Language of the Church

NOVEMBER 17, 2009 SVETLANA SOLODOVNIK

At the end of last week, a presentation was held in the conference hall of the Russian State Library The 6th and final book in the series of liturgical translations “Orthodox Worship”, published by the publishing house of the St. Philaret Institute. Work on translations of Fr. Georgy Kochetkov started at his own risk back in the late 1970s. For the last six years, it has been going according to plan; a whole team has already been working on the translations: the leader is the rector of the SFI, Prof.-Priest. Georgy Kochetkov; philologists B.A. Kayachev, N.V. Epple, K.A. Mozgov. The authors set themselves a daring task: translating the full daily cycle of church prayers into modern language and, moreover, creating a Russian liturgical language. “The purpose of the entire published series,” explained Fr. Georgy, – double: not only practical, but also educational and scientific. And this is evidenced by the instant popularity that the books acquired both among clergy and laity. Many priests have already loved them.”

However, there are also many who doubt the need to translate the service into Russian. “There is still a misunderstanding of this problem among the most diverse layers of our church society,” says Archpriest, an employee of the Missionary Department of the MP. Dmitry Karpenko. “Many consider it far-fetched, unnecessary and even harmful. We don’t always feel the missionary task of the church, and these are interconnected things.”