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

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

The following letters and combinations of letters are written differently, but pronounced the same:

1. e є e
2. and і m v3 Ђ
3. o o w q
4. t from
5. x x
6. p ps

The Church Slavonic alphabet was created on the basis of Greek. This explains the presence of a number of letters (f w x p v) that are redundant for the transmission of Slavic speech. Greek influence also explains the rule according to which the combination gg is read as [ng], and the combination gk - as [nc], for example: є3vaggelіe, смгкл1т.

The letter e was used to convey a special vowel sound, represented in many Slavic dialects. Some dialects of the Russian language have distinct sounds e and e. In Western Ukraine, when reading ordinary Church Slavonic texts, e under stress is pronounced as [and].

Superscripts and punctuation marks

In the Church Slavonic language, special icons are used, which are placed above the line level and are called superscript. This accent marks, special aspiration sign And word abbreviations. A strict system of using superscripts appears quite late. The oldest manuscript with accent marks is Chudovsky New Testament(mid-14th century), a new translation from Greek into Slavonic, made, according to legend, by St. Alexis, Metropolitan of Moscow. The system of superscript characters was finally formed by the beginning of the 18th century.

Accent marks

In Church Slavonic there are three types of stress:

• a - acute accent, or nxjz
• A - heavy stress, or varjz
• † - light stress, or kam0ra

The difference in accent marks is not related to pronunciation features. So, the words rab and r†b, zemS and zemls are read the same. Church Slavonic accent marks are borrowed from Greek. Acute stress is placed over the vowel at the beginning and middle of the word, for example Гдъ, соторi1ти. Heavy is placed if the word ends with a stressed vowel, for example cruci2 є3го2. However, if after such a word there are words: bo, same, li, mz, mi, tz, ti, cz, si, us, you, which do not have their own stress, then the acute stress is retained on the previous vowel, for example: the earth is invisible and unstructured[Gen. 1. 2].

Light stress serves to distinguish forms singular and plural (dual) forms. For example:

• tsar (I. unit) - tsar (R. pl.)
• tsarS (R. unit) - tsar‰ (I. or V. dv.)

Aspirate sign

If a word begins with a vowel, then an aspiration sign is placed above this vowel, which in Slavic is called zvateltso: ґ. This icon is not pronounced at all. In Slavic texts it appeared in connection with the orientation towards Greek orthography. IN Ancient Greek aspiration marks influenced pronunciation.

The aspirate mark can be combined with the accent mark. The combination of these signs has special names. The combination of acute stress and aspiration is called u4so, and the combination of aspiration with heavy stress a5 is called gostrophe

Title signs

A number of words in Church Slavonic are written not in full, but in abbreviation. Abbreviations are highlighted using a special sign called the title sign. Under the title are written words related to the sacred sphere, i.e. denoting sacred, revered objects, for example bGъ - God, btsda - Mother of God, sp7s - Saved.

In some cases, the title sign is used to distinguish God (this word is written under the title sign when talking about the God in whom Christians believe) from pagan gods (in this case, b0gъ, b0zi is written without the title sign). In the same way, when talking about the angels of God, the word GgGl is written under the title sign, and if it is talking about the fallen angel, Satan, then the word Gggel is written completely without the title sign and is read [aggel].

There are several options for the title sign:

1. 7 - simple title.
2. alphabetic titles (i.e., a way of abbreviating a word when one of the missing letters is placed above the line):
   • d good-title - btsda
   • g verb-title - є3ђліе
   • b he-title - prрb0къ
   • > rtsy-titlo - i3m>k
   • c word-title - кртъ

Punctuation marks

In Church Slavonic, the rules for placing punctuation marks are less strict than in Russian, i.e. in the same case there may be different signs, or there may be no punctuation mark at all. You should pay attention to the most significant differences between Church Slavonic punctuation marks and modern Russian ones:

• A semicolon in Church Slavonic indicates interrogative intonation, i.e. performs the same functions as the question mark in modern Russian: of little faith, almost2 ўdoubtedz є3сi2; - You of little faith, why did you doubt?[Matt. 14.31].
• In liturgical books, instead of frequently repeated prayers and exclamations, only the first words are given. So, instead of exclamation Glory to nts7Y and3 sn7u and3 s™0mu d¦u, and3 nhne and3 pr1snw and3 forever and ever, ґmi1n the words Slava and 3 nhne are given: . In this case, a colon is placed instead of an ellipsis. If the liturgical book says Џ§е ours: , then the prayer is read in its entirety in this place Our Father[Matt. 6.9-13].
• We have seen that in Church Slavonic the sign<;>(semicolon) corresponds to the question mark of the modern Russian language. The function of the semicolon in Church Slavonic is the dot, which in this case is called small point. It is no different in size from a regular period, but after it the sentence continues with a small letter.
• There are no strict rules for placing commas in the Church Slavonic language. But commas, as in modern Russian, help to understand the division of a sentence and highlight its main parts.

