Church Slavonic language. What you need to know about the Church Slavonic language

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CHURCH SLAVIC LANGUAGE, a medieval literary language that has survived to this day as the language of worship. Goes back to the Old Church Slavonic language created by Cyril and Methodius on the basis of South Slavic dialects. The oldest Slavic literary language spread first among the Western Slavs (Moravia), then among the southern Slavs (Bulgaria) and eventually became the common literary language of the Orthodox Slavs. This language also became widespread in Wallachia and some areas of Croatia and the Czech Republic. Thus, from the very beginning, Church Slavonic was the language of the church and culture, and not of any particular people.

Church Slavonic was the literary (book) language of the peoples inhabiting a vast territory. Since it was, first of all, the language of church culture, the same texts were read and copied throughout this territory. Monuments of the Church Slavonic language were influenced by local dialects (this was most strongly reflected in spelling), but the structure of the language did not change. It is customary to talk about editions (regional variants) of the Church Slavonic language - Russian, Bulgarian, Serbian, etc.

Church Slavonic has never been a spoken language. As a book language, it was opposed to living national languages. As a literary language, it was a standardized language, and the norm was determined not only by the place where the text was rewritten, but also by the nature and purpose of the text itself. Elements of living spoken language (Russian, Serbian, Bulgarian) could penetrate Church Slavonic texts in varying quantities. The norm of each specific text was determined by the relationship between the elements of book and living spoken language. The more important the text was in the eyes of the medieval Christian scribe, the more archaic and strict the language norm. Elements of spoken language almost did not penetrate into liturgical texts. The scribes followed tradition and were guided by the most ancient texts. In parallel with the texts, there was also business writing and private correspondence. The language of business and private documents combines elements of a living national language (Russian, Serbian, Bulgarian, etc.) and individual Church Slavonic forms.

The active interaction of book cultures and the migration of manuscripts led to the fact that the same text was rewritten and read in different editions. By the 14th century I realized that the texts contain errors. The existence of different editions did not make it possible to resolve the question of which text is older, and therefore better. At the same time, the traditions of other peoples seemed more perfect. If the South Slavic scribes were guided by Russian manuscripts, then the Russian scribes, on the contrary, believed that the South Slavic tradition was more authoritative, since it was the South Slavs who preserved the features of the ancient language. They valued Bulgarian and Serbian manuscripts and imitated their spelling.

Along with spelling norms, the first grammars also came from the southern Slavs. The first grammar of the Church Slavonic language, in the modern sense of the word, is the grammar of Laurentius Zizanius (1596). In 1619, the Church Slavonic grammar of Meletius Smotritsky appeared, which determined the later language norm. In their work, scribes sought to correct the language and text of the books they copied. At the same time, the idea of what correct text is has changed over time. Therefore, in different eras, books were corrected either from manuscripts that the editors considered ancient, or from books brought from other Slavic regions, or from Greek originals. As a result of the constant correction of liturgical books, the Church Slavonic language acquired its modern appearance. Basically, this process ended at the end of the 17th century, when, on the initiative of Patriarch Nikon, the liturgical books were corrected. Since Russia supplied other Slavic countries with liturgical books, the post-Nikon form of the Church Slavonic language became the common norm for all Orthodox Slavs.

In Russia, Church Slavonic was the language of the church and culture until the 18th century. After the emergence of a new type of Russian literary language, Church Slavonic remains only the language of Orthodox worship. The corpus of Church Slavonic texts is constantly being updated: new church services, akathists and prayers are being compiled.

Being a direct descendant of the Old Church Slavonic language, Church Slavonic has retained many archaic features of its morphological and syntactic structure to this day. It is characterized by four types of noun declension, has four past tenses of verbs and special forms of the nominative case of participles. The syntax retains calque Greek phrases (dative independent, double accusative, etc.). The greatest changes were made to the orthography of the Church Slavonic language, the final form of which was formed as a result of the “book reference” of the 17th century.

Church Slavonic language

Under the name Church Slavonic language or the Old Church Slavonic language is usually understood as the language in which in the century. a translation of the Holy Scriptures and liturgical books was made by the first teachers of the Slavs, St. Cyril and Methodius. The term Church Slavonic language itself is inaccurate, because it can equally refer to both the later types of this language used in Orthodox worship among various Slavs and Romanians, and to the language of such ancient monuments as the Zograf Gospel, etc. The definition of “ancient” "Church Slavonic language" language also adds little accuracy, for it can refer either to the language of the Ostromir Gospel, or to the language of the Zograf Gospel or the Book of Savina. The term "Old Church Slavonic" is even less precise and can mean any old Slavic language: Russian, Polish, Czech, etc. Therefore, many scholars prefer the term "Old Bulgarian" language.

The Church Slavonic language, as a literary and liturgical language, received in the century. widespread use among all Slavic peoples baptized by their first teachers or their disciples: Bulgarians, Serbs, Croats, Czechs, Moravans, Russians, perhaps even Poles and Slovinians. It has been preserved in a number of monuments of Church Slavonic writing, which hardly go back further than the century. and in most cases being in more or less close connection with the above-mentioned translation, which has not reached us.

Along with spelling norms, the first grammars also came from the southern Slavs. The first grammar of the Church Slavonic language, in the modern meaning of the word, is the grammar of Laurentius Zizanius (). The Church Slavonic grammar of Meletius Smotritsky appears, which determined the later language norm. In their work, scribes sought to correct the language and text of the books they copied. At the same time, the idea of what correct text is has changed over time. Therefore, in different eras, books were corrected either from manuscripts that the editors considered ancient, or from books brought from other Slavic regions, or from Greek originals. As a result of the constant correction of liturgical books, the Church Slavonic language acquired its modern appearance. Basically, this process ended at the end of the 17th century, when, on the initiative of Patriarch Nikon, the liturgical books were corrected. Since Russia supplied other Slavic countries with liturgical books, the post-Nikon form of the Church Slavonic language became the common norm for all Orthodox Slavs.

