What language did the eastern orthodox church speak when reading a ritual?

Answer 1

The principle of language derives from St. Paul, who said that the language of the church should be spread in the language of the people. In the Roman Empire, Trade was everything, and the best and largest traders were from Greece. So while Latin was spoken in government, and even in the military, most citizens spoke Greek. Thus the original form of the church was in Greek.

But in 1031 the Roman Church and the Eastern Orthodox church differed, language was changing and the Romans thought that the word of God should be reserved for those "most fit" in receiving it. Therefore the language of the Elite was adopted for the Holy CATHOLIC Church, Latin. The eastern churches did not ignore the west, the languages were changing so it was decided that all of the individual churches and communities can use the language prevelant in that area. Thus today, eastern churches use any language relative to Paul's Teachings, the people's language.

However, Icons, and certain words are universally Greek, to pay tribute to the original word. Theotokos in any church refers to the Holy Mother, Mary. Pascha refers to Christ's Resurection (Easter), and most icons were for many years in Greek lettering with local language in subtype, today Cyrilic or Russian is more common due to large demands from those nations for the icons.

Ethiopian Orthodox speak a combination of Arabic and local native dialects, Palestineans speak Arabic, Ukrainians speak Ukrainean or Russian, Brazilian speak Protuguese. The main are where this is an issue is the US and UK where European Immagrants want the church to remain in their language from the old country, but that inhibbits future generations who do not know the language and new members from joining, so many churches to dual services, half in the foreign language and half in the Predominant language. This is most common in England and America so usually it is English, however there are strictly English and even Spanish services in some areas of the US like Los Angeles or parts of New York, but co lanugages are common, such as English-Greek Services.