Divine services in Russian, female priesthood and new rules of fasting Six ideas for reforms in the Russian Orthodox Church

Easter service in the Archangel Michael Cathedral in the city of Izhevsk. Photo from the archive of the press service of the Udmurt diocese

According to St. John Chrysostom, “one “Lord have mercy,” pronounced in the church, together with the council of believers, is worth a hundred prostrations of your lonely cell prayer... ” This has been the answer since ancient times to those who believe that “God is in the soul,” preferring to pray at home and not attend church services.

What is church worship?

Already from the etymology of the word itself, which includes two others, “God” and “service,” it is clear that it is legitimate to call any service to the Creator this way. This could be prayer, preaching, serving others, or other works in His Name. However, it is church worship that refers to the form of serving the Lord, which includes:

• the conciliar prayer of the Church, performed according to a certain order that has developed since the first centuries;
• reading the Holy Scriptures ;
• the performance of the Sacraments by which believers communicate with Jesus Christ and unite with Him.

Moscow Sretenskaya Theological Academy

Hieromonk Afanasy (Deryugin) 11/29/201617134

For the most part, the saints who spoke about the liturgical language were against translating the service into Russian. At the same time, many saints pointed out the incomprehensibility of the liturgical texts and called for this problem to be solved by a new translation into the same Church Slavonic.

The discussion about the liturgical language of the Russian Church has not subsided for decades. Both liberals and conservatives have a certain arsenal of arguments.

The first say: “... the fundamental recognition of the translatability of any church liturgical text... becomes a sign of our fidelity to the faith of the apostles and their teaching. If we fundamentally deny translatability, ... then we deviate into fundamentalism and, generally speaking, almost into Judaism”[1]. “If someone in the church adheres to the letter of faith, then he should know that by doing this he belittles both the pneumocentricity and the Christocentricity of church life”[2].

Saint Tikhon, Patriarch of Moscow: “It is important for the Russian Church to have a new Slavic translation of liturgical books... which will prevent the demand of others to serve in the Russian everyday language.”

Opponents object to them: “The Church Slavonic language for believers is not so much the “most important element of the national cultural heritage” as a sacred means of salvation in the Church. And how not for us

St.
Tikhon, Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus' of another Church, there is no other sacred language in it.”[3]. At the same time, there is no noticeable desire on either side to find out what the Holy Tradition of the Church says on this matter. If some patristic quotes are used in polemics, they are often taken out of context and used not exactly in the situations in which they were spoken by the saints. The Church is a God-human organism; it is led by the Holy Spirit. And therefore, no church problems can be solved “from the wind of one’s head,” only rationally. It is necessary to understand whether there is an opinion on this issue expressed in the Holy Tradition. And one of the forms of Tradition is “consensus patrum”, “consent of the fathers” - what the holy fathers said about this, not one or two, but quite a large number.

Many Russian saints spoke out on the issue of the liturgical language of the Russian Church. And perhaps the most correct approach to the language of worship is to find out whether there is a consensus patrum on this issue.

Saint Athanasius (Sakharov): “Correcting church books is an urgent matter. It is necessary that the mind does not remain fruitless."

It should be noted right away that none
of the saints of the indicated period says that the Slavic texts should be left intact as they are now. And a considerable part of these saints speak directly about the need for changes in liturgical language. Here are some quotes on this matter.

The most famous exponent of this idea was St. Theophan the Recluse. He writes like this: “Our liturgical hymns are all edifying, thoughtful and sublime…. Meanwhile, most of these chants are completely incomprehensible. And this deprives our church books of the fruit that they could produce, and does not allow them to serve the purposes for which they are intended and available. As a result, a new translation of liturgical books is urgently needed. Now, tomorrow, we need to start it if we don’t want to bear the reproach for this malfunction and be the cause of the harm that comes from it... Translate not into Russian, but into the Slavic language”[4].

Saint Philaret (Amphitheaters): “The Russian dialect cannot convey the Holy Scriptures with all the power and fidelity that distinguishes the Slavic translation”

The Monk Macarius of Altai called the Slavic language in its current form “dead”, and drew attention to the fact that “the number of people who understand it in the Holy Scriptures is small compared to the millions of those who do not understand, among whom there are more ministers of the Church”[5].

Saint Nicholas of Japan Saint Nicholas of Japan, translating the Apostle into Japanese, especially drew attention to the incomprehensibility of the Church Slavonic text of this book, as can be seen in his diaries: “What insurmountable difficulties for the translation in the first and second chapters of the Epistle to the Colossians!
Yesterday and today we fought until we dropped, we reached the ninth verse of the second chapter, and our souls are very bad...” [6] At the same time, the same saint was against translating Scripture into colloquial language. He used the old Japanese language, saying on this occasion: “It is not the translation of the Gospel and Divine Services that should descend to the level of development of the masses, but on the contrary, believers should rise to the level of understanding the Gospel and Liturgical texts” [7]. St. Agathangel of Yaroslavl in “Reviews of Diocesan Bishops on the Question of Church Reform” writes: “The love of the Russian people for the Slavic language and its significance for the unification of all Slavic tribes in their native Orthodox faith make us wish that the Slavic language remains the liturgical language for the Orthodox Russian people. But in this case, it is necessary to immediately begin correcting the liturgical books... Only by immediately correcting this language until it can be understood by those who have not studied Slavic literacy is it possible to preserve the love and devotion of the current generation to the Church Slavonic language”[8].

Regarding the translation of the service into Russian, Saint Tikhon wrote: “Such violations of the church charter and the self-will of individuals in the performance of worship do not and cannot have our blessing.”

He is echoed by St. Tikhon, Patriarch of Moscow (at that time Archbishop of Aleutia): “It is important for the Russian Church to have a new Slavic translation of liturgical books (the current one is outdated and incorrect in many places), which will prevent the demand of others to serve in the Russian everyday language.” [9].
More gently, but essentially the same idea is expressed by Saint Sylvester of Omsk: “The translation of liturgical books from the Slavic language into Russian is inappropriate and impossible at the present time…. The incomprehensibility of the Slavic language can be eliminated by simplifying some words”[10]. The correction of liturgical books was carried out at the beginning of the 20th century by a Commission under the leadership of Archbishop Sergius of Finland. And regarding the work of this commission, we also have the opinions of the holy fathers. Hieromartyr Andronik of Perm, one of the most active advocates of preserving the Church Slavonic language, said in his report at the Local Council of 1917-1918: “The correction of liturgical books carried out in recent years at the Holy Synod - and this is true for many even secular pious people, lovers and connoisseurs of the Orthodox divine services, caused a lot of serious bewilderment and confusion in conscience.” But at the same time, in the same report, literally a line later, we read: “It is necessary to continue the correction of his Slavic translation, which is already being done. Let all divine services be reviewed and corrected in this manner.”[11] Thus, the attitude towards the activities of the Commission of Archbishop Sergius is ambiguous - but work in this direction is recognized as necessary.

St. Athanasius (Sakharov) Saint Athanasius (Sakharov), confessor, Bishop of Kovrov, had an unambiguously positive attitude towards the work of the Commission for correcting liturgical books. He wrote: “The edition of the Lenten Triodion of 1912 and the Tsvetnaya Triodion of 1913 is now the only legalized and therefore mandatory for all churches of the Russian Patriarchate”[12]. “Correcting church books is an urgent matter. It is necessary not only that the Orthodox be touched even by the incomprehensible words of the prayers. It is necessary that the mind does not remain fruitless.”[13]. “I think that we are also largely to blame for the present church ruin in that we did not bring our wondrous worship, our wonderful chants closer to the minds of the Russian people.”[14] “Is it possible to object to new corrections... when the Supreme Church Authority - the Holy Governing Synod not only gave its blessing to the beginning of work on correcting liturgical books, but also legitimized the corrections already made, blessing the printing of the corrected Triodion and Penticostarion in the Synodal Printing House and putting them into use ?”[15] The saint himself spent his whole life editing liturgical texts in the books that were in his use[16].

We also know saints who advocated a Russian translation. But, firstly, they were all simple priests (while the idea of ​​​​preserving the Slavic language comes from many bishops), and secondly, they are known as liberals

Some saints, while pointing out the importance of preserving the Slavic language, did not say anything about the need to correct it. For example, Saint Philaret (Amphitheaters), Metropolitan of Kiev, said (concerning the translation

St.
Filaret (Amphitheaters) of the Holy Scripture from the Slavic language into Russian): “The Russian dialect cannot convey the Holy Scripture with all the power and fidelity that distinguishes the Slavic translation” [17]. We see the same attitude towards the Slavic language in the Monk Barsanuphius of Optina: “Imagine the magnificent Milan Cathedral or St. Peter’s in Rome, and next to it a simple village church, and this will be a similarity to the Slavic and Russian languages”[18]. Hieromartyr Mikhail Cheltsov writes about the importance of preserving the Church Slavonic language. After experiences of serving in the Russian and Slavic languages, he comes to the conclusion: “The Slavic language, with its special harmony, sonority and prominence, conveys not only the idea brighter and more definite, but also sounds more musical and gives the service a special charm and festivity. The Russian language is rough, hard on the ear, and gives many words to express one thought... The Slavic language needs to be interpreted, not changed”[19]. But at the same time, none of them speaks about the inviolability of the Slavic language, about the need to preserve it unchanged to the last letter, which we now see in the articles of some of our “conservatives”. And the importance of Slavic liturgical books was also emphasized by those saints who advocated the editing of liturgical texts.

We also have two decrees of our High Hierarchs - Patriarch Tikhon and Metropolitan Peter, which are also directed against the Russification of worship. Saint Tikhon writes: “In some churches, distortion of the liturgical rites is allowed: ... the Six Psalms and other liturgical parts from the word of God are read not in Church Slavonic, but in Russian; in prayer, individual words are replaced by Russian and pronounced interspersed with the first ones... Such violations of the church charter and the self-will of individuals in the performance of worship do not and cannot have our blessing.”[20] Hieromartyr Peter speaks about the same thing: “One has noticed the introduction of various innovations that often confuse the conscience of believers in the performance of divine services and a deviation from the Church Rules in general. As an example of this we can point out:... Introduction to liturgical practice of the Russian language.... I resolutely declare the inadmissibility of these and similar phenomena in church liturgical practice.”[21] Here we see a protest not only against the Russian language in worship, but, first of all, against arbitrariness, changes in worship without the blessing of church authorities. But, again, this cannot be considered as a fundamental objection to changing the Church Slavonic language towards greater intelligibility.