History of the emergence of the Church Slavonic language

see Cyril Equal to the Apostles, Methodius Equal to the Apostles

The vernacular basis of the Church Slavonic language

Carrying out his first translations, which served as a model for subsequent Slavic translations and original works, Kirill undoubtedly focused on some living Slavic dialect. If Cyril began translating Greek texts even before his trip to Moravia, then, obviously, he should have been guided by the Slavic dialect known to him. And this was the dialect of the Solunsky Slavs, which, one might think, is the basis of the first translations. Slavic languages in the middle century. were very close to each other and differed in very few features. And these few features indicate the Bulgarian-Macedonian basis of the Church Slavonic language. The belonging of the Church Slavonic language to the Bulgarian-Macedonian group is also indicated by the composition of folk (not book) Greek borrowings, which could only characterize the language of the Slavs, who constantly communicated with the Greeks.

Church Slavonic language and Russian language

The Church Slavonic language played a large role in the development of the Russian literary language. The official adoption of Christianity by Kievan Rus (city) entailed the recognition of the Cyrillic alphabet as the only alphabet approved by secular and ecclesiastical authorities. Therefore, Russian people learned to read and write from books written in Church Slavonic. In the same language, with the addition of some ancient Russian elements, they began to write church-literary works. Subsequently, Church Slavonic elements penetrated into fiction, journalism, and even government acts.

Church Slavonic language until the 17th century. used by Russians as one of the varieties of the Russian literary language. Since the 18th century, when the Russian literary language mainly began to be built on the basis of living speech, Old Slavonic elements began to be used as a stylistic means in poetry and journalism.

The modern Russian literary language contains a significant number of different elements of the Church Slavonic language, which have undergone to one degree or another certain changes in the history of the development of the Russian language. So many words from the Church Slavonic language have entered the Russian language and they are used so often that some of them, having lost their bookish connotation, penetrated into the spoken language, and words parallel to them of original Russian origin fell out of use.

All this shows how organically Church Slavonic elements have grown into the Russian language. This is why it is impossible to thoroughly study the modern Russian language without knowing the Church Slavonic language, and this is why many phenomena of modern grammar become understandable only in the light of studying the history of the language. Getting to know the Church Slavonic language makes it possible to see how linguistic facts reflect the development of thinking, the movement from the concrete to the abstract, i.e. to reflect the connections and patterns of the surrounding world. The Church Slavonic language helps to better and more fully understand the modern Russian language. (see article Russian language)

ABC of the Church Slavonic language

The alphabet used in modern Church Slavonic is called Cyrillic after its author, Kirill. But at the beginning of Slavic writing, another alphabet was also used - Glagolitic. The phonetic system of both alphabets is equally well developed and almost coincides. The Cyrillic alphabet later formed the basis of the Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Macedonian, Bulgarian and Serbian alphabet, the alphabet of the peoples of the former USSR and Mongolia. The Glagolitic alphabet fell out of use and was preserved only in Croatia in church use.

Excerpts from the Church Slavonic language

Due to the diversity of monuments of the Church Slavonic language, it is difficult and even impossible to restore it in all its original purity. No review can be given unconditional preference over a wider range of phenomena. Relative preference should be given to Pannonian monuments, as they are more ancient and least influenced by living languages. But they are not free from this influence, and some features of the church language appear in a purer form in Russian monuments, the oldest of which should be placed after the Pannonian ones. Thus, we do not have one Church Slavonic language, but only its various, as it were, dialectical modifications, more or less removed from the primary type. This primary, normal type of Church Slavonic language can only be restored in a purely eclectic way, which, however, presents great difficulties and a high probability of error. The difficulty of restoration is further increased by the significant chronological distance separating the oldest Church Slavonic monuments from the translation of the first-teacher brothers.

Pannonian translation (from the supposed "Pannonian" Slavs into whose language the Holy Scripture was translated: a name created by the "Pannonists-Slovinists" and for the "Bulgarians" having only a conditional meaning), representing the Church Slavonic language as the purest and freest from the influence of any there were no living Slavic languages. The oldest monuments of the Church Slavonic language, written in Glagolitic and Cyrillic alphabet, belong here.

The Bulgarian version was especially widely used in the century, under Tsar Simeon, in the so-called golden age of Bulgarian literature. Around the half of the 12th century, a stronger influence of the well-known group of folk Bulgarian dialects is noticeable, giving the language of this era the name “Middle Bulgarian”. In this modified form, it continues to serve as the language of Bulgarian spiritual and secular literature until the 17th century, when it is replaced by the Central Symbol of Russian liturgical books printed in Russia, and the living folk language (for example, in the so-called Ljubljana collection).

The Serbian edition is colored by the influence of the living Serbian language; it served as a literary language both in the golden age of Serbian writing (XIV century) and after. Even at the beginning of the 19th century. (even before the reform of Vuk Karadzic, who created the literary Serbian language), TsSL (with an admixture of Russian coloring) served as the basis of the Serbian book language, the so-called “Slavic-Serbian”.

The Old Russian version also appeared very early. The papal bull already mentions Slavic worship in Rus', which, of course, was performed in Church Slavonic. After Russia adopted Christianity, it acquired the meaning of a literary and church language and, colored by the increasingly strong influence of the living Russian language, continued to remain in the first of the above-mentioned uses until the half of the 18th century, and in exceptional cases - longer, having, in turn, proved , a strong influence on the book and literary Russian language.

