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Author Topic: Her Orthodox faith--and your marriage  (Read 223478 times)

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Offline mendeleyev

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Re: Her Orthodox faith--and your marriage
« Reply #200 on: September 04, 2011, 10:37:28 PM »
1- Russian is an entirely different language and there would be no reason for Russians to use a translation of some English version.

No, they'd be clueless as to what you are trying to say. It is difficult enough to communicate between 2 languages with modern phrasing so you can imagine how hard it would be to translate outdated terms into Russian and vice versa.


Sidetracking for a moment, in the Western English speaking world there is an Orthodox Study Bible. http://orthodoxstudybible.com/

As part of the ancient Church councils determining which letters would be included in the official canon in the 4th century (there was no complete Bible prior to that time), Orthodoxy does not accept the protestant revisions of the Bible which eliminated certain books. http://orthodoxstudybible.com/uploads/BibleBooksChart.pdf


2- The Russian Orthodox Church uses the Russian Synodal Translation (Синодальный перевод), a Russian non-Church Slavonic translation of the Bible which is also commonly used by Russian Baptists, Protestant, and Roman Catholic churches in Russia.

The translation began in 1813, after the establishment of the Russian Bible Society under permission of Tsar Alexander I. The work was partly halted under a more conservative emperor Nicholas I (between 1825 and 1855), but it was again resumed and completed in the reign of Alexander II.

The Most Holy Synod entrusted the translation to four Orthodox theological academies, in Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Kazan and Kiev. The complete work was published in 1876.

Some minor language changes have been made since but the work stands as originally translated.

Russian liturgical services are conducted in a combination of modern Russian and Old Church Slavonic, an original Slavic language but Scripture readings are done in this translation (above) and sermons are in modern Russian. Church Slavonic is understandable to Russian speaking people.

Like most of the Eastern world, Russians view multiple translations as a confusing product of the protestant reformation. Since the reformation never made it out of the Western world the divisions and issues of that time are foreign to Russian Christians.

A trusted work, the Synodal translation is used today by not just Orthodox but other Christian groups in Russia (and the FSU) as well. A few other versions have tried to gain acceptable with little to no prospects for success.


Offline ChrisE

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Re: Her Orthodox faith--and your marriage
« Reply #201 on: September 05, 2011, 01:38:57 AM »
 Great reply mendy, an actual scholor would have trouble topping that one! ;)

 But now I have a question of my own. You mentioned that this is the way in most FSU countries. My ex lady from Ukraine was strict RO. But now I have found someone from Belarus. Knowing how politically fooked it is there, what is the religious practice? My lady claims to be catholic, yet doesn't seem to want to discuss it. Is this another throwback to the communist era? I just get that impression somehow.

Offline Paul

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Re: Her Orthodox faith--and your marriage
« Reply #202 on: September 05, 2011, 07:54:33 AM »
My lady claims to be catholic, yet doesn't seem to want to discuss it. Is this another throwback to the communist era? I just get that impression somehow.

Western guys just make a bigger deal out of some things than the women they are pursuing do.


Offline mendeleyev

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Re: Her Orthodox faith--and your marriage
« Reply #203 on: September 05, 2011, 08:44:49 AM »
Chris, the Russian Orthodox Church is the main church of Belarus however as much of Belarus at one point belonged to other countries like Ukraine or Poland and as once part of the Austro-Hungarian (Western European) empire there are considerable numbers of Roman Catholics in both Belarus and Ukraine just as there are in Poland today.

My read is with Paul, were it an issue of great importance you'd likely already know about it. She is likely to be comfortable with the fact there her man is "Christian" in some form as long as not part of an extreme group.

Unless the girl is a strong Orthodox believer in which case she'd filter out many Western guys, there are two pitfalls for guys to seriously be aware:

Pitfall #1
I get to see this several times each year in the USA. One morning the new wife wakes up and goes to the bathroom where that little stick turns blue. A month or two later you can pick out the husband, wearing a deer in headlights look as he stands in an Orthodox church where his bride, who prior to their marriage had sworn that religion wasn't important in her life, is returning to her Orthodox roots at full throttle mock speed because of a baby and the poor husband is wondering which truck ran him over.

This marriage will stand or fall depending on the response of the husband because "the gal ain't gonna change" now. He can join in and become a part of the process, or in many cases the husband decides that he can tolerate it and participate on religious holidays while she does "her thing."



Pitfall #2
The husband is a committed protestant and thought that because she was only nominally Orthodox that she's come over to his side with a little time, patience and Bible reading.

He too will be found standing in an Orthodox church at some point down the road, also wearing that deer in headlights look. He is easier to spot however because he carried his Bible to church. He is now discovering that Orthodox is Catholic, different from Roman Catholic because there were theological reasons for East and West splitting in the year 1057, but full-on Catholic in every sense of the word.

