It is necessary to resume systematic work on translating the works of the Holy Fathers into Russian. Individual translations of patristic writings are already appearing, but only a few people are involved in the translation work, whose powers are very limited and who, as a rule, do not coordinate their efforts with each other. Before the revolution, all four theological academies were involved in translation activities - Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kazan and Kiev. It was thanks to the work of professors and students of these academies that multi-volume collections of the works of the Fathers and teachers of the Church appeared in the Russian language. The old translations, the quality of which is not the same (the ponderous translation of the works of St. Gregory of Nyssa is incomparable in quality with the excellent translations of the Homilies of St. Isaac the Syrian), are in need of a very substantial revision. One cannot limit oneself to reprinting pre-revolutionary translations of the works of the Fathers, for the language of these translations is incomprehensible to the modern reader.

In addition to the revision of old translations, it is necessary to translate those patristic works that have never been translated into Russian before. Among the authors who did not have time to translate before the revolution are such key figures as St. Maximus the Confessor and St. Gregory Palamas. Syriac patrology is almost absent in the Russian translation; There are almost no translations from Coptic and other Eastern languages. Even Latin patristics are far from being fully represented. All this opens up a wide field for work, which, again, is beyond the power of individual researchers. Obviously, it is necessary to create a center or even centers for patristic studies, independent or subordinate to some higher theological educational institution. We need a school of Orthodox patrologists, which will not appear overnight: it is necessary to work systematically on its creation.

There is a need for monographs on the Fathers of the Church, articles devoted to certain aspects of their teaching. This auxiliary literature, which exists in abundance in the West but is almost absent in our country, should help the reader to understand that the Fathers of the Church are men who, many centuries before us, followed the same path that we are trying to follow today, and that their works are relevant to our contemporaries. This literature should build a bridge between the ancient Fathers and modern Christians, help the latter to orient themselves in the sea of patristic writings and, most importantly, to perceive today's reality in the light of patristic experience.

5. Orthodox worship

As is known, one of the questions raised in the course of preparation for the Local Council of 1917-18 was the question of the liturgical language: the problem of the incomprehensibility of the divine services was already very acute at that time. Archbishop Tikhon of the Aleutians and North America (later Patriarch of All Russia) wrote in 1906: "It is important for the Russian Church to have a new Slavonic translation of the liturgical books (the present one is outdated and incorrect in many places), which will be able to forestall the demands of others to serve in the Russian everyday language."448 Another hierarch, Bishop Seraphim of Polotsk, spoke of the need to improve the Slavonic translation of the divine services:

In polemics with Catholicism, Orthodox theologians always point to their divine services as one of the advantages of the Orthodox Church in view of its special edification. However, in practice, it is far from achieving the goal for which it was created by the grace-filled bearers of Orthodoxy. The reason for this lies primarily in its incomprehensibility for the majority of believers. In view of this, it is necessary first of all to improve the language of the divine service, to make it clearer and more comprehensible in individual words and constructions.449

A "trial" edition of the liturgical texts in the Slavonic language in a new edition was made and published in a small edition shortly before the Local Council of 1917-18, but never reached the majority of Orthodox churches. The discussion about the liturgical language, which unfolded at the Council, also remained unfinished. Further events are well known: the attempts of the renovationists to Russify the divine services and the rejection of these attempts by the church community. Such attempts are resolutely suppressed in our days by the people of the Church, who stand guard over the Church Slavonic language as a stronghold of churchliness.

All this, however, does not remove the problem of the incomprehensibility of the Church Slavonic language, from the solution of which we cannot escape. For all that is rightly said about the need to preserve the Church Slavonic language, it is also obvious that the divine services are called to be understandable; otherwise, it loses its edifying power. The liturgical texts of the Orthodox Church contain a wealth of theology and moral teaching, which should be accessible to people. After all, it is obvious that in the epoch when the Byzantine liturgical texts, which are still in use today, were created, they were understandable, if not to everyone, then at least to people of culture.

The question is by no means reduced to the translation of the divine services into Russian. We are talking about a much more global task facing the Russian Orthodox Church, first of all before its theologians. This task was clearly formulated by His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Russia:

The Slavonic language is not understandable to everyone: for this reason, many liturgists of our Church have long raised the question of translating the entire range of liturgical texts into Russian. However, attempts to translate the divine services into modern colloquial language have shown that the matter is not limited to the replacement of one vocabulary with another, some grammatical forms with others. The liturgical texts used in the Orthodox Church are the heritage of Byzantine antiquity: even when translated into modern language, they require special training from a person... Therefore, the problem of the incomprehensibility of the divine services is not limited to questions of language, which, of course, must be posed and resolved. We are faced with a more global, truly missionary task—to teach people to understand the meaning of divine services.450

One of the means for fulfilling this missionary task is a new edition of the Slavonic text of the divine service. The work begun on the eve of the Local Council of 1917-18 must be continued. His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II says in this regard:

... We must think about the organization of the liturgical life of the Church in such a way as to make it possible to revive the educational and missionary element of this life. In this connection, we will pay special attention to the work begun but not completed by the Local Council of 1917-18 to streamline liturgical practice, and we will bring to an end the editing of the Slavonic liturgical texts, which was also begun in our Church.451

Will these words of the head of the Russian Orthodox Church come true?