Saturday, September 10, 2016

Is it integral to monastic or religious life as such?

the use of liturgical texts in Greek, Latin, Church Slavonic,or Syriac/Aramaic? How much of Coptic is intelligible to the average Coptic Christian?

Is it the case that the use of such languages is not essential to monastic life and to most forms of religious life -- except those religious communities that seek to specialize in learning Greek/Latin/etc. for the sake of study, knowing the roots of their theological tradition, and theological dialogue. Indeed, to have certain orders or religious houses dedicated to the study of important texts in their original languages would be of great service to the Church, I would think. For them, to be so familiar with the language that they are able to pray (and converse) in those languages would be an ideal standard, and this could be a component of their identity or charism.

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