Monuments of the Church Slavonic language

The Church Slavonic language has reached us in quite numerous written monuments, but none of them dates back to the era of the Slavic first teachers, i.e. The oldest of these monuments (except for a gravestone inscription found not so long ago), dated and undated, belong to the century, which means, in any case, separated from the era of the first teachers by at least a whole century and even more, or even two . This circumstance, as well as the fact that these monuments, with the exception of a few, bear more or less strong traces of the influence of various living Slavic languages, makes it impossible to imagine the Church Slavonic language in the form in which it appeared in the century. We are already dealing with a later phase of its development, often with very noticeable deviations from the primary state, and it is not always possible to decide whether these deviations depend on the independent development of the Church Slavonic language, or on outside influence. In accordance with the various living languages, traces of whose influence can be indicated in the monuments of the Church Slavonic language, these latter are usually divided into editions.

Pannonian version

The most ancient monuments written in Glagolitic and Cyrillic alphabet belong here:

Glagolitic monuments

Zograf Gospel, beginning c., maybe end c.
Mariinsky Gospel (from the same time, with some traces of Serbian influence)
Gospel of Assemani (c., also not without Serbisms)
Sinai psalter (c.) and prayer book, or Euchologium (c.)
Collection of Count Claude, or Griagolita Clozianus (c.)
several small passages (Ohrid Gospel, Macedonian leaflet, etc.;

Cyrillic monuments (all in.)

Savvin's book, (not without Serbianisms)
Suprasl manuscript
Hilandar leaflets or Catechism of Cyril of Jerusalem
Gospel of Undolsky
Slutsk Psalter (one sheet)

Bulgarian version

Represents the influence features of the Middle and Modern Bulgarian languages. This includes later monuments of the 12th, 13th, 14th centuries, such as

Bologna Psalter, late 12th century.
Ohrid and Slepce apostles, 12th century.
Pogodinskaya Psalter, XII century.
Grigorovichev Paremeinik and Triodion, XII - XIII centuries.
Trnovo Gospel, late 13th century.
Paterik of Mikhanovich, XIII century.
Strumitsky Apostle, XIII century.
Bulgarian nomocanon
Strumitsky oktoich
Octoekh Mihanovich, XIII century.
many other monuments.

Serbian version

Represents the influence of the living Serbian language

Miroslav's Gospel, late 12th century.
Volcano Gospel, late 12th century.
Helmsman Mikhanovich,
Shishatovac Apostle,
Explanatory psalter by Branka Mladenovic,
Khvalov's manuscript, beginning c.
St. Nicholas Gospel, beginning c.
The helmsman of the 13th - 14th centuries, described by Sreznevsky,
many other monuments

Croatian version

written in angular, “Croatian” Glagolitic alphabet; their oldest examples are no older than the 13th - 14th centuries. Their homeland is Dalmatia and mainly the Dalmatian archipelago.

Czech or Moravian version

The monuments are very few in number and small in size. Reflect the influence of the Czech or Moravian living dialect

Kyiv passages in., Glagolitic
Prague excerpts - 12th century, Glagolitic
Reims Gospel of the 14th century, its Glagolitic part

Old Russian translation of the Church Slavonic language

The richest in the number of monuments (all Cyrillic) with obvious traces of the influence of the living Russian language (zh, ch instead of sht, zhd: candle, mezhyu; o and e vm. ъ and ь; “polnoglasie”, third person singular and plural . on -t, etc.).

Ostromir Gospel - g. (copied, obviously, from a very ancient original)
13 words of Gregory the Theologian
Turov Gospel
Izborniki Svyatoslav g. and g.
Pandect Antiochov
Arkhangelsk Gospel
Evgenievskaya Psalter
Novgorod menaion and city

Mstislav Gospel - Mr.
St. George's Gospel
Dobrilovo Gospel
The long series of these monuments ends with printed books of the 16th century, among which the main place is occupied by the Ostrog Bible, which represents almost entirely the modern Church Slavonic language of our liturgical and church books

Slovinsky version

The Freisingen passages are written in Latin alphabet and originate, according to some, from c. Their language does not have a close connection with the Church Slavonic language and could most likely receive the name “Old Slavonic”.

Finally, we can also point out the Romanian variety of the Church Slavonic language, which arose among the Orthodox Romanians.

Literature

Nevostruev K.I., Mstislav Gospel of the 12th century. Research. M. 1997
Likhachev Dmitry Sergeevich, Selected works: In 3 volumes. T. 1.3 L.: Artist. lit., 1987
Meshchersky Nikita Aleksandrovich, History of the Russian literary language,
Meshchersky Nikita Aleksandrovich, Sources and composition of ancient Slavic-Russian translated writing of the 9th-15th centuries
Vereshchagin E.M., From the history of the emergence of the first literary language of the Slavs. Translation technique of Cyril and Methodius. M., 1971.
Lvov A.S., Essays on the vocabulary of monuments of Old Slavonic writing. M., "Science", 1966
Zhukovskaya L.P., Textology and the language of the most ancient Slavic monuments. M., "Science", 1976.
Khaburgaev Georgy Alexandrovich, Old Church Slavonic language. M., "Enlightenment", 1974.
Khaburgaev Georgy Aleksandrovich, The first centuries of Slavic written culture: The origins of ancient Russian literature M., 1994.
Elkina N. M. Old Church Slavonic language. M., 1960.
Hieromonk Alipy (Gamanovich), Grammar of the Church Slavonic language. M., 1991
Hieromonk Alipiy (Gamanovich), A manual on the Church Slavonic language
Popov M. B., Introduction to the Old Church Slavonic language. St. Petersburg, 1997
Tseitlin R. M., Lexicon of the Old Church Slavonic language (Experience in the analysis of motivated words based on data from ancient Bulgarian manuscripts of the 10th-11th centuries). M., 1977
Vostokov A. Kh., Grammar of the Church Slovenian language. LEIPZIG 1980.
Sobolevsky A.I., Slavic-Russian paleography.
Kulbakina S.M., Hilandar sheets - an excerpt of Cyrillic writing of the 11th century. St. Petersburg 1900 // Monuments of the Old Church Slavonic language, I. Issue. I. St. Petersburg, 1900.
Kulbakina S. M., Ancient Church Slavic language. I. Introduction. Phonetics. Kharkov, 1911
Karinsky N., Reader on the Old Church Slavonic and Russian languages. Part one. The most ancient monuments. St. Petersburg 1904
Kolesov V.V., Historical phonetics of the Russian language. M.: 1980. 215 p.
Ivanova T. A., Old Church Slavonic: Textbook. SPb.: Publishing house St. Petersburg. Univ., 1998. 224 p.
Alekseev A. A., Textology of the Slavic Bible. St. Petersburg. 1999.
Alekseev A. A., Song of Songs in Slavic-Russian writing. St. Petersburg. 2002.
Birnbaum H., Proto-Slavic language Achievements and problems in its reconstruction. M.: Progress, 1986. - 512 p.

