Brian P. Bennett
In the 1990s, Russian Orthodoxy experienced a divisive debate over liturgical language. The question of language was “bundled” with a number of other proposed reforms, including switching to the Gregorian calendar (the Russian Church still uses the Julian), introducing pews (members are expected to stand during the long church services), moving the iconostasis ( the icon screen that separates the mysteries at the altar from the main part of the church), and developing a more dynamic social outreach and inter-faith profile. But it was the issue of language that became the symbolic flashpoint in these complex and hotly disputed matters. The issue of whether the traditional Church Slavonic liturgy should be maintained or in some measure “russified” started as an in-house debate. But it quickly spilled into the public arena, where it was taken up in newspaper articles and radio shows. It even became something of a cause célébre when such high-profile intellectuals as Dmitrii Likhachev, Valentin Rasputin, and Igor Shafarevich weighed in on the matter. As it happens, all three were in favor of maintaining Church Slavonic.
Fr. Georgii Kochetkov
Although a number of progressive Russian Orthodox priests have advocated replacing Slavonic, the debate in the 1990s was fueled by one particular parish in Moscow that experimented with using Russian in the liturgy. Fr. Georgii Kochetkov and his small but active congregation wanted to introduce the vernacular in order to make the faith more accessible and meaningful, especially to the many neophytes who, post-Communism, were entering churches for the first time. When traditionalists heard of these innovations, they reacted with vehemence. They insisted on the sacredness and immutability of the archaic Church Slavonic language. They viewed any attempt at change, especially when done without the approval of church authorities, as tantamount to apostasy. They denounced the translations of liturgical service books done by the “Kochetkovites” as a betrayal of Orthodoxy and indeed of Russia. Though traditionalists typically celebrated the Russian language in other contexts and lobbied for its defense against the incursion of loanwords and non-standard elements, they feared that replacing Slavonic with Russian in the liturgy heralded a nightmarish future of rampant heresy, secularization, and ecumenism. Traditionalists worry about “forces” (sily) that conspire against the Russian Church (e.g. Tikhon 1999: 5). Meanwhile, reformists noted that even the Catholic Church, which used to be decried in Orthodox catechism for using a dead language, had made the move to the vernacular. They accused traditionalists of turning their backs on religious seekers and making a false idol out of the Slavonic language.
The Centrality of Liturgy
To understand the intensity of the debate, one must first appreciate the place of liturgy within the Russian Orthodox Church. The Bible, creed, and doctrines that are thought to form the hard skeletal structure of Western Christianity are understood by Eastern Christians as being “embodied” in the organic fullness of the liturgy. In his classic introduction to Eastern Orthodoxy, Timothy (Kallistos) Ware writes: The Orthodox approach to religion is fundamentally a liturgical approach which understands doctrine in the context of divine worship: it is no coincidence that the word “Orthodoxy” should signify alike right belief and right worship, for the two things are inseparable (Ware 1964: 271-2).
One consequence of this orientation, Ware goes on to suggest, is that any changes to the liturgy can be seen to threaten the entire faith. The Soviet handling of religion actually magnified the customary liturgical piety of the Orthodox Church. A Church that was already conservative became even more so during the parlous Soviet reign (Ramet 2006: 150). Theological study, which was never cultivated to the extent that it was in the West, was cut short in 1917 (Ivanov 1994: 37). With other channels of religious expression eliminated, the liturgy became that much more important (Bodin 2009: 37). As scholar James Billington (1999: 59) explains:
Soviet regulations permitted only liturgical worship and sought to prevent all broader teaching of the faith or even reading of the Bible in the hopes that Christianity would die by becoming simply a theatrical artifact. On the contrary, the intensity of devotion invested in the liturgy became even greater, since there was no other point of contact with the Church.
Just as the Russian Orthodox Church was trying to reestablish its position in society, a variety of foreign missionary groups, as well as the more exotic “Moonies” and Scientologists, appeared in Russia. The country seemed to be drowning in tawdry Western products. Therefore, a move to replace Church Slavonic seemed catastrophic to religious and cultural conservatives.