Numerical letter values

Arabic and Latin numerals are not used in Church Slavonic texts. To write numbers, letters of the Church Slavonic alphabet are used, which have numerical values. In this case, a title sign is placed above the letter.

If a number is written in two or more letters, then the title sign is usually placed above the second letter from the end.

Numbers from 11 to 19 are written like this: in the first place are the letters denoting units, and in the second place is the letter i, which has the digital value “ten”, for example №i - 11, В7i - 12, Gi - 13, etc.; numbers from 21 onwards are written like this: first the letter denoting ten is written, then the letter denoting one, for example k7z - 27, n7g - 53, o7a - 71. This rule is easy to remember if you understand that the letters in the Church Slavonic number are written like this: how to pronounce a number, for example 11 - one-over-twenty (twenty - ten), 13 - three-over-twenty, 23 - two-twenty-three

Thousands are indicated by the sign ¤, which can be attached to any letter below the line level, for example ¤в7 - 2000, ¤f7 - 9000, ¤… - 60,000, ¤ф\ - 500,000.

Calculation can be carried out both from the Nativity of Christ and from the creation of the world. The time interval between these events, according to church tradition, is 5,508 years. Therefore, if the date is indicated as ¤з7ф (7 500), then this means 1992 from the Nativity of Christ or in Slavic ¤ац§в

CHURCH SLAVIC LANGUAGE is 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.

Created for the needs of Orthodoxy and extremely close to existing oral systems, the Old Church Slavonic language quickly spread among the Slavic peoples. Under the influence of living local speech, it acquires features that are individually characteristic of different languages. Already the earliest monuments of the 9th-11th centuries reflect features characteristic of the speech of scribes. 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. The most ancient monuments of the Church Slavonic language include the Ostromir Gospel of 1056-1057, the Kupriyanovsky (Novgorod) leaves, the Novgorod Service Menaions, the Evgenievskaya Psalter.

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, the main spelling rules were formulated and the grammatical system was codified. 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.

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 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 18th century, the Church Slavonic language lost its status as a literary language - this role is now played by the Russian language. The Church Slavonic language has only one, original function, which it still performs today - to be the language of worship and liturgical literature. The corpus of Church Slavonic texts is constantly being updated: new church services, akathists and prayers are being compiled.

For the authenticity of the picture, it is necessary to mention that since the late 80s of the 20th century, a large number of publishing houses have appeared in our country, which, among other things, publish books in the Church Slavonic language, belonging to different editions and linguistic traditions. In addition, recently, against the backdrop of low Church Slavonic literacy, long-standing debates about replacing the liturgical language with Russian have flared up with renewed vigor.

Prepared by I. S. Belyaeva based on materials:

http://www.pravoslavie.ru/cgi-bin/sm4.cgi?item=17r011019163633 (Larisa Marsheva)

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 modern language, but we 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.

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

Given training manual in the Church Slavonic language teaches to read and understand texts used in Orthodox worship, introduces 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 Slavic 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 pure 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 the favorable future of 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 language 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 the senior class, my 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 a 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 comprehend, through the comparison of 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 psalm-readers. 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 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 grave, 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.

Church Slavonic, as its name indicates, is a special purpose language. The name “church” indicates its use in church services, and the name “Slavic” indicates that it is used Slavic peoples, to which belong mainly Russians, Serbs and Bulgarians.

The beginning of Church Slavonic literacy dates back to the second half of the 9th century. The entire system of Church Slavonic literacy, the composition of its letters and sounds and its spelling were compiled by the holy brothers Constantine and Methodius. They were born in Thessaloniki, where their father was an assistant mayor. There is an assumption that their father was a Slav. Many Slavs lived around Thessaloniki, and therefore many residents of Thessaloniki knew the Slavic language. Constantine and Methodius also knew the Slavic language.