Finally, several saints spoke out in favor of translating the service into Russian. Hieromartyr Alexander Khotovitsky spoke at the Local Council of 1917-1918: “Translation is absolutely necessary, because it is criminal to expel believers from the Church due to misunderstanding of the Slavic language…. Examples of translation of some books abroad have yielded excellent results. Because of the merits of Slavic speech, one should not deny the translation of books, as well as worship and prayers into Russian”[22]. Hieromartyr Ilya Gromoglasov shared the same opinion: “You cannot refuse someone who asks for divine services in Russian. The right of the Russian language in the Church must be recognized. Otherwise there will be despotism”[23]. Hieromartyr Simon (Shleev), Bishop of Okhtensky, the first bishop of the same faith, was not against the translation either. When he was a priest in Petrograd, he said: “It is necessary to allow translation to parishes that wish, and to choose a golden mean in translation in order to avoid vulgarity.”[24]

However, it should be noted that, firstly, all these martyrs were simple priests (the holy martyr Elijah, at the time when he expressed his ideas, did not have holy orders at all), while the idea of ​​​​preserving the Slavic language comes from many bishops. And all the saints mentioned here were generally known for their liberal views. In particular, the Hieromartyr Simon was among the Petrograd clergy who were part of the controversial “Group of 32,” and the Hieromartyr Elijah was even at one time expelled from the Academy’s teaching staff for his liberal views.

Thus, having examined the statements of the holy fathers that we have, we can derive the following idea. Basically, the saints who spoke about the liturgical language advocated the preservation of Church Slavonic as such and were against translating the service into Russian. At the same time, many Russian saints pointed out the incomprehensibility of the liturgical texts in their current edition, and called for this problem to be solved by correcting church books and a new translation, again, into the Slavic language.

This patristic opinion is the basis for carrying out work in the field of editing the Church Slavonic language.

Hieromonk Afanasy (Deriugin)

[1] Kochetkov Georgy, priest. Some theological justifications for the need and possibility of translating liturgical texts from ancient languages ​​into modern ones // ORTHODOX WORSHIP. Book 1: Vespers and Matins. – M.: St. Philaret Orthodox Christian Institute, 2009. – P. 7.

[2] Ibid. P. 6.

[3] Bufeev Konstantin, priest. Regarding the article in the almanac “CHRISTIANOS” // Liturgical language of the Russian Church. M.: Sretensky Monastery, 1999. P. 311.

[4] Quoted. from: Draft document “Church Slavonic language in the life of the Russian Church of the 21st century”, prepared by the Inter-Council Presence.

[5] Quoted. by: Balashov Nikolay, priest. What is hidden under the “sacred robes”? // Moscow Church Bulletin. 19 (64)/1991. – P. 10.

[6] Quoted. by: Besstremyannaya G.E. Christianity and the Bible in Japan. Part 1. Historical sketch and linguistic analysis. M. 2006. P. 228.

[7] Saint Nicholas of Japan. Brief biography, diaries 1870 – 1911. St. Petersburg 2007. P. 38.

[8] Materials for the upcoming All-Russian Council // Liturgical language of the Russian Church. M.: Sretensky Monastery, 1999. P. 326

[9] Ibid. P. 332.

[10] Minutes of meetings of the subdepartment on liturgical language // Liturgical language of the Russian Church. M.: Sretensky Monastery, 1999. P. 345-346

[11] Andronik (Nikolsky), schmch. Is it necessary to translate Orthodox services into Russian? // Liturgical language of the Russian Church. M.: Sretensky Monastery, 1999. P. 130.

[12] Quoted. by: Kravetsky A.G., Pletneva A.A. History of the Church Slavonic language in Russia (late XIX–XX centuries). – M.: Publishing house: “Languages ​​of Russian Culture”, 2001. – P. 246

[13] Ibid.

[14] Ibid.

[15] Letter from Bishop. Afanasy (Sakharova) bishop. Isaiah (Kovalev) // Kravetsky A.G., Pletneva A.A. History of the Church Slavonic language in Russia (late XIX – XX centuries). – M.: Publishing house: “Languages ​​of Russian Culture”, 2001. – P. 336.

[16] Ibid.

[17] Quoted. by: Chistovich. History of Bible translation into Russian. P. 270.

[18] Symphony to the letters of St. Barsanuphius of Optina // URL: https://www.optina.ru/lec_vars/24/#4 (date of access - 03/10/2014)

[19] Mikhail Cheltsov, schmch. Memories of the “suicide bomber” about his experience.

[20] Tikhon (Belavin), St. Appeal to the archpastors and shepherds of the Orthodox Russian Church (November 4/17, 1921) // Kravetsky A.G., Pletneva A.A. History of the Church Slavonic language in Russia (late XIX – XX centuries). – M.: Publishing house: “Languages ​​of Russian Culture”, 2001. – P. 312-313.

[21] Peter (Polyansky), schmch. O.o. deans and rectors of mountain temples. Moscow and the Moscow Diocese (September 14, 1925) // Kravetsky A.G., Pletneva A.A. History of the Church Slavonic language in Russia (late XIX – XX centuries). – M.: Publishing house: “Languages ​​of Russian Culture”, 2001. – P. 318-319.

[22] Minutes of meetings of the subdepartment on liturgical language // Liturgical language of the Russian Church. M.: Sretensky Monastery, 1999. P. 353

[23] Materials of the Pre-Conciliar Council on liturgical language // Liturgical language of the Russian Church. M.: Sretensky Monastery, 1999. P. 342

[24] Ibid.

Language of worship

Initially, even under the Apostles, Christians performed prayers, obviously, in Aramaic - which was also the language of Christ’s preaching. Later, as the faith spread throughout the vast empire of Rome, these were added:

• Greek is the language of many inhabitants of the empire, in addition, educated people of that time;
• Latin is the actual language of the “Romans”, the creators of this then most powerful state;

The first translation of the Bible into Latin, made by Blessed. Jerome of Stridontus, received the name “Vulgate”, since it was created not in “high” Latin, the language of the educated elite of Rome, but in “vulgar”, the language of ordinary believers to whom God’s Word is addressed.

• finally, the national languages ​​of the peoples who adopted Christianity from the outskirts of the empire.

At the same time, in the Christian West and East, historically different situations have developed with the language of the service:

• The Roman Church, which had the highest authority among the “barbarian” peoples, also early instilled in them reverence for Latin, its liturgical language;
• in the East they proceeded from the fact that services should be understandable to people; This is where the tradition of translating services into national languages ​​originates.

This is exactly what the saints did . Cyril and Methodius , laboring in the Slavic lands, many of their predecessors, as well as countless followers, worked in the same way.

M.V. Nesterov. Equal to the Apostles Cyril. Icon of the iconostasis of the side chapel of the Vladimir Cathedral in Kyiv

Missionary translators were not stopped even by the fact that the languages ​​of the “barbarians” often did not have a sufficient vocabulary to express the truths of Christianity . This is how so-called neologisms appeared, new words, but created on the basis of existing ones: for example, “mercy”, “philanthropy”, “compassion”, others.

Subsequently, they acted in the same way, for example:

• creator of the Perm alphabet, St. Stefan Permsky;
• St. Macarius (Glukharev), St. Macarius (Nevsky), called the “Apostles of Altai”; they say that they had to travel around the camps for weeks to find an analogue of this or that word in the languages ​​of the Altai tribes.

Many believe that the Altai language itself and its writing are the creation of missionaries who translated liturgical texts. Thanks to a single language, disparate tribes were able to create an ethnic Altai community.

Orthodox community electronic version of BETA magazine

For our dark people, the temple serves as the only place where they can learn faith and piety. But, unfortunately, our worship does not have the proper influence on it due to its incomprehensibility. In many cases, it kills the spirit in a person, extinguishes the spark of God, and leads to the point that a person begins to glorify God with only his lips, whispering meaninglessly the words of prayer he has learned, often in a distorted form. And the word of Scripture comes true on them: These people draw near to Me with their lips, and with their lips they honor Me, but their heart is far from Me, and they honor Me in vain. From the hopeless darkness of religion, the spirit of the letter, the spirit of ritual belief, or, if not worse, pharisaical hypocrisy, has reigned among the people, and there is no place for living, fresh thought.

And why did our very teaching become ineffective? Because in ourselves, shepherds, the Divine fire does not burn, but only smolders under the ashes of worldly vanity and religious indifference. And we are unable to sweep away this ashes, to wash away with tears of tenderness, because this requires mutual support, since for many, prayer during an incomprehensible service consists of the cross, bowing and meaningless utterance of words. Here there can be no uplifting of spirit and heartfelt tenderness, capable of acting beneficially by its very appearance. Usually our worship service proceeds calmly, without excitement on anyone’s part, and by the time the preacher enters the pulpit, the majority is busy, if not with their thoughts, then with the mechanics of prayer, and a truly enormous supply of spiritual energy is needed to awaken those who are spiritually asleep. And the reason for this sad situation is the incomprehensibility of worship, the Slavic language of worship.

It is necessary to make worship accessible to the understanding of the simple, so that it can truly be a lesson in faith and piety. This need is even more obvious in view of the widespread influence of sectarianism on the people: sectarians attract people because their worship is understandable to everyone. And most often the best people come to them, who are not satisfied with the incomprehensible Orthodox worship.

Let us consider the main objections to performing divine services in Russian.

1. The Slavic language, they say, is sublime, and it is impossible to convey in Russian what is easily conveyed in Slavic. With translation into Russian, the service will supposedly lose its charm. One can agree with the first position only if the requirement is to translate as close as possible to the Slavic text. And yet this is not required: after all, the Russian language differs from the Slavic language in turns of speech, in the arrangement of words, etc., and if when translating strictly adhere to the Slavic text, then the old mistake of previous translators of liturgical books, which in Slavic Many figures of speech and arrangement of words of the Greek language were left in the translation and thus obscured the meaning. But which of us will say that it is impossible to convey in Russian any “thought” that can be conveyed in Slavic? You can convey any thought, even if using the wrong turn of phrase.

As for the idea that with the translation into Russian the divine service will lose its charm, then as a fact that sufficiently refutes it, I will point to the translation of the Bible: has the language of the Bible lost its beauty and attractiveness with the translation into Russian? No.

2. The second argument in favor of the Slavic language is that such great men as Saints Cyril and Methodius chose it for worship. But this argument serves rather in favor of the Russian language, if we take into account that the Slavic language in the times of St. Cyril and Methodius was a commonly used, colloquial language.

3. They also point out that the common people, being unable to participate in worship with their minds, can and do participate in it with their hearts. Oh, if I really participated, then it would be possible to recognize at least a small amount of persuasiveness behind this instruction. Now, as life shows, there are exceptions in those cases when ordinary people participate in prayer with their hearts. The same circumstance that worship will become accessible to the mind cannot interfere with it, but on the contrary will help to have a beneficial effect on the heart. There are some passages in Slavic liturgical books that can not lift a person’s spirit, but, on the contrary, bring them down precisely because of their incomprehensibility. Let me cite, for example, the well-known irmos of the canon for the Nativity of Christ: For us to love, as if we are comfortable with fear, silence is more convenient, but for the love of the Virgin, it is inconvenient to weave long songs: but also to give the Mother only strength is the will.

