They say that the Slavic text conveys the Greek text much more accurately than Russian or any other language. Yes of course; but simply for the reason that it became written and literary precisely as a language of translations from Greek, and translations that, as was generally accepted in the Middle Ages, were made word for word with the preservation of the order of the original words, its figures of speech, syntactic expressions, etc. However, alas, for the same reason, a Slavonic text is often simply incomprehensible without the Greek original and without knowledge of the Greek language. Until, thanks to the labors, diligence and great courage of St. Philaret, Metropolitan of Moscow, the Gospel appeared in the Russian language, the nobles read the Scriptures mainly in French, and therefore either became interested in Martinism and fell into Freemasonry, or converted to Catholicism, and ordinary people were simply deprived of the opportunity to read the Word of God. The Slavonic text is still incomprehensible today, you sometimes ask its zealot what this or that passage in the Psalter means, but he is silent, or instead of answering, he simply begins to denounce the Renovationists, Freemasons, Catholics, etc.

What to do? Does the Slavic language have a future in the Church and what is it? Who is right, his zealots or their opponents? These and many other questions certainly arise today among believers, those who seek God, and agnostics.

Two ways

At first glance, we have two paths. The first is the gradual replacement of the Slavic language with Russian. In the 19th century, St. Theophan the Recluse, and then Patriarch Tikhon inclined to it (materials about this were published: N.A. Struve. — "Vestnik RKhD", N 169, pp. 38-49). This path can be called traditional, for it was this path that was followed by all those (including St. Alexis, Metropolitan of Moscow) who corrected the translation of Scripture in the era from the tenth to the seventeenth centuries, in accordance with the state of the living language of their time. But this path, despite the fact that it is by no means new in Russian history, frightens us, because it seems to us that it is associated with a break from tradition and that it fits well into the lack of culture from which Russia has suffered so much, especially over the past 80 years. That is why we prefer the second way (let us call it conditionally "Latin", for this is the path taken by the Western Church in the Middle Ages), which consists in teaching the Slavonic language to believers and those who strive for faith in Sunday schools, courses, through the media, etc. It seems that nothing better can be invented than this way, but, If you look closely, it turns out that it is not at all as good as we would like. By following this path, Orthodoxy runs the risk of turning from the religion of those who know God into the religion of those who know about God, into a confession for the educated, who have received a special philological education, etc. And now, by the way, it is already noticeable that our parishioners for the most part fall into two categories: the first is made up of very ordinary people, and the second is the intelligentsia; as for the middle class (chauffeurs, nurses, etc.), they prefer Baptism or remain outside the Church altogether. A person, if for one reason or another he is not given the Slavonic language, drops out of the service, not understanding what is happening in the church, finds himself a stranger there, takes the Prayer Book and understands in it not the words, not the meaning, but only the letters, praying without understanding what. It's sad and actually even scary.

The language of our faith?

If we think about the essence of the problem, it turns out that neither the first nor the second of the paths described here suits us, because in general it is not a matter of the Slavic language. For Judaism, Hebrew, and for Islam, Arabic, are indeed in their own case the language of faith and an essential component of the confession. Something similar can be said of the Catholicism of the past about Latin, without which it is difficult to imagine the Western Church in the Middle Ages and even in the last century. But it is no accident that the Christians of the East have always condemned the Catholic West for Latin, rightly believing that confession cannot be connected with this or that language. In fact, on the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit descended upon the apostles, "people ... of every nation under heaven... every one heard them (the apostles) speaking in his own language" (Acts 2:5-6). "How can we," these people exclaimed, "each hear his own dialect in which we were born... we hear them speaking with our tongues" (ibid. 2:8-11). Christianity is beyond language. Unlike other religions, it can be translated into any language, and this translatability is attested to by the experience of the Church of the first centuries, which lived by the real memory of the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the holy disciples and apostles of Christ. Language is only a part of the culture of a particular country in which Christianity is preached.

Of course, this applies equally to Slavic, Latin, Armenian, and other ancient and modern languages. Although, of course, the Greek language, in which the Gospel is written, Aramaic, for Jesus preached in it, as well as Hebrew as the language of the Old Testament, are especially important for us, Christians, since their study and knowledge can help us to understand the text of the Scriptures more deeply and accurately. The languages of other peoples who adopted Christianity in antiquity are also necessary for us, for Ephraim the Syrian can be fully understood only in Syriac, Jerome in Latin, and Cyril of Turov in Slavonic, for when translating any text from one point of view, losses are inevitable. Thus, the Slavic language is very necessary for us, but not as a language of confession (let's not repeat the mistakes of medieval Rome!), but as the language of many of those who in the past adhered to our confession. Not as the language of Christianity, but as the language of Christians.

Why is the Esperanto language bad?

In Christianity and for Christians, any language is nothing more than a means. I remember that at the Institute of Foreign Languages, students repeatedly asked me about Esperanto, why I considered it unnecessary to learn it. I always told them that it was a language in which no one gave birth, declared their love, or died. In other words, it is an artificial language, a language for intellectual play. A woman during childbirth will forget about Esperanto and scream in pain in her native language, and when we die, we will also pray in a language other than Esperanto. We know this from the experience of Jesus himself, who, dying on the cross, exclaimed his "God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me" not in Hebrew, but in that Galilean dialect which almost no one in Jerusalem understood, which is why "some of those who stood there, when they heard, said, Behold, Elijah is calling... wait and see if Elijah comes to take Him away" (Mark 15:35-36). Esperanto is a mechanical nightingale from Andersen's fairy tale. For the Galileans of the time of Jesus, Hebrew was already something like Esperanto, for us Slavonic was in this position. A person today can learn it, but he is unlikely to be able to give birth to it, suffer, die, declare his love, etc.

For an ordinary person, prayer in an incomprehensible language is sometimes not so meaningless. It evokes in his heart a feeling of reverence for its incomprehensibility and some kind of special tenderness, which is beautifully described by Chekhov in the story of an old woman who listened to "packs and packs" with tears. But for a person who is more or less educated, such a prayer is extremely harmful, because it volens-nolens acquires the character of an intellectual matter, the mind is willingly included in prayer in a learned, memorized language, and at the same time the heart is completely excluded from it. It turns out to be associated with the recognition of words and expressions, with the work of thought, but not of the heart. On the whole, such a prayer leads to the fact that our confession becomes something either detached from life, artificial and reminiscent of a mechanical nightingale, or turns into a way of thinking, a philosophy or an ideology, something that is again detached from reality. Hence our dryness of heart, rigidity, ruthlessness, hence it turns out that we know how to understand everything correctly, but we do not know how to simply feel sorry for someone who feels bad, we do not know how to respond to the pain of another, to come to the rescue and console. It is no accident that today many people complain that when they come to the Church, seemingly approaching God, people, especially young people, for some reason become tough, heartless, harsh, although in theory everything should be the other way around.