General articles and books

Church Slavonic language in the worship of the Russian Orthodox Church. Collection / Comp. N. Kaverin. - M.: “Russian Chronograph”, 2012. - 288 p.
A. Kh. Vostokov, “Discourse on the Slavic language” (“Proceedings of Moscow. General Amateur Russian Words.”, Part XVII, 1820, reprinted in “Philological Observations of A. Kh. Vostokov”, St. Petersburg, 1865 )
Zelenetsky, “On the Church Slavonic language, its beginning, educators and historical destinies” (Odessa, 1846)
Schleicher, "Ist das Altkirchenslavische slovenisch?" ("Kuhn und Schleichers Beitra ge zur vergleich. Sprachforschung", vol. ?, 1858)
V.I. Lamansky, “The Unresolved Question” (Journal of Min. Nar. Prosv., 1869, parts 143 and 144);
Polivka, "Kterym jazykem psany jsou nejstar s i pamatky cirkevniho jazyka slovanskeho, starobulharsky, ci staroslovansky" ("Slovansky Sbornik", published by Elinkom, 1883)
Oblak, "Zur Wurdigung, des Altslovenischen" (Jagic, "Archiv fu r slav. Philologie", vol. XV)
P. A. Lavrov, review citations. above Yagich's research, "Zur Entstehungsgeschichte der kirchensl. Sprache" ("News of the Department of Russian Language and Words. Imperial Academic Sciences", 1901, book 1)

Grammarians

Natalia Afanasyeva. Textbook of Church Slavonic language
Dobrovsky, “Institution es linguae slavicae dialecti veteris” (Vienna, 1822; Russian translation by Pogodin and Shevyrev: “Grammar of the Slavic language according to the ancient dialect”, St. Petersburg, 1833 - 34)
Miklosic, “Lautlehre” and “Formenlehre der altslovenischen Sprache” (1850), later included in the 1st and 3rd volumes, will compare it. grammar of glory. languages (first edition 1852 and 1856; second edition 1879 and 1876)
Schleicher, "Die Formenlehre der Kirchenslavischen Sprache" (Bonn, 1852)
Vostokov, “Grammar of the Church Slavic language, expounded on the basis of the oldest written monuments thereof” (St. Petersburg, 1863)
his “Philological Observations” (St. Petersburg, 1865)
Leskin, "Handbuch der altbulgarischen Sprache" (Weimar, 1871, 1886, 1898
rus. translation by Shakhmatov and Shchepkin: "Grammar of the Old Church Slavonic language", Moscow, 1890)
Greitler, "Starobulharsk a fonologie se stalym z r etelem k jazyku litevske mu" (Prague, 1873)
Miklosic, "Altslovenische Formenlehre in Paradigmen mit Texten aus glagolitischen Quellen" (Vienna, 1874)
Budilovich, “Inscriptions of C. grammar, in relation to the general theory of Russian and other related languages” (Warsaw, 1883); N. P. Nekrasov, “Essay on the comparative doctrine of the sounds and forms of the ancient Church Slavonic language” (St. Petersburg, 1889)
A. I. Sobolevsky, "Ancient Church Slavonic language. Phonetics" (Moscow, 1891)

Dictionaries

Vostokov, “Dictionary of the Central Language” (St. Petersburg, 2 vols., 1858, 1861)
Miklosic, "Lexicon palaeosloveuico-graeco-latinum emendatum auctum..." (Vienna, 1862 - 65). For etymology, see title. Miklosic's dictionary and in his “Etymologisches Worterbuch der slavisc hen Sprachen” (Vienna, 1886).

Khaburgaev G.A. Old Slavonic language. Textbook for pedagogical students. Institute, specialty No. 2101 "Russian language and literature". M., "Enlightenment", 1974

N.M. Elkina, Old Church Slavonic language, textbook for students of philological faculties of pedagogical institutes and universities, M., 1960

Section for students of Church Slavonic language

Church Slavonic is the liturgical language of the Russian Orthodox Church.

It arose in the 9th century as the language of the Gospel for the Slavic peoples: during the translation of the Holy Scriptures by Saints Cyril and Methodius, Equal-to-the-Apostles.

The alphabet of the Church Slavonic language consists of Slavic and Greek letters; many words used in it are also of Greek origin.

In comparison with modern Russian, Church Slavonic contains and conveys the subtlest shades of spiritual concepts and experiences.

How to learn to understand the liturgical language of the church:

1) Purchase an explanatory prayer book with parallel translation, a dictionary and a textbook.
2) You can start readingprayer book(morning and evening rules, rules for Communion) - in Russian transcription with parallel translation.

3) Use our resource on the Internet.