4. The fourth objection to changing the liturgical language deserves a more detailed analysis; it lies in the fact that such a reform could lead to a split. But let me draw your attention to the fact that I propose to petition “for permission” and not “for instructions”: none of the pastors will be constrained, will not be obliged to perform divine services without fail in Russian, it will depend on him, in accordance with the desire and degree of preparedness for to his flock, begin replacing the liturgical language in his church or leave the old one for now. But there will undoubtedly be places (for example, cities and villages with a sectarian element of the population) where parishioners will happily wish to have services in Russian. And once such examples appear, then the more hardened ones will understand the benefits of the said reform from the example. Of course, the pastor of each parish must be on guard and monitor how his parishioners will react to such first examples, and must explain that there is no sin in this, and there is great benefit, that the first experiments in replacing the Slavic language in worship with Russian will not produce a new schism . I will give the following considerations: 1) All Old Believers (I’m talking about Old Believers because more opposition can be expected from them, as supporters of the letter) know that worship in the Slavic language began to be performed not so long ago, that previously it was performed in both Greek and Hebrew , and therefore, there should be no talk about canonical prohibitions. 2) Among the foreigners living among us (Chuvash, Mordovians and others), worship is performed in their native languages, everyone knows about this and is not embarrassed by it. 3) In our seminary, when I was studying, following the example of some theological academies (Moscow and, it seems, Kazan), the liturgy was celebrated annually in Greek, it was celebrated solemnly, attracted a lot of listeners, and I never heard from anyone that anyone was tempted by this -or, at least the Old Believers living in Samara (the mass of listeners came not to pray, but out of curiosity, because they did not know Greek. The Old Believers did not even know what was going on in the seminary church - they did not care). 4) Finally, a case from my practice. Wanting to know the view of the Old Believers, I asked one of them the question: “Is it a sin to perform divine services in Russian?” And I received a negative answer: “What sin? We just got used to it.”

True, at present the people are not prepared for such a reform of the liturgical language, but why are they not prepared? Tell me, has any of us seen at least one pastor who would explain to the people the benefits of Russian worship, or has anyone heard at least one sermon on this topic? I think that none of us have seen or heard anything like this, and not because we first need the sanction of the highest spiritual power to begin actions in this direction. The clergy were silent about this because it is quite natural and reasonable for the pastor to fear creating a certain mood among his flock, convincing them at least that Russian worship is desirable and useful, and then not being able to fulfill this desire. This is the reason for the unpreparedness of the people. As soon as it is eliminated, the mass consciousness of the benefits of Russian worship will develop at a rapid pace. After all, it is still developing now, only not under the influence of the clergy, but under the influence of sectarianism.

Lack of preparedness is still a long way from a split. As far as my small worldly experience allows me to judge, I think that in some parishes this innovation even now would bring nothing but benefit. You just need to implement it gradually. Moreover, now we do not have the means to immediately fully implement this project; we do not have translations of most of the liturgical books. In addition to the translation of the Holy Scriptures, we have perhaps the only attempt in this direction on the part of the teacher of the Tobolsk Theological Seminary Ivan Lovyagin, who translated the Sunday hymns of the Octoechos of all voices. Now, if it were allowed to use at least an existing translation during worship, this would be the first and most effective preparation, and along with the demand, a supply would appear: there would be people who would apply their knowledge to the task of translating liturgical books.

The introduction of the Russian language into use during worship will not only not cause a split, but, on the contrary, will deprive many who are now hesitant of the reason to go into sectarianism.

Now I will say a few words about how, in my opinion, it is possible to replace the Slavic language in worship with Russian. This cannot be done right away, firstly, because, as I noted earlier, there are no translations, and secondly, because haste in introducing reforms relating to worship can be very dangerous. We know what sad results the haste in introducing corrected liturgical books into use during the time of Patriarch Nikon led to. The lack of translations of liturgical books will undoubtedly be made up as soon as there is a demand for them, as soon as the existing translations are used. And to prevent the formation of a schism, it is necessary to make it a rule to introduce the Russian language only with the consent of the parishioners, who must be prepared for this by sermons from the church pulpit and private conversations. Since in a parish it is often difficult to ensure that the desire is unanimous among all parishioners, the Russian language can be introduced only if the majority agrees. But the desire of the minority can be ignored only if they do not carry out strong agitation against the Russian language, if they can make peace with the fact that they will still have Slavic worship even after the introduction of Russian. If it turns out that in a certain area opponents of the reform will excite the people and there is a danger that the reform will serve as a reason for at least one person to evade the church, then in this case it is better to remain with the Slavic worship for now. As for the view of the reform on the part of the Old Believers and other church renegades, it can be completely ignored without harm to Orthodoxy. After all, by adjusting to their tastes you still won’t save them, you won’t convert them to Orthodoxy, and you’ll deprive the Orthodox of a lot. In general, it should depend on the pastor when to begin the reform.

It is natural to begin the introduction of Russian worship with cities and villages with a sectarian population. In cities this is even more convenient: there are several temples there. If a service is held in Russian in one of them, then those who do not want to attend it can go to another church. But if all the parishes in the city expressed a desire to introduce Russian worship, then at first it would be necessary to establish a queue so that in some churches the service would be performed in Slavic and the transition to the Russian language would not be very abrupt.

In the village, after the first Russian service, you need to continue to serve in Slavic, and at this time listen to see if there is any danger somewhere, if this bothers any of the Orthodox. If nothing like this is noticed, you can repeat the experiment, for example, after a month or two, then again and again... When the people get used to Russian worship, you still don’t need to immediately abandon Slavic, but introduce it with the same gradualness with which Russian was introduced . Even if it remains an exception, if, for example, it is performed at the request of individuals on weekdays, then it does not matter.

In addition, gradualism may be expressed in the fact that at first not the entire service will be performed in Russian, but only some parts of it, for example, only the Gospel and the Apostle are read in Russian. After some time, to these Russian elements one can add the Russian reading of psalms, parimias, then the singing of some prayers, etc.

In conclusion, I must inform you, fathers and brothers, that His Eminence, obviously, had nothing in principle against the introduction of Russian worship, and if the Congress initiates a petition on the above issue, we will meet support from His Eminence. This hope is based on the fact that my request for permission to prepare the people for a change in the liturgical language was followed by the resolution of His Eminence Constantine: “It is not in my power to satisfy the request of priest Samuilov.”

In view of all of the above, I propose that the congress of clergy duly initiate a petition to this effect before the Holy Synod.

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* Note to this publication in the Missionary Review, 1907, No. 9, p. 1339–1342: “From a report read at the dean’s congress of the 2nd district of the Nikolaev district of the Samara diocese on June 12, 1907 by the priest of the village. Ostroy Luka Fr. Sergiy Samuilov. The clergy of the district did not enter into the discussion of this issue, according to the Russian custom, “my hut on the edge I don’t know anything,” with the readiness to add: “and I don’t want to know,” but the deplorable state of our parishes did not seem to force us to know and work for the benefit of St. . Churches. All peoples glorify God in their native language, and we, Russians, in a language that is foreign to our understanding, in the language of our “Slavic” ancestors, who lived a thousand years before us. Why is this? — Priest Andrey Vshivtsev.” In the spring of 1923, at the same congress, Fr. Sergius alone openly opposed renovationism (about this pastor, confessor of the faith, see “The Father's Cross”, St. Petersburg, Satis, 1996). Let us note that the need to revise and correct liturgical books in terms of language and presentation was also pointed out by His Eminence Konstantin (Bulychev) of Samara, see “Reviews of diocesan bishops on the issue of church reform”, I, St. Petersburg, 1906, p. 440.

History, origin of worship

According to the “Acts of the Apostles”, the first Christians, including the Lord’s disciples themselves, visited the Jerusalem Temple unacceptably. For example, it is known that St. It was at his door that Peter and John healed a man who had suffered from lameness since childhood (Acts 3:6-7). However, already at the time of the same Apostles, Christians also had their own liturgical meetings.

Small Catacomb Church of the 4th century. The oldest throne preserved in Bethlehem, the remains of the Bethlehem babies are buried in it

According to surviving documents, as well as some liturgical texts, these were night prayers that lasted until dawn. Most of the chants were Psalms, which were also used during the temple worship of the Jews. The “core” of the service, according to Christ’s commandment “do this in My remembrance,” was the sacrament of the Eucharist, the communion of His Body and Blood.

Subsequently, after the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple, Christian services were completely separated from Jewish ones, and their order and order were formed.

Nowadays, the well-known Orthodox worship took shape in the 4th-6th centuries, when persecution of the Church ceased. It was then that the Church, where many newly converted laity came, needed a coherent liturgical order.

To date, there are services of Western (Catholic, Protestant) and Eastern (Orthodox) traditions. Each of them has its own characteristic features.

Types of services in Orthodoxy

Matins. Statutory sequences and types of Matins, its place in the daily circle.

The general schematic order of the ancient Christian Matins, which had developed by the 4th century, already represented a certain sequence. At the bishop's opening greeting, “Glory to the Lord!” or “The Lord is with you” (analogous to the current “Peace to all”), the people answered: “Worthy and righteous,” after which the bishop said a morning prayer of praise, and then the people sang psalms and spiritual songs. Followed by the bishop's teaching, blessing and dismissal of the catechumens. The instructions for deacons here included petitions in the form of: “Let us pray for this, that the Lord...” (one of the forms of a lengthy, special litany). At the end of Matins, the “Great Doxology” was certainly sung, after which the Eucharist could be celebrated. Summarizing the available evidence from antiquity, the following can be considered the basic elements of Eastern Christian Matins: • Morning prayer of the primate (bishop or priest); • Psalms and Biblical songs with troparions (future canon of Matins); • Great Doxology. At the same time, a completely appropriate practice is the possibility of serving the Eucharist immediately immediately after Matins, which can sometimes be seen today, especially in the Greek tradition. In the West, the morning Great Doxology, called Gloria (Latin) - Glory, has become part of the Mass. It is known that this doxology was used in Rome at the beginning of the Liturgy already in the middle of the 2nd century, and subsequently, by the 5th century. it began to sound on all Sundays and holidays, while in Latin manuscripts it was called the hymn for Sunday Matins. As for the Matins prayers read by the primate, in current practice, during the reading of the Six Psalms, the priest secretly reads twelve morning prayers collected together, the last phrases of which now serve as “exclamations” after the litanies pronounced at Matins. But, in principle, these prayers were attributed to various moments of the service, just as it happens in the service of Vespers with lamp prayers. Initially, there were not many of these morning prayers, but over time their number increased, their inscriptions in manuscripts testified to the place of worship where they should be read. In itself, the statutory place of Matins in the daily circle of worship is provided for in the pre-dawn hours, so that the beginning of Matins takes place at night, and the proclamation of the Great Doxology “Glory to Thee, who showed us the light” occurs just at sunrise - this is the key moment of Matins with thanksgiving (doxology) for the beginning of the day. Unfortunately, the current practice of serving Matins in the evening completely contradicts the spirit of Christian worship, and it cannot in any way be considered justified.

Types of Matins 1. Polyeleos (festive) 2. With doxology, i.e. with a festive ending 3. Everyday

General diagram of Matins (the most important elements are marked in bold): In the case of a separate service of Matins, at the beginning, after a simple exclamation of the priest, the usual beginning is read with the so-called ktitor (royal) psalms 19, 20, during the reading of which the priest performs the full censing of the temple. Then the troparia to the Cross and the Theotokos are sung and followed by a short, intense litany of 4 petitions, pronounced by the priest, who after this (with a censer at the throne) gives the exclamation “Glory to the Saints...” at the beginning of Matins and the Six Psalms is read. As part of the vigil, there is no introductory part, and Matins begins immediately with the Six Psalms. According to monastic regulations, this is a time of “smart prayer.” The core of the Six Psalms is Psalm 62, “O God, my God, my morning message to You...”. - After this, the Peaceful Litany follows and “God is the Lord” is sung with troparia. During Lent and on Saturdays (may be performed) Matins with the singing of “Alleluia” instead of “God is the Lord.” Plus, at daily Lenten Matins, special “trinity songs” are added according to voice. — Next come the Kathismas (according to the charter there can be 2 or 3). — After the kathismas there are small litanies (for signs higher than the sixfold one) and sedalenas. — If there is no polyeleia (Psalms 134-135) and the reading of the Gospel, then Psalm 50 immediately follows and the Canon is sung. Today, on the weekdays of Lent, the canon is sung with biblical songs. — After the 3rd, 6th and 9th cantos - the small litany and sedalena, kontakion, ikos (according to the charter). - After the 8th - the Song of the Mother of God with the refrain “The most honorable ...” and the censing of the temple by the deacon; on the days of the Lord's holidays and, partly, on the days of their after-feasts, instead of the Mother of God song, special refrains of the Holiday are sung. — Psalms of praise 149, 150 with stichera (with small signs there are often no stichera). - The Great Doxology (with a sixfold sign and without a sign - read). — Litany (severe and pleading). In the case of daily matins, the reading of the Doxology is immediately followed by a litany of petition. And then verse stichera are added (i.e. with verses), followed by the reading “There is goodness...” and “The Trisagion according to Our Father...”, daily troparia and a special litany are sung. On the weekdays of Great Lent, at the end of Matins, as at Vespers, the prayer “Heavenly King...” and the prayer of Ephraim the Syrian, pronounced by the priest, with prostrations to the ground, are added. - At the festive end of Matins, the ending occurs with a dismissal, and in the case of daily Matins without a dismissal, the 1st hour is added, at the end of which the dismissal follows.

Polyeleos at the festive matins

Polyeleos is the name given to the multi-component festive part of Matins, which received its name from its first element - the so-called polyeleos psalms (134 and 135). Chapter 17 of the Typikon gives a literal translation of the word “polyeleos” - “many in mercy.” This term comes from the refrain of Psalm 135: “For His mercy endures forever,” which is present in every verse of this psalm. The repeated repetition of the refrain: “For His mercy endures forever,” and enshrined in the Rule, as a special liturgical category, the concept of polyeleos, which became synonymous with festive worship. It should be noted that in relation to the realities of parish worship, the name “many-merciful” is not entirely correct, since each polyelean psalm, which according to the Rules is sung in its entirety at Matins, is, as a rule, reduced to two (first and last) verses. Such a stripped-down singing of the polyeleos psalms, having been recorded in numerous musical publications, has firmly become part of the singing practice of most parish churches. Since at the time of performing polyeleos in churches, many lamps are usually lit and a lot of oil is spent, the term “polyeleos” often began to be explained as “much oil” (especially since the Greek words for “mercy” and “oil”, “oil” are consonant). The spread of a historically and liturgically not entirely correct interpretation was also influenced by the custom accepted in Russian parish practice of performing the rite of anointing at this moment in the service, which, if the requirements of the Charter are strictly followed, should be performed after Matins.

History and modern practice of the Canon of Matins.

The canon in its ideal statutory form is a complex chain of Old Testament biblical songs that make up the “skeleton” of the canon, intertwined with small Christian chants (irmos and troparia). It found its completed form in Byzantine worship at the end. VIII – IX centuries Unfortunately, in modern practice (with the exception of the period of singing the Lenten Triodion), the Canons are usually performed without the use of biblical songs, but the structure of the Canon is preserved in the form of songs, of which there are 9, and the second song is usually absent - it is found only in the canons of the Lenten Triodion. The reason for the absence of the second canto is not entirely clear, although they usually point to the sharply accusatory tone of the 2nd biblical canto in the early Christian tradition and, therefore, it was not always used. According to the current Typikon, there are 2 options for performing biblical songs: • everyday (everyday), called “Sing to the Lord”; • festive, called “We sing to the Lord.” The texts of the biblical songs themselves are found in the second part of the Followed Psalter. The structure of each song of the canon is the following order: Biblical hymn → Irmos → Chorus → Troparion → Chorus → Troparion → … …→ Glory…/ Troparion / And now… / Troparion / Katavasia. According to the rules, a canon can contain up to 14 troparia (counting together with the Iirmos). The choruses should be verses of biblical songs, into the text of which Irmos and troparia are added between the verses. But in today’s practice (except for the period of singing the Lenten Triodion), biblical songs are usually not used, and choruses use general Christian content, such as, for example, “Glory to Thee, our God, glory to Thee,” “Glory to the Lord, Thy Holy Resurrection,” “Holy ... pray to God for us”, “Most Holy Theotokos save us”, etc. Irmos (Greek: Coupling), connection, connection, is the organizing text of the canon, the key to the structure of songs. In conclusion, each song of the canon was supposed to be sung by irmos, called by the Greek military term katavasia (from the Greek - convergence), the performance of which was supposed to be performed by two choirs converging together from the choir in the middle of the temple at the conclusion of each song of the canon. In our Typikon, in the case of a festive version of the service, it is prescribed to sing katavasiya after each song of the canon, and in a weekday service only after the 3rd, 6th, 8th and 9th. Initially, the troparions of the canon at Matins sought to preserve the connection of the celebrated memory with certain Old Testament images remembered in biblical songs. But over time, this semantic order was disrupted and the lack of connection with biblical songs is visible not only in the troparia, but also in the irmos, which should serve as a model for the troparia of the song. There are a total of 12 biblical songs in the Holy Scriptures. Of these, the Song of Deborah (Judges ch. 5) and the Song of Hezekiah (Isa. 38:11-20) were not included in our worship, and the remaining 10 songs (2 of which are New Testament) form the background of the songs of the Canon. Initially, the songs were used somewhat differently and in smaller numbers - from 1 to 3. Today, in the everyday liturgical texts of the Lenten Triodion, a more ancient quantitative order of the songs of the canon has been preserved: 2, 3 and 4 chantes. According to the general statutory order, the themes of the biblical songs of the Canon are arranged as follows: 1. The passage of the Jews through the Red Sea, the Song of Moses (Exodus 15:1-19); 2. Song of Moses (Deut. 32:1-43); 3. Song of Hannah, mother of Samuel (1 Samuel 2:1-11); 4. Song of Habakkuk (Hab. 3:1-19); 5. Song of Isaiah (Is. 26:9-19); 6. Song of Jonah (Jon. 2:3-10); The song of the three youths made up two songs of the canon: 7. (Dan. 3:26-56); 8. (Dan. 3: 67-88); The Song of the Theotokos (Luke 1:46-55) is not a separate song of the canon, but stands alone between the 8th and 9th cantos and is sung with the chorus “Most honorable...”, with the exception of the twelve feasts, when their own special chants are sung, and Sunday vigils during the period of Easter Pentecost. 9. Song of Zechariah (Luke 1:68-79).

Features of Orthodox worship

These include:

• integrity, continuity of service - in contrast to Protestant prayer meetings, consisting of loosely connected parts, reading Scripture, prayer, sermons;
• its deep symbolism: the service connects the worshiper with the events of the Old and New Testaments, first of all - the life of the Lord Himself;
• since worship is not so much an edification for Christians as a direct communion with God, another of its features follows from this: it is impossible to “stand” before the Creator of the Universe while sitting on a bench, just as is customary among Catholics or Protestants; Orthodox churches have a small number of seats, but they are intended for the infirm;
• Another expression of intense presence before God is that the Bible is always read facing the most sacred place of the temple, the throne (hence, with its back to the people ahead), while among Catholics and Protestants the reader addresses the Christians present.

Lutheran churches in the Republic of Slovakia. Zilina region (Slovak Žilinský kraj) Evangelical church in the city of Zilina (Evanjelický kostol v Žiline) 1934-1936, architect Milan Michal Harminc

To the discussion about the translation of worship into Russian (Yuri Maksimov)

A lot has already been said and written on this issue by a variety of people, both for and against. The Church’s attitude was expressed by His Holiness the Patriarch, who has repeatedly stated that our Church does not intend to switch to the Russian language in liturgical practice.

However, the voices of supporters of the Russification of worship are still heard, and the topic continues to be discussed, and now again in some circles its discussion has been timed to coincide with the upcoming Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church, although such an item does not appear among the topics planned for conciliar discussion.

Indeed, there is nothing to discuss here, since it is obvious to any reasonable person that there will be no translation of the service into spoken Russian.

Why?

Of course, not because, allegedly, the Russian language is not at all suitable for prayer and it is impossible to pray in it. I think every Orthodox Christian in private prayer has had the opportunity to mentally turn to God with private requests in Russian. And even now our Church uses prayers in Russian - the prayer of the Optina elders, the prayer of St. John of Kronstadt, thanksgiving akathist “Glory to God for everything.”

And, of course, not because the text of church services is supposedly inviolable and unchangeable in principle. What was translated incorrectly from Greek, or what acquired the wrong meaning for the ears of believers, was gradually replaced - not by Russian colloquial words, but by other words of the Church Slavonic language. This natural and logical process in the Russian Orthodox Church took place not only under Patriarch Nikon, but also before and after him.

But all this in no way justifies the idea of ​​​​translating worship from Church Slavonic into colloquial Russian. Therefore, neither the reasonable correction of inaccuracies in the translation of liturgical books, nor the private use of individual prayer books in Russian, in any way encroaches on the translation of the entire general church service.

There will be no translation of the service into spoken Russian because this renovation project is not able to answer the simple question: “WHY?”

Supporters of this project are trying to convince that they have an answer to this question and readily declare that services in Church Slavonic are incomprehensible to many parishioners, which is why people allegedly do not go to churches, but once they start serving in Russian, the services It will immediately become clear, people will understand its beauty and immediately flock to churches, and Orthodoxy will become even more popular among the people.

This is precisely the justification for their ideas that all supporters of liturgical reforms give.

But, turning to reality, we see two things that smash this excuse to smithereens.

Firstly. The stated goal of making worship more understandable can be achieved by other means, without translation into spoken Russian. The experience of some parishes has shown that this is easily achieved through this practice, when parishioners are given little books with Church Slavonic texts of the liturgy or all-night vigil, with explanations of obscure words given below. Repeated participation of the laity in worship with such books removes most of the misunderstanding. And the rest is removed by the practice of explaining the worship service, either during sermons, when appropriate, or in Sunday school classes for adults.

And secondly. Translation into a colloquial language in itself, contrary to the constant assurances of reform supporters, does not make the service either understandable or popular - that is, it does not achieve any of the declared goals. Recent history has shown this many times.

In Serbia, relatively recently, the services were partially translated from Church Slavonic into the Serbian language, but, as the Serbs themselves admit, people did not flock to churches after that.

