View source for Church Slavonic

{{Short description|Liturgical language of Eastern Orthodox Church}}
{{For|the first Slavic literary language|Old Church Slavonic}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=September 2024}}
{{Infobox language
| name             = Church Slavonic
| altname          = Church Slavic
| nativename       = {{lang|cu-Cyrs|Црькъвьнословѣ́ньскъ ѩꙁꙑ́къ}}<br> 
{{lang|cu-Cyrs|Церковнославѧ́нскїй Ѧ҆зы́къ}}<br>{{lang|cu-Glag|ⱌⱃⰽⰲⰰⱀⱁⱄⰾⱁⰲⱑⱀⱄⰽⱜ ⰵⰸⰻⰽⱜ}}<br>{{lang|cu-Glag|ⱌⰹⱃⱏⰽⱏⰲⱏⱀⱁⱄⰾⱁⰲⱑⱀⱐⱄⰽⱏⰹ ⱗⰸⱏⰻⰽⱏ}}
| image            = Kiev psalter.jpg
| image_size       = 
| imagecaption     = Page from the [[Spiridon Psalter]] in Church Slavonic
| region           = [[Eastern Europe|Eastern]] and [[Southeast Europe]]
| speakers         = none
| ref              = e25
| familycolor      = Indo-European
| fam2             = [[Balto-Slavic languages|Balto-Slavic]]
| fam3             = [[Slavic languages|Slavic]]
| fam4             = [[South Slavic languages|South Slavic]]
| fam5             = [[Eastern South Slavic]]
| ancestor         = [[Old Church Slavonic]]
| script           = [[Glagolitic alphabet]]<br>[[Cyrillic script|Cyrillic alphabet]]
| iso1             = cu
| iso2             = chu
| iso3             = chu
| iso3comment      = (includes [[Old&nbsp;Church&nbsp;Slavonic]])
| glotto           = chur1257
| glottoname       = Church Slavic
| lingua           = 53-AAA-a
| notice           = IPA
}}

'''Church Slavonic'''{{efn|{{langx|cu|црькъвьнословѣньскъ ѩзыкъ|crĭkŭvĭnoslověnĭskŭ językŭ|label=[[Old Church Slavonic]]|lit=Church-Slavonic language}}; <br /> {{langx|cu|Церковнославѣньскїй ѧзыкъ|Cerkovnoslavěnskij jazyk|label=Russian Church Slavonic}}; <br /> {{langx|cu-Glag|ⱌⱃⰽⰲⰰⱀⱁⱄⰾⱁⰲⱑⱀⱄⰽⱜ ⰵⰸⰻⰽⱜ|crkavnoslověnskь jezikь|label=Croatian Church Slavonic}}; <br /> {{langx|cu-Glag|ⱌⰹⱃⱏⰽⱏⰲⱏⱀⱁⱄⰾⱁⰲⱑⱀⱐⱄⰽⱏⰹ ⱗⰸⱏⰻⰽⱏ|cirkevnoslověnskyj jazyk|label=Czech Church Slavonic}}}}{{efn|Also known as '''Church Slavic''',<ref>{{cite web| editor-last1= Hammarström| editor-first1 = Harald| editor-last2 = Forke| editor-first2 = Robert| editor-last3 = Haspelmath| editor-first3 = Martin| editor-last4 = Bank| editor-first4 = Sebastian| year = 2020|title = Church Slavic | work = [[Glottolog]] 4.3| url = https://glottolog.org/resource/languoid/id/chur1257}}</ref> '''New Church Slavonic''', '''New Church Slavic''' or just '''Slavonic''' (as it was called by its native speakers)}} is the [[Conservative and innovative language|conservative]] [[Slavic languages|Slavic]] [[Sacred language|liturgical language]] used by the [[Eastern Orthodox Church]] in [[Belarusian Orthodox Church|Belarus]], [[Bulgarian Orthodox Church|Bulgaria]], [[Macedonian Orthodox Church|North Macedonia]], [[Serbian Orthodox Church|Montenegro]], [[Polish Orthodox Church|Poland]], [[Russian Orthodox Church|Russia]], [[Orthodox Church of Ukraine|Ukraine]], [[Serbian Orthodox Church|Serbia]], the [[Orthodox Church of the Czech Lands and Slovakia|Czech Republic and Slovakia]], [[Religion in Slovenia|Slovenia]] and [[Eastern Orthodoxy in Croatia|Croatia]]. The language appears also in the services of the [[Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia]], the [[American Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Diocese]], and occasionally in the services of the [[Orthodox Church in America]].