The Taint of Renovationism
Another crucial factor was the legacy of Communism. From public allegations of clerical collaboration with the KGB (reaching all the way up to Patriarch Aleksii II) to the growing cult of “new martyrs,” the 1990s were a time of reflection on the Church’s tangled relationship with Soviet power. (See, especially, Ellis 1994). In terms of liturgical language, this means, above all, coming to terms with Renovationism, a movement that—not entire correctly—is associated with a Bolshevik-inspired push for use of vernacular Russian in the liturgy. “The experience of the Renovationist schism caused deep trauma in the ROC [Russian Orthodox Church], and its spectre continues to haunt the hierarchy today” (Walters 2004: 89). Thus, the thorny legacy of Communism, the perceived threat of Western cults and culture, and the relationship between Church and society in a pluralistic environment were all thrown into the crucible of the 1990s liturgical language debate.
The 1917-18 Church Council
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, questions began to be asked about the intelligibility of Church Slavonic. At that time, the Russian Church was beginning to prepare for a local council. Though not on a par with the seven Ecumenical Councils that are considered authoritative across the Orthodox world, a local council can be of great consequence for the practice and organization of a particular canonical territory. In 1905 Russian bishops were canvassed about the state of the Church, though not about Church Slavonic in particular. Their “Responses” (Otzyvy) expressed a wide range of opinions. Of the prelates who responded, 18 of 48 commented on the incomprehensibility of Church Slavonic (Gopenko 2009: 134). Most favored a fresh Slavonic translation of the service books or a capital revision of the existing ones. Some called for the texts to be composed in “New Slavonic,” a Russified variety of Slavonic, while still others advocated wholesale translation into Russian (Balashov 2001: 24-31). These “Responses” have been published and continue to be mined by both traditionalists and reformists in the post-Communist period.
Pre-revolutionary Russia enjoyed a vibrant religious press, and between 1905 and 1917 the issue of liturgical language was widely discussed in ecclesiastical publications (Balashov 2001: 117-18). When the council of 1917-18 finally convened, the issues involving Slavonic and liturgical language had been debated off and on for a decade. The end result of these discussions was a doklad (article) that included the following planks:
- The Slavonic language is a great heritage and treasure and should therefore be retained as the basic language of the liturgy.
- In order to bring the liturgy closer to the people, the right of Russian to be used in the liturgy is acknowledged.
- The quick and complete introduction of Russian is impractical and undesirable.
- The partial application of Russian (in certain prayers, for instance) is acceptable if it helps comprehension. (Balashov 2001: 136-45)
The Church could, but was not required to, implement the doklad. The disputed status of the recommendations figure in the post-Communist debate.
The Impact of Renovationism upon the Debate
The issue is unsettled in part because the Church was soon overtaken by events. The Bolshevik Revolution and the Civil War meant that issues of ecclesiastical reform were put aside in the struggle for sheer survival. In fact, information about the 1917-18 council and the various documents attached to it were not well known even within Russian Orthodox circles until the 1990s (Kravetskii and Pletneva 2001: 164). Reform-minded clerics in the post-Soviet period have looked to reclaim the spirit of the council after the Soviet interregnum, while traditionalists cast doubt on its validity.
The next phase in the history of the Church Slavonic language question involves the controversial subject of Renovationism. This was a reform movement that arose within the Russian Orthodox Church after the 1917 Revolution, although its roots go back considerably farther (Roslof 2002). As the name indicates, it sought to renew –renovate–Russian church life. While the official Church was mostly on its heels following the revolution, the clerics in the Renovationist camp sought to blend Russian Orthodoxy with Soviet ideology, even adapting Bolshevik language and organization for religious purposes (Roslof 2002: 69, 72). Some peripheral groups within the movement sought to invigorate church life by introducing the Russian vernacular into liturgical services, making the ritual more accessible to the common people. For their efforts, the Renovationists received the hedging support of the Communists and the enmity of religionists. They were vilified as “red priests” and “commissars in cassocks.” In the eyes of its opponents, Renovationism was “the religion of the Antichrist.”