You can learn to read in CSL in a few hours. To do this, you need to study 2 tables:words with titleand rules for reading severallettersand their combinations.
Most of the words are consonant with the modern language, but you should pay attention to the fact that a number of words familiar to us have a different or even opposite ( paronyms ) meaning. It is also important to take into account that liturgical texts are based on Holy Scripture, without knowledge of which translation will not provide understanding.
4) Participate in divine services, checking the text and commentaries.

1. Academic course of the Church Slavonic language.

2. Church Slavonic language for high school students.

3. Church Slavonic language for grades 6-8.Textbook of Church Slavonic language(in developing)

4. Basic course of the Church Slavonic language (primary school).Textbook of Church Slavonic language(in developing)

5. A series of television programs about the Church Slavonic language.

Textbook of Church Slavonic language

Church Slavonic is a language that has survived to this day as the language of worship. Goes back to the Old Church Slavonic language created by Cyril and Methodius on the basis of South Slavic dialects. The oldest Slavic literary language spread first among the Western Slavs (Moravia), then among the southern Slavs (Bulgaria) and eventually became the common literary language of the Orthodox Slavs. This language also became widespread in Wallachia and some areas of Croatia and the Czech Republic. Thus, from the very beginning, Church Slavonic was the language of the church and culture, and not of any particular people.
Church Slavonic was the literary (book) language of the peoples inhabiting a vast territory. Since it was, first of all, the language of church culture, the same texts were read and copied throughout this territory. Monuments of the Church Slavonic language were influenced by local dialects (this was most strongly reflected in spelling), but the structure of the language did not change. It is customary to talk about editions (regional variants) of the Church Slavonic language - Russian, Bulgarian, Serbian, etc.
Church Slavonic has never been a spoken language. As a book language, it was opposed to living national languages. As a literary language, it was a standardized language, and the norm was determined not only by the place where the text was rewritten, but also by the nature and purpose of the text itself. Elements of living spoken language (Russian, Serbian, Bulgarian) could penetrate Church Slavonic texts in varying quantities. The norm of each specific text was determined by the relationship between the elements of book and living spoken language. The more important the text was in the eyes of the medieval Christian scribe, the more archaic and strict the language norm. Elements of spoken language almost did not penetrate into liturgical texts. The scribes followed tradition and were guided by the most ancient texts. In parallel with the texts, there was also business writing and private correspondence. The language of business and private documents combines elements of a living national language (Russian, Serbian, Bulgarian, etc.) and individual Church Slavonic forms.
The active interaction of book cultures and the migration of manuscripts led to the fact that the same text was rewritten and read in different editions. By the 14th century I realized that the texts contain errors. The existence of different editions did not make it possible to resolve the question of which text is older, and therefore better. At the same time, the traditions of other peoples seemed more perfect. If the South Slavic scribes were guided by Russian manuscripts, then the Russian scribes, on the contrary, believed that the South Slavic tradition was more authoritative, since it was the South Slavs who preserved the features of the ancient language. They valued Bulgarian and Serbian manuscripts and imitated their spelling.
The first grammar of the Church Slavonic language, in the modern sense of the word, is the grammar of Laurentius Zizanius (1596). In 1619, the Church Slavonic grammar of Meletius Smotritsky appeared, which determined the later language norm. In their work, scribes sought to correct the language and text of the books they copied. At the same time, the idea of what correct text is has changed over time. Therefore, in different eras, books were corrected either from manuscripts that the editors considered ancient, or from books brought from other Slavic regions, or from Greek originals. As a result of the constant correction of liturgical books, the Church Slavonic language acquired its modern appearance. Basically, this process ended at the end of the 17th century, when, on the initiative of Patriarch Nikon, the liturgical books were corrected. Since Russia supplied other Slavic countries with liturgical books, the post-Nikon form of the Church Slavonic language became the common norm for all Orthodox Slavs.
In Russia, Church Slavonic was the language of the Church and culture until the 18th century. After the emergence of a new type of Russian literary language, Church Slavonic remains only the language of Orthodox worship. The corpus of Church Slavonic texts is constantly being updated: new church services, akathists and prayers are being compiled.
Being a direct descendant of the Old Church Slavonic language, Church Slavonic has retained many archaic features of its morphological and syntactic structure to this day. It is characterized by four types of noun declension, has four past tenses of verbs and special forms of the nominative case of participles. The syntax retains calque Greek phrases (dative independent, double accusative, etc.). The greatest changes were made to the orthography of the Church Slavonic language, the final form of which was formed as a result of the “book reference” of the 17th century.

Pletneva A.A., Kravetsky A.G. Church Slavonic language

This textbook on the Church Slavonic language teaches you to read and understand texts used in Orthodox worship, and introduces you to the history of Russian culture. Knowledge of the Church Slavonic language makes it possible to comprehend many phenomena of the Russian language in a different way. The book is an indispensable tool for those who want to independently study the Church Slavonic language. It will also be interesting and useful to a wide range of readers.

Our modernity, and especially everyday life, is contradictory and complex. Overcoming difficulties and contradictions, we strive for a full-blooded spiritual and secular life, for renewal and at the same time for the return of many lost and almost forgotten values, without which our past would not exist and the desired future is unlikely to come true. We again appreciate what has been tested by generations and what, despite all attempts to “destroy to the ground,” has been handed down to us as a heritage for centuries. Such values include the ancient bookish Church Slavonic language.

Its life-giving primary source is the Old Church Slavonic language, the language of the holy Slavic primary teachers Cyril and Methodius, called equal to the apostles for their feat of creating and disseminating Slavic literacy and worship, and was one of the oldest book languages in Europe. In addition to Greek and Latin, whose roots go back to ancient pre-Christian times, one can name only three European languages that are not inferior in seniority to Old Church Slavonic: these are Gothic (IV century), Anglo-Saxon (VII century) and Old High German (VIII century). The Old Slavonic language, which arose in the 9th century, lives up to its name, for it, like its first alphabet - Glagolitic, was created by the holy Solun brothers for all Slavs and existed first among the Western Slavs and the western part of the Southern Slavs - Moravans , Czechs, Slovaks, partly Poles, Pannonian and Alpine Slavs, and then the Southern Slavs within the Dalmatian, Croatian, Macedonian, Bulgarian and Serbian and, finally, the Eastern Slavs. In their midst, more than a thousand years ago, as a result of the Baptism of Rus', it took root, blossomed “like a holy land” and gave amazing examples of spiritualized and chaste writing, to which many generations of our grandfathers and fathers turned.

Without Church Slavonic, which existed in Rus', it is difficult to imagine the development of the Russian literary language in all eras of its history. The church language, like Latin in Western Romance countries, has always been a support, a guarantee of purity and a source of enrichment for the Russian standardized language. Even now, sometimes subconsciously, we carry within us particles of the sacred common Slavic language and use it. Using the proverb “Through the mouth of a child the truth speaks,” we do not think about the fact that “purely” in Russian we should say “Through the mouth of a child the truth speaks,” but we feel only a certain archaism, the bookishness of this wise saying. Our ancestors in the 18th century. or at the beginning of the 19th century, using the French idiom trainer une miserable existence, they did not say “to drag out a wretched life,” as it would seem to be expected, but turned to the Church Slavonic tradition and... began, in some cases, to eke out a miserable existence. Even Mikhailo Lomonosov, in his “Preface on the Use of Church Books in the Russian Language” in 1757, wrote that “by diligently and carefully using the native Slavic language, which is native to us, together with Russian, we will ward off wild and strange words of absurdity that come to us from foreign languages, borrowing from ourselves.” beauty from Greek, and then also through Latin,” and explained that “these indecencies now, through neglect of reading church books, creep into us insensitively, distort the own beauty of our language, subject it to constant change and bend it to decline. All this will be stopped in the manner shown, and the Russian language in full strength, beauty and richness will not be subject to change and decline, as long as the Russian Church is adorned with the praise of God in the Slavic language.” .

Thus, M. V. Lomonosov saw a favorable future for the Russian literary language in relying on the “Slavic language,” which was confirmed at the beginning of the 19th century. the brilliant poetic style of Pushkin, and almost a century later, in the tragic days of the Second Russian Revolution, another servant of the Russian Muse, poet Vyacheslav Ivanov, the author of a number of works in a language close to Church Slavonic, wrote in the article “Our Language”: “The language that has acquired such a blessed destiny at birth, was blessed a second time in his infancy with a mysterious baptism in the life-giving streams of the Church Slavonic language. They partially transformed his flesh and spiritually transformed his soul, his “inner form.” And now he is no longer just a gift of God to us, but as if a gift of God, especially and doubly, - fulfilled and multiplied. Church Slavonic speech became under the fingers of the divinely inspired sculptors of the Slavic soul, Sts. Cyril and Methodius, a living cast of the “divine Hellenic speech”, the image and likeness of which the ever-memorable Enlighteners introduced into their statues.” . For many writers and poets, and simply admirers of the beauty of the Russian language, Church Slavonic was not only a source of inspiration and a model of harmonious completeness, stylistic rigor, but also a guardian, as Lomonosov believed, of the purity and correctness of the path of development of the Russian (“Russian- go") language. Has Church Slavonic lost this role in our time? I believe that I have not lost that it is precisely this functional side of the ancient language, a language that is not divorced from modernity, that should be recognized and perceived in our time. I know that in France, lovers and guardians of the purity of French speech treat Latin in the same way, studying and popularizing this medieval international European language and even trying to make it oral, colloquial in certain situations and conditions. They created a society of “living Latin” (le latin vivant) not in any way to the detriment, but to the benefit of their native French language.

The Church Slavonic language that we hear in churches and find in church books is now commonly called New Church Slavonic in science; new church texts are written in it: akathists, services to newly glorified saints. This term was introduced by the famous Czech paleoslavist Vyacheslav Frantsevich Maresh (he calls himself that in Russian), who devoted several works to the New Church Slavonic language. In a report at a conference dedicated to the 1000th anniversary of the Baptism of Rus' (Leningrad, January 31 - February 5, 1988), he said that “in our time there are three types of the New Church Slavonic language: 1) the Russian type, which is used as a liturgical language in the worship of the Byzantine rite (pronunciation adapts to the linguistic environment); 2) the Croatian-glagolic type, which is used in Roman rite worship among the Croats (from 1921 to 1972 also among the Czechs); 3) Czech type, used in the Roman rite among the Czechs since 1972 (formulated scientifically in 1972).” Recently, service books of the Roman rite were published in the New Church Slavonic language of the Croatian-Glagolic version and the Czech version. Like all liturgical books, they were published anonymously, but it is known that the Croatian version was prepared by I. L. Tandarich, and the Czech version by V. Tkadlick. Thus, the Church Slavonic language can be heard not only in Orthodox churches, but also in Catholic churches, although in the latter it is heard extremely rarely, in exceptional cases and in exceptional places.

