Talk:The Venerable

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and it is considered equal or sometimes superior to the usual "Saint". Can someone confirm this please? I don't think this is correct. --Enigma 20:20, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Bede
Though often referred to as "the Venerable Bede", the 8th-century priest is in fact a saint, long since canonised, and the "venerable" is not an official ecclesiastical appellation. /blahedo (t) 04:17, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Merge from venerable (Buddhism)
No one commented, so I went ahead and did the merge. (I wasn't the proposer.) 150.203.35.113 (talk) 07:51, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Liturgical issues
A saint has an entry in the Roman Martyrology, and so his memorial can be celebrated worldwide by any Roman rite Catholic if no higher ranking feast displaces it. Roman rite churches around the world can choose a saint for their patron.

A blessed has no entry in the Roman Martyrology, but his memorial can be celebrated similar to a saint in certain regional jurisdictions. A blessed is like a saint but with a more strictly limited following.

Someone once told me that while a memorial of a venerable cannot be celebrated like that of a saint or blessed, there are still some liturgical rules that apply to him. He can no longer have the mass or office of the dead said for the repose of his soul, since his soul is assumed to be at rest. Instead, masses in thanksgiving for his life are to be said.

Does anyone have a reference for this? Rwflammang (talk) 17:33, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Buddhism
The use of 'venerable' to describe bhikṣus and bhikṣunīs seems to a western affectation. Usually in scripture it translates Pāli āyasmant (Sanskrit āyuṣmant) which is more literally 'elder' (or just 'old'). As such it is synonymous with the use of 'thera' as a title for a Theravāda bhikkhu of 10 years standing, though the etymology for this word is uncertain (probably from sthā 'to stand').

'Venerable' clearly comes from a very different linguistic root, and from a very different tradition.

In effect those ordinary monks and nuns who are using 'Venerable' as a title are inventing a new form that has no scriptural precedent, and as far as I can see no historical precedent beyond the influence of Christianity in Buddhist countries. After the Chinese invasion of Tibet the ecclesiastical hierarchy in exile adopted the titles of the Roman Catholic church (His Holiness = Pope; His Eminence = Cardinal etc) as a way of claiming quasi-diplomatic status, but without requiring foreign powers to recognise Tibetan independence. Jayarava (talk) 15:28, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:His Holiness which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 01:15, 29 December 2018 (UTC)

osios
"the English-language translation of the title given to monastic saints (Greek: Hosios, " I would usually translate Hosios as Blessed, understanding it could also be "Saint", but not "Venerable".  --Richardson mcphillips (talk) 14:33, 25 January 2019 (UTC)

Article scope
@Johnbod: I see this article as addressing the very idea of what “the venerable” means in the Christian traditions. If we are to list every use of the word venerable we come closer than I would like to WP:DICDEF. Do you have a different view of the article’s parameters? — HTGS (talk) 07:22, 10 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes, the scope of "the Venerable" as a title, which has leaked over from Latin Xtianity as a translation for Greek & Buddhist terms. I find your attempt to limit it to Xtianity rather wierd frankly. Johnbod (talk) 13:03, 10 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Do you have any sources which address the word itself as used for members of different faiths? The article is undersourced in general, but I suspect that making it a page for the word and its definition will be far more difficult than having the page address the concept in Xtianity. The appropriate guideline here of course is WP:WORDISSUBJECT
 * Whether the translation as used in Eastern Orthodoxy is appropriate may be something to address, but at least the leak shows a conceptual link. — HTGS (talk) 01:32, 11 May 2022 (UTC)
 * There's tons in searches such as this. They tend to drop the "The".  Note that the Buddhists used to have their own article, which was merged here long ago, then trimmed.  Johnbod (talk) 02:09, 11 May 2022 (UTC)