Source: No Other Foundation
March 31, 2018
In a thoughtful article published recently on Public Orthodoxy entitled, “It’s That Time of Year Again: in Tone Four, ‘The Murderers of God, the Lawless Nation of the Jews…’”Bogdan Bucur offered some reflections about the advisability of altering certain stichs from the Matins services sung on Holy Thursday and Holy Friday. He pointed out that some language could be found offensive to our Jewish neighbours and savoured of anti-Semitism. He did not advocate simply omitting the verses, and he cautioned about the dangers of re-writing or eliminating offending verses as itself problematic. He suggested though that perhaps a verse like “Today the Jews nailed to the Cross the Lord who divided the sea” might become “Today is nailed to the Cross the Lord who divided the sea”, since this rewrite would both preserve the Christological content and also avoid mention of the Jews. What follows should not be considered so much an answer or attempted refutation of Bucur’s article as a few thoughts inspired by this important discussion.
...Read the rest at No Other Foundation.