In today's Russia, Church Slavonic is felt and perceived by many as a “dead” language, that is, preserved only in church books and services; in all other cases, even when reading the Holy Scriptures at home, the native Russian language is in use. This was not the case in pre-revolutionary times. Numerous sources testify to this, as well as my own memories of my childhood, adolescence and youth. This time passed in the conditions of refugee life in Serbia, in Belgrade, where I studied at an “old-fashioned” Russian school, and then at a Russian men’s gymnasium. In my senior year, my law teacher and spiritual father was Archpriest Georgy Florovsky, and in total the Law of God was taught for at least ten years (complete secondary education lasted 12 years: four years in elementary school and eight in the gymnasium). The prayers, the Creed and the Gospel (New Testament) were exclusively in Church Slavonic, and only the Catechism, as I remember, the Catechism of Metropolitan Philaret, which we selectively crammed word for word, was in Russian, and then very archaic (as I remember now passage explaining why the Savior's death on the cross frees us from sin, damnation and death: "In order that we may more easily believe this mystery, the word of God instructs us about it, as much as we can bear, by comparing Jesus Christ with Adam. Adam is naturally the head of all mankind , which is one with him, by natural origin from him” - etc.) . At Sunday mass, which many of us knew almost by heart, we stood in formation in the gymnasium church, sometimes, before major holidays, we defended vespers, part of the class (the lucky ones!) sang in the church choir, but we also went to the city Russian Trinity Church and to the cemetery to Iverskaya. The Church Slavonic language was constantly heard, Church Slavonic texts (the commandments of Moses and the Beatitudes, Prayers, troparia, small parables from the Gospel), as well as Latin texts or Turgenev’s prose poems, were memorized, individual high school students served in the church, read the hours, and performed the duties of a psalm-reader. The Church Slavonic language was heard more often than it was perceived visually.

To understand how deeply the Church Slavonic language was perceived by Russian people or people of Russian culture in times that now seem almost patriarchal, it is enough to read the short and unusually vivid story “Dirge” by the Parisian Russian writer Gaito Gazdanov, who became an emigrant after the civil war in our country . The story describes how, during the German occupation of Paris in 1942, a Russian refugee died of consumption, how his few, largely casual acquaintances came to him, who called a Russian priest to perform a funeral service for the deceased right in the house and then take him to the cemetery: “Father, an old man with a voice hoarse from a cold, arrived a quarter of an hour later. He was wearing a worn cassock and looked sad and tired. He entered and crossed himself<...>- From what places is the dead man? - asked the priest. Volodya answered - such and such a district in the Oryol province. “A neighbor, that means,” said the priest. - I’m from the same place, and it won’t be thirty miles. The trouble is, I didn’t know that I would have to bury my fellow countryman. What was your name? - Grigory. - The priest was silent for a while<...>“If times were different, I would have served a real memorial service for him, like they do in our monasteries.” But my voice is hoarse, it’s difficult for me alone, so maybe one of you will still help me, pull me up? will you support me? - I looked at Volodya. The expression on his face was<...>tragic and solemn. “Serve, father, as in a monastery,” he said, “and we will support everything, we will not go astray.” - He turned to his comrades, raised both hands up in an imperative and familiar, as it seemed to me, gesture - the priest looked at him in surprise - and the funeral service began. Nowhere and never, neither before nor after that, have I heard such a choir. After some time, the entire staircase of the house where Grigory Timofeevich lived was full of people who had come to listen to the singing.<...>“Truly all is vanity, but life is shadow and sleep, for every earth-born rushes about in vain, as the Scripture says: when we have received peace, then we will dwell in the tomb, and kings and beggars will go together.”<...>“We will all disappear, we will all die, kings and princes, judges and rapists, the rich and the poor and all human nature.”<...>When the funeral service was over, I asked Volodya: “Where did you get all this from?” How miraculously did it all happen, how did you put together such a choir? “Yes, just like that,” he said. - Some once sang in opera, some in operetta, some just in a tavern. And everyone in the choir sang, of course. And we know church services from childhood - until our last breath. “Then the coffin with the body of Grigory Timofeevich was closed.”<...> .

In order to proceed to studying the Church Slavonic language using this textbook, click on the image of its cover.

Pushkin exclaimed passionately: “My children will read the Bible in the original with me.” “In Slavic?” – asked Khomyakov. “In Slavic,” Pushkin confirmed, “I will teach them myself.”
Metropolitan Anastasy (Gribanovsky).
Pushkin in his attitude to religion and the Orthodox Church

The Russian rural school is now obliged to impart knowledge to its pupils... this is a pedagogical treasure that no rural school in the world possesses. This study, constituting in itself an excellent mental gymnastics, gives life and meaning to the study of the Russian language.
S.A. Rachinsky. Rural school

To ensure that children continue to master Slavic literacy, we periodically write texts in this language. We don’t sit down at the table and write down dictations with an A, but we do this. For every twelfth holiday, or great one, or name day, we prepare troparia, kontakia, and magnifications, written in Church Slavonic on beautiful cardboard. One child gets one prayer, the other gets another. Older children copy the text from the prayer book themselves; younger children find it easier to circle what their mother wrote. Very little children color the initial letter and the ornamental frame. Thus, all children participate in preparation for the holiday, for younger children this is the first acquaintance, for older children it is training, for those who already know how to read it is consolidation. And we take these leaves to the church for the all-night vigil to sing along with the choir. At home on holidays, we also sing troparia, kontakion and magnification - before meals and during family prayers. And it is very convenient for everyone to look not at the prayer book, where the troparion still needs to be found and it is written in small print, but at the text prepared by the children. Thus, children regularly engage in activities without even knowing it. Such activities in themselves teach the child to write correctly in this ancient language. Once I suggested that my nine-year-old son write a kontakion for some holiday, but I could not find the Church Slavonic text. I gave him this kontakion in Russian, offering to write it off. And he copied it, but in Church Slavonic, according to his own understanding, placing ers at the end of masculine nouns, stress and even aspiration, writing down almost all the necessary words under titles. As he explained, it is much more beautiful. True, his yati and izhitsy were written in the wrong places; of course, there were mistakes. But in general, a child who had not attended a single lesson in the Church Slavonic language, who studied it in the primitive form as described in this article, simply following his memory, wrote down the unfamiliar text almost correctly.