In addition, Church Slavonic is used by some churches which consider themselves Orthodox but are not in communion with the Orthodox Church, such as the [[Montenegrin Orthodox Church]] and the [[Russian True Orthodox Church (Lazar Zhurbenko)|Russian True Orthodox Church]]. The Russian [[Old Believers]] and the [[Edinoverie|Co-Believers]] also use Church Slavonic.

Church Slavonic is also used by [[Greek Catholic Church|Greek Catholic]] Churches in [[Slavs|Slavic countries]], for example the [[Greek Catholic Church of Croatia and Serbia|Croatian]], [[Slovak Greek Catholic Church|Slovak]] and [[Ruthenian Greek Catholic Church|Ruthenian]] Greek Catholics, as well as by the [[Catholic Church|Roman Catholic Church]] (Croatian and Czech recensions).

In the past, Church Slavonic was also used by the Orthodox Churches in the [[Romanians|Romanian]] lands until the late 17th and early 18th centuries,<ref>[[Petre P. Panaitescu]], [http://www.bjmures.ro/bdPublicatii/CarteStudenti/P/Panaitescu-Interpretari.pdf Studii de istorie economică și socială] {{in lang|ro}}</ref> as well as by Roman Catholic [[Croats]] in the [[Early Middle Ages]].

The [[Orthodox Church of Finland]] also uses the language, although it is not a Slavic church.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Orthodox Parish of Helsinki |url=https://www.hos.fi/en/ |access-date=2025-06-01 |website=Helsingin ortodoksinen seurakunta |language=en-US}}</ref>

==Historical development==
Church Slavonic represents a later stage of [[Old Church Slavonic]], and is the continuation of the liturgical tradition introduced by two [[Thessaloniki|Thessalonian]] brothers, [[Cyril and Methodius|Saints Cyril and Methodius]], in the late 9th century in [[Nitra]], a principal town and religious and scholarly centre of [[Great Moravia]] (located in present-day [[Slovakia]]). There the first Slavic translations of the [[Scripture]] and liturgy from [[Koine Greek]] were made.

After the [[Christianization of Bulgaria]] in 864, Saint [[Clement of Ohrid]] and [[Saint Naum]] of [[Preslav]] were of great importance to the [[Eastern Orthodox Church|Eastern Orthodox faith]] and the [[Old Church Slavonic]] liturgy in the [[First Bulgarian Empire]]. The success of the [[Christianization of Bulgaria|conversion of the Bulgarians]] facilitated the conversion of the [[East Slavs]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.stclementofohrid.com/religion/st_clement_of_ohrid.asp|title=St. Clement of Ohrid Cathedral – About Saint Clement of Ohrid|author=Aco Lukaroski|access-date=5 March 2015|archive-date=16 May 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150516024053/http://www.stclementofohrid.com/religion/st_clement_of_ohrid.asp|url-status=dead}}</ref> A major event was the development of the [[Cyrillic script]] in [[Bulgaria]] at the [[Preslav Literary School]] in the 9th century. The Cyrillic script and the liturgy in Old Church Slavonic, also called [[Old Bulgarian]], were declared official in [[Bulgaria]] in 893.<ref>{{cite book | first=Francis | last=Dvornik |title=The Slavs: Their Early History and Civilization | quote = The Psalter and the Book of Prophets were adapted or "modernized" with special regard to their use in Bulgarian churches, and it was in this school that glagolitic writing was replaced by the so-called Cyrillic writing, which was more akin to the Greek uncial, simplified matters considerably and is still used by the Orthodox Slavs. | year=1956 |place=Boston | publisher=American Academy of Arts and Sciences |page=179}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YIAYMNOOe0YC&q=Cyrillic+preslav&pg=PR1 |title=Southeastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 500–1250|series=Cambridge Medieval Textbooks|author= Florin Curta|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=2006|isbn=978-0-521-81539-0|pages= 221–222}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=J-H9BTVHKRMC&q=+preslav+eastern&pg=PR3-IA34|chapter= The Orthodox Church in the Byzantine Empire|title=Oxford History of the Christian Church|author= J. M. Hussey, Andrew Louth|publisher= Oxford University Press|year= 2010|isbn=978-0-19-161488-0|pages= 100}}</ref>

