--- On Sat, 7/11/09, Jopi Harri <jopi.harri@...> wrote:

> Dear Father,
>
> What I have seen is books that either omit the stresses or
> have
> them inconsistently, so that they are left out in every
> third
> word or so, or in more extended passages. For instance for
> one
> book that I have been using I have had to take the missing
> stresses from a classic orthography Sluzhebnik and other
> proper
> service books, or sometimes just to guess them.

Most prayer books I have seen only mark the stresses when the stress in Slavonic
differs from that in modern Russian.

> Very few. Many of my parishioners have a mental block
> about
> > Slavonic, and assume that *they* could never possibly
> read
> > *that*.
>
> Well, that being the case, why not use Russian?

Well, that's a different issue altogether! But with most of my parishioners the
issue is specifically with the Slavonic script -- not so much with the text.

> The actual case for Bulgarians and Serbs is that virtually
> whatever they sing, they sing it in Slavonic.

I am aware of that; I was talking primarily about prayer books and collections
of services for the use of the faithful, and perhaps as an introductory aid to
readers who are learning Church Slavonic.

My point was not to argue for the extensive use of civil script instead of
Slavonic script, but instead to point out that those who print prayer books in
civil script actually have valid pastoral reasons for doing so. To deride them
as lazy or slovenly is unfair and unChristian.

I serve almost entirely in Slavonic. I love Slavