saturday).   The words "Sunday" and "Saturday" should be avoided in a writer wishes to keep close to Patristic usage--not to speak of most modern European languages other than English and the Germanic languages.

     Note on transcribing Greek:  "y" (not "u") is for Greek "y" in mystérion, hýbris, ý, etc.  The rough breathing is often omitted, as it was in the pronunciation of Hellenistic Greek--which was mostly like that of Modern Kathourevousa.   One can render vita (beta) as "v" (its Hellenistic pronunciation) or as alphabetic "b"; eu and au are either "eu" and "au" or else "ef" and "af" before "p, t, k, ph, th, kh, s" and "ev" and "av" before other sounds.  The Hellenistic pronunciation of delta should never be "th"; either use "d" or "dh."  "Ch" is usual for khi.   "Ei" and "ou" should be either both "i" and "u" or "ei" and "ou."  When transliterating Greek words with an English keyboard, theta is "q," omega is "w," and eta is "h."  The circumflex can have a curl (tilde) over it or a French pointy circumflex; we are at the mercy of our keyboards.  The ancient circumflex was an arc.  It is confusing to transliterate classical Greek "y, oi, ui" and eta as "i"--despite the Hellenistic pronunciation's being "ee."  I have, however,  used "i" in vita (bêta) above, and many write vêma as vima in English.  

Many writers misuse religion in the pejorative sense of "religiosity" or fideism.  This is confusing as well as wrong and should therefore be avoided.  See further HERE.

The Sarakostian (40-day) Great Fast begins on Vespers seven Lordsdays (49 days) before Pascha and ends on the Friday before Lazaros Sabbath and the Lordsday of Christ's Entry into Jerusalem (Palm Lordsday).  Fasting is mitigated, more than during the Fast, on the two days just mentioned.  Then Holy Great Week begins on Monday.

    The foregoing festivals have, except for a long since diverged common origin, virtually nothing in common but their date.  While the Theophany or Festival of Lights celebrates our Savior's Baptism, the Epiphany is about the Magi's visit.

The Apodosis or Closure of the Paschal season is 
the day preceding Ascension Day

"Unto the ages of ages" is not only senseless in English; it also lacks the cursus that prayers should end with in the rhetoric of prayer English.

Something that was once learned in the first week of studying ancient Greek, but which seems to be beyond the ken of many translators is that--since the ancients didn't have the comma--they put kaì "and" after each item in a series--where we use commas after each item and write "and" only before the last item in a series--e.g. "of the Father, (of) the Son, and (of) the Holy Spirit.  Some Orthodox prayerbooks have "Life-giving awesome Mysteries" for the acceptable "awesome Life-giving Mysteries."

Note the cognates:  charity : cherish.  The Greek words for "love"--agápe, philía, érws, and storyé require great cleverness and astuteness to distinguish in proper-sounding English.  Agápe is usually considered Christian love par excellence and the Latins call it c(h)aritas.  É has both very sexual and very non-sexual, heaven-aspiring senses; its basic sense is close to attraction.  Philía is "friendship," and storyé is familial love, especially love for one's parents.

     Phýsis was a lubricious word in Greek, meaning everything from "essence" and "person," to its own most proper reference--the energies or functions (of an essence).  It is often used as equivalent to ousía "essence"; but if the distinction between the two terms is not heeded, one will misread 2 Peter 1:4.

The untranslatable noûs is located in the heart; the emphasis is more on transrational than on intellect, since it is more subjective and intuitive than objectively intellectual; noûs has been called the "eye of the soul" because it involves a higher inner understanding than lógos "reason"

(H)énosis is not to be confused with kénosis "emptying."  The three phases of Salvation are called Catharsis or Purification, Illumination, and Union or Theosis; the last is achieved through a noëtic Vision of the Divine Being beyond being in the form of His uncreated Energies.  This vision is not on the level of ordinary seeing or knowing, let alone an "intentional" vision of the unseeable Essence of God, as the Beatific Vision is supposed to be.  It is apprehended by the noûs in Orthodox thinking and for this reason is called a noëtic vision.  (Contrast the Protestant triad of Justification, Sanctification, and Calling.)

Dynamic refers to a potential power; when one is referring to activity rather than potential, the proper term is energetic.

Greek, Hebrew, Latin, German, and Russian differentiate the word for  "man" (adult male) from the word for "humanity"; the Romance languages with English do not.  To recognize the difference ihas nothing to do with the war against gender-discrimination; it is simply being correct . . . just as it is linguistic correct to derive French masculines from feminines rather than conversely, something that can readily be demonstrated to be the right way by any competent linguist who simply compares the pronunciations of masculine and feminine pairs in the language to see which can be derived from the other by a general principle.

     It can only be viewed as unfortunate when Orthodox writers say that holy Orthodoxy is "mystical, not intellectual, like Latin theology."  For the Orthodox a Mystery is a material vehicle or channel of the uncreated Energies of Grace as well as to refer to something of an infinite nature (whether material like Christ's Body and Blood in the Eucharist or immaterial like the procession of the all-holy Spirit in the all-holy Trinity   . . .   or both, as in the Incarnation) that finite human reason is unable to analyse intellectually.  These words come across to many non-Orthodox as being anti-materiotemporal like Quakerism; or as being a cover-up for fuzzy thinking.  In not clarifying what one means by "not intellectual"--meant to indicate a framework that is not a reason-first framework and to indicate a rejection the misuse of finite reason to analyse infinite Mysteries--one often comes across as being anti-reason (in reason's proper role)--a wretched result, given that Christ is the Reason (LOGOS) and Wisdom (SOPHIA) of God, according to St. John the Evangelist and St. Paul.  The Orthodox accept the use of reason to understand revelation; it is used apophatically in understanding from revelation what God is not and parallel-wise with other Mysteries.

Fr. J. Romanides has pointed out theological reasons for not using "kingdom" in the foregoing, e.g. in the Lord's Prayer; there may be places where "kingdom" fits better than the proper glosses

Some distinguish lesser and greater metanias--the latter being a prostra- tion or proskýnesis.  A deep bow can also be called a "reverence."

See HERE for the various kinds of monastic arrangements (lavras, sketes, etc.); some Orthodox object to convent for women's monasteries, but others insist that the term is quite acceptable

Note:  There cannot be any "official" religion in the USA; a state religion normally, but not always, receives funding from government taxation.

A correspondent has provided this information:  At some point, every Greek diocesan bishops became styled "metropolitan,"  so that "metro- politan" became an honorific for all diocesan bishops, while archbishop became a territorial title; an archbishop outranks a metropolitan.  The Slavic (and Antiochian) traditions have maintained the converse, older usage, i.e. an archbishop is a regular bishop who is more honored (for long service, etc.), while a metropolitan is a bishop over a large or important diocese (though archbishop is not so ubiquitous as Greek metropolitan.)

"Canon law" seems redundant to Greeks, since both words mean the same thing, and the singular and plural uses are also similar.

Another, quite contrary, sense of "canonize" is to "lay an ecclesiastical punishment (e.g. excommunication) on a member of the Church."  Greek has several words for "Saint," including (h)ágios and (h)ósios; the epithet "Blessed" may or may not be used for a non-glorified or a glorified Saint:  English is different from most languages in distinguishing the words for "holy" and "Saint"

     The negative side is a sustained awareness of one’s finitude and a pricking of the conscience with remorse for one’s failings; whose affirmative side is knowing that one is united with Christ as His member and with deep contrition firmly resolving not to sin.

Rector means "ruler" and has special financial and juridical connotations in English law not appropriate for an Orthodox pastor

      Other terminological confusions should be avoided. The Western concept of the "supernatural" (the Latins have two uses of the terminology, each with two subdivisions) is pretty much absent in the East, where the distinction between uncreated and created is supplemented by the idea of transcendent (noëtic and gnostic) apprehension. Note that gnostic has a Christian sense wholly at variance with the Gnostics' denial of the worth of materiality and time for religion. A similar difference occurs in the uses of éros "love of what is attractive." From eternity—what has neither beginning nor end, what is timeless—it is necessary to distinguish æviternity/sempiternity (which has a beginning but no end). In the West, one must avoid confusing what is supernatural from what is præternatural—the life of Heaven, that of the unembodied beings (Angels, Cherubim, Seraphim) and that of re-embodied human beings. What is præternatural is not counternatural. The same is true of immortality, which is neither by nature nor contrary to nature, since it supplements, enhances, and perpetuates what is natural.