However, Renovationists did not work out a consistent program of liturgical reform, and any linguistic experiments, including using Russian in worship services, were carried out by marginal groups and not sanctioned by the movement’s leaders. Yet, regardless of what historians say, in popular and traditionalist discourse Renovationists are simply and unequivocally associated with schismatic liturgical reform. Kochetkovites are, in turn, consistently described by their opponents in terms of Renovationism. If, before the revolution, the vast majority of Russians had some knowledge of Church Slavonic, this ceased to be the case the further the Soviet Union moved away from the rule of the tsars. Slavonic, of course, was no longer taught in state schools, and a great many churches and seminaries were shuttered. The ecclesiastical press was largely eliminated; some 400 periodicals had ceased to exist by 1922 (Bakina 2003: 9-13). The liturgy was treated as a relic from a superseded past. Issues of liturgical language reform were put on the back burner. They were discussed, but not openly nor officially. In fact, between 1945 and 1988 only one article on the topic was published in the Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate. The question of liturgical reform was broached in the samizdat literature of the 1950s and 1960s, but of course its readership was quite limited (Kravetskii and Pletneva 2001: 241-42).
The issue was raised again in earnest only in 1988, at the time of the millennial celebrations of Christianity in Russia. Two well-known philologists debated the issue. Sergei Averintsev was in favor of translating the service books into Russian, and he would later contribute to this task as part of Kochetkov’s Moscow parish. Gelian Prokhorov countered that Church Slavonic should be preserved, and that those who needed to study the language should do so (Gopenko 2009: 167). In the 1990s, Prokhorov would be supported by other philologists at the prestigious Pushkin House in St. Petersburg, including Dmitrii Likhachev. As I noted above, the liturgical language debate flared up again in the 1990s in conjunction with the pastoral work of Fr. Kochetkov. Since reformists put the issue back on the table, I will give precedence to their arguments, and then discuss the responses or refutations of traditionalists.
Intelligibility
The rituals of the Russian Orthodox Church are performed in Church Slavonic. The crux of the debate is whether this language is intelligible to the average churchgoer. Both reformists and traditionalists agree that Church Slavonic is different from Russian. The question is how different? And is this difference a good or a bad thing? Does it enhance the sense of mystery or impede simple comprehension? Orthodox traditionalists claim that Church Slavonic is perhaps comparable to “Cranmerian English,” which is to say, they consider it an appropriately elevated yet still understandable idiom for Russian speakers. The reformist position, on the other hand, is that Church Slavonic has become the “Latin” of the Russian Church—a dead language that has become remote and unintelligible to the majority of believers and neophytes.
Orthodox reformists recognize that Church Slavonic has played a vital role in the course of Russian civilization, but insist that it has, in effect, outlived its usefulness. It is now an impediment. The Gospel message is being obscured by a thick fog of beautiful but opaque liturgical hymnody. Traditionalists would concur with Heretz (2008: 23) when he says that “to frame the language question in terms of intellectual comprehension—as opposed to the evocation of a certain psychological state—is to accept the premises of Protestantism.” The liturgy, some say, is an enveloping mystery that cannot be reduced to the verbal-semantic level (Rafail 2008: 218). Reformists, on the other hand, suggest that without intellectual comprehension, without the mind being engaged, the ceremony is meaningless (Kostromin 1997: 112). They acknowledge the beauty of Church Slavonic, but contend that aesthetic qualities are not a priority, and moreover that the price to be paid for such beauty—namely, a loss of comprehension—is too steep (Zuttner 1997: 91). Reformists also link the issue of intelligibility to the competition that the Russian Church faces in the post-Soviet “market place of faiths.” For instance, Krylezher (1997: 39) juxtaposes the experience of newcomers at “evangelical meetings” with that of a Russian Orthodox service. Averintsev (1997 [1994]” 11) warns that people will leave the Church.
The chief contention of traditionalists is that Church Slavonic must be maintained in the Russian Orthodox liturgy. They object to Kochetkov on a number of grounds. He behaved without the endorsement of the church hierarchy; he fostered a cult-like atmosphere in his parish; his translations of liturgical texts into Russian were at best poorly done and at worst a desecration of sacred tradition; and, abetted by forces hostile to Russia, Kochetkovites represent a kind of fifth column intent on destroying Russian Orthodoxy from within. However, some traditionalists do acknowledge comprehension of Church Slavonic is a problem for contemporary believers. But translation is considered far too radical and dangerous, especially when simpler solutions—such as increased education and attendance—are at hand. As in the legal, medical, or philosophical domains, the ecclesiastical domain has a specialized vocabulary that is distinct from everyday speech and must be learned (Kondrat’eva 2002: 364). Why do people believe they should be able to drop into a worship service at any time and immediately understand what is being said (Mamonov 1999: 266)? Why should the Church have to make concessions to Philistines and not the other way around (Likhachev 1999 [1998]: 276)?