The main share of labor in creating the grammatical system of the Slavic language falls on Constantine. He received an excellent education at court, where he was destined for a high court position, but he preferred serving God in the monastic rank and retired to a monastery on the “Narrow” (Marmara) Sea. Soon, however, he was persuaded to return back, and he was appointed teacher of philosophy at the court school of Caesar Bardas.

Even in his young years, Constantine attracted attention as an outstanding philosopher and polemicist, and therefore in all difficult cases related to theological issues, the king or his synclite turned to him. When in 862 the Moravian prince Rostislav sent envoys to Emperor Michael with a request to send him preachers of the Christian faith who could preach in their native language, the choice fell on Constantine.

His brother Methodius was first the governor of the Strum region in Macedonia. Having served 10 years in this rank and having experienced the bustle of worldly life, he retired to a monastery on Mount Olympus. In Constantine's educational activities among the Slavs, Methodius became his indispensable collaborator.

At that time, Slavic literacy did not yet exist, although there were attempts to convey Slavic speech in Latin or Greek letters or some “features and cuts,” as the 10th-century Bulgarian writer Monk Khrabr writes about this.

The holy brothers began by compiling the alphabet, translated some books and then, with some other helpers, set off for Moravia. The preaching in a language understandable to the people was successful, but the German clergy, seeing that the Slavic population was slipping away from their influence, began to hinder this in every possible way. They slandered the holy brothers before Pope Nicholas I, whose jurisdiction was Moravia. The holy brothers were forced to go to Rome for justification. Their path lay through Pannokia, where they preached for some time at the request of Prince Kotsel.

In Rome St. the brothers no longer found Pope Nicholas I alive, and his successor Pope Adrian II, a gentler man, received them favorably and allowed them to preach in the Slavic language. In Rome, Constantine fell ill and died, having accepted the schema with the name Cyril before his death.

His death followed on February 14, 869. Saint Methodius was ordained a bishop, and returned to his former preaching, first in Pannocia, and then in Moravia, where, with great difficulty, even enduring imprisonment, he preached the word of God in the Slavic language until his death which followed in Velegrad on April 6, 885. The holy brothers are commemorated on May 11.

The popes several times either allowed preaching in the Slavic language or prohibited it again. Such a changeable policy of the popes regarding the preaching of the Christian faith in the Slavic language depended on general policy the papal throne in relation to the western and eastern Carolingians and to the Byzantine emperor.

After the death of Methodius, his disciples were expelled from Moravia, and the center of educational activity moved to the borders of Bulgaria and Serbia. Prominent disciples of the holy brothers were their followers Saints Gorazd, Clement and Naum, who developed extensive activity in Bulgaria.

The alphabet used in modern Church Slavonic is called Cyrillic, named after its compiler, Saint Cyril (Constantine). But at the beginning of Slavic writing there was another alphabet, which is called Glagolitic. The phonetic system of both alphabets is equally well developed and almost coincides.

The Glagolitic alphabet is distinguished by a very confusing style, and, apparently, this circumstance led to the fact that it was supplanted by the Cyrillic alphabet as more convenient and easier to write. The Glagolitic alphabet remained in use only in the church language of Croatian Catholics.

Among learned linguists, there are different opinions as to which alphabet is more ancient and which of them was invented by Saint Constantine (Cyril). Most linguists are inclined to believe that Constantine invented the Glagolitic alphabet, and the Cyrillic alphabet came into use a little later.

Those who attribute a later origin to the Cyrillic alphabet believe that it appeared in eastern Bulgaria, during the reign of Tsar Simeon (893-927), who tried to imitate Byzantium in everything. Some people make the assumption that both alphabets were created by Constantine.

The Cyrillic alphabet is based on the Greek unschal script, with the addition of letters of different origins for purely Slavic sounds. The main source of the Glagolitic alphabet, as some researchers believe, was Greek minuscules. However, many Glagolitic letters have deviated so much from their original source that learned linguists have long found it difficult to determine their source. Some letters appear to be of Hebrew, Samaritan, or even Coptic origin (see Selishchev's "Old Slavonic Language").

