(Russian Manner) - Church Slavonic is the sacred language that unites a number of Slavic Orthodox peoples, regardless of their ethnic and/or linguistic heritage. It is my hope that these resources will bring those who come into contact with this language to a greater understanding of its beauty. The website is available here.
Saturday, September 9, 2017
Русскій ладъ - A new Church Slavonic resource
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
EXCELLENT ! What I would really like to have is an editable, selectable DOC file of the Slavonic Divine Liturgy (pre-Nikonian preferable, but the current thing would be acceptable.) And I don't mind downloading the OCS fonts to work with such a document. It would be best if the text were not larded up with those troublesome, distracting and sometimes inscrutable Titla (abbreviations.) ALSO necessary is a decent Slovar (English-Slavonic-English dictionary.) One was published by St Tikhons twenty years ago, but it was a scissors-and-paste job and printed offset, and is virtually unreadable.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you're interested in might site's work. If you contact me through the site (or I do provide an email address on the page) I can probably send you what you're looking for, though I don't believe I've ever seen a text without titla and, no offense, but it's not very "starovering" of you to be distracted and dissuaded by the titlo. As far as a dictionary, you could use the Dyachenko dictionary, to which I have a link on the site, and just go through one more step of looking up the Russian.
ReplyDeleteNot that there's anything wrong with using or studying Church Slavonic, but wouldn't it be great if the Eucharistic communion was enough to "[unite] a number of Slavic Orthodox peoples, regardless of their ethnic and/or linguistic heritage" as opposed to the liturgical language they used? I think it's a stretch to position Slavonic as being something that units peoples "regardless of their... linguistic heritage" when that's exactly what Slavonic is: "linguistic heritage".
ReplyDeletePlease see my comment below to Bob. Church Slavonic is not merely "linguistic heritage". That would be a misunderstanding of its importance for Orthodox Christians.
DeleteThe priest I've known for > 30 years who *does* know Slavonic from his childhood could never understand the convert types who gush over a language utterly unknown to virtually everyone. Russians don't know it, never will, converts even worse. Perhaps the enthusiasts would care to explain why it's so really really cool..In Slavonic? Didn't think so.
ReplyDeleteAs a convert myself, I am pleased Aleksander Brooks has undertaken this important work. He's doing it out of the goodness and generosity of his heart. As far as why Church Slavonic is important-like Greek, Church Slavonic is a theological language. English cannot render the meaning of phrases properly in the theological sense. Just take for example, Lord have mercy. That is a poor translation of the Green and the Church Slavonic which are much richer and convey a deeper theological, spiritual sense.
DeleteI'm kinda with Bob; All Power to the Vernacular Languages ✊️
DeleteI'm not a fan of Slavonic in services as one can surmise from my comment above, but that has to do with its fitness for use in the Church as Church in the New World. That is, language preferences take a back seat to salvation and the Great Commission.
ReplyDeleteHowever, that's not to say one shouldn't study and love Slavonic, katharevousa Greek, Latin, or any language, living or dead. As trilingual Jhumpa Lahiri wrote in her nonfiction work detailing her love of Italian, “What I feel is something physical, inexplicable. [Italian] stirs an indiscreet, absurd longing. An exquisite tension. Love at first sight.” (Bengali is her mother tongue, she was raised in the U.S. with English, and Italian was a chosen language: "“I think that studying Italian is a flight from the long clash in my life between English and Bengali. A rejection of both the mother and the stepmother. An independent path.” I can see the fetishizing of aspects of Orthodoxy, including language, on a spectrum with many converts' attraction similar to Lahiri's "independent path".)
In the parish, it's "linguistic heritage" - especially in the so-called diaspora.
ReplyDeleteI agree it is more important to the church than that when it comes to history, theology, maybe even to monasticism, and to the clergy from an intra-Church perspective among Slavic Orthodox (and even with - gasp! - Eastern Catholics.)
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete