Talk:Russian Orthodoxy

defending ethiopian orthodox church from Ethiopian governmet body trying to destroy orthodox church

As the topic describes we Ethiopian need our spiritual related church and governments your support on defendig orthodox church from devil thinking and doing devil job to destroy Christianity from our country.

                       Thank you! God bless you!  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 196.189.243.5 (talk) 21:21, 9 February 2023 (UTC) 

Ethnic dioceses in the OCA

I would dispute the claim that the Bulgarian Diocese of the OCA isn't under the Russian Orthodox umbrella. Sure, it isn't by historical origin, but I haven't came across a parish or monastery that felt uniquely Bulgarian. It's been largely Russified liturgically. I can't say the same for the Romanian diocese, and I have no idea how the Albanian diocese does things, but I would consider removing the Bulgarian Diocese from the exception. Vypr (talk) 04:03, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

Churches that use Church Slavonic

We read in the introduction to the article that Russian Orthodoxy applies to "churches within the larger communion of Eastern Orthodox Christianity, whose liturgy is or was traditionally conducted in Church Slavonic language."
1. Shouldn't this list include also the Patriarchates of Serbia and Bulgaria that still retain some use of Church Slavonic? And the Church of Macedonia coming out of Serbian Church?
2. Though they moved from Church Slavonic several centuries ago, shouldn't it also include the Romanian Church?
3. Though they have a millenary tradition of their own, when the Church of Georgia was absorbed by the ROC, Church Slavonic was imposed until its autocephaly. Should it be included?
Coquidragon (talk) 17:25, 14 January 2024 (UTC)

Moving article to "Slavic Orthodox churches"

As stated in its first sentence, this article deals with "body of several churches within the larger communion of Eastern Orthodox Christianity, whose liturgy is or was traditionally conducted in Church Slavonic language". This grouping of local Churches that use the Church Slavonic is presented as comprising "Russian Orthodoxy". I think this is a misnomer. Please by all means do correct me if I am wrong, but not even one of the sources currently existing in the article use "Russian Orthodoxy" as a term that denotes the Eastern Orthodox Churches that use the Church Slavonic. On the contrary, "Russian Orthodoxy" is a term (unsurprisingly) used to denote the Eastern Orthodox presence in Russia, while, on the other hand, there are quite a few secondary scholarly sources that present the churches using Church Slavonic not as "Russian Orthodoxy", but as "Slavic Orthodox" (and quite reasonably, if I may say so). I quote results of a cursory Google books search:

"In many ways, [387] Church Slavonic came to play a role as an inter-Slavic literary medium and official vehicle, the same way as did Latin in central and western Europe, and Greek in the Byzantine orbit. In particular-with the qualified exception of the earliest period (in Moravia, Pannonia, and Bohemia during the ninth/eleventh centuries) and the coastal Croatian region from Istria to central Dalmatia-Church Slavonic became the shared cultural language of the Slavic Orthodox community."

Henrik Birnbaum, "The vernacular languages of East Central Europe in the Medieval period", in: Balázs Nagy and Marcell Sebők (eds), The Man of Many Devices, Who Wandered Full Many Ways: Festschrift in Honor of János M. Bak (Budapest: CEU Press, 1999), pp. 386-7)

"Church Slavonic is still the liturgical language of the Russian Orthodox Church and has practically a sacred status, represented the conservation of tradition and community with Slavic Orthodox brethren in the Orthodox Slavic world."

Per-Arne Bodin, "Church Slavonic in Russian dystopias and utopias", in: Mikhail Suslov and Per-Arne Bodin (eds), The Post-Soviet Politics of Utopia: Language, Fiction and Fantasy in Modern Russia (London: Bloomsbury/IB Tauris, 2019), p. 204

"The use of Church Slavonic had always been a salient feature of the Slavic Orthodox churches, and it was perhaps the most important symbol of Ruthenian identity in Lithuania and Poland."

Julia Verkholantsev, The Slavic Letters of St. Jerome: The History of the Legend and Its Legacy, Or, How the Translator of the Vulgate Became an Apostle of the Slavs (De Kalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press, 2014), p. 135

"The cases of Serbia and Bulgaria are particularly important, because they are Slavic Orthodox churches that share the Church Slavonic patrimony, and therefore are the closest in history and ethos to the Russian Orthodox Church."

Brian P. Bennett, Religion and Language in Post-Soviet Russia (London/NY: Routledge, 2011), p. 80

"From the late 9th century on there is a special common Church Slavonic for the Slavic Orthodox Churches (shaped by Cyril and his brother Method [...]"

Leopold Auburger, "Classical Language/Ritual Language" in: Ulrich Ammon, Norbert Dittmar, Klaus J. Mattheier and Peter Trudgill (eds), Sociolinguistics / Soziolinguistik: An International Handbook of the Science of Language and Society / Ein internationales Handbuch zur Wissenschaft von Sprache und Gesellschaft, volume 1 (Berlin/NY: De Gruyter, 1987), p. 363

"While for reasons of a largely political nature all other Slavs within the Western Church embraced the Latin liturgy and letters, and the Slavic Orthodox churches of Rus', Serbia, and Bulgaria used the Cyrillic alphabet to record their ecclesiastical books, the Slavonic rite-observing Coratian clergy continued continued to write in Glagolitic as late as the eighteenth century."

Julia Verkholantsev, "Croatian Monasticism and Glagolitic Tradition: Glagolitic Letters at Home and Abroad" in: Ines Angeli Murzaku (ed.), Monasticism in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Republics (London/NY: Routledge, 2016), p. 43

"While Old Church Slavonic is the liturgical language of most Slavic Orthodox churches, and Katherevousa that of the Greek Orthodox, the community language (Serbian, Macedonian, Russian, Ukrainian, Greek [Dimotiki], etc.) is the medium of sermons and social interaction."