To study a language at a more serious level, of course, you will still have to turn to grammar. If you are not satisfied with the method of natural immersion in the language and unobtrusive acquisition of knowledge given here, you can conduct something similar to lessons in the Church Slavonic language. Having introduced the Slavic alphabet to a child (in this case, who already knows how to read Russian), we will highlight those letters that are not similar to modern Russian ones - there are not many of them. Let's ask the child to write them down and indicate how they are read. Then we will look at superscript and lowercase characters, including simple and alphabetic titles. We will separately analyze the recording of numbers in Church Slavonic. If a child already knows how to read Slavic, such lessons will not be difficult for either him or his parents. If you have a goal to truly study the Church Slavonic language, then in the future you can either purchase textbooks on this subject and master them at home, or go to courses, then to a specialized university... From textbooks, we can recommend N.P.’s manual. Sablina “Slavic initial letter”, for older children and parents - self-teacher of the Church Slavonic language Yu.B. Kamchatnova, unique in that it was not written for philologists and in accessible language. But all this will be learning a language that has already become native.

The “teaching method” described here can not only be implemented in the family - it is designed specifically for the family. After all, the culture of the parental family first of all becomes our native culture, and it is the language of our parents that becomes our native language. School study can give us knowledge, perhaps brilliant - but for a child this knowledge will not become a part of life if it is not part of the life of the family. Home “immersion in the language”, of course, will not make the child a specialist - but it will make Church Slavonic his native language, whether he will be a specialist in this field of linguistics in the future or will not study the language as a subject at all. And most importantly: such home education, even in its simplest form, opens up new opportunities for communication between parents and children, allows them to find new common topics, without requiring much effort and time from adults.

Such home studies educate the parents even more than their students; Parents study together with their children and receive unlimited opportunities for free pedagogical creativity, which also brings all family members closer together. Maybe this is not possible in every family, but everyone can try. Try to make your home a place of education.

C Church Slavonic is a language that has survived to this day as the language of worship. Goes back to the Old Church Slavonic language created by Cyril and Methodius on the basis of South Slavic dialects. The oldest Slavic literary language spread first among the Western Slavs (Moravia), then among the southern Slavs (Bulgaria) and eventually became the common literary language of the Orthodox Slavs. This language also became widespread in Wallachia and some areas of Croatia and the Czech Republic. Thus, from the very beginning, Church Slavonic was the language of the church and culture, and not of any particular people.
Church Slavonic was the literary (book) language of the peoples inhabiting a vast territory. Since it was, first of all, the language of church culture, the same texts were read and copied throughout this territory. Monuments of the Church Slavonic language were influenced by local dialects (this was most strongly reflected in spelling), but the structure of the language did not change. It is customary to talk about editions (regional variants) of the Church Slavonic language - Russian, Bulgarian, Serbian, etc.
Church Slavonic has never been a spoken language. As a book language, it was opposed to living national languages. As a literary language, it was a standardized language, and the norm was determined not only by the place where the text was rewritten, but also by the nature and purpose of the text itself. Elements of living spoken language (Russian, Serbian, Bulgarian) could penetrate Church Slavonic texts in varying quantities. The norm of each specific text was determined by the relationship between the elements of book and living spoken language. The more important the text was in the eyes of the medieval Christian scribe, the more archaic and strict the language norm. Elements of spoken language almost did not penetrate into liturgical texts. The scribes followed tradition and were guided by the most ancient texts. In parallel with the texts, there was also business writing and private correspondence. The language of business and private documents combines elements of a living national language (Russian, Serbian, Bulgarian, etc.) and individual Church Slavonic forms. The active interaction of book cultures and the migration of manuscripts led to the fact that the same text was rewritten and read in different editions. By the 14th century I realized that the texts contain errors. The existence of different editions did not make it possible to resolve the question of which text is older, and therefore better. At the same time, the traditions of other peoples seemed more perfect. If the South Slavic scribes were guided by Russian manuscripts, then the Russian scribes, on the contrary, believed that the South Slavic tradition was more authoritative, since it was the South Slavs who preserved the features of the ancient language. They valued Bulgarian and Serbian manuscripts and imitated their spelling.
The first grammar of the Church Slavonic language, in the modern sense of the word, is the grammar of Laurentius Zizanius (1596). In 1619, the Church Slavonic grammar of Meletius Smotritsky appeared, which determined the later language norm. In their work, scribes sought to correct the language and text of the books they copied. At the same time, the idea of what correct text is has changed over time. Therefore, in different eras, books were corrected either from manuscripts that the editors considered ancient, or from books brought from other Slavic regions, or from Greek originals. As a result of the constant correction of liturgical books, the Church Slavonic language acquired its modern appearance. Basically, this process ended at the end of the 17th century, when, on the initiative of Patriarch Nikon, the liturgical books were corrected. Since Russia supplied other Slavic countries with liturgical books, the post-Nikon form of the Church Slavonic language became the common norm for all Orthodox Slavs.
In Russia, Church Slavonic was the language of the Church and culture until the 18th century. After the emergence of a new type of Russian literary language, Church Slavonic remains only the language of Orthodox worship. The corpus of Church Slavonic texts is constantly being updated: new church services, akathists and prayers are being compiled. Being a direct descendant of the Old Church Slavonic language, Church Slavonic has retained many archaic features of its morphological and syntactic structure to this day. It is characterized by four types of noun declension, has four past tenses of verbs and special forms of the nominative case of participles. The syntax retains calque Greek phrases (dative independent, double accusative, etc.). The greatest changes were made to the orthography of the Church Slavonic language, the final form of which was formed as a result of the “book reference” of the 17th century.

In the Church Slavonic language, the alphabet consists of 40 letters, most of which correspond to Russian letters in spelling and pronunciation. Each letter of the Church Slavonic language has its own traditional name.