The Bulgarians also began to serve in Bulgarian, and this, again, to put it mildly, did not at all lead to a liturgical revival in the country, rather the opposite. Last year, statistics were published indicating that Bulgaria is probably the only traditionally Orthodox country that, after the fall of the socialist regime, did not increase, but decreased, the share of Orthodox believers. Although it would seem that the service is in an “understandable” language...

Also, the past head of the Greek Orthodox Church, Archbishop Christodoulus, yielding to the proposals of the local “renovators”, as an experiment, allowed services to be performed in Modern Greek in one church. And the experiment failed miserably - over several years the number of parishioners did not increase at all, people did not flock to this church at all to listen to the “understandable” service.

Finally, in our Church in the mid-twentieth century they did such an experiment - there were several parishes that, with the special blessing of the hierarchy, were allowed to serve in Russian. And these parishes, again, did not become centers of Orthodox revival at all, but gradually decayed and disappeared; few people even know about their existence.

So the “recipe” has been tested many times. Does not work. Here, supporters of reforms should think about why it doesn’t work, instead of endlessly saying “let’s try again.”

It doesn't work for several reasons. Some of them have already been discussed in other articles and books devoted to the protection of the Church Slavonic language; there is no point in repeating them.

But there is something worth saying. Replacing the language of worship with a colloquial one does not work because the main reasons for the incomprehensibility of worship for people who have just come to the Church lie on a different plane and do not depend on the language.

For example, if we open any Russian-language scientific journal and give it to people on the street to read, then the average person will understand no more from these articles than from the Church Slavonic liturgy of St. John Chrysostom. Although the articles of such a journal are written in modern Russian, no one requires scientists to write and publish their research in the language of the bazaar and television.

Moreover, if we give an unchurched person to read liturgical texts in Russian translation, he will also not understand a lot of them. Because in order to understand them, you need to know the doctrine of the Church and sacred history, read Scripture at least once, and understand the principles of poetic language and metaphors used in worship.

So, one of the main reasons for the “incomprehensibility” of worship for non-church people is the same as the reason for the “incomprehensibility” of scientific material for ordinary people - their own illiteracy. If a person wants to eliminate it, he does not have any problems with the Church Slavonic language; learning several unfamiliar words and constructions is a task for several weeks.

Another reason for incomprehensibility is the lack of culture of listening to text. As well as the culture of text reproduction, that is, reading. And here the language in which it occurs does not play any role at all. I once had the opportunity to personally verify this. About eight years ago, finding myself at a liturgy in one church, I listened to the reading of the Apostle and tried to make out at least a word. The reader mumbled something in a low voice, and only at the very end I realized that he was reading the Apostle in Russian, but what the reading was about remained shrouded in mystery forever - both for me and, I suppose, for everyone present. On the contrary, I once heard an exemplary reading of the Gospel in Church Slavonic, read in such a way that every sentence was understandable. The same can be said about singing lyrics.

So, by translating the service into Russian, we gain absolutely nothing. But we will lose a lot.

Personally, my acquaintance with the Church Slavonic language, which I learned almost exclusively through worship, gave me a lot, from which I would like to especially highlight two things:

Firstly, thanks to this, I can open a book with text written in Rus' from the seventeenth, fifteenth and even thirteenth centuries - and without a dictionary or grammar, in the vast majority of cases, understand what it says.

Secondly, thanks to this, I can understand speech and texts in other Slavic languages ​​much better - Serbian, Bulgarian, even Polish - because they have disproportionately more vocabulary overlaps with Church Slavonic than with modern Russian.

I have tested both in practice many times. I would have lost both if by the time I joined the Church the Church would have served in Russian.

In previous works devoted to this issue, much has been said about the beauty and greater accuracy of the Church Slavonic language compared to colloquial Russian. I would like to add to this that worship in Church Slavonic is much more useful from a purely practical point of view. This is what brings us closer to our ancestors and other Slavs, what allows us to better understand ancient and modern times.

In addition, naturally, any global reform will cause considerable temptation among believers, which most likely threatens unrest, resentment and even division. All these are also very serious losses with zero benefit.

Our Church and our people have suffered a lot in history from various attempts at global social change - reforms, revolutions, and so on. We have suffered through the bitter truth that there is no need to fix what works and to indulge in thoughtless experiments, the meaninglessness of which is obvious, and the ineffectiveness has already been proven by experimental testing.

Three Circles of Worship

that has developed since the first centuries of the Church , that is, the order of performing services, consists of three large cycles, or “circles.”

Daily

It was finally established in the 11th century. A day is traditionally counted from the evening of the previous day. This is connected with the story of the Book of Genesis from the creation of the world: after all, according to it, the day of creation began in the evening, and was described as follows: “And there was evening, and there was morning...” (Gen. 1:5), that is, the beginning of the day was evening.

Weekly

Here, in comparison with the civil calendar, there are also some peculiarities: the first day of the week has long been considered Sunday, not Monday. Even the name of this day suggests that it is not the first, but follows “by the week,” that is, after Sunday.

Scheme of the daily liturgical circle

Each day of the week is dedicated to a saint, sometimes to a holiday. In addition to this, however, there are certain days when they especially pray, remembering:

• Angelov (Monday); The day is especially revered by monastics, for, according to the word of St. fathers, “angels are the light of monks”;
• St. John the Baptist (Tuesday);
• betrayal of Judas (Wednesday);
• St. Nicholas (Thursday);
• Crucifixion (Friday);
• deceased relatives (Saturday).

Annual

In turn, this liturgical circle is divided into:

• “fixed”, that is, consisting of holidays with a specific date;
• “movable”, which includes church celebrations, the times of which change from year to year. These include Easter , the time of which determines the beginning of Great Lent , the weeks of preparation for it, the holidays of the Ascension and Pentecost.

The annual circle of church services. Scheme

Liturgical translations

Priest Georgy Kochetkov: Many of you are already familiar with the seven-volume collection of translations of Orthodox services into Russian. If you look at the previous, preliminary, editions, including those in which translations were made from the Church Slavonic language, even then these imperfect translations enjoyed enormous popularity and were immediately used in worship. This is their specialty. Maybe we are not great poets, maybe we are not great saints, but we have another advantage: these translations became a church service and were tested immediately in church during prayer, and this did not allow us to translate poorly. Today they are unique in their composition, in their richness, and in the quality of translation. This does not mean that I idealize our work - no translation can be perfect - but it can be said for sure that this is a good translation both from a professional point of view and from the point of view of those who use them in prayer.

Zoya Dashevskaya: What church-practical questions does the presence of liturgical translation pose before us? What opportunities does liturgical translation provide for performing church services?

Priest Georgy Kochetkov: It seems to me that this question is clear: divine services require praying not only with the spirit, but also with the mind. Unfortunately, historically it happened that in many ancient Catholic churches the tradition became somewhat petrified and ceased to correspond to life. Initially, all liturgical texts were lively and intelligible to those praying. But gradually it went away. People reproduced what was acceptable, accepted, what seemed qualitative and unchangeable, and even when the meaning was already gone, they still continued to use those texts that were passed down from previous generations. Now, of course, it is difficult to restore the balance between the spiritual and semantic content of worship. This, I think, will still take quite a lot of time.

Worship in modern liturgical language is the command of the Spirit, if you like, even more - it is the will of God, which simply needs to be fulfilled by every person obedient to God, and we must do it. We should not be lazy and afraid just because since 1943, raising the issue of translating worship into Russian was practically prohibited. This prohibition came not from the church, not from the hierarchy, but from the outside, but it was carried out so harshly that it entered the consciousness of the church as an ecclesiastical requirement, and any deviation from this began to be considered church dissidence, something prohibited. Then all sorts of myths began to arise that the translation of a divine service almost needs the decision of an Ecumenical Council, or that some greatest saints must do it in order for the translation to be acceptable to the church, or it must be done by some brilliant poets - “ten Pushkins” in one". These are all myths. In history, translations of liturgical texts have never been done by either the greatest saints or the most brilliant poets. Let us remember, moreover, that the New Testament was written in Greek - not the most sophisticated, frankly speaking, version of the Greek language. The Gospel is written in ordinary Greek, which was used among the widest layers of Hellenistic society.

We all need to overcome myths, and for this we need to overcome fears and a superstitious attitude towards church tradition as an external letter. Tradition is the spirit, not the letter. And although any theologian will immediately confirm this position, at the level of church consciousness - both parishioners, the priesthood, and the hierarchy - alas, the situation is completely different. The well-known words of Scripture, “stand fast and hold fast the traditions,” are often used precisely to establish the rule of the letter. Although every educated Christian cannot help but remember the words of Scripture that the letter kills, but the spirit gives life. Tradition is continuity in spirit, it is the same spirit of the Apostolic Church, the Church of Saints, the Church of the Faithful.

Zoya Dashevskaya: Today in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior we saw that you were holding this publication in your hands. And today we also heard the exclamation in Russian. What does this text provide for understanding worship?

Priest Georgy Kochetkov: Of course, the unity of language contributes to the unity of the church, but one should not exaggerate the importance of these things. Still, what has to do with the letter are somewhat objectified things. The letter has its own meaning if it is not put in the place of the spirit.

Yes, today I prayed for the first time in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior completely in Russian. This was known to everyone at the altar: both Bishop Panteleimon and the keymaster of the cathedral, with whom we agreed on everything. This is some kind of miracle. True, I’m not sure that this can happen again, but who knows... Sometimes we ourselves set limits where there are none.

Of course, the unity of prayer is connected not only with spiritual unity, but also with spiritual and even material unity. Everyone knows that spiritual unity is achieved when everyone prays common and unanimous prayers. These common consonant prayers should touch hearts and touch lives. You can read in an unfamiliar language - and there will also be some kind of commonality, but of a different kind. We must pray with the spirit, we must also pray with the mind. The Apostle Paul believed that prayer edifies a person, and not only acts mystically. So the issue of liturgical language is a fundamental one for our church. How many people leave the Orthodox Church - and the most creative, young, intelligent - only because they do not agree to not understand anything and stand as extras in the church. They simply cannot do this, it is against their gut, against their conscience, and they go to Protestants and somewhere else, or even leave the church. There are so many of these people that, if only for their sake, it would be worthwhile for the church leadership to take a close look at the issue of the language of worship.

Zoya Dashevskaya: The problem of the language of worship raises the question of the unity of the church congregation. Prayer “with one mouth, one heart” presupposes the opportunity for everyone to hear the anaphora and all those prayers that should be read aloud on behalf of the church congregation, as they were written, and end with a common “Amen!” Even Saint Justin Martyr affirmed this as the norm of early Christian prayer: without an amen there is no church prayer. The sermon must also be in its place. It turns out that the problem of liturgical translations, understandability and participation of everyone in worship poses a whole range of questions. What ways do you see for achieving the church standard of performing common prayer?

