Musicking as Liturgical Speech Acts: An Examination of Contemporary Worship Music Practices

This article examines the genre of Contemporary Worship Music (CWM) within worship contexts in terms of its formative and purposeful nature. In CWM settings, the worship leader plays a particular role in the selection and facilitation of CWM repertoire to be led by praise bands. Through the leader's consideration of the message of the CWM lyrics, and the relational nature of CWM practices, a worship leader's pedagogical decisions are integral to contributing to a space of dialogue for worship musicians. Drawing on previous literature addressing liturgical language in worship, I analyze the CWM context as a particular case where liturgical language shapes musicians’ spiritual formation. This examination of CWM practices includes an analysis of musicians’ engagement in relational musicking and meeting through I-Thou encounters. I therefore explore both the need for worship leaders to consider the multitudinous theological implications of their actions, as well as the way musicians are shaped and formed intimately through their musical engagement with CWM.

Too deep for words alone: principles for liturgical and Prayer Book revision

As the Episcopal Church undertakes Prayer Book and liturgical revision, it is important to focus not only on liturgical language but also on nonverbal elements of liturgy, especially symbolism, the public nature of services, and racial justice.

Insights from Adolescents’ Prayer Requests within a Christian Ethos School: A Qualitative Perspective

State-maintained Christian ethos schools are a prominent part of the educational landscape of England and Wales, and a growing body of empirical research has sought to access, study and interpret the voices of their students in order to contribute to a fuller understanding of life within these schools and their place in contemporary Britain. As part of this endeavour, this study focuses on what may be learnt from students’ prayer in a joint Anglican and Catholic Christian ethos secondary school. Following the identification of the school prayer board and intercessory prayers within school Eucharists as offering a significant contribution to the Christian ethos school, this study set out to explore and evaluate these prayer requests composed by students. Taking a sample of 212 prayers, an established analytic framework for the analysis and classification of intercessory prayer (the apSAFIP) was employed and other notable characteristics identified (including prayer type, ‘proclamations’, drawings, liturgical language and style). The findings draw attention to the distinctive profile of the prayer requests offered within the school in terms of the issues for which prayers are offered, and the religious language, expressions, and themes that shape these prayers. The study concludes by appraising the performance of the apSAFIP in this new context and by considering what may be learnt from these themes and linguistic forms about the spiritual and religious lives of the students.

The Word as an Icon

How do Russian Orthodox Christians frame their understanding of semiotic ideologies of worship? That is to say, how do worshippers interpret liturgical language ‘signs’ and how do these interpretations colour their views as to which language is ‘right’ for the Church? There are to be found two semiotic ideologies of worship in Moscow. There are traditionalists for whom the liturgical language is embodied; it becomes the language of God through its vocalisation and enactment. Then, there are those who believe that Church Slavonic is not an indelible part of Russian Orthodox life and that in terms of its semiotic status its relation to the world it represents is an arbitrary one. Those who invoke the former, folk understandings of semiotic praxis perceive the Holy language as an icon or experiential portal that makes the presence of God more presupposable. Conceptions of language and linguistic register vary intra-culturally. Fieldwork showed how different perceptions of form map onto consciousness, raising questions of intentionality as assumptions about who is speaking (God or the priest) are bound up with the form that is used. Keywords: liturgical language, embodiment, semiotic ideology, worship, icon

THE LANGUAGE OF IMAGES IN THE SHORT STORY «THE LIGHTINING OF ILLUMANING WORDS» BY V. A. NIKIFOROV-VOLGIN

This paper studies literary images connected with the main theme of V. A. Nikiforov- Volgin’s story «Lightning of illumaning words» - dedicated to the subject of Church Slavonic language. The author’s text is filled with metaphors and similes related to the liturgical language of the Church. Imagery used as a means of expression can be found in both Church Slavonic chants cited by the characters and the narrator’s speech. Their basic purpose is to emphasize the esthetic aspect of Church Slavonic words. The literary images used for this purpose include lightning, light, jewels, gold, silver, water, weave, or a flower.

Современные полевые исследования литургического языка словаков византийско-славянской традиции

The paper focuses on the issue of the existence of the Slovak variant of the Church Slavonic language. The cultural-historical and linguistic specifics of the liturgical language forms are pointed out. The author obtained the research findings on the liturgical Church Slavonic of Slovak believers of the Byzantine rite during several years of field research.

Language as Cultural Expression: The Case of Limbu Mundhum and Ritual* Ramesh Kumar Limbu

An anthropological study of „religious /ritual language‟ concerns the relationship between the study of language and the study of culture. This article, using ethnolinguistics and ethnographies of communication as tools of study, examines how the Mundhum language distinctively maintains ethnographic communication by use of the ritual language, and communicates the social worldviews and cultural cognition of Limbu community. The Limbu, known also by endonym "Yakthung", are one of historically notable indigenous communities of Nepal. They have their own distinctive culture based on traditional ritual performances guided by Mundhum. The Mundhum is narrated and recited by Limbu ritual/religious actants/officiants in cultural/ritual observations, that is, rituals from pre-birth to after death. The study focuses on the issue how the Mundhum language, also known as Ritual Language (RL), is distinctive to the everyday language or Ordinary Language (OL) and helps express their cultural perceptions, behaviours and way of life. In doing so, it also shows the way this ritual/liturgical language influences not merely the kinds of speech but also the aspects of tradition, culture and way of life.

The Ruthenian Version of the Early Rus᾿ Exegesis on the Easter Canon and the Functioning of Ruthenian

The Ruthenian version of the Early Rus᾿ Exegesis on John of Damascus᾿ Easter Canon is published here according to the sole known mid-16th century manuscript from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (Saint Petersburg, The Library of the Russian Academy of Sciences, P. Dobrokhotov collection (f. 37), No. 18, f. 302‒308). The text belongs to the little known in Early Slavic studies genre of exegesis (commentaries) on hymnography and is a part of a larger (and still unpublished) set of Old Church Slavonic hymnopgraphic commentaries compiled in Pre-Mongol Kievan Rus in the late 12th‒early 13th c. From the entire set, merely the exegesis on the Easter Canon is known to be translated from Old Church Slavonic into Ruthenian.The translation confirms the earlier conclusion that Ruthenian was never used in liturgical singing in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, since it was functioning as a lingua ad homines and clearly differed from Old Church Slavonic, which was used as a lingua ad Deum, e.g. the only Slavic Eastern Orthodox liturgical language directly addressed to God. The publication is accompanied by a description of themost important general characteristics of the Ruthenian version, which is a later and already corruptedcopy of the original translation.