Man is a Church Service
“The world is a theophany, Man is a church service!”
Don’t know if these words of Fr. Justin Popovic lose something in the translation. I translated the word богослужење [literally, divine service, or divine serving] as church service since I thought saying man is a divine service would sound more humanistic. Profound words nonetheless. They were used by a very energetic man who spoke on behalf of the younger generation of Serbs at the 30th anniversary of the repose of Fr. Justin.
Speaking about Fr. Justin as one of the greatest theologians of the 20th century, but also one who spoke in defense of faith, culture and nation, who spoke about the role of St. Sava among Serbia’s future generations, the speaker also noted that one of Fr. Justin’s major themes was how contemporary civilization has sought to get rid of God and, in His place, enthrone the man-god. He says:
“The post-Christian civilization which spent half a century battling with the human communities of marriage, family, parish, nation and state, wishing to eliminate them from the contemporary world, today, at the brink of destruction, has no other way out then through the social solidarity which can only be realized precisely through that purged world of traditional communities.”
Doesn’t “liturgy” mean “service”? Originally it meant soemthing like “public service” in a secular sense. Isn’t this also what St Paul was talking about in Romans 12:1, “logikin latrian“, which in one English translation is rendered “reasonable service” and in another “spiritual worship”. The meaning is far more than can be encompassed uin a single word.
Omorphia > The word “bogosluzenje” is “gudstjänst” and in the past I’ve translated it as church service, divine service or even liturgy when it was used in that context.
JN> Using ‘liturgy’ seems to flow better but does liturgy equal to god-service, that is, any church service? The world is a divine revelation of God while man is (or, man’s purpose is) to serve God, which is what we do in church (liturgy, vespers, matins, compline, etc.) is what Fr. Justin is saying I think.
I’m trying to translate it too but no matter what it loses most of its beauty since I can’t find a couple similarly sounding as богоявление and богослужение do. So it is indeed loses a lot in translation
+JN is quite correct, it seems to me. Anyway these words sound like secular humanism if to take them at their face value.
What is the common, everydayword you english-speakers use when talking about the “christian meeting” on sundays? In swedish it’s (roughly translated) “service of God” or “godservice” – gudstjänst. The few times I have to speak of this in english, I just say “service”, but it doesn´t feel very good
“Humanity is a liturgy.”