Talk:Deacon

Deacon's Etiquette

it is my understanding that in the greek practise, kissing the hands of deacons was both common and proper, as a sign of respect to the hands that have touched Communion (not for a blessing); whereas it is in the russian practise that kissing the deacon's hands is wrong. can someone verify this before any changes are made? Pistevo 00:14, 16 Jul 2005 (EDT)

I can't, of course, speak for all Greeks everywhere, but my understanding is that it is inappropriate to kiss a deacon's hand regardless of ethnic tradition. I am a deacon in the Antiochian Archdiocese, which follows the Greek/Byzantine tradition as a general rule, and kissing the hands of deacons is not done. —Dcn. David ^{talk contribs}

I've likewise never seen deacon's hands being kissed, whether in Byzantine or Slavic practice, either here in the US or in the handful of parishes I've been to in the UK. —[[User:ASDamick|—Fr. Andrew ^talk contribs (THINK!)]] 08:49, 16 Jul 2005 (EDT)

Dalmatikon

DcnDavid, if you'd like to give your sources for saying "dalmaticon is just the Latin cognate; similar to calling a phelonion a chasuble", it could be beneficial. Thanks chrisg 2006-06-21-0909 EAST

Well, I suppose I could respond by saying I asked you for citations first, but that wouldn't really help move the discussion along. To be honest, the only place I think I've ever seen the term dalmatic in print in an Orthodox context is in the Hapgood service book and subsequent works using Hapgood as a source. I've never seen the term dalmaticon or dalmatikon anywhere before your edits on this wiki (and a Google search of both terms fails to demonstrate the usage you advocate).

Hapgood is, as I described here, a translation from Slavonic into English undertaken by a non-Orthodox translator in the early 20th century. As a translation, it suffers. Hapgood insists on calling the sticharion a dalmatic; Hapgood also refers to the phelonion as a chasuble (e.g., p. xxxviii).

As to dalmatic being a Latin cognate for sticharion, I suppose you could look in any English dictionary with an etymology. Both the OED and the online version of Merriam-Webster agree that the term derives ultimately from the Latin dalmaticus, meaning Dalmatian or from Dalmatia (as the text of your article entitled Dalmatikon would seem to indicate).

Please note that I don't have a problem of noting the variant usage of dalmatic (again, apparently, not dalmatic/kon) in the Sticharion article if you feel it adds to the knowledge base of the audience for OrthodoxWiki. I, myself, am interested to know who among the Orthodox uses this term and how they came to use it, which is why I asked the questions I did on the Dalmatic article's discussion page. I think it is sloppy wikification, however, to have two articles on the same subject under two different titles. I believe sticharion is the favored term and, thus, should be the main title. Moreover, OrthodoxWiki's Style Manual prefers use of Greek terms where no standard English term predominates. —Dcn. David ^{talk contribs} 20:39, June 20, 2006 (CDT)