By the early 12th century, individual Slavic languages started to emerge, and the liturgical language was modified in pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary and orthography according to the local [[vernacular]] usage. These modified varieties or ''recensions'' (e.g. Serbian Church Slavonic, [[Russian Church Slavonic]], Ukrainian Church Slavonic in [[Early Cyrillic]] script, Croatian Church Slavonic in Croatian [[angular Glagolitic]] and later in [[Latin script]], Czech Church Slavonic, Slovak Church Slavonic in Latin script, Bulgarian Church Slavonic in [[Early Cyrillic]] and Bulgarian [[Glagolitic]] scripts, etc.) eventually stabilized and their regularized forms were used by the scribes to produce new translations of liturgical material from [[Koine Greek]], or [[Latin language|Latin]] in the case of Croatian Church Slavonic.

Attestation of Church Slavonic traditions appear in [[Early Cyrillic]] and [[Glagolitic script]]. Glagolitic has nowadays fallen out of use, though both scripts were used from the earliest attested period.

The first Church Slavonic printed book was the ''[[Missale Romanum Glagolitice]]'' (1483) in angular Glagolitic, followed shortly by five Cyrillic liturgical books printed in [[Kraków]] in 1491.

==Recensions==
[[File:Csl-luke20.png|thumb|right|An example of Russian Church Slavonic computer typography]]
{{Further-text|altphrase=Further information (in Russian)|[[:ru:Изводы церковнославянского языка]]}}
The Church Slavonic language is actually a set of at least four different [[dialect]]s (recensions or redactions; {{langx|ru|извод}}, izvod), with essential distinctions between them in dictionary, spelling (even in writing systems), phonetics, and other aspects. The most widespread recension, Russian, has several local sub-dialects in turn, with slightly different pronunciations.

These various Church Slavonic recensions were used as a liturgical and literary language in all Orthodox countries north of the Mediterranean region during the [[Middle Ages]], even in places where the local population was not Slavic (especially in [[Romanian Orthodox Church|Romania]]). In recent centuries, however, Church Slavonic was fully replaced by local languages in the non-Slavic countries. Even in some of the Slavic Orthodox countries, the modern national language is now used for liturgical purposes to a greater or lesser extent.

The Russian Orthodox Church, which contains around half of all Orthodox believers, still holds its liturgies almost entirely in Church Slavonic.<ref>See Brian P. Bennett, ''[http://www.taylorandfrancis.com/books/details/9780415780636/ Religion and Language in Post-Soviet Russia] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130225012715/http://www.taylorandfrancis.com/books/details/9780415780636/ |date=2013-02-25 }}'' (New York: Routledge, 2011).</ref> However, there exist [[parish]]es which use other languages (where the main problem has been a lack of good translations).<ref>See the report of Fr. Theodore Lyudogovsky and Deacon Maxim Plyakin, ''[http://www.mineya.ru/articles/87-liturgy-languages.html Liturgical languages of Slavic local churches: a current situation] {{webarchive|url=https://archive.today/20120903224026/http://www.mineya.ru/articles/87-liturgy-languages.html |date=2012-09-03 }}'', 2009 (in Russian), and a draft of the article ''[http://ustav.livejournal.com/600024.html Liturgical languages in Slavia Orthodoxa]'', 2009 (also in Russian) of the same authors.</ref> Examples include:
* According to the decision of the All-Russian Church Council of 1917–1918, service in Russian or Ukrainian can be permitted in individual parishes when approved by church authorities.
* Parishes serving ethnic minorities in Russia use (entirely or in part) the languages of those populations: [[Chuvash language|Chuvash]], [[Mordvinic languages|Mordvinic]], [[Mari language|Mari]], [[Tatar language|Tatar]] (for [[Keräşens]]), [[Sakha language|Sakha (Yakut)]], etc.
* Autonomous parts of the [[Russian Orthodox Church]] prepare and partly use translations to the languages of the local population, as Ukrainian, Belarusian, Romanian (in Moldova), Japanese, and Chinese.
* Parishes in the diaspora, including ones of the [[Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia]], often use local languages: English, French, Spanish, German, Dutch, Portuguese, etc.