Priest Georgy Kochetkov: I would repeat the thought that in recent years I have often had to formulate: we must start with the main thing. One should distinguish between central and secondary things in church life; there is no need to grab onto everything. The question of the language of worship is only one of the significant issues of the liturgical revival of our church, including the Eucharistic one. The Eucharist will never become the center of a person’s life if it is celebrated in Church Slavonic. Never. We need to understand this. Many people want a Eucharistic revival, including clergy. But it amazes me that often these are those who are against the Russian language in worship. I can’t explain this to myself other than inexperience. They most likely have never heard a service in Russian. I really liked the argument of one of the priests who asked at the altar today: “Read in Russian, I want to hear how it sounds.” This is the correct reaction: we must first hear and then judge. When he listened, he saw a big difference between Church Slavonic and Russian, from which it becomes clear that translation is required, and translation cannot be done simply from a sheet of paper. At the beginning of the twentieth century, some bishops and priests could translate from sight. The subdeacon held a liturgical book in Greek before the priest, who immediately translated it into Russian. Nowadays there are no such people, or almost none; we don’t teach Greek the same way as then, so it’s impossible to translate from sight. You can simply Russify, even if it doesn’t give much, but it’s still better than nothing. We did this in the 1970s and 80s. Then we Russified it from scratch. There are quite a lot of places that you can immediately Russify from scratch and you know for sure that you won’t spoil anything. However, this also requires certain experience from readers or clergy.

I'm going back to where I started. The problem of the language of worship is not self-sufficient; it is part of the question of liturgical revival, of how to make our prayer not just valid, but effective. People must understand that every prayer calls for action, and this action needs to happen. For example, if a deacon says: “Let us love one another, that we may be of one mind,” then let us still love each other! Why doesn’t anyone do this in the temple, except the clergy? Here we must give the kiss of peace and love. “Let us love one another” means “let us kiss each other.” But the people stand and have no idea about the meaning of these words, and the prayer turns out to be ineffective. It is valid, but not effective. But God needs action, needs life, and not just a canonically or legally valid formula.

Zoya Dashevskaya: Indeed, “God is not the God of the dead, but of the living” (Matthew 22:32), and He should be answered with a living answer. How do translations live in brotherhood, in brotherly prayer?

Priest Georgy Kochetkov: This is a huge question, I will try to answer briefly. It is important that they live. Brothers and sisters pray. They abandoned the tradition of the 18th-19th centuries to pray according to the prayer book and pray as it was prescribed for centuries, many centuries, that is, they perform Vespers and Matins at home. Not morning and evening prayers, but Vespers and Matins, which may include reading Scripture and even a word explaining it. And this is available to everyone, including the laity, brothers and sisters. If the sisters have been taught the faith, if they can pronounce such a word after Scripture, let them say it in home, and sometimes more widely - in fraternal or community prayer.

Those who visited us in St. Philaret's Chapel remember how important two aspects of fraternal worship are. First, the prayers of the antiphons for blessing are read in turn by the laity and brothers and sisters, while the priest traditionally pronounces the exclamation. It is not very clear where the tradition of pronouncing exclamations separately came from, or how justified it is, but it exists. Secondly, during the Serious Litany in the church there is a tradition of adding various petitions - greetings and others. After all, here you can read a separate litany, or you can add additional petitions at the end before “intercede, save...”. In our chapel we hear not only such petitions, but also thanksgivings, to which we respond not “Lord, have mercy,” but “Glory to Thee, Lord, glory to Thee.” This is already fraternal liturgical creativity, in my opinion, good and justified. Thank God that the laity have the opportunity to formulate petitions to God or thanksgiving themselves. If we want to include people in the life of prayer and remain on church soil, we need to do this, otherwise such charismatic services will begin among the laity that you will not know where to go.

Generally speaking, we can say that the fraternal rite of any divine service is very traditional, even more traditional than the parish rite, if we take the entire tradition as a whole, and not just the 17th century. On the other hand, it is more free, it not only does not hide priestly prayers from the church, but it leads it to action, which is especially clearly seen in the example of the entire complex of prayers for the catechumens, the enlightened, and so on. I am especially pleased that the fraternal order concentrates attention on the very content of church services. He does not allow private prayer at the wrong time in the wrong place. You know how it often happens in churches: a person came, went deep into himself, prayed for his own, for his own, for his loved one - here is your prayer. People don't understand anything about worship. It is happening in such a way that it is basically impossible for anyone to get involved in it, even for those who know perfectly well what is happening. The style of ministry is such that it is rather off-putting. Moreover, if this is not some kind of theological school where you need to do everything as expected, but an ordinary parish, including cathedrals, then 90% of the people there are like that. Only a few people do not stand in front of individual icons, but look at least towards the altar. The rest - not at all.

Zoya Dashevskaya: Liturgical translations make it possible to pray at home. Historically, and this is confirmed by the confessor of the faith, Bishop Afanasy (Sakharov), the traditional rule for those praying was the church service, which is performed at that moment in the temple, in the church meeting. If a person cannot be there, he prays like this at home. There are historical evidence such as, for example, “Domostroy,” which instructs the father of the family to perform the entire daily liturgical cycle at home: the Hours, Compline, Midnight, Matins, Vespers. Now, of course, a working person is hardly capable of this, but Matins and Vespers, using the prayers that we find in the book “Orthodox Worship,” are quite possible. But in this case, it turns out that the laity use the prayers of Vespers and Matins from the Service Book. Isn't this confusing?

Priest Georgy Kochetkov: Of course, the Service Book is for clergy. But this does not mean that everything there is for clergy. We need to understand this. These are questions the answers to which are not on the surface; you have to think about them. This applies not only to the liturgy. One of the difficult questions related to the liturgy is which prayers can be read by everyone and which not by everyone, which can be read aloud and which cannot be read. There is some debate on this issue. Major liturgists and researchers of Orthodox worship interpret these issues differently, and it is very clear why. I also had to do this when creating translations, because liturgical instructions to texts have their own nuances. When making translations, we tried to restore tradition, removing all historical errors and layers that contradict the meaning of worship, the meaning of church prayer.

D. Pavel S.: Father George, how do you see the prospect of using these translations in our church?

Priest Georgy Kochetkov: It seems to me that these translations are spreading wonderfully. We have now released the third edition of the first three volumes of the seven-volume set, and each edition is a circulation of three thousand, that is, the third edition already means 9,000 copies. Many clergy have either all or some of the volumes downloaded or printed from my website. We have posted the second edition there. The third has not yet been made, but over time it will be on the Internet. So the translations were distributed even more widely than the number of paper copies.

Unfortunately, the artificial propaganda against the Russian language in worship, which was massively carried out in our church in the 1990s and 2000s, spoiled a lot. From the very beginning it was of poor quality, unchurch and even anti-church, but, unfortunately, many fell for it - laymen and clergy, most often not very educated. But no aesthetic subjective experiences, which come more likely from habit, from aesthetic inertia, rather than from church aesthetics itself, can be the decisive factor here.

Zoya Dashevskaya: What did you rely on when choosing this or that translation option when there were discrepancies in the manuscripts?

Priest Georgy Kochetkov: This is always a difficult question. In general, thank God, liturgical science is moving forward. Before making translations, we conducted a serious liturgical study of each rite, as far as our strength was sufficient, as far as we could obtain all the books, important publications on a given rite, no matter in what country it was published. Sometimes it was known where there were interpolations and insertions, then we excluded them and wrote interlinearly that in Church Slavonic there was such and such an insertion. We also translated it - if someone really wants to read everything according to the Church Slavonic tradition, he can also use our books, but, in our deep conviction, this is not justified by tradition and the meaning as a whole, because derogating the meaning detracts from the spirit. The first options are often better. However, this is easy to check: everything is in our books, anyone can easily verify this for themselves.

Tradition is always multivariate, both in Holy Scripture and in liturgical texts. It will never be possible to find a single absolutely correct text of Holy Scripture or worship. It never was, is not and never will be. Therefore, we always choose between one option or another.

We could resolve this issue only due to the fact that we had a translation commission. I wouldn’t take it upon myself to decide this.

Zoya Dashevskaya: What would you advise to those who would like to use liturgical translations, but are hesitant?

Priest Georgy Kochetkov: It depends on why a person does not decide, what reasons he has for this. It’s one thing when they tell him: “Just say a word in Russian and you won’t be at the parish tomorrow.” It’s another matter when there is simply psychological inertia, a person cannot imagine how he can read something different, unusual. I experienced this myself. When I was in a fraternal environment for the first time, in our fraternal parish in Elektrougli, I began to read the small litany and instead of “pack and pack” I read “again and again” (I really didn’t like “again and again”, although this fits the meaning better, but in terms of style it’s worse, which also needs to be taken into account somehow), and so my knees began to tremble... So I really understand those who are still hesitant, but they have to overcome themselves.

Zoya Dashevskaya: Father, we thank you for this church work, for the fact that during all these years you did not abandon this work, despite the colossal resistance that it at times caused. The online discussion about liturgical language, about the document of the Inter-Council Presence, even had to be closed at some point, because there was too much opposition to it...

Priest Georgy Kochetkov: This is where I disagree. The discussion was simply poorly organized. There were several people there who were ideologically charged, and for very understandable reasons. These are all well-known people, ordinary loudmouths, they just need to be assessed and shown that this is not the voice of the church.

Zoya Dashevskaya: The opportunity to pray both in spirit and in mind, in the unity of the church meeting, meaning that you read and sing, leads to the fact that the church is not only edified, but also gathers. At the center of the church meeting is the word of God, its explanation, teaching, or sacrament, and thus the church is assembled, which truly consists of “living stones” (1 Pet. 2:5) - the intelligent members of the church body, who say “Amen!” pronounced consciously. This is an amazing opportunity and we pray that this opportunity will be presented more widely.

Priest Georgy Kochetkov: It seems to me that it is important to focus not only on consciousness. Consciousness is a good thing, whoever argues, and should not be neglected. The Lord gave man a mind, but spiritual issues are resolved not at the level of the mind, but at the level of spirit and meaning. Meaning and intelligence are related, but not in a very simple way.

Father D.: First of all, I would like to thank you for this wonderful text, which I also had the good fortune to use. This is truly an absolutely wonderful translation, which allows not only people present during the fulfillment of religious services and usually completely unfamiliar with Church Slavonic worship, but also the priest himself, who often, being burdened with some kind of special education, knowledge of ancient languages, thinks of himself that he understands everything, suddenly discover a completely different depth and involvement in these texts. My question is simple and short. How could you explain the replacement of the usual title “servant of God” with “child of God”? Is it rooted in tradition?

Priest Georgy Kochetkov: “Slave” is a very ambiguous concept in the Holy Scriptures, in the Jewish world, and in the Greek world. There is a big difference between the Greek world and the Jewish one. It seems to me that here we need to focus on the Jewish world, so I use it synonymously - “child”, “servant”, “slave”, “youth” and so on depending on the context. This is precisely the Jewish semantic field of this concept. Because people perceive the modern Russian word “slave” completely differently. That is why people rebel against such “slavery”: Christ freed us, and we are still “slaves” and “slaves”. This contradiction is too serious. This is not a question of humility or pride, the conversation is about something completely different. It seems to me that in liturgical texts the translation of this word with other connotations is justified, which allows people to maintain a humble self-awareness and at the same time not slavish.

