Church Slavonic has a more complex system of tenses than modern Russian: it has as many as four past tenses (those who have studied modern European languages should be familiar with this). Consider the forms of at least the first two of the past tenses given here (these tenses are the most common).
The aorist, the simple past tense, is the most common. This tense tells about a simple action that precedes the moment of the story - about something that happened before.
Singular Az nesoh, pisa You, he nes, pisa Plural We nesoh, pisahom You nesos, pisaste They nesosha, pisa
(Dual number: we are not sokhova, pisakhova; you, she is not sosta, pisasta).
Perfect - past perfect tense; it states the very fact of action: what has happened is an indisputable fact. The perfect consists of a verb form ending in -l (in grammars it is called the past participle in -l) and a present tense form of the verb “to be” (we have already given these forms). So:
Singular
I carried (carried) I am, wrote (wrote) am You carried (carried) you, wrote (wrote) you He carried (she carried) is, he wrote (she wrote) is
Plural
We carried the essence, wrote the essence You carried the essence, wrote the essence They carried the essence, wrote the essence
(Dual number: we carried Esta; you, she wrote Esta, carried Esta).
For those who want to be able to navigate in rarer forms, let's talk about the other two past tenses.
Next to the aorist, another past tense can be found - the imperfect, or the past continuous tense, which expresses an action correlative with another action, the main one. Some imperfect forms are similar to or even the same as aorist forms.
Singular Az nesyakh, pisakh You, he nesyakh, pisashe Plural We nesyakh, pisakha You nesyaste, pisakhu They nesyakha, pisakhu (Dual number: we nesyakhova, pisakhova; you, she nesyasta, pissasta).
The plusqua perfect, or long past tense, expresses an action in the past that preceded another action in the past. The plusquaperfect is formed from a verb form ending in -l and the verb “to be” in the aorist or imperfect.
Singular
I carried (carried) beh or carried (carried) bah You, he carried (you, she carried) bah or carried (carried) bash
Plural
We carried it with a bang or carried it with a bang
Did you carry the beste or carried the beaste
They carried besha or carried byakha
(Dual number: we carried bekhov or carried byakhova; you, she carried besta or carried byast).
We remind you once again that this is not a grammatical reference book, but an initial guide, quite sufficient to not get lost in unusual language forms. If you want to delve deeper into the structure of the Church Slavonic language and analyze texts on your own, you will need a textbook or grammar, as well as a dictionary more extensive than what is offered in this book.