In this case the husband often discovers that she views his informal worship and reformation era doctrines as "cheap grace" resembling little in a serious expression of faith no matter how many Bible studies he drug her to in the early months and years.

I don't recommend that committed evangelical protestants pursue a RW/UW outside of some very strict filtering processes at the very start of the search stage because this marriage generally ends in heartbreak and failure down the road since usually both will be intractable. Truth: if she is not already part of a minority protestant group in the FSU now, only in the tinest number of cases does this ever change.

From time to time you'll hear stories of success from an evangelical protestant guy with an Orthodox lady but his situation is a rare exception and nowhere within miles of the rule.

Good news for evangelicals: There are beautiful ladies available in the FSU who share these beliefs. It will take diligence and patience and the search will not be quick, but they can be found.

Offline mendeleyev

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Re: Her Orthodox faith--and your marriage
« Reply #204 on: September 05, 2011, 08:51:09 AM »
In thinking of your question Chris, there is a cultural tidbit at work here too. Money and salary are openly discussed with friends and relatives around the dinner table but religion is not. She is likely not comfortable with the topic until you've met and she feels comfortable with you in other areas before entering into a discussion on matters of faith.

Offline mendeleyev

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Re: Her Orthodox faith--and your marriage
« Reply #205 on: September 05, 2011, 09:03:33 AM »
Roman Catholic and Anglican guys do well with this process. The RC guy will need to make some allowances and work out marriage details in consultation with his and her priest but if each side is willing to bend a little the major pitfalls can be avoided. One note: for an Orthodox woman to be married in a RC ceremony is to denounce her baptism. That is a serious issue for her and she knows this, your priest knows this, and her priest knows this, but there are solutions if you're willing to participate in an Orthodox wedding ceremony and no reason this marriage cannot be successful.

Anglican guys have it even easier as while they are separate churches with some theological differences, historically there has been ties of cooperation between Orthodox and Anglican bodies. Same issue regarding the wedding ceremony as above but easier to iron out the details of your participation in an Orthodox ceremony.

Offline Slumba

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Re: Her Orthodox faith--and your marriage
« Reply #206 on: September 05, 2011, 09:05:33 AM »
1- Russian is an entirely different language and there would be no reason for Russians to use a translation of some English version.

No, they'd be clueless as to what you are trying to say. It is difficult enough to communicate between 2 languages with modern phrasing so you can imagine how hard it would be to translate outdated terms into Russian and vice versa.


Mendy, thank you for your excellent response!

What I mean is, let's take this verse as an example:

Matthew 23:27
King James Version (KJV)
 27  Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness.

Now, let's say I have a Russian-language Synodal Translation Bible; I go to the same verse, and read it in Russian. 

What is the likelihood that the Russian-phrased equivalent of "whited sepulchres" , has made it into the language as an idiom or something that an educated person would know?

Anchors Rewoven

Offline mendeleyev

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Re: Her Orthodox faith--and your marriage
« Reply #207 on: September 05, 2011, 09:21:45 AM »
Quote
Now, let's say I have a Russian-language Synodal Translation Bible; I go to the same verse, and read it in Russian.

What is the likelihood that the Russian-phrased equivalent of "whited sepulchres" , has made it into the language as an idiom or something that an educated person would know?

Of course it is possible, but keep in mind that we're talking different languages and there is no reason for an English idiom to be a Russian idiom. For starters, the Synodal translation wasn't a translation of the KJV into Russian.

Some idioms do cross, for instance: лучше поздно чем никогда (better late than never). But most don't make any sense.

“Beware, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you are hypocrites! You are like stained tombs, beautiful on the outside but on the inside are unclean with the bones of the dead."

They're different languages. Give the task to 10 different translators and you'll come up with 10 very close but likely slightly different versions. You simply can't go word for word from one language to another especially when dealing with different alphabets. The best a translator can do is effectively communicate the original idea from one language to the other.

In some passages you're also dealing with a numbering issue. The KJV was an Anglican work and earlier versions included all the historical books but later versions were condensed to 66 books. Post reformation Bibles in the West use what is called "Strong's numbering system" for the man who created that system of numbering. Remember that the original Bible was created in the 4th century from individual letters of the Apostles. Those letters didn't number each line or "verse" as we know it today. Strong's numbering system was primarily Western. In some cases the numbers themselves will be different from West to East.

Offline mendeleyev

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Re: Her Orthodox faith--and your marriage
« Reply #208 on: June 16, 2012, 05:30:12 PM »
As many readers are not familiar with Orthodox etiquette, I'm linking the Mendeleyev Journal guide to the "do's and don'ts" in an Orthodox Church here.


Offline mendeleyev

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Re: Her Orthodox faith--and your marriage
« Reply #209 on: August 07, 2012, 10:36:58 PM »
Here are a few factoids in understanding the Orthodox faith.

Priests and Deacons in the Eastern Orthodox Catholic church may marry and have a family if the marriage takes place before ordination, otherwise they must remain single. If a priest is widowed he cannot remarry. In the Orthodox Church both the priest as well as his wife must have been married only one time—to each other. This applies regardless of whether the person is no longer married due to divorce or to widowhood.


ila_rendered



ila_rendered


To become a Bishop or any higher rank, a priest must have been unmarried from the start.

A few months back we were standing for a service in Moscow's Cathedral of Christ the Saviour and two priests and their families from Bulgaria entered and stood nearby. The vestments of Bulgarian priests are slightly different from Russian styled vestments, adding just a touch of variety to the Sunday morning scene. Their children were well behaved and it was a pleasure to see how they were received by other Orthodox worshipers on that Sunday morning.

Primarily in Western Ukraine, there is the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, sometimes called the Uniate, which are Byzantine rite (Eastern Orthodox styled) churches in communion with the Roman Catholic Church. The Pope in Rome is the head of this church, ruling through an Archbishop in Ukraine. These priests may marry even though their Latin/Roman brethren may not.
         

Online AvHdB

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Re: Her Orthodox faith--and your marriage
« Reply #210 on: February 04, 2013, 02:03:20 PM »
It was asked if I knew the dates this year of the import feasts of the Russian Orthodox Church.

This site lists them and the days of fast  http://calendar.lenacom.spb.ru/index.en.php 
“If you aren't in over your head, how do you know how tall you are?” T.S. Eliot

Offline goforit

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Re: Her Orthodox faith--and your marriage
« Reply #211 on: April 05, 2013, 06:06:58 PM »

Sidetracking for a moment, in the Western English speaking world there is an Orthodox Study Bible. http://orthodoxstudybible.com/

I have found this Orthoodox translation of the Bible to be a great blessing in my life: http://www.orthodoxanswers.org/eob/about.asp
“Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all.” – Frédéric Bastiat

Offline goforit

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Re: Her Orthodox faith--and your marriage
« Reply #212 on: April 05, 2013, 06:20:47 PM »
Quote
we would have a second wedding under my faith which would then be legal as well.


Chris, in most instances the ROC will not allow a ceremony until the ZAGS (legal) wedding has been completed.

Some priests will perform a RO ceremony if: you've accepted a Christian baptism, completed a series of premarital counseling sessions which will include some delving into your beliefs, and pledged to a quick civil ceremony upon arrival in your country, and a promise that she will continue to attend regular Orthodox services and the children be raised Orthodox.

Secondly, for her to participate in another religious ceremony, as the Orthodox wedding is a sacred sacrament imparting grace to the couple, a second wedding ceremony of a different faith is considered to be a renunciation of her baptism. Should a priest ever find out, and easy enough to do in confession, she could be denied access to the sacraments and even excommunicated. What in your view is no big deal, is a denial of faith in her situation.

Old Tevye from "Fiddler on the Roof" may not have been well-educated but he wasn't a dummy either. His question of "A bird may love a fish, but where will they build a home together?" carries a boatload of wisdom and common sense.

Curious as to how all this turned out for Chris. It has been almost two years since he last posted.
“Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all.” – Frédéric Bastiat

Online AvHdB

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Re: Her Orthodox faith--and your marriage
« Reply #213 on: August 26, 2013, 02:06:52 AM »
In 2014 Easter in both the Orthodox and Western Christian faiths are the same day, April 20th.
“If you aren't in over your head, how do you know how tall you are?” T.S. Eliot

Offline Mikeav8r

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Re: Her Orthodox faith--and your marriage
« Reply #214 on: August 26, 2013, 08:36:05 AM »
In 2014 Easter in both the Orthodox and Western Christian faiths are the same day, April 20th.

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Offline mendeleyev

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Re: Her Orthodox faith--and your marriage
« Reply #215 on: February 04, 2014, 12:39:34 PM »
You've traveled to the FSU and your lady suggests that you accompany her to church on Sunday. You've wondered what that might be like and so intrigued, you say yes.

Then comes the question of etiquette. You don't wish to be insincere and pretend to be something you aren't, but at the same time you wish to be respectful of the beliefs of others. So there is where we'll start, not in an attempt to convert you, but rather to help you understand her faith and to participate with her to the extent you feel comfortable and to do so without committing any colossal blunders that embarrass you both.


ila_rendered
(Mendeleyev photo from Kolomenskoye Park, as published in Russia Beyond the Headlines)


When you hear the term the "Orthodox Church" it is one church with various jurisdictions. One Greek priest I know likes to say that the only differences between the Greek, Russian, Serbian, North American, Bulgarian, Georgian, etc, churches are the kind of pastries served after the services and he is basically on target. Across the world we celebrate the same liturgy each Sunday even down to the Scripture readings for that week and doctrinally we are one, but some customs and traditions will vary from country to country.

How should you dress? In the typical Orthodox church you'll see plenty of long sleeve shirts even in summer but if you didn't bring one, don't despair. Dressy casual is how I typically dress for church as suits and ties are not a requirement, except for special occasions and your lady will clue you in on what is necessary for those special days. Just don't wear tank tops, t-shirts, sandals, and if in winter it is okay to keep your coat on but don't stick your hands in your pockets as most Russians consider that to be rude.

I like to take loose coins in a pocket as most Sunday mornings you will encounter people just outside the church property will little baskets or jars. To give some money to someone is the practice of "alms-giving" in Christian terminology. You don't have to give and this is not like folk who approach you at convenience stores in the West, they'll keep their eyes down and only speak (a thank you) if you decide to share some coins.


(Mendeleyev photo, Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, Moscow)


Prior to entering you'll notice that your lady makes the sign of the cross and bows slightly before entering the doors to the church. If you don't feel comfortable signing yourself, at least make a slight bow out of respect.

For those who wish to learn how to sign correctly it is very easy. Finger placement is important as you bring your thumb and first two fingers to a point. Those three fingers joined represent the Trinity (Father-Son-Holy Spirit) and it is with those three that you make the sign of the cross at entry and then many times during the liturgy. The last two fingers are tucked into your palm and they represent the two natures of Christ: fully God and fully man.

Now you're ready to quietly enter.

Offline mendeleyev

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Re: Her Orthodox faith--and your marriage
« Reply #216 on: February 04, 2014, 12:43:49 PM »
To be continued...

Offline mendeleyev

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Re: Her Orthodox faith--and your marriage
« Reply #217 on: May 10, 2014, 11:02:47 PM »
Coming soon...

Offline mendeleyev

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Re: Her Orthodox faith--and your marriage
« Reply #218 on: May 10, 2014, 11:03:03 PM »
To be continued...

Offline mendeleyev

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Re: Her Orthodox faith--and your marriage
« Reply #219 on: May 10, 2014, 11:03:18 PM »
Coming soon...

Offline mendeleyev

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Re: Her Orthodox faith--and your marriage
« Reply #220 on: May 10, 2014, 11:10:03 PM »
During the trip to Sevastopol (Victory Day on 09 May 2014), President Putin visited the Cathedral of St Prince Vladimir Equal to the Apostles.



The President was updated on the history of the cathedral which is considered a symbol of the Orthodox presence in the Black Sea region.




Mr Putin toured the upper church while listening to the church choir as he stopped to light candles and pray. He also visited the lower section of the church where well-known senior Russian naval officers are buried.





The President also briefed on progress with restoration work being done.

In Russian tradition a child is given the name of a saint as the first name or "saint name" and as we know that Mr. Putin's mother had him baptized secretly upon his birth, his first name reflects Saint Vladimir as his "saint name."

Unlike Prime Minister Medvedev who is more outspoken about his faith, Mr. Putin doesn't wear it on his shoulder so to speak but he is much more than a "special occasion" Orthodox person and attends services several times monthly. Given his nature he prefers to blend it with Russian worshipers at small churches in outlying regions of Moscow and Saint Petersburg. As to the blending in efforts, he tries but is much too well-known for such to go unnoticed, especially when accompanied by members of the Federal Security Services.


Offline Brian275

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Re: Her Orthodox faith--and your marriage
« Reply #221 on: November 26, 2016, 09:56:24 PM »
As for my fiance and I it doesn't matter. She is Russian Orthodox (and a strong believer) and I'm agnostic. She prefers that I "believe in God" and even has given me a cross pendant. But, she's OK with me being an agnostic. 

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Re: Her Orthodox faith--and your marriage
« Reply #222 on: November 28, 2016, 05:57:44 AM »
As for my fiance and I it doesn't matter. She is Russian Orthodox (and a strong believer) and I'm agnostic. She prefers that I "believe in God" and even has given me a cross pendant. But, she's OK with me being an agnostic.

There is a chance that will change upon marriage.

Most Christian Orthodox women are OK with a Protestant faith that confirms the Nicene Creed, second version.
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Offline el_guero

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Re: Her Orthodox faith--and your marriage
« Reply #223 on: June 10, 2017, 08:08:44 PM »
As for my fiance and I it doesn't matter. She is Russian Orthodox (and a strong believer) and I'm agnostic. She prefers that I "believe in God" and even has given me a cross pendant. But, she's OK with me being an agnostic.

There is a chance that will change upon marriage.

Most Christian Orthodox women are OK with a Protestant faith that confirms the Nicene Creed, second version.

Great for me.


 

 

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