What follows is a list of modern recensions or dialects of Church Slavonic. For a list and descriptions of extinct recensions, see the article on the [[Old Church Slavonic]] language.

===Russian (Synodal) recension===
{{unsourced section|date=July 2023}}
{{Further-text|altphrase=Further information (in Russian)|[[:ru:Синодальный извод церковнославянского языка]]}}
The Russian recension of New Church Slavonic is the language of books since the second half of the 17th century. It generally uses traditional Cyrillic script ({{transliteration|cu|poluustav}}); however, certain texts (mostly prayers) are printed in modern alphabets with the spelling adapted to rules of local languages (for example, in Russian/Ukrainian/Bulgarian/Serbian Cyrillic or in Hungarian/Slovak/Polish Latin).

Before the eighteenth century, Church Slavonic was in wide use as a general [[literary language]] in [[Russia]]. Although it was never spoken ''per se'' outside church services, members of the priesthood, poets, and the educated tended to slip its expressions into their speech. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, it was gradually replaced by the [[Russian language]] in secular literature and was retained for use only in church.  Although as late as the 1760s, [[Mikhail Lomonosov|Lomonosov]] argued that Church Slavonic was the so-called "high style" of Russian, during the nineteenth century within Russia, this point of view declined. Elements of Church Slavonic style may have survived longest in speech among the [[Old Believers]] after the late-seventeenth century [[schism (religion)|schism]] in the Russian Orthodox Church.

[[Russian language|Russian]] has borrowed many words from Church Slavonic. While both Russian and Church Slavonic are Slavic languages, some early Slavic sound combinations evolved differently in each branch. As a result, the borrowings into Russian are similar to native Russian words, but with South Slavic variances, e.g. (the first word in each pair is Russian, the second Church Slavonic): {{lang|ru|золото}} / {{lang|cu|злато}} ({{transliteration|ru|zoloto}} / {{transliteration|cu|zlato}}), {{lang|ru|город}} / {{lang|cu|град}} ({{transliteration|ru|gorod}} / [[Grad (Slavic settlement)|{{transliteration|cu|grad}}]]), {{lang|ru|горячий}} / {{lang|cu|горящий}} ({{transliteration|ru|goryačiy}} / {{transliteration|cu|goryaščiy}}), {{lang|ru|рожать}} / {{lang|cu|рождать}} ({{transliteration|ru|rožat’}} / {{transliteration|cu|roždat’}}).  Since the Russian Romantic era and the corpus of work of the great Russian authors (from [[Nikolai Gogol|Gogol]] to [[Anton Chekhov|Chekhov]], [[Leo Tolstoy|Tolstoy]], and [[Fyodor Dostoevsky|Dostoevsky]]), the relationship between words in these pairs has become traditional.  Where the abstract meaning has not commandeered the Church Slavonic word completely, the two words are often synonyms related to one another, much as Latin and native English words were related in the nineteenth century: one is archaic and characteristic of written high style, while the other is found in common speech.

