word suggestion: litya

[TRex]

Litya is familiar to Orthodox Christians.

[birdy]

That's one I've never heard.  Is it only Greek Orthodox, or the other Orthodox religions too?

[TRex]

Although there are a lot of churches called 'Orthodox', there are really only two groups normally called 'Orthodox'. The usual terms are 'Eastern Orthodox' and 'Oriental Orthodox'. Since eastern and oriental are synonyms, it is confusing. For those who know Christian history, the Eastern Orthodox are Chalcedonian Christians, the Oriental Orthodox are Non-Chalcedonians.

The Eastern Orthodox (officially Orthodox Catholic Church) is far more numerous (it is the second largest body of Christians) and includes most of the churches Westerners have heard of at one time: the various 'Greek Orthodox' with their centres in Jerusalem, Alexandria, Antioch, Constantinople (Istanbul), Cyprus, Mount Sinai, and Athens; the Russian Orthodox Church, the Orthodox Church in Japan, the Serbian Orthodox Church, the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, the Romanian Orthodox Church, the Georgian Orthodox Church, the Orthodox Church of Albania, the Orthodox Church in America, the Polish Orthodox Church, the Orthodox Church of the Czech Lands and Slovakia.

The Non-Chalcedonian Oriental Orthodox church which is probably most-familiar to Westerners is the Coptic Church in Egypt.

The litya is common to all the Chalcedonian Orthodox. If the Oriental Orthodox have it (and I strongly suspect they do), they would have a different name for it.

[birdy]

The Chi forum is a great site for learning all kinds of interesting things!  Thank you!

[TRex]

During tonight's Vigil Service (for the Nativity) we had a short litya (8 pages of music) in English (for which I was thankful).

[Alan W]

I couldn't see litya in any of the English language dictionaries I queried. It seems the word can be written in various ways in the Latin alphabet, but the variant forms didn't seem to be in any dictionary either.

Perhaps the dictionaries are affected by some kind of cultural blinkers, because the word is in use. Sometimes it's written with a capital L, but not always. For example, the Orthodox Church in America site says:

The litya, or lity (“supplication”) consists of hymns and prayers, and is prescribed for all of the great feasts and most major feasts as well as all Sundays. In practice the litya is often omitted on Saturday evenings unless a feast calling for a litya also falls on the same day...

I'll add it as a rare word.

[TRex]

Thanks, Alan.

I only wish I could attend one. I'm looking forward to the end of restrictions on gatherings (but fully support them under present circumstances)!