The Quarterly Journal of St. Philaret’s Institute

The interview continues the theme of translating of Church worship services into modern languages (The Quarterly Journal of St. Philaret’s Institute, 2020, Iss. 36, pp. 100–128). The proposed publication primarily addresses the issues of translation into Russian. It compares the possible approaches to solving the problem of understanding the meaning of the divine service: translation of the divine service, literal translation, commentary on the text, and study of the Church Slavonic language. The interview provides examples showing that the difficulties in understanding the divine service are related not only to ignorance of the Church Slavonic language, but also to the peculiarities of the translation of  the original Greek divine service into Church Slavonic, and to the biblical imagery of the divine service texts. Translation contributes most to the effectiveness of prayer. The interview discusses the most appropriate expression for the language into which the translation is made (modern Russian language, Russian liturgical language, Church-Russian language) and the influence of the language of liturgical translations on the contemporary linguistic situation. Attention is paid to such problems as the principles of translation, the choice of sources for translation, the possibility of lexical, syntactic, pragmatic, artistic equivalence of the translation to the original text, the preservation of familiar Slavicisms in translation, the influence of the theological meaning of the text on the choice of a particular translation solution, and others. Special mention is made of the influence of the translation of liturgical texts on the organisation of mission and catechesis, the life of church communities, and the entry of new people into the tradition of the Church. 
Priest Georgy Kochetkov began translating Church worship services in the 1970s in the context of adult catechesis. К. A. Mozgov and P. S. Ozersky, professional philologists, were members of his translation group in different years. To date, the translation of the entire corpus of unchanging liturgical texts has been prepared, as well as the Canon of St. Andrew of Crete, selected hymns of the Octoechos, and the translation of the Lenten and Colored Triodion is being prepared. Hegumen Siluan (Tumanov) has been engaged in translation work since 2003, and has published a two-volume book of translations of ancient liturgies and individual liturgical texts. Archpriest George Ioffe is the author of a poetic translation of the Psalms into Russian. Priest Maxim Pliakin is a member of the working group of the Publishing Council of the Russian Orthodox Church on the codification of akathists and the development of norms for akathist creativity.