The ancient Church Slavonic language is based on ancient Bulgarian, which was spoken by the Slavs of the Macedonian region. At that time, the linguistic national difference between the Slavs was much smaller than now, and therefore the ancient Church Slavonic language immediately acquired a common Slavic meaning. However, the ancient Church Slavonic language had its own grammatical and phonetic features, which differed from the language of the Slavs of non-Bulgarian origin. As a result, the scribes, when rewriting the sacred text, inevitably introduced into it the features of their language. Thus, manuscripts of different versions appeared: Bulgarian, Serbian, Russian, etc.

The ancient Church Slavic language was also a literary language, that is, the language of chronicles, lives of saints, various legends and teachings, and since such a language reflected the influence of the spoken language, this circumstance contributed to the fact that the ancient Church Slavic the language, mainly in its phonetics and spelling, did not remain frozen in one place, but gradually changed. IN different countries this change took place in accordance with the language of a particular country.

If we take an early Serbian printed text (for example, the edition of Bozidar Vukovic in Venice, 16th century) and compare it with an early Russian printed text (Ivan Feodorov, 16th century), we will see a significant difference in spelling and grammatical forms ah, although the text itself remains unchanged. Due to the fact that Serbia and Bulgaria were under Turkish yoke, printing progress there was weak. Russia was given special treatment. Soon in southern, southwestern and Moscow Rus' printing received great development, and from here printed books were delivered to Serbia and Bulgaria. Thus, the Church Slavonic text of the Russian version supplanted other national varieties.

Initially, the Cyrillic text was written in letters that were clearly written and upright: such a letter is called “charter”. The statutory letter was written with a cane, as can be seen from the depiction of the evangelists in the Ostromir Gospel, and the very style of the letters indicates this. At the end of the 14th century. a letter appeared with letters slightly inclined and more freely written: such a letter was called “half-charter”. At first it was used for everyday needs, but after the semi-charter they began to write church books, only with greater accuracy.

Soon the semi-charter completely replaced the charter letter. In the 16th century A letter appeared with sweeping handwriting, the so-called cursive, but it was not used in liturgical texts. Both semi-ustav and cursive were written with a quill pen, to which they owe their style.

Over the course of many centuries, the Church Slavonic language in Russia acquired different spelling features, gradually evolving under the influence of the Russian language.
In the Church Slavonic text, the following spelling and phonetic features can be noted that have undergone changes.

In the ancient text, the sign l or ~ was used to indicate the softness of smooth r, l7 n: mor7 wold, nnvd. Similar signs to denote softness were placed above guttural ones in foreign words: kkdr, htonya. Sometimes aspiration marks were written over the initial vowel of a word, following the Greek model. However, these superscript marks were not observed in all manuscripts; for example, in the Ostromir Gospel they are found relatively rarely.

Here are a few examples from Ostromir's evan gelkhya: nsphinntya, syakripni (fol. 278 on the reverse); otkhaj (Gghinsl (l. 235 on the reverse); costdntnnou, adk^ntnm (l. 286).

In the semi-ustav, which appeared at the end of the 14th century, signs of aspiration and stress come into use as an orthographic affiliation of the text. The aspiration sign began to be written not only over the initial vowel of a word, but also over each vowel that does not have a consonant, for example, Writer of the late 14th century. and the beginning of the 15th century. Konstantin Konstenchesyu, to help master the spelling of writing dasia and apostrophe (daegya - aspirate, apostrophe - aspirate with stress), makes the following analogy: vowels are wives, consonants are husbands.

Wives may be bareheaded only in the presence of their husbands; Likewise, a vowel with a consonant does not have a datum or an apostrophe. If a wife goes out into the street or into society, she must have her head covered, otherwise she will dishonor her honor (Y K tb/Iou Ne DONMD SYTI IYA d<ииду моу?КД И! (ел) мь. (но) ся сдвумн. цдмн), так и гласная без согласной должна иметь на себе по-кров - дасии или апостроф. Над согласной не должно ставить этих знаков, так как покров для мужчины - срам ему (СрДМ/ийГГе СН МКО Й МчуЖА ЖийГК4 «уТК4ре). При ВСТрече ДВуХ СО-
vowels belonging to different syllables should stand (erok), like a watchman or a witness, warning “staggering”. In the Ostromir Gospel, the sign "" (meaning erka) appears only between two identical consonants: dkdrnn (l. 234); krddvkzh (l. and 64 per rev.); sdrefd»u(ndonskl (fol. 276 on reverse),.