Divine Liturgy

Since ancient times, only those who had received Baptism, as well as those preparing for it—the catechumens—had the right to participate in this service. The latter, however, were allowed to be with the rest of the believers only until the deacon said:

“Catechumens, come forth!”

After this, the “Liturgy of the Faithful” began, which was attended only by the baptized.

Kinds

To date, the Russian Church most often celebrates three liturgies, the creation of which is attributed to:

• St. Basil the Great;
• St. John Chrysostom;
• Pope Gregory Dvoeslov.

In some dioceses, in memory of St. Mark also serves a special liturgy, the appearance of which is traced back to this Apostle of Christ.

Time: when does it start and how long does it last?

The usual start of the liturgy is around 8 a.m. or 9 a.m., however, it is better to check the service time in a specific church. It lasts about one and a half hours.

Meaning

All liturgies, except those created by Pope Gregory, are so-called “complete”. This means that during them the Sacrament of the Eucharist , the transformation of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ. They are taught to believers who have prepared for this by fasting, intense prayer, and Confession.

Lebedev K.V. Communion of the people

A slightly different rite is the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts of St. Gregory. Here the faithful are given the previously consecrated Holy Gifts. Since ancient times, the custom has been established to perform such a service only during Great Lent, on Wednesdays and Fridays, since the full liturgy at this time is served only on Saturdays and Sundays, and believers may also require Communion on other days of the week. Many theologians believe that the rite of the service is closer to Vespers. This is no coincidence, because according to the Charter it is performed in the evening (in practice, most often in the morning).

In what order is it usually performed in the temple?

Since ancient times, the service has been preceded by 3 and 6 hours. This is followed by the “liturgy of the catechumens,” which ends after the reading of the Gospel. The last, most important part of the service is the Sacrament of the Eucharist itself.

Divine services in Russian, female priesthood and new rules of fasting Six ideas for reforms in the Russian Orthodox Church

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In January 2016, Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin (who had recently lost an influential post in the structure of the Russian Orthodox Church) began collecting signatures for a petition for the return of the election of the clergy. In a couple of weeks, the initiative on Change.org was unable to collect even a thousand signatures, but it generated a lot of talk about urgent reforms in the Russian Orthodox Church. Meduza asked journalist Ksenia Luchenko

talk about the most discussed ideas and describe their prospects.

Conduct services in Russian

The essence

The Russian Orthodox Church uses Church Slavonic for worship. All the texts of prayers are written on it, and the Gospel is read on it in church. At the same time, the overwhelming majority of parishioners do not know the Church Slavonic language. The similarity with modern Russian sometimes not only does not help, but also hinders. There are many paronyms in Church Slavonic and Russian - words that sound similar, but have different meanings. For example, the Church Slavonic “directly” is translated into Russian as “opposite”, “vegetated” as “grown up”, “shame” as “spectacle”, and “coward” as “earthquake”. The parishioners’ misunderstanding of the divine service is well illustrated by numerous anecdotes - like the story of an old woman who heard the words of Psalm 140, “Let my prayer be corrected, as incense before You...” was heard as “Let my prayer be corrected, I am a crocodile before You.”

The language of worship does not have any sacred meaning. In different countries, local Orthodox Christians serve in the languages ​​they speak: in Georgia - in Georgian, in Finland - in Finnish, in Poland - in Polish, in the USA and Great Britain - in English. In the national republics on the territory of Russia they can also serve in the native languages ​​of local residents: in Chuvashia - in Chuvash, in Yakutia - in Yakut. But parishioners of most Russian churches—even those who go to church regularly—often have little understanding of what they are reading or singing about.

Service in the Kazan Cathedral

Photo: Anton Vaganov / TASS

Prospects

It is unlikely that in the foreseeable future services will begin to be held in Russian. In 2011, a church-wide document “Church Slavonic Language in the Life of the Russian Orthodox Church of the 21st Century” was published for discussion; it caused such a heated discussion that they preferred to forget the project. And this despite the fact that the document did not propose any reforms - it simply described the situation.

Critics of this idea say that it is impossible to make an adequate translation without loss of meaning and Byzantine poetics. The existing options for translating Orthodox worship into Russian, made from Greek taking into account Church Slavonic, are indeed considered by experts to be not very successful. In addition, once in Russian church history the book on the right already ended in a terrible schism, so they are simply afraid to touch the familiar texts.

However, in some churches, priests read the Gospel during services in Russian, so that at least the most important things are clear to parishioners. In other parishes, those who wish are given printouts with Russian translations of passages from the Gospel and the Apostle that are heard on this day. But there are few such churches; basically all services and readings are held in Church Slavonic.

Change the schedule and rules of posts

The essence

In the Orthodox calendar there are more fast days than non-fast days - their number can reach up to two hundred. Only a few believers observe all fasts; most fast only before Easter and Christmas. There is no modern document regulating fasting. All current rules are taken from two liturgical books - “Typicon” (the last time this text was changed in 1695) and “Nomocanon” (written in the 15th century).

In fact, these rules were created for monks whose lives were completely subordinated to the liturgical cycle. In addition, these monks lived in the Mediterranean, so the rules of fasting took into account the specifics of this particular region. Today in Russia, some of these rules look quite absurd: according to them, it turns out, for example, that lobsters and oysters are lean foods, but chicken cutlets and kefir are not.

The Orthodox observe the discipline of fasting in different ways and determine the extent of possible deviation from the Typikon, which prescribes, among other things, complete abstinence from food in the first three days of Lent and allows vegetable (so-called “lenten”) oil only on the weekends of fasting.

For example, during Lent and the Nativity, it is customary to eat fish that is not permitted by the Typikon, but some eat it only on Sundays after the liturgy, and others eat it on any day. The rules of fasting for children, nursing mothers, the sick and traveling are not fixed anywhere. In practice, these rules are different in each parish: everyone understands that there are “relaxations”, but which ones they decide on an individual basis. As a result, every year with the onset of Lent, Orthodox Christians complain on social networks that they never think about food as much as on fasting days - when they need to think about it the least.

Prospects

For many, it is obvious that the discipline of fasting for the laity needs to be brought into line with modern realities, existing practices and streamlined. But they fear a reaction from fundamentalists and conservatives, who may consider this a betrayal of centuries-old church tradition. However, the issue of fasting is included in the list of ten topics that will be discussed at the Pan-Orthodox Council (a meeting of all the heads of the Orthodox churches of the world), which will take place in Crete in June 2016.

Procession. April 12, 2015

Photo: Nikita Uspensky / PhotoXPress

Switch to the New Julian calendar and celebrate Christmas on December 25

The essence

The Russian Orthodox Church lives according to the Julian calendar, so there is “our” Christmas, and there is “Catholic”, and all other holidays in the church calendar are indicated with two dates - according to the “new” and the “old” style. At the same time, most Orthodox countries - Greece, Romania, Bulgaria, the Orthodox Churches of America and Finland - in 1923 switched to the New Julian calendar, which coincides with the generally accepted civil Gregorian calendar, and only the date of Easter is still calculated depending on the lunar cycle. Therefore, Orthodox Christians in Greece and Russia celebrate all holidays on different days, and Easter together.

Today, the most acute problems due to the discrepancy between the church and civil calendars are faced by Orthodox Christians living in Western Europe, who fast when everyone around them is celebrating, and cannot go to church on Christmas because January 7 is a working day. But even in Russia, many feel discomfort due to the fact that the New Year is celebrated before Christmas, and not after, as it should be: it is difficult to fast and celebrate at the same time. The idea of ​​switching to the New Julian calendar is being discussed, which was already carried out once in 1923 under Patriarch Tikhon. True, due to strong resistance from parishioners, the Russian Church lived according to the new calendar for only 24 days.

Prospects

A transition to a new calendar is possible, but unlikely. The introduction of a new calendar often ends in a split - in Greece, for example, there is still a fairly strong movement of “Old Calendarists”. However, this topic, as well as the issues of observing fasts, will be discussed at the Pan-Orthodox Council in 2016. It is possible that Orthodox Christians around the world will have to agree on the unification of the calendar.

Christmas liturgy in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior

Photo: Valery Sharifulin / TASS / Scanpix

Restore parish boundaries and membership for parishioners

The essence

Today every Orthodox Christian can go to any church. Those who wish to be baptized or order a prayer service can do so anywhere. But this was not always the case. Before the revolution, clergy could not perform services outside the territory of their parish. Believers were assigned to churches at their place of residence, and metric books were kept in them “about those born,” “about those who got married,” and “about the dead.” After 1918, these functions were transferred to the registry offices.

At the Local Council of 1917-1918, the Parish Charter was adopted, according to which “Parishioners were recognized as “all persons of the Orthodox confession who live within the parish and maintain a living connection with their parish church.” Instead of parish registers, it was planned to create parish registers in which all members of the parish community would be recorded. It was assumed that this would lead to an improvement in the quality of Christian life of parishioners: the priests had to know them by sight, conduct regular educational conversations, and be responsible for a conscious attitude to worship and the sacraments. This was not put into practice due to the outbreak of persecution of the Church.

The idea of ​​returning boundaries for parishes is also being discussed in the modern Church. Many priests believe that the introduction of parish boundaries and community membership should lead to the streamlining of church life and will stop the practice of making money from random services performed for people who are little familiar with church life.

At a meeting of the Synod in the summer of 2014, Metropolitan Barsanuphius of St. Petersburg and Ladoga made a report on the development of the topic of parish boundaries in the commission of the Inter-Council Presence. The Metropolitan's report and the draft document “On the boundaries of parishes and membership in parishes” were not published. The Synod decided that establishing the boundaries of parishes was difficult, but obliged the dioceses to carry out territorial delimitation of parishes in rural areas, assigning each locality to a specific parish.

Prospects

It is hardly possible to consolidate membership in parishes and parish boundaries - such a reform would conflict with the established authoritarian practice of managing parishes and the Charter of the Russian Orthodox Church (the main document by which the Church lives). Under the current charter, building an independent parish is impossible, because now the bishop not only approves the members of the parish assembly, but can dissolve it and appoint a new composition. If membership is introduced, the election procedures for the parish council will inevitably become more democratic, in addition, parishioners will be required to pay dues and will want to monitor the expenditure of funds.

Nowadays, in some churches it is customary to keep parish books in which permanent parishioners are voluntarily registered; they regularly make donations for the maintenance of the church building and the salaries of the clergy. But this practice is not legally established.

Return the election of the clergy

The essence

The idea of ​​Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin is not new: in the ancient Church, the presbyter was chosen by members of the community; in Russia, before the church reform of Peter I, parishioners chose a candidate for priest and presented him for approval to the bishop, who usually trusted their choice. In Orthodox churches in other countries - including in the ROCOR (Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia) - this practice still exists today.

