Liturgical Greek training for Orthodox priests

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revans
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Liturgical Greek training for Orthodox priests

Post by revans »

Does anyone know how Greek Orthodox seminarians in Greece are taught Liturgical (Koine) Greek at present? I listen to a number of liturgies from Greece and Cyprus, and the priests seem really to control expressing the language; you can sense that control from their phrasing of the texts. None of my professors in grad school could read that way--of course, Erasamian pronunciation may have an influence here.

Aetos
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Re: Liturgical Greek training for Orthodox priests

Post by Aetos »

Hi,
I can't provide any information about instruction in Orthodox seminaries in Greece, but perusing the course catalogue of the Holy Cross Theological School in Brookline, MA., I see that 6 semesters are offered in the undergraduate program for Modern Greek with just 2 semesters of Koine, and I'm willing to bet that the latter is taught using the Modern Greek pronunciation. I can imagine that hearing the liturgies written in Koine but spoken with the modern pronunciation could make them difficult to follow for someone trained in the Erasmian or Restored Pronunciation. If one visits a Greek Orthodox church, he will find copies of the Divine Liturgy in the pews with the original Greek and an English translation on facing pages. Online, the Greek Archdiocese publishes many of the liturgical texts in the original Greek as well as in English:
https://www.goarch.org/chapel/texts
Hope this helps

Michael204351
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Re: Liturgical Greek training for Orthodox priests

Post by Michael204351 »

Aetos wrote: Thu Sep 23, 2021 11:42 am Hi,
I can't provide any information about instruction in Orthodox seminaries in Greece, but perusing the course catalogue of the Holy Cross Theological School in Brookline, MA., I see that 6 semesters are offered in the undergraduate program for Modern Greek with just 2 semesters of Koine, and I'm willing to bet that the latter is taught using the Modern Greek pronunciation. I can imagine that hearing the liturgies written in Koine but spoken with the modern pronunciation could make them difficult to follow for someone trained in the Erasmian or Restored Pronunciation. If one visits a Greek Orthodox church, he will find copies of the Divine Liturgy in the pews with the original Greek and an English translation on facing pages. Online, the Greek Archdiocese publishes many of the liturgical texts in the original Greek as well as in English:
https://www.goarch.org/chapel/texts
Hope this helps
As surprising (and disappointing) as it may seem, Holy Cross actually just uses Croy’s Koine Greek grammar.

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