Michael Clyne, Community Languages: The Australian Experience (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), p. 133.

I think it follows that per WP:COMMONNAME this article should be moved to a new title, namely "Slavic Orthodox churches". Ashmedai 119 (talk) 05:33, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

@Ashmedai 119 Hi, per a request at WP:RM/TR, I have reverted your move. If you want to open a formal discussion to move this, feel free to peruse the instructions at WP:RSPM (or ping me if you'd like me to open one for you), be sure to reference your message above so participants can consider it. ASUKITE 16:21, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

Requested move 6 June 2024

Russian Orthodoxy → Slavic Orthodox churches – I am copying from a previous comment of mine in this very talk page: "As stated in its first sentence, this article deals with "body of several churches within the larger communion of Eastern Orthodox Christianity, whose liturgy is or was traditionally conducted in Church Slavonic language". This grouping of local Churches that use the Church Slavonic is presented as comprising "Russian Orthodoxy". I think this is a misnomer. Please by all means do correct me if I am wrong, but not even one of the sources currently existing in the article use "Russian Orthodoxy" as a term that denotes the Eastern Orthodox Churches that use the Church Slavonic. On the contrary, "Russian Orthodoxy" is a term (unsurprisingly) used to denote the Eastern Orthodox presence in Russia, while, on the other hand, there are quite a few secondary scholarly sources that present the churches using Church Slavonic not as "Russian Orthodoxy", but as "Slavic Orthodox" (and quite reasonably, if I may say so)." I've quoted some cases of scholarly sources discussing the Slavic Orthodox churches in my previous comment, which I am not copying here to save space, but please do consult them above. To repeat myself, "I think it follows that per WP:COMMONNAME this article should be moved to a new title, namely "Slavic Orthodox churches"." Ashmedai 119 (talk) 03:49, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose. The scope of the article is the Russian Orthodox Church and churches related to it, which is what the body covers. This for example includes churches that broke away from it but are still part of Russian Orthodoxy, for example the Old Believer churches. If the lead is inaccurate, then it should be corrected instead. This is a completely different term with a different meaning. Mellk (talk) 04:22, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

Mellk, Ever since this page stopped being merely a disambiguation page in March 2016, its first sentence stated as its object "the body of several Churches within the larger communion of Eastern Orthodox Christianity, whose liturgy is or was traditionally conducted in Church Slavonic language.". As demonstrated by the sources quoted in my previous comment, this "body of Churches" is not referred to in contemporary English literature as "Russian Orthodoxy", but as "Slavic Orthodox churches".

You now state that this article is about "the Russian Orthodox Church and churches related to it" including "churches that broke away from it but are still part of Russian Orthodoxy". This is truly puzzling to me for two reasons. First, what you state is rather vague. "Churches related to" the Russian Orthodox Church include at least almost all Eastern Orthodox churches, which are or have been in eucharistic communion with the Russian Orthodox Church. So, could you please clarify what kind of relations you refer to that, in your view, make a church a member of the body of "Russian Orthodoxy"?

Second, I am wondering: do you imply that this group of churches, that you posit as "Russian Orthodoxy", includes e.g. the Orthodox Church of Ukraine? This sound to me eerily similar to the doctrine of the Russian world.

In any case, could you please cite a considerable enough number of English-language sources (i) demonstrating that the term "Russian Orthodoxy" is current in contemporary English-language scholarly literature to define a body of Churches and also (ii) elucidating which churches are considered members of this body along with (iii) the criteria used for membership in this body of Churches? It seems to me that all three matters should be addressed, if an article entitled "Russian Orthodoxy" is to be in this encyclopedia. Looking forward to your response. Ashmedai 119 (talk) 13:03, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

Note: WikiProject Russia, WikiProject Christianity/Noticeboard, and WikiProject Eastern Orthodoxy have been notified of this discussion. ASUKITE 22:37, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

• Support: I'm inclined to wonder if this article should have remained a disambiguation page. If the move goes through, Russian Orthodoxy should probably resume that role. ~ Pbritti (talk) 22:59, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose. There could be a larger discussion about how these pages are organized, but the proposed change seems like it would pretty starkly go against WP:COMMONNAME and WP:ASTONISH. The ngrams here aren't even close, "Russian Orthodox" and "Russian Orthodoxy" are very common terms in church circles, academia, and lay parlance, while "Slavic Orthodox" is an extremely niche and unfamiliar term. I'm a pretty well-read Christian myself, and if I got redirected to "Slavic Orthodox churches" while searching for Russian Orthodoxy, I'd be very confused. I can definitely see the problems with the current title, especially as it relates to its current content, but this would be a very wrongheaded change. Garnet Moss (talk) 02:43, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

  Garnet Moss, I think that the mere existence of a phrase is not by itself enough to warrant an encyclopedia article. Ever since "Russia Orthodoxy" stopped being a disambiguation page, it purports that the phrase is used to refer to the "body of several churches within the larger communion of Eastern Orthodox Christianity, whose liturgy is or was traditionally conducted in Church Slavonic language". Are there any contemporary credible sources that support this? I doubt this and, given the sources I have previously quoted, I proposed that this body of several churches is called in contemporary English-language literature "Slavic Orthodox churches". Do you question this? If yes, could you please refer readers of this conversation to contemporary scholary sources corroborating the claim and explain how you account with the sources I've quoted in my previous comment? Moreover, sources that I have in consideration (and I could quote relevant passages if you 'ld like me to) seem to use the term only to refer to the Russian Orthodox Church in the present or in the past. Finally, I am wondering what changes to the article's content, including its very first sentence, you would propose, taking into account the problems that you perceive existing. Ashmedai 119 (talk) 06:04, 7 June 2024 (UTC)