The Lord’s Prayer
Inside the Sretensky Monastery in Moscow.
This excerpt is from Sergei Rachmaninov’s Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom (an 4th century Church Father, famed as an eloquent preacher, he was called the “Golden-Tongued,” or more literally “Golden-Mouthed,” and is known in Russian as Иоанн Златоуст), featuring the Lord’s prayer in Church Slavonic — not in Russian!
Russian Orthodox church services, including scriptural readings, are all done in Church Slavonic, which is, essentially, the Slavic dialect into which Greek missionaries first translated the Christian Gospels and the Orthodox liturgy. Though modernized somewhat since those days, the language is still highly archaic by comparison to spoken Russian, and may not be completely intelligible to Russian speakers who are not accustomed to it from attending church. Of course, you don’t have to study Church Slavonic to begin looking at its letters and, perhaps, understanding a bit here and there by analogy to the Russian you know. Here is the text of the Lord’s Prayer, in the Greek, in Church Slavonic, and in English. Note that Church Slavonic texts mark “holy” words with a kind of bar or squiggle above them, sometimes with a tiny letter added; this marks a contraction. In fact, both words in the title feature such a contraction: the full version, written out in modern Russian letters, would be молитва господня. This, among other things, can make Church Slavonic tricky to read. The good news, by the way, is that all stressed syllables are marked! If you visit churches or look at icons, you can perhaps try to puzzle out the inscriptions you see.
By the way, the English translation “our daily bread” may be misleading. The Greek “epiousios” (ἐπιούσιος) is commonly held to refer not to ordinary bread, but to bread that is “above-essence” or “of a higher nature,” super-substantial). This seems especially convincing, given the distinction made repeatedly by Christ between physical bread and physical water — which only satisfy for a time, and sustain a merely physical life — with spiritual bread and “living” water that give eternal life. As is so often the case, the Slavonic is a direct “calque” of the Greek: насущный (на = ἐπι, and сущный = ούσιος, the latter being adjectival forms from a noun/root meaning “being” or “essence”).
Here is the passage from Matthew when Christ gives this prayer:
“And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. Be not ye therefore like unto them: for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him. After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.
For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”
By the way, if we were to transcribe the Church Slavonic text using ordinary Russian Cyrillic, it would read as follows:
Молитва Господня
Отче наш, иже еси на небесех,
Да святится имя твое,
Да приидет царствие твое,
Да будет воля твоя,
яко на небеси, и на земли.
Хлеб наш насущный даждь нам днесь,
и остави нам долги наша
якоже и мы оставляем должником нашим:
и не введи нас во искушение,
но избави нас от лукаваго.
(яко твое есть царствие и сила и слава
во веки.)
Аминь.
