Church Slavonic is the sacred language that unites a number of Slavic Orthodox peoples, regardless of their ethnic and/or linguistic heritage. It is my hope that these resources will bring those who come into contact with this language to a greater understanding of its beauty.
A Church Slavonic Primer
- Lesson One – Lord Have Mercy (video) (pdf transcript)
- Listening practice: Little litany audio (Valaam monastery recording)
- Lesson Two – Holy God (Trisagion) (video) (pdf transcript)
- Listening practice: audio (Holy God is the first 13 seconds)
- Lesson Three – Bless Master, Blessed is the Kingdom (video) (pdf transcript)
- Listening practice: audio (Valaam monastery recording)
- Lesson Four – Glory…Both Now (video) (pdf transcript)
- Listening practice: audio (starts at 14 s and ends at 18 s)
- Lesson Five – To Thee, O Lord; And to thy spirit (video) (pdf transcript)
- Listening practice: To Thee, O Lord
- Listening practice: And to thy spirit
- Lesson Six – Peace be unto All; Peace be unto Thee (video) (pdf transcript)
- Listening practice: Peace be unto All
- Listening practice: Peace be unto Thee
- Lesson Seven – And with Thy Spirit; Grant, O Lord (video) (pdf transcript)
- Listening practice: And with Thy Spirit (Valaam monastery recording)
- Listening practice: Grant, O Lord (Valaam monastery recording)
- Lesson Eight – For unto Thee are due all glory, honor, and worship: to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, now and ever and unto ages of ages (video) (pdf transcript)
- Listening practice: For unto Thee… (Valaam monastery recording)
Church Slavonic Alphabet chart
Recommended audio for listening/pronunciation practice
(While this is not a paid advertisement, I do get commissions for purchases made through links below.)(If you would like the text for any hymn in order to follow along, write me and I can send it to you.)
- Russian Divine Liturgy A good recording for general listening practice.
- Early Russian Ecclesiastical Divine Liturgy Another good recording for general listening practice.
- Russian Medieval Chant: The Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom
- Russian Easter Liturgy
- Lenten Hymns
- Vigil Service – Alexander Archangelsky
Books on/in Church Slavonic
- Grammar of the Church Slavonic Language (A very good book (the only one around covering specifically (modern) Church Slavonic), but it is not exactly a good textbook for those who have no previous knowledge of Russian grammar.)
- The Divine Liturgy: Parallel Church Slavonic-English Text
- Divine Liturgy of St John Chrysostom: Slavonic-English Parallel Text (Jordanville edition)
- Divine Liturgy of St Basil the Great: Slavonic-English Parallel Text (Jordanville edition)
- The Divine Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts of Our Father Among the Saints Gregory the Dialogist: Slavonic-English Parallel Text (Jordanville edition)
- Church Slavonic – Russian – English Dictionary (Not extensive, but one of the only readily available Church Slavonic to English dictionaries.)
- The Orthodox Prayer Book (Svit) (An acceptable side-by-side text once you know enough to follow along, because the texts are not very well aligned.)
- Old Orthodox Prayer Book (Old Rite) From the Church of the Nativity, Erie, PA.
- The Gospels in Church Slavonic and English (I have not seen this, so I cannot say whether it is good quality or not.)
- Apostle in Church Slavonic and English (I have not seen this, so I cannot say whether it is good quality or not.)
- Psalter in Church Slavonic and English (I have not seen this, so I cannot say whether it is good quality or not.)
- Old Church Slavonic Grammar by Horace Lunt (Though the grammar is quite different, this has a lot of interesting information about the language of the 10th-11th centuries.)
- Religion and Language in Post-Soviet Russia (I’ve not read this and only looked over the preview, but it looks very relevant to our topic.)
Apps
- Prayerbook (iPhone) (Android) (the default shows the text in modern Russian font; to change this go into settings (at upper right corner) and choose “Old Church – All prays in Old Church” (sic.) (Includes (in the following order) Morning Prayers, Evening Prayers, Three Canons for Holy Communion (Repentance, Theotokos, Guardian Angel), Canon of Repentance to Jesus Christ, Canon to the Theotokos at times of suffering, Canon to one’s Guardian Angel, Akathist to the Sweetest Jesus, Akathist to the Theotokos, Akathist to St Nicholas the Wonderworker, Order of Preparation for Holy Communion (Psalms, Canon, Prayers), Prayers of Thanksgiving after Holy Communion)
- Bible in Russian, Church Slavonic, and Greek (There is only an iPhone version, but if you don’t have an iPhone, you should buy one to use this program)(This is all in Russian, but you should be able to find your way around; the options at the bottom (from left to right): book chooser, search, Russian text (Synodal translation), Church Slavonic text, Greek text)(This is a full bible with the so-called Apocryphal or Non-canonical books)
- Psalter (iPhone)(Android)(Default uses modern Russian font; to change, scroll to very bottom and open first of two boxes and choose other of two options in first pop down menu; below that option, you can choose size of font.)
- Bible (Android)(This is a full bible with the so-called Apocryphal or Non-canonical books)(Program in Russian, but you should be able to find your way around.)
- Accordance (iPhone)(This is a good Bible app in general for free, but if you purchase any paid collection, you get the ability to install your own Bibles; I have created a Church Slavonic New Testament that can then be installed.)
Liturgical texts
The following texts are in pdf format, but if you want files to be able to work with, just email me at norespite3(at)gmail(dot)com and I will send you doc files. However, for this you will need to download several fonts from this webpage. (Additional fonts can be found here and here.) On this page, following each file I will state which fonts have been used.
- Preparation for Holy Communion (parallel text) (A la Russ.ttf & Irmologion Ucs.ttf)
- Third Gospel Reading from Matins (interlinear text) (Irmologion ieUcs.ttf)
- Fourth Gospel Reading from Matins (interlinear text) (Irmologion ieUcs.ttf)
- Seventh Gospel Reading from Matins (interlinear text) (Irmologion ieUcs.ttf)
Links to other resources
- Divine Liturgy of St John Chrysostom
- Parallel (Church Slavonic/Russian) Divine Liturgy of St John Chrysostom (Russian font)
- Liturgical texts (Wide variety of texts) (Webpage in Russian)
- Liturgical texts (New Testament, Psalter, Hours, Prayerbook, Old Testament (selected books)) (Webpage in Russian)
- Liturgical texts (Festal, Triodion, etc.) (Webpage in Russian)
- Liturgical texts (Several Trebniks and a few various other services) (Webpage in Russian)
- Church Slavonic to Russian dictionary (gif files of reprint of dictionary first printed in 1898) (Webpage in Russian)
- Psalter online (or for download) (Webpage in Russian)
- Audio of Gospels (Webpage in Russian)
- Audio of Psalter (Webpage in Russian)
- Church Slavonic E-tutor (Webpage in English)
- Fonts and such (Webpage in English, German)
- Parallel Corpus of Old Church Slavonic (You’ll have to email the website owner to have him send it to you, but it is well worth the small effort for this interesting resource)
- TITUS text database (A number of Old Church Slavonic (and Old Russian, etc.) documents)
- Various old dictionaries and other books (Webpage in Russian)
- Parallel Bible in Church Slavonic (As well as Russian, Greek, English, etc.; commentary (in Russian) also linked)
- Gospel Readings following the Orthodox lectionary (Follows the Julian calendar; Gospel first read in Church Slavonic then in Russian followed by a commentary)
- Psalter (Available in several fonts and can also be downloaded)