The Syrian Orthodox Liturgical and Publishing Work

Raphael’s scholarly formation made him the great provider of Arabic liturgical and edifying literature for the American diaspora: he compiled and published service books — beginning with The Book of True Consolation in the Divine Prayers (1898) — and founded the magazine Al-Kalimat / The Word (1905), while recommending English service books for the American-born generation. His publishing was pastoral theology in action: to give a scattered people the Church in the language it could pray.

Tradition: Antiochian Orthodox (Arab-American diaspora)

The Problem: A People Without Books

The Arab Orthodox immigrants Raphael came to serve lacked not only priests but books — the service books, in Arabic, without which the liturgical life of the Church cannot be carried on in the scattered communities of a diaspora (Orthodox Church in America, “Repose of Saint Raphael, Bishop of Brooklyn,” Lives of the Saints, oca.org). This was the American face of a deficiency Raphael had known from his youth: the Patriarchate of Antioch, its higher seminary at Balamand long closed, had never adequately provided its Arabic-speaking faithful with the printed liturgical and theological literature that the Greek and Russian Churches took for granted (see Formation in Damascus and the Arab Awakening). Raphael was among the small number of Arab churchmen with the learning to remedy this, and he made it a central labor of his life. His publishing is therefore not a sideline to his pastorate but its intellectual heart: the man formed as a scholar and teacher of Arabic (see Student and Teacher at Halki and Kiev) put that formation entirely at the service of his flock.

The Arabic Service Books

Raphael began providing service books while still an archimandrite. In 1898, from the New York mission, he published The Book of True Consolation in the Divine Prayers — an Arabic service book for the use of the diaspora, giving the Arab Orthodox of America the texts of the Church’s prayer in their own language (OCA, “Repose of Saint Raphael,” oca.org). The title is itself a pastoral statement: the divine prayers as “true consolation” for a displaced and struggling people. It was, so far as the tradition records, one of the first Orthodox liturgical books published for the Arab community in America, and it set the pattern for his later work.

Over the following years Raphael produced further books for the use of his clergy and people, so that at his death the Church could remember him not only as a shepherd and traveler but as an author of multiple books for the Arab Orthodox — service texts, instruction, and edification (OCA, “Repose of Saint Raphael,” oca.org). This publishing labor gave the American Arab Orthodox community something no bishop’s travels alone could give: a permanent, portable, reproducible Church-in-print that could reach the most isolated family and sustain it between a bishop’s visits.

Al-Kalimat / The Word

The crown of his publishing was the diocesan magazine. Announcing his intention late in 1904, Raphael launched Al-Kalimat — The Word — with its first issue in January 1905, an Arabic-language periodical of instruction, news, and edification for the Arab Orthodox across North America, to which he himself contributed many articles (OCA, “Repose of Saint Raphael,” oca.org). The Word was a pastoral instrument perfectly suited to a scattered flock: it let a single bishop teach, unite, and form a people spread over a continent, carrying his voice into homes he could not physically reach. Its title — The Word — bespoke both the Word of God and the printed word by which the Gospel was carried; and it gave the community a shared identity and a common conversation.

The Word proved one of Raphael’s most durable creations. It outlived him and, transitioning into English as the community’s language changed, continues to the present day as the official magazine of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America — an unbroken line of publication running back to Raphael’s founding in 1905 (OrthodoxWiki, “Raphael of Brooklyn,” on The Word as the continuing archdiocesan magazine; per METHODOLOGY not a terminal citation). Few of his works are so tangibly alive.

The Openness to English

Raphael’s commitment to serving his people in Arabic was matched, remarkably, by his foresight about English. He understood that the children of his immigrant flock — born and raised in America — would live and pray in English, and that a Church that spoke only Arabic would lose them. He accordingly recommended the use of an English-language service book in his parishes, anticipating by decades the great question of the language of American Orthodoxy (OCA, “Repose of Saint Raphael,” oca.org; on that later movement see Orthodoxy in America: the English-Liturgy Movement). There is no contradiction between his Arabic publishing and his English recommendation: both flow from one principle, the principle that governs all his liturgical labor — the Church must reach its people in the tongue they actually speak. For the immigrant generation that meant Arabic; for their children it would mean English; and Raphael, a true pastor, provided for both.

Publishing as Pastoral Theology

Raphael’s liturgical and publishing work is best understood as pastoral theology enacted rather than written. He left no great theological treatise; his most substantial surviving text is a pastoral letter (see His Own Words). But in the service books and the magazine he embodied a coherent conviction about the Church and its languages: that the liturgy is the people’s true consolation, that it must be given to them in a tongue they can pray, and that the scattered can be gathered and held by the printed word when the shepherd cannot be bodily present. This conviction — learned in the language-struggles of Antioch and applied in the diaspora of America — is Raphael’s distinctive contribution to the multiethnic Church he served: he showed how a Church of many nations serves each nation, by giving each its own liturgical voice while binding all in one communion (see The Russian Mission and the Many Nationalities).

See Also

• The Russian Mission and the Many Nationalities — the multiethnic Church his language-work served
• Formation in Damascus and the Arab Awakening — the Antiochian deficiency his publishing answered
• Good Shepherd of the Lost Sheep — The Word within his episcopate
• His Own Words — the writings that survive
• Orthodoxy in America: the English-Liturgy Movement — the later movement he anticipated

References

• Orthodox Church in America. “Repose of Saint Raphael, Bishop of Brooklyn.” Lives of the Saints. oca.org. (The 1898 publication of The Book of True Consolation in the Divine Prayers; his authorship of multiple books; the announcement of Al-Kalimat / The Word late in 1904 and its first issue in January 1905, with his own articles; his recommendation of an English-language service book.)
• OrthodoxWiki. “Raphael of Brooklyn.” orthodoxwiki.org. (The Word as the continuing official magazine of the Antiochian Archdiocese; used to locate, per METHODOLOGY not a terminal citation.)
• Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America. The Life of Our Father among the Saints Raphael Hawaweeny. (His Arabic liturgical publishing for the diaspora.)