====Standard (Russian) variant====
In Russia, Church Slavonic is pronounced in the same way as [[Russian language|Russian]], with some exceptions:
* Church Slavonic features ''[[Vowel reduction in Russian|okanye]]'' and ''[[Vowel reduction in Russian|yekanye]]'', i.e., the absence of [[vowel reduction]] in unstressed syllables. That is, [[O (Cyrillic)|о]] and [[Ye (Cyrillic)|е]] in unstressed positions are always read as {{IPA|[o]}} and {{IPA|[jɛ]}}~{{IPA|[ʲɛ]}} respectively (like in northern Russian dialects), whereas in standard Russian pronunciation they have different allophones when unstressed.
* There should be no de-voicing of final consonants, although in practice there often is.
* The letter [[Ye (Cyrillic)|е]] {{IPA|[je]}} is never read as [[Yo (Cyrillic)|ё]] {{IPA|[jo]}}~{{IPA|[ʲo]}} (the letter ё does not exist in Church Slavonic writing at all). This is also reflected in borrowings from Church Slavonic into Russian: in the following pairs the first word is Church Slavonic in origin, and the second is purely Russian: небо / нёбо (''nebo / nëbo''), надежда / надёжный (''nadežda / nadëžnyj'').
* The letter [[Ge (Cyrillic)|Γ]] can traditionally be read as voiced fricative velar sound {{IPA|[ɣ]}} (just as in Southern Russian dialects); however, occlusive {{IPA|[ɡ]}} (as in standard Russian pronunciation) is also possible and has been considered acceptable since the beginning of the 20th century. When unvoiced, it becomes {{IPA|[x]}}; this has influenced the Russian pronunciation of Бог (''Bog'') as ''Boh'' [box].
*The adjective endings -аго/-его/-ого/-яго are pronounced as written ({{IPA|[aɣo/ago]}}, {{IPA|[ʲeɣo/ʲego]}}, {{IPA|[oɣo/ogo]}}, {{IPA|[ʲaɣo/ʲago]}}), whereas Russian -его/-ого are pronounced with {{IPA|[v]}} instead of {{IPA|[ɣ/g]}} (and with the reduction of unstressed vowels).

===Old Moscow recension===
{{Further-text|altphrase=Further information (in Russian)|[[:ru:Старомосковский извод церковнославянского языка]]}}
The Old Moscow recension is in use among [[Old Believers]] and [[Edinoverie|Co-Believers]]. The same traditional Cyrillic alphabet as in Russian Synodal recension; however, there are differences in spelling because the Old Moscow recension reproduces an older state of orthography and grammar in general (before the 1650s). The most easily observable peculiarities of books in this recension are:
* using of digraph {{angbr|оу}} not only in the initial position,
* hyphenation with no hyphenation sign.

===Ukrainian and Rusyn recension===

{{Further-text|altphrase=Further information (in Ukrainian)|[[:uk:Київський ізвод]]}}

A main difference between Russian and Ukrainian recension of Church Slavonic as well as the Russian "[[Civil Script]]" lies in the pronunciation of the letter [[yat (Cyrillic)|yat]] (ѣ).  The Russian pronunciation is the same as [[Ye (Cyrillic)|е]] {{IPA|[je]}}~{{IPA|[ʲe]}} whereas the Ukrainian is the same as [[i (Cyrillic)|і]] {{IPA|[i]}}. [[Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church|Greek Catholic]] variants of Church Slavonic books printed in variants of the [[Latin alphabet]] (a method used in Austro-Hungary and Czechoslovakia) just contain the letter "i" for yat. Other distinctions reflect differences between palatalization rules of Ukrainian and Russian (for example, {{angbr|ч}} is always "soft" (palatalized) in Russian pronunciation and "hard" in the Ukrainian one), different pronunciation of letters {{angbr|г}} and {{angbr|щ}}, etc.
Another major difference is the use of Ґ in the Rusyn variant. Г is pronounced as h and Ґ is pronounced as G. For example, Blagosloveno is Blahosloveno in Rusyn variants.

