Re: What is "KURIAKOS"?

From: Cindy Smith (cms@dragon.com)
Date: Fri Mar 31 2000 - 11:22:15 EST


>From: MX%"mauros@iol.ie" "Maurice A. O'Sullivan" 21-MAY-1999 18:23:10.10
>To: MX%"b-greek@franklin.oit.unc.edu"
>Subj: Re: What is "KURIAKOS"?

>From: "Maurice A. O'Sullivan" <mauros@iol.ie>
>Subject: Re: What is "KURIAKOS"?
>Reply-To: "Maurice A. O'Sullivan" <mauros@iol.ie>

>At 17:51 21/05/99 -0400, you wrote:
>>Dear B-Greekers,

>>Recently I had a friend of mine tell me that our English word "church" came
>>from KURIAKOS. I looked it up in Perschbachers, and he has it translated as
>>"pertaining to the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord's". So I suppose that
>>certainly makes sense, in that the church is the Lord's. But do we use the
>>word "church" because of KURIAKOS? (He also said "church" is related to the
>>German word, but I don't remember it.) I'd just never heard this before.

>The etymology from the Shorter Oxford may help:

> CHURCH
>OE cir(i)ce, cyr(i)ce = OFris. szereke, szurka, tzierka, OS kirika, kerika
>(Du. kerk), OHG chirihha, kiricha (G Kirche), f. WGmc f. med.Gk kurikon for
>kuriakon use as n. (sc. doma house) of neut. of kuriakos pertaining to the
>Lord, f. kurios master, lord. C <<<

>By way of explanation, >>f. WGmc f. med.Gk << refers to WestGermanic and
>medieval Greek.

>And if you want to read a masterful survey of the entire history of Greek,
>and especially the progress from classical to medieval and beyond, I
>recommend :
>Geoffrey Horrocks, Greek: a History of the Language and its Speakers
>(Longman, 1997(

I think it should be noted that the Greek word ekklesia simply means a
gathering of people and, while traditionally translated "church" or
"belonging to the Lord," is sometimes more accurately translated
"assembly." I had a friend who was Dutch who once told me that
Kuriakos means "Sunday" in Dutch, presumably meaning "the Lord's Day."
I believe and welcome correction that SUNAGWGH synagogue is a synonym
for EKKLESIA.

>Hope this helps
>Maurice

>Maurice A. O'Sullivan [ Bray, Ireland ]
>mauros@iol.ie

Cindy Smith Spawn of a Jewish Carpenter
GO AGAINST THE FLOW! \\ _\\\_ _///_ // A Real Live Catholic in Georgia
cms@dragon.com >IXOYE=('> <`)= _<< "Delay not your conversion
cms@romancatholic.org// /// \\\ \\ to the LORD, Put it not off
cms@5sc.net from day to day" Ecclus/Sira 5:8

---
B-Greek home page: http://sunsite.unc.edu/bgreek
You are currently subscribed to b-greek as: [cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu]
To unsubscribe, forward this message to leave-b-greek-329W@franklin.oit.unc.edu
To subscribe, send a message to subscribe-b-greek@franklin.oit.unc.edu


This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Sat Apr 20 2002 - 15:41:03 EDT