As a recent textbook would have it: “The Church Slavonic language is in large part understandable even without special study when a believer really listens reverently to it” (Vorob’eva 2008: 4). Traditionalists observe that people are willing to spend a great amount of time and energy studying English or German or Chinese—so why not Slavonic, which is much more important? Some impute laziness to those who do not bother to acquire the language of the faith.
According to traditionalists, Slavonic is intelligible to people who attend church on a regular basis; it is only the neophyte intelligentsia who do not understand it, and constitute a vocal minority agitating for change. Intellectual fashions come and go, but the people remain constant in their piety and practice. “Standing among the simple people and looking at their faces, one sees that they understand the liturgy” (Kozarzhevskii 1999: 235). And here is another key component in the traditionalist argument: For those schooled in the faith, who regularly pray and attend the liturgy, there is basically no problem. Thus, traditionalist discourse projects a scenario of opposition between the churched masses, who are for Church Slavonic, and unchurched intellectuals, who are against it.
The Merits of Church Slavonic and Russian
According to reformists, Russian is perfectly acceptable for use in the liturgy—in fact, any language is. In the pre-revolutionary period, it was common to point out that the Orthodox liturgy had already been translated for many of the peoples of the Russian Empire—Tatars, Mordvinians, Finns, et al.—yet, ironically, not for the Russians themselves (Balashov 2001: 63-66). But this argument is not heard in the post-Soviet period. One of the main tactics of reformists is to call into question the very idea of a “sacred” language. It is not that they are particularly enamored of Russian or feel that it is somehow superior to Church Slavonic. Rather, they question the sacralization of Slavonic. Christianity, it is asserted, is not a religion of the book in the mold of Islam or Judaism, but a religion of a person: Christ (Borisov 1994: 125). The idea of a sacred language is actually inimical to Christianity. Calling this or that language “sacred” is tantamount to idolatry (cf Borisov 1994: 132).
For traditionalists however, there is a clear and vital distinction between the sacred and the profane. They mark off Church Slavonic as a sacred language distinct from—and superior to—Russian. Church Slavonic is not an idol, but “our verbal icon” (nashi slovesnaia ikona) (Kamchatnov 1999: 220). According to Mamonov (1999), Church Slavonic is a special kind of language, just as church architecture and vestments are different from everyday buildings and clothing. The difference between Russian and Church Slavonic is comparable to the architectural difference between a dom (house, building) and a khram (temple, church). As for clothing, should the Orthodox, asks Mamonov, start wearing jeans to church services as the Protestant sectarians do?
In the eyes of traditionalists, Church Slavonic is pure, subtle, and complex—capable of expressing all the shades and nuances of Orthodox theology. Russian, on the other hand, is deemed impoverished. It changes—and not always for the better. In this connection, traditionalists point to the startling transformation of Russian since the fall of Communism. The language has become beclouded by loanwords, obscenities, and prison jargon. Switching to Russian would result in the diminution of the rich, multifaceted Orthodox Tradition. Thus, although they defend Russian in other contexts, the logic of the traditionalist position is such that they must denigrate the vernacular as a vehicle for Orthodox worship. The language of the street is altogether out of place in the sanctuary. The late Metropolitan Ioann, a notoriously right-wing prelate, called Russian a language of prostitutes and thieves (Pospielovsky 1995: 261).
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Editors note: The second half of this article will be published in the next issue of the East-West Church and Ministry Report 23 (Winter 2014).
Edited excerpts published with permission from Brian P. Bennett, Religion and Language in Post-Soviet Russia (London: Routledge, 2011).
Old Church Slavonic Versus Russian in the Divine Liturgy t is Professor of Religious Studies, Niagara University, Niagara, New York.