Angemessenheit als Maxime
Die Sprechakte Loben und Preisen und die Liturgie der Tschechoslowakischen Hussitischen Kirche (Církev Československá Husitská)

Holger Kuße

Using the liturgies of the Czechoslovak Hussite Church (Církev Československá Husitská), founded in 1920, the article illustrates how the liturgical speech acts of LAUDING and PRAISING comply with the maxim of adequacy (which is viewed as a complement to Grice's conversation maxims). Following a discussion of the speech act criteria of LAUDING and PRAISING, which characterizes PRAISING as clearly expressive and LAUDING as a transitional speech act between expressive and assertive, the article investigates the special features of the speech acts in the liturgical use of language, in which assertive LAUDING is possible only within certain limits and largely coincides with expressive PRAISING. It is then shown (in particular with reference to the antiphonal prefatory prayers before the Eucharist, and in comparison with the Roman mass, the Orthodox liturgy and Protestant agendas) how, in the Czechoslovak Hussite liturgies (1923, 1939, 1992), these speech acts are provided with an expression adequate to the CČSH's theology with its immanent and anthropological orientation, namely by seeking the objects of LAUDING and PRAISING mostly in creation, history and ethics rather than in terms of Heilsgeschichte. There is, however, also a tendency towards a new church 'traditionalism', noticeable in the last revision of the liturgy in which the 'vertical dimension' of the liturgical speech acts are increasingly emphasized again.

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