Theologically, the election of the clergy is reflected in the liturgical practice of the Orthodox Church: at ordination, the priest leads the person to the throne, the bishop says “axios” (“worthy” in Greek) and the people respond “axios”, expressing their consent (theoretically they can say “anaxios” - “ unworthy” and there were such precedents). But today in most dioceses this “axios” is simply sung by the choir on behalf of the people, and people who are present at the ordination often see the person being ordained for the first time. The responsibility for choosing a candidate for priesthood and the right to make the sole decision on ordination rests entirely with the bishop. And even if an altar server who grew up in a parish went to study at a seminary and then returned to his native diocese, it is not at all a fact that he will be ordained and assigned to the very church from which he received a recommendation for study. The situation is the same at the next level - the bishop in the diocese is also not chosen by the local clergy, but appointed by the Synod from Moscow.

Perspective

It is unlikely that such a reform is possible in the current conditions. Ideally, the community should nominate a candidate for priesthood from among itself. But today the question arises: who are the voters? Even from a formal point of view, it is not very clear who can be given such a right: the question of the election of the clergy inevitably comes up against the question of membership in the parish and the role of the laity in the Church.

Allow women to be ordained deaconesses

The essence

In the ancient church there was a rank of deaconesses. It is known that they, along with male clergy, received communion at the altar and wore surplices - the vestments of clergy. Theologians are still arguing whether the functions of these women were similar to those of male deacons, or whether they performed purely administrative, social obediences that were not related to liturgical life.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the question of restoring the rank of deaconesses was raised. At the meetings of the Local Council of 1917-1918, there were several reports on deaconesses; they even discussed what vestments they should wear - the deacon’s orarion and the maforium veil. Deaconesses had to be virgins no younger than 35 years old and single-married widows; it was primarily about serving mercy and helping in parishes, but not about liturgical or sacred functions. As a result, the Local Council adopted a definition “On the involvement of women in active participation in various fields of church service” and gave them the right to participate in parish and diocesan meetings, educational, missionary, economic and charitable institutions.

Today in the Russian Orthodox Church women's ministry de jure does not exist. This has become one of the fundamental differences in the theological dialogue with the Anglican and other Protestant churches, which in the 20th century recognized the female priesthood and are actively ordaining women as pastors and bishops.

At the same time, in Russia women play a very important role in church life. In many churches, women work as accountants and elders, and those occupying these positions are administratively higher than ordinary priests and report directly to the rector. There is a tradition of blessing older women to serve as altar girls - to clean and serve in the altar, where, according to the rules, women are not allowed to enter. There are many female employees in synodal institutions. In fact, women can perform any functions in the church, except for directly performing divine services and preaching.

Meeting of the Local Council

Photo: Grigory Sysoev / TASS / Scanpix

Prospects

It is obvious that the issue of female priesthood in the Russian Orthodox Church is not on the agenda at all. One of the most famous theologians of the 20th century, Protopresbyter Alexander Schmemann, wrote about the female priesthood: “The Orthodox Church has never encountered this issue; it is completely alien to us, a casus irrealis, for the discussion of which there is no basis in our Tradition, in the very experience of the Church.” . Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh carefully wrote that “the question of the ordination of women is just being raised” and there are no clear answers to it.

Many other theologians believe that there is no direct ban on the ordination of women either in the Gospel or in church tradition, and the ban is determined solely by the cultural context. The main arguments of opponents of the female priesthood are that the priest is an icon of Jesus Christ, who was a man. In addition, Christ chose 12 male apostles as his disciples. Women have a different ministry, in connection with which they usually remember the Mother of God, the myrrh-bearing women and revered female saints. But, probably, throughout the 21st century, the question of reviving the rank of deaconesses will arise again for purely demographic reasons: there are more active women in the Church who are ready to engage in social and administrative affairs than men, and they need officially assigned powers.

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Russian Orthodox Church

In his report at the Diocesan Assembly of Moscow on December 20, 2019, the Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church recalled how in the 1990s churches were filled with people, and this did not require extreme efforts on the part of the clergy.

“The effort was needed elsewhere: to have time to give everyone at least a little attention in order to answer all requests for confession or the performance of other Sacraments. Today people continue to come to temples, but a lot has changed. The number of churches has increased significantly and continues to increase, and therefore the number of parishioners per church is no longer growing like an avalanche, although it remains significant. In addition, it can be said that parishioners' expectations have changed. They have become, in a good sense, more demanding of the content of parish life,” noted His Holiness Patriarch Kirill.

According to His Holiness, this concerns, perhaps first of all, the attitude to the divine service: “Today many parishioners, perhaps even more than 20-25 years ago, strive to actively participate in the divine service and delve into its meaning. This cannot but rejoice, for, as St. Theophan the Recluse emphasized, “our liturgical hymns are all edifying, thoughtful and sublime. They contain all theological science, and all Christian moral teaching, and all consolations, and all fears. Anyone who listens to them can do without any other teaching Christian books."

“At the same time, it was noted not today that the laity encounter difficulties in understanding the divine service,” the Primate continued. — This question, by the way, was very vividly posed during my recent conversation with the priests and clergy of Moscow I ordained. In connection with this topic, sometimes ideas arise to translate the entire service into modern Russian, shorten its variable parts and other similar proposals.”

“It is precisely such decisions that will not bring any benefit,” believes His Holiness Patriarch Kirill. — At the same time, as I noted at the aforementioned meeting with the clergy, the Slavic language has organically changed over more than ten centuries of the existence of the Russian Church. And in recent years, the Holy Synod has repeatedly given instructions that when compiling new liturgical texts in Church Slavonic, their authors and the Synodal Liturgical Commission, which edits these works, avoid obscure, archaic grammatical or lexical constructions. Moreover, we remember that in 1909 the Holy Governing Synod approved the publication of the edited texts of the Lenten Triodion, prepared by a commission chaired by the future Patriarch Sergius, and two years later blessed the publication of the corrected Colored Triodion and the continuation of the work of the commission to correct Octoechos and Menaea (to complete this work the revolution did not allow it to the end).”

“However, the main difficulty in understanding liturgical texts by the laity stems from their very content, from the height of dogmatic teaching, poetic features and saturation with biblical images, which are not easy to understand for those who have superficial knowledge of church teaching and biblical history. Therefore, the most important task for priests is, through educating parishioners, to help them understand the content and meaning of Orthodox worship. This teaching task does not in any way negate the need to eliminate practical shortcomings, such as slurredness and haste in pronouncing texts and exclamations or, conversely, procrastination that is tiring for attention and artificial theatricality, emotionality or pretentiousness; incorrect placement of emphasis in texts; unfavorable acoustics of the temple, which can, as a rule, be corrected with modern technical means. All this does not require much effort if you have an attentive and responsible attitude towards worship and love for it. In the field of educating people, there are also quite a lot of simple ways to help the laity, at least at a basic level,” His Holiness emphasized.

“In my report the year before last at the diocesan meeting, I gave an example of how in some churches the texts of holiday and sometimes Sunday services, or at least canons, are distributed to parishioners, with parallel Russian text and interlinear explanations of difficult passages. Such texts can be printed inexpensively, in the simplest form, without special layout or color design. They bring very great benefits,” continued the Primate. In the opinion of His Holiness, “it is useful on holidays and during Great Lent to read, after the 6th song of the canon, the synaxarion or a short life of the saint in Russian.”

His Holiness the Patriarch informed those gathered: “This year I instructed the Inter-Council Presence Commission on Divine Services to work on a project for compiling a collection of new editions of edifying texts read during services. This work is still underway, but some texts can be found on the Internet. I also believe it is possible that, where communities are ready for this, the apostolic and proverbial readings, which are often the most difficult to understand, should be read in Russian. The same applies to the reading of the Gospel during the fulfillment of rituals and during the statutory reading of the entire text of the Four Gospels during Holy Week, which in practice is often distributed throughout Lent. At the same time, rectors should listen to their parishes: in some places the introduction of the mentioned practices will be received with gratitude, but in others it may cause rejection due to another long-term habit.”

“It is important to remember that here the main goal of the priest is not to implement something that seems theoretically correct to him, but to help parishioners increase their love for worship,” His Holiness especially noted.

The primate also touched upon the topic of preaching during services: “Another way to educate people, which requires a little more effort from the priests, but is very useful, is the explanation of one or another hymnographic text during the sermon. After all, how much can be said about the teaching of the Orthodox Church, relying, for example, on the troparion of the Transfiguration: what does “transformed” mean? why and how did you show the glory to the disciples? why “like a mozhahu”? how can the light shine on us sinners? Dear fathers, the divine services of the Orthodox Church give us inexhaustible opportunities for preaching Orthodox teaching.” “Let us use this priceless treasury,” called His Holiness Patriarch Kirill.

The Patriarch also said that the materials of the vicariate congresses emphasized the importance of a number of educational areas, such as the creation of Bible groups, the organization of lecture halls or individual lectures, the dissemination of basic doctrinal knowledge through leaflets, etc.

“All this is a well-known and increasingly spreading practice that must be carried out in literally all parishes of Moscow,” noted Patriarch Kirill. — At the same time, it is not necessary that each of the mentioned projects be implemented in every parish - it all depends on the strengths, capabilities, and composition of the clergy. But if you have the strength and desire, but the rector lacks some knowledge or skills to organize, for example, a Bible group, you should not hesitate to seek help from the diocesan missionary department or parishes where there is relevant experience. I urge the Reverend vicars to help their parishes in this. Moreover, we are not talking about establishing, by order, in each vicariate, relatively speaking, 15 Bible groups, 10 lecture halls and 20 Sunday schools for adults. It’s about enabling every parish to realize the potential it has.”

“Dear bishops and fathers, this is not the first time I have dwelled on the topics of worship, preaching, and education. These themes are central to parish life. After all, preaching the Gospel is what is commanded to us by the Savior (see Mark 16:15). And worship constitutes the essence of the life of the Church, it reveals to people here on earth the truth of the Kingdom of God, to which we strive,” summed up the Primate of the Russian Church.

Press service of the Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus'

Divine Liturgy: history of origin and development

The Apostles, following the example of the Savior, continued to celebrate the Divine Liturgy and partake of the Holy Mysteries of Christ in the order established by Christ. They said prayers at a common meal, then after supper the breaking of bread and Communion took place. After some time, the Liturgy was separated from the common meal celebrated by believers at prayer meetings.

During the time of the first Christians, the order of performing the Liturgy was not regulated in any way and was transmitted orally. Gradually it was supplemented with new prayers and sacred actions. This has led to significant differences in the content and features of worship in various Christian communities.

It was possible to bring liturgical texts to unity only in the 4th century, after the end of the persecution of Christians. Saint Basil the Great (Archbishop of Caesarea of ​​Cappadocia) compiled the rite of the Liturgy. John Chrysostom slightly changed and shortened this rite. These are the two main, most commonly used ranks. But there are also rites of the Liturgy of other authors:

- Apostle James: has common roots with the liturgy of Basil the Great, but is much longer. A special feature is the separate Communion: first the Body is eaten, and then the Blood of Jesus Christ. Used in the Coptic Church and some other Orthodox Churches;

- Apostle Mark: all prayers are read loudly by the priest, the liturgy begins with the Great Entrance. Currently, this Liturgical rite is not widely used.

Liturgy translated from Greek means “common cause” in which the entire Christian community takes part. The Liturgy is also sometimes called the Liturgy; it is supposed to be celebrated from dawn to noon, in the pre-dinner time.