Typographically, Serbian and Ukrainian editions (when printed in traditional Cyrillic) are almost identical to the Russian ones. Certain visible distinctions may include:
* less frequent use of abbreviations in "nomina sacra";
* treating digraph {{angbr|оу}} as a single character rather than two letters (for example, in letter-spacing or in combination with diacritical marks: in Russian editions, they are placed above {{angbr|у}}, not between {{angbr|о}} and {{angbr|у}}; also, when the first letter of a word is printed in different color, it is applied to {{angbr|о}} in Russian editions and to the entire {{angbr|оу}} in Serbian and Ukrainian).

=== Serbian recension ===
{{Further|Old Serbian language|Medieval Serbian law}}

The variant differences are limited to the lack of certain sounds in Serbian phonetics (there are no sounds corresponding to letters ы and щ, and in certain cases the palatalization is impossible to observe, e.g. ть is pronounced as т etc.). [[Medieval Serbian literature|The medieval Serbian recension]] of Church Slavonic was gradually replaced by the Russian recension beginning in the early 18th century. 

Nowadays in Serbia, Church Slavonic is generally pronounced according to the Russian model.

=== Croatian recension ===
{{Further|Baška tablet}}
This is in limited use among Croatian Catholics. Texts are printed in the Croatian Latin alphabet (with the addition of letter {{angbr|ě}} for [[yat]]) or in Glagolitic script. Sample editions include:
*''[[Missale Romanum Glagolitice]]''
* Ioseph Vais, ''Abecedarivm Palaeoslovenicvm in usvm glagolitarvm''. Veglae, [Krk], 1917 (2nd ed.). XXXVI+76 p. (collection of liturgical texts in Glagolitic script, with a brief Church Slavonic grammar written in Latin language and Slavonic-Latin dictionary)
*''Rimski misal slavĕnskim jezikom: Čin misi s izbranimi misami...,'' Zagreb: Kršćanska sadašnjost, 1980 (The ISBN specified even at the publisher 978-953-151-721-5 is bad, causing a checksum error) (in Croatian Latin script)<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.ks.hr/Biblioteke/Liturgijska-izdanja/RIMSKI-MISAL-SLAVENSKIM-JEZIKOM--Cin-misi-s-izbran.aspx |title=Rimski misal slavĕnskim jezikom |publisher=Kršćanska sadašnjost |access-date=2012-10-16}}<br>{{cite web |url=http://hrcak.srce.hr/file/22194 |title=German review of ''Rimski misal slavĕnskim jezikom'' |publisher=Slovo |access-date=2012-06-04}}</ref>

===Czech recension===
Church Slavonic is in very limited use among Czech Catholics. The recension was developed by Vojtěch Tkadlčík in his editions of the Roman missal:
* ''Rimskyj misal slověnskym jazykem izvoljenijem Apostolskym za Arcibiskupiju Olomuckuju iskusa dělja izdan''. Olomouc 1972.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://hrcak.srce.hr/file/21649 |title=Review (in Croatian) of ''Rimskyj misal'' (Olomouc, 1972) |publisher=Slovo |access-date=2012-06-04}}</ref>
* ''Rimskyj misal povelěnijem svjataho vselenskaho senma Vatikanskaho druhaho obnovljen...'' Olomouc 1992.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://hrcak.srce.hr/file/22757 |title=Review (in Croatian) of ''Rimskyj misal'' (Olomouc, 1992) |publisher=Slovo |access-date=2012-06-04}}</ref>

==Grammar and style==
Although the various recensions of Church Slavonic differ in some points, they share the tendency of approximating the original [[Old Church Slavonic]] to the local Slavic vernacular. Inflection tends to follow the ancient patterns with few simplifications. All original six verbal tenses, seven nominal cases, and three numbers are intact in most frequently used traditional texts (but in the newly composed texts, authors avoid most archaic constructions and prefer variants that are closer to modern Russian syntax and are better understood by the Slavic-speaking people).