The superscript characters used in the ancient text also include titla. The titles were simple and alphabetic. The omissions under the titles had a different character than is customary in the modern Church Slavonic language, for example. ke (kgzh), gj (giy), he (hrt°5Ya) - Titles in the statutory letter were used less frequently than was later practiced in the semi-charter and in the first printed books.

As lowercase characters in the ancient text, a cross or a dot, or several dots in a decorative form (:), sometimes with the addition of a comma or a dash, were placed between phrases: - the latter type of lowercase character was used more at the end of a paragraph.

The pronunciation of yus (я, а) in the Russian language was apparently lost already in the 10th century, since Russian scribes often used them incorrectly. However, in the ancient Slavic church text, the more or less etymologically correct use of yus is observed until the 16th century.

The semivowels ya (er) and ь (er), having lost their short pronunciation, in the middle of the word in strong positions they turned into o, I, and in weak positions: I disappeared, and in some cases disappeared and k, for example: xianmya - gonmya; otts, ottsd - fatheree ottsd, from here the runaway oh, s Sonya - smd were formed; go^kya - bitter.

The inscription zh in the semi-charter was replaced by s.
s after guttural (g, k, x) kt” of the 16th century. begins to disappear and be replaced by the letter n.
Some letters had two styles (for example: оу, о, ии, о, etc.). Secondary outlines initially had either decorative or practical significance, for example. if there was not enough space, then they wrote V instead; but later in printed books they began to be given a specific orthographic purpose.
The vowel sound n in the ancient text had the shapes n and T, and the latter iY was used relatively rarely and, most often, at the end of the line due to lack of space. If there were two “and” in a row, then the second was often written through and, for example, nTsya (Ostrom, Ev.). In semi-charter I is found much more often, and the tradition of writing it before vowels is established.
n with the sign of brevity (n) came into use in the 14th century, but in them. There is only one full masculine adjective, the number n remained without the sign of brevity until Nikon’s reform, and in Old Believer texts m is preserved in this form.
AND TO THIS day (STIN BZhi).
The vowel “o” was depicted by means of o and ii, and in the semi-ustav also by o. The inscription was introduced into the Slavic text in the nagtisai of Greek words. In the statutory letter, ii is found relatively rarely and is often absent even in Greek words (for example, nodnkh Ost.ev.). It was written much more often in semi-status, and quite often it had only a decorative meaning, not determined by the requirements of spelling. o also had a decorative meaning, although in some manuscripts and printed texts (see in some texts by Ivan Veodorov) there was a tendency to place it under stress.
The vowel “u” had the shapes оу and V. The latter in the statutory letter was written, mostly at the end of the line, if

there wasn't enough space. In the semi-charter, both styles were used in the same way; the choice of one or the other had only a decorative meaning. In printed books there is a tendency to give them a spelling application. Here is an excerpt from the afterword of the Prologue of the Edinoverie press regarding the spelling “V and V: T4K0 n ii ^ n “u, rzz^zhd#n?# ii d^vnidya pr?AKHO/MYA. nd^zhe ^ch ijTAZHCH4iTSA (heavy impact), go n5o (sharp impact With aspiration) strltl, teu podgdh^ eu., drivmTn piitsi. ykii lrTidvu, prmniu, v”zou, ndou. sound#. rz"&v^ nde^Zhi, o, prgd.
V4RAiT2 34 single S#KBOM. G4Kiy, TOM#, KOM#, T^, U, POD4G4GTIA; ndy, uddto^stya; go your way... the yurologist was printed in the second printing in 1875 from what was printed under Patriarch Joseph in 644). However, this spelling rule was not always followed; At the same time, there were publications in which “y and V had slightly different uses.
' The sound “e” in the ancient Church Slavonic language was conveyed in two styles, according to pronunciation: § pronounced as “e” and k (iotated) - like the modern Russian “e”. The latter was written at the beginning of the word or after the vowels and in some other cases (khedziyh). In the half-usta there was no distinction made in the style for hard and soft “e”; in some manuscripts (for example, Pozharsky’s manuscript) the ancient soft “e” corresponded to “boliioe”; in most manuscripts there are differences) e had a purely decorative meaning. In printed books, e (more) was usually placed at the beginning of the word. It is also found in the middle of the word, but, apparently, without a spelling meaning. The hard and soft pronunciation of the sound “e” in church. The Slavic language was preserved until the 18th century, and the Old Believers retain a similar pronunciation to this day.
The letter 5 in the ancient Church Slavic language denoted the sound “dz”, originating111 og softened g, papr.: kojn^ mnoai. Subsequently, this sound lost its original pronunciation and became ravei “z”, therefore in the later text & was often used incorrectly.
At the beginning of typographic printing, printers were also the text’s reference workers; spelling also depended on them, and therefore almost every printer had his own spelling features. It is clear that when printing became more developed, they began to strive to unify spelling.
The south and southwest of Rus' had their own peculiarities in the press. Printing developed there to a greater extent than in Moscow.

