“Will our children and grandchildren eat or eat?”
A young, healthy man comes to worship and suddenly discovers that he cannot stand two hours in the church - and he breaks him, poor thing, and twists him, and his lower back hurts so much that it seems that he is about to break.
The devil prompts: “No. These tedious services are not for you. And you don’t understand absolutely anything that they sing and read there in their Church Slavonic language. You stand like a donkey and just spend your time idly, and your lower back hurts.” And the person decides: “Perhaps the Church with Her services is a good thing, but it’s just very difficult and incomprehensible, I can’t handle it, what would be simpler.” And the man leaves the Orthodox church and goes to the prayer house to the Baptists: there they also talk about Christ, but only in Russian - it’s understandable; and you can listen while sitting in a soft, cozy chair - it’s pleasant. Both easier and simpler.
But one can also imagine: there has not yet been a single saint in the world who would have received the Holy Spirit of God in a soft, comfortable chair. You can say to yourself: if I do not understand the language and meaning of Orthodox worship, then it is not the Orthodox service that is to blame, but myself.
It’s clear that when you sit at a table with the Chinese, you will be bored – even if they were having very interesting conversations – but you only hear a combination of sounds if you don’t understand the language. So it is necessary to learn the Church Slavonic language. It is not at all difficult for a Russian person to do this: the difference between the Church Slavonic language and Russian is no greater than between Russian and Ukrainian. But Russian people learn English, German, French, Spanish, even Chinese - and they cannot master Church Slavonic.
Any person who has taken the trouble to become acquainted with the liturgical language of the Russian Orthodox Church cannot help but fall in love with this language. This language is unique! There are no other languages like this in the world! Its peculiarity lies in the fact that it was created specifically for worship, to address God during it. After all, in different cases, addressing different people, applying to different situations, we use different words. One and the same thing can be said in different ways. You can say: “eat”, “eat”, you can say: “taste”, you can say: “eat”, “slurp”, etc. Everything is about the same thing - about eating - but the words: these are rougher, some are more ordinary, others are more sublime. The more we love and respect a person, the more elevated language we try to speak to him.
We, Orthodox Christians, love and honor God more than any other person. Therefore, the language in which we turn to God is the most sublime language that people could compose. And it was composed of holy people! Even some of us, venerable fathers and brothers, Orthodox Christians, who talk about translating church services into Russian, obviously do not fully realize what treasure they have and what they want to give up?
To make the service understandable for the people of God standing in the church, you can go in two ways: either translate the service into Russian, or teach the people Church Slavonic. The first path is easier, but it will undoubtedly impoverish us all spiritually. The second path is more difficult, but will undoubtedly endow the people with colossal spiritual wealth.
The Church Slavonic language was given to the Russian people as a precious inheritance and a great gift from God! He is our spiritual robe, for he retains the power of the prayers of the great host of saints who shone in the Slavic lands, starting with the enlighteners of the Slovenian holy brothers Cyril and Methodius.
It curbs our passions because it has a unique and untranslatable sound structure; he reveals the truth to us and guides us on the path of salvation. Its holiness, height, strength and extraordinary expressiveness cannot in any way compare with the charming networks (according to Admiral A.S. Shishkov) placed in many secular works. That is why it serves as an inexhaustible, unclouded source of wealth, power and beauty of the Russian literary language... References to obscurity are inappropriate here, it’s all about our laziness, carelessness of heart and absent-mindedness...
Hieromonk Roman