Re: Historical implications of Romanian ecclesiastical terminology

>*****GK: Am I to understand that “biserica” (from
>“basilica”) is the standard Romanian word for
>“church”?

Yes, it is.

>A basilica was a very special kind of church, a royal
>church, large and splendid (well we know this of
>course). Not your local village church or neighborhood
>church.

Well, us Vlachs are royal, i.e. imperial remnants
(Constantine, Justinian... :=).

>The circumstances under which it was
>borrowed are obscure.

Dalmatian (now extinct) and Rheto-Rumansh also
preserved the term. See Dan's posting.

>I won’t let my imagination work
>overtime here. I would just say that this one word
>suggests that the Proto-Romanians had little if any
>dealings with either Roman or Greek clergy during the
>postulated early times of their alleged conversion
>(3/4 cs.) “Ecclesia” is simply not a word which would
>drop out of your vocabulary…******

Yeah, but it happend: Romanians don't have any word
for that except for "biserica".

George