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Agios and Ekoab
What is the difference between Agios and ekoab? How do you know when to use each one?
Comments
if im not mistaken, agios is greek and ekouab is coptic. Not fully certain tho
yes.....
[quote author=jshouk link=topic=9499.msg117027#msg117027 date=1280028488]
if im not mistaken, agios is greek and ekouab is coptic. Not fully certain tho
yes.....
do why does the priest say agios agios agios and then ekoab ekoab ekoab?? and why do we mostly say agios instead of ekoab?
If the hymn is pure coptic it will be ekoab
[quote author=minagir link=topic=9499.msg117029#msg117029 date=1280030895]
[quote author=jshouk link=topic=9499.msg117027#msg117027 date=1280028488]
if im not mistaken, agios is greek and ekouab is coptic. Not fully certain tho
yes.....
do why does the priest say agios agios agios and then ekoab ekoab ekoab?? and why do we mostly say agios instead of ekoab?
agios is greek....the universal language back than. so saying agios before holy is a confirmation of the Holiness of God.
why have greek in our liturgy......well because the source did. many many parts in our liturgical books have greek words. also, one thing that i read about the coptic language is when it was being put together, the church fathers chose to not use some of the original egyptian words in our Church because the meaning of the words were idols' names. so for the people to not consider or even remeber anything about idols, those words (idols names) were replaced by the greek words.
the main language that was spoken back then was Greek... so what the church fathers did so everyone would participate was, they had the priest pray in Coptic, the Deacon would ask the people to pray for what the priest prayed for in Greek, and the people would say Lord have mercy, or respond in Greek... so everyone would understand what is going on exactly, whether you spoke Coptic or not... or you knew Greek or didn't!
neshkor Allah... akhadna el baraka!
i am not entirely sure about comments from mina and superman. I hope somebody may be able to research further and correct me if I am wrong but the presence of Greek in our liturgies as I recently heard was only introduced in the 19th century and not before
19th century.....wow...that's a shock. I thought Saint Basil wrote the liturgy in Greek. Also, according to some books, Saint Gregory's was of Byzantine origin....not fully egyptian (considering the text and not the tune).
The thing about the replacment of some coptic words with the greek i read from one of the old books of Ekladios Labib bek that were posted on remenkimi about coptic pronunciation ..... i am sure you read it fady.
What I recently heard is that the deacons responses (especially) plus some other parts the priest prays were translated into Greek only in the 19th century (can't remember who started - maybe Pope Cyril IV, or V, or another pope) around the time of Mr. Erian Guirguis and the introduction of the flawed Coptic pronunciation rules (as a side note: has anybody learnt any language using strict pronunciation rules as such? I never remember such with English or French - just learnt new vocabulary and that is the way it was; so how on earth that has been introducted... anyway; never mind; sorry for getting sidetracked, this deserves another topic).
As for what you are saying about St. Gregory and St. Basil having written the liturgies in Greek I don't know. All what I can say is that if you read the text it is strictly Coptic - I don't even get the impression that it was translated from Greek into Coptic, but I may be wrong. Please explain what you understand and discuss it further...
[coptic]oujai qen `P[C[/coptic]
Yes Mina, I wasn't contesting that second point about replacing some pharaonic words with idolous connotations with Greek ones to draw the newly converted Christians away from paganism.
What I recently heard is that the deacons responses (especially) plus some other parts the priest prays were translated into Greek only in the 19th century (can't remember who started - maybe Pope Cyril IV, or V, or another pope) around the time of Mr. Erian Guirguis and the introduction of the flawed Coptic pronunciation rules (as a side note: has anybody learnt any language using strict pronunciation rules as such? I never remember such with English or French - just learnt new vocabulary and that is the way it was; so how on earth that has been introducted... anyway; never mind; sorry for getting sidetracked, this deserves another topic).
As for what you are saying about St. Gregory and St. Basil having written the liturgies in Greek I don't know. All what I can say is that if you read the text it is strictly Coptic - I don't even get the impression that it was translated from Greek into Coptic, but I may be wrong. Please explain what you understand and discuss it further...
[coptic]oujai qen `P[C[/coptic]
to me, it just doesn't make since to change the liturgies themselves as part of the revival of Pope Cyril IV or the proposed pronunciation of Mr. Erian. why did they need to do that if we have been holding arabic as a 2nd language for a long time before the 19th century.
according to Fr. Mettias Nasr research of St Cyril's (i know shouldn't get into this) says that the liturgy was originally written in Greek and than translated in Coptic. it would also make since (but not necessarily a fact) the Saint Basil and Gregory wrote their liturgies in greek for the whole world to use rather than on their people to follow (being One Holy Church before the schism).
I completely agree with the first statement. But in all honesty I don't understand what you meant or what you were alluding to by the second. Please explain a bit more...
Now I respect Fr. Mattias very much, but I don't know for sure if any of the liturgies have been written in Greek. I certainly have seen no evidence of such on the internet (but is that a credible source in the first place ? I guess not), or ever learnt of such a fact. I hope somebody have some solid facts who can confirm this, or even refute any of what I am discussing.
[coptic]oujai qen `P[C[/coptic]
I have to agree with mina about the whole 'idol connotations' thing. My family has some private manuscripts from the 18 century (maybe seventeenth) with greek in them. Mina's point is correct. Every church in the world, all denominations, use some greek, even the roman catholic church. The Coptic church probably has the most (after the byzantine churches) because our alphabet is based on the greek. so the use of greek is a very ancient tradition.
About the whole Agios - Ekouab thing, the priest says both because back in the day when there were many greek believers in egypt who didn't understand coptic, they had to say it in greek for them. Same thing with the seven short litanies in the liturgy. In the english or arabic translation, it sounds as if we are saying the same thing over again, but in the original text, the priest says coptic and the deacon says greek for the greek-only speaking population.
P.S. I do not to disrespect you ophadece, actually i find you very knowledgeable about our church. very impressive.
GLORIA AD PATER, FILIUS, SPIRITUS SANTCUS.
It seems to my limited study that all the liturgies used in Egypt are the result of a variety of influences, but ultimately derive from Greek texts.
I stand corrected. You both are right and my previous post was rather uninformed. Yes it does appear that Coptic Christians started praying the liturgies in Greek and then it was converted to Coptic and then again some parts to Greek in pope Cyril's era. It is this latter point that you commented on Coptic_deacon that I need to check because you may be right and the text may have existed even before pope Cyril IVanyway but I'm not entirely sure. I'm not that knowledgeable Coptic_deacon but fora like this help deceive other people because we don't see each other face to face so please don't ever learn from what I'm saying because I mostly play the devil's advocate (if that's the expression to use here... hehe) in order to get to learn more and more. LAStly, I do agree with Mina and you about idol connotations and their Greek replacements.