In Russian recension, the fall of the [[yer]]s is fully reflected, more or less to the [[Russia]]n pattern, although the terminal ъ continues to be written.  The [[yus]]es are often replaced or altered in usage to the sixteenth- or seventeenth-century Russian pattern.  The [[yat]] continues to be applied with greater attention to the ancient etymology than it was in nineteenth-century Russian. The letters [[Ksi (Cyrillic letter)|ksi]], [[psi (Cyrillic)|psi]], [[omega (Cyrillic)|omega]], [[ot (Cyrillic)|ot]], and [[izhitsa]] are kept, as are the letter-based denotation of numerical values, the use of stress accents, and the abbreviations or ''[[titlo|titla]]'' for ''[[nomina sacra]]''.

The vocabulary and syntax, whether in scripture, liturgy, or church missives, are generally somewhat modernised in an attempt to increase comprehension.  In particular, some of the ancient pronouns have been eliminated from the scripture (such as етеръ {{IPA|/jeter/}} "a certain (person, etc.)" → нѣкій in the Russian recension). Many, but not all, occurrences of the imperfect tense have been replaced with the perfect.

Miscellaneous other modernisations of classical formulae have taken place from time to time.  For example, the opening of the [[Gospel of John]], by tradition the first words written down by [[Saints Cyril and Methodius]], (искони бѣаше слово) "In the beginning was the Word", were set as "искони бѣ слово" in the [[Ostrog Bible]] of [[Ivan Fyodorov (printer)|Ivan Fedorov]] (1580/1581) and as въ началѣ бѣ слово in the [[Elizabeth Bible|Elizabethan Bible]] of 1751, still in use in the Russian Orthodox Church.

==See also==
{{Wikimedia}}
* [[Outline of Slavic history and culture]]
* [[List of Slavic studies journals]]
* [[List of Glagolitic printed works|List of Glagolitic books]]
* [[List of Glagolitic manuscripts]]
* [[Old Church Slavonic]]
* {{anli|Chinese characters for transcribing Slavonic}}
* [[Slavic Orthodox churches]]

== Notes ==
{{Notelist}}

==References==

{{Reflist}}

==External links==
{{interwiki|code=cu}}
{{Commons category|Church Slavonic language}}
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20110719123753/http://www.manu.edu.mk/cal/CAL/004_Seg_Staroslovenski.pdf Old Church Slavonic and the Macedonian recension of the Church Slavonic language, Elka Ulchar] {{in lang|mk}}
* [http://www.orthlib.info/ Orthodox Christian Liturgical Texts in Church Slavonic]
* Bible in Church Slavonic language [https://wikisource.org/wiki/%D0%91%D1%96%CC%81%D0%B1%D0%BB%D1%97%D0%B0 (Wikisource)], [https://azbyka.ru/biblia/misc/tsya.pdf (PDF)] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190716043542/https://azbyka.ru/biblia/misc/tsya.pdf |date=2019-07-16 }}, [https://apps.apple.com/ru/app/%D0%B1%D0%B8%D0%B1%D0%BB%D0%B8%D1%8F-%D1%81%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%BE%D0%B4%D0%B0%D0%BB%D1%8C%D0%BD%D1%8B%D0%B9-%D0%BF%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%B5%D0%B2%D0%BE%D0%B4/id918906169 (iPhone)], [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.alexsem.bibcs4 (Android)] 
* [http://irmologion.ru/ Problems of computer implementation] {{in lang|ru}}
* [http://slavonicpro.ru/services.html Slavonic - the input tool for Church Slavonic] {{in lang|ru}}
* {{CathEncy|wstitle=Slavonic Language and Liturgy}}
* [http://ponomar.net/cu_vkeyb.html Church Slavonic Virtual Keyboard]
* [http://podolak.net/en/transliteration CyrAcademisator] Transliteration tool for Church Slavonic including a virtual keyboard.
* [http://sci.ponomar.net/ Slavonic Computing Initiative]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20200728124720/http://glagol-verbum.com/gramotej The textbook of the Church Slavonic language "Literacy" - online version (with soundtrack).]
* [https://www.unicode.org/notes/tn41/tn41-1.pdf Church Slavonic Typography in Unicode] (Unicode Technical Note no. 41), 2015-11-04, accessed 2023-01-04.

{{Slavic languages}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Church Slavonic Language}}
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