skaya Rus'. The fight against Catholicism and Christianity forced the Orthodox to keep up culturally with the West. In the south and southwest there were several large printing houses: in Yuevo (in Lvov, in Ostrog, in Vilna, and a number of other small printing houses. There were several spiritual and religious icons. The Iyevo-Mohyla collective was especially famous for producing educated defenders of the faith. Slavic the language in its main structure, apparently, was developed there in the south and southwest. The first Slovenian-Russian lexicon and grammar appeared there. The learned philologist Meletius Smotrdoy published a grammar of the Church Slavic language in 1969, which, slightly revised and expanded, was published in 1648 in Moscow. In the middle of the 18th century, Smotritsky’s grammar was reprinted in Moldova for the Bulgarians. Serbs. However, despite all this, in the south and southwest the text of the church books was not exemplary.
Thus, the orthographic and phonetic structure of the Church Slavonic language continued until the 17th century. In the 17th century, under Patriarch Nikon, a correction of church books was carried out, or, more correctly, a new translation of them. At the same time, the orthography of the Church Slavonic language was determined. Kyiv scholars took a large part in correcting books, and therefore, undoubtedly, the grammar developed in the south was the basis for determining grammatical forms and spelling, but, of course, the peculiarities of the forms of the Church Slavonic language of Moscow editions were also taken into account. So, the Church Slavonic language of the liturgical books was finally formed by the middle of the 17th century.
After this, the grammatical side of the Church Slavonic language did not change, but the text of church books was sometimes subject to correction and following the Nikon reform. Thus, under Empress Elisabeth Petrov, the Bible was reviewed and corrected, but under Patriarch Nikon it was not corrected. Apparently, subsequently the editing of the sacred text was subject to some amendments - some words or phrases were replaced with more understandable ones. When comparing the text of the liturgical Gospel and the Slavic Gospel intended for ordinary reading, one can notice the difference in some expressions of words or phrases. Nikon's translation turned out to be far from perfect. The disadvantage of Nikon's translations is

in a strictly literal translation of the Greek text, and therefore in the liturgical books there are many things that are difficult to understand. At the beginning of this century, before the revolution, it was time to eliminate this shortcoming. In 19-5, a Lenten work was published, the text of which was newly revised. However, regarding the latest edition, it cannot be said that it was completely successful. Many amendments were made where the previous text could have been left. Let's give some examples of the previous and new text of the Lenten work: in the previous editions the word kldgoHtrbk?!., in the new edition it was replaced everywhere by another - kllgosche; in previous editions: loGzhd g?tsm nd vozstdkndya (Vel. Friday, 6th part), in the new edition: neprdkkdh; in previous editions: umndA viititvd, in the new: iivshchiitvennda viinnstvd. In the new edition, the Slavic terms (nzh|, mzhe, ezh|) are completely removed: instead of the old text, there is dmkntn<ма, в новом: вм<&тимкЕВи ко мнй (Вел. Пят. 6-й ч.) и много других примеров"ь можно было бы привести, но наииа задача - не наследован! е текста, а раасмотрете его только со стороны грамматической.
Thus, the real Church Slavonic grammar is the grammar of the Church Slavonic language, which was formed by the middle of the 17th century.
Since the Church Slavic language is the language of divine services, it is clear that every Orthodox Christian who wishes to actively participate in divine services must know the language of these services. Therefore, Church Slavonic grammar is intended to be not only a manual for theological seminaries, but also for more widespread use. Bearing in mind the fact that the majority of Russians abroad studied in foreign schools, we introduced into this grammar, to complete the system, a number of elementary information that are usually known from Russian grammar.