     Differences in interfaith terminology reflect different outlooks. One says that the Eastern Trinity is PERSONALIST because it locates divine Unity in the Father as the sole Source of all being, whereas the Augustinian-Western Trinity is ESSENTIALIST because it begins with God’s Essence and treats the Son-LOGOS and Holy Spirit pretty much as as substantialized relations within that Essence based on intellect and will (love) with one another.
     Soteriological terminology is quite varied. In contrast with a worshiper’s ontological Unity with the uncreated Energies of God’s Being, we find in the West not only an array of juridical terms (satisfaction, atonement [reconciliation], ransoming [redemption], justification, regeneration, adoption, sanctification, substitution, etc.) interpreted in terms of legal or forensic categories) but also either the Latin’s intentional-conceptual (virtual) Unity with God’s imparticipable Essence or the Reformers’ forensic/juridical/legal will-based unity with that Essence. Protestants emphasize the substitutionary aspect of the Cross and of course treat justice/righteousness as "forensic" or (imputed and virtual) Both outlooks base original guilt on one kind of covenantal idea or another; and Denominationists treat Unity with God as covenantal (legal; they often used the Latin term fœderal "covenantal"). Most Protestants (other than perhaps some upholders of some form of "progressive revelation") use tradition in the loose sense of an association of ideas that can one way or another be traced back to some founder—even when this "association" may be no more than ideas provoked by reacting against the teachings of the founder in question in favor of entirely different teachings.   
     Truths already accepted admit of being deepened or expanded with insights into further implications of those already established by the Fathers. This "deepening" can be the result of subsequent revelations. Or it can result from inspired insights concerning tradition teachings, so long as such "supplements" do no despite to what has been there previously. The "supplements" may clarify something previously held, or they may add additional views consonant with those already accepted. It is obvous to any but the most static-minded that insights and understandings about given truths grow-are added to-over time. The West has little place for the ontological Incarnation and Resurrection in its soteriology, just as the East lacks the second-millennium juridical ideas of satsifaction, etc. Though Greek dikaíosis (Latin justificatio) can be a juridical acquittal, it literally signifies "making righteous" Latin justificatio) is not juridical in the East; and Greek dikaiosýne (Latin justitia) mean "righteousness."   
     Various paired terms are often confused. One example involves normal (a statistic) and natural (what promotes or is conducive to a nature, which is the function of an essence). Another pair involves hierateia or priesthood (what serves God) and diacony (what serves humans); the "priesthood of believers" is often misunderstood. Of course, in our Savior’s works, His priesthood (His Self-sacrifice) was also diaconal.

     "Word" sounds risible.  Greek lógos could mean "saying" in some contexts (hence its early Latin rendering as sermo) but not "word" except in contexts like English "keep/break one's word [promise]" or "give them the word [signal, command].  Its other major sense was "reason"; this sense was the one that the Creator (LOGOS, YHWH) adopted.

     Philo the Middle-Platonist Jew and other Platonist and Stoic philosophers used the sense of "Reason" for the Creator.  It was Philo that influenced the language of John 1:1,3, according to the Harvard philosopher, H. A Wolfson.

     St. Paul called Christ the Wisdom (SOPHIA or practical reason) of God; cf. 2 or. 5:17, Gal. 6:15.  Christ "the Reason and Wisdom of God" exhibits a balance that falls apart in an alleged coupling of "Word and Wisdom."

     St. Maximos the Confessor and others spoke of the lógoi or raisons d'être in created beings; this was correctly Latinized as rationes "reasons" by John Duns Scotus.

     If the Creator is Reason, then the world is logikós "rational," as the ancients concluded.  Had he been a word, the cosmos would be lexikós "wordy"--which probably only a Protestant would maintain to be the case.

     Using "Word" for the Creator invites all of those illicit shiftings in Protestant writers between the Creator and a sermon or the Bible--also written with an upper-case "W."  It is easy to fall into word-magic-- another reason why "Word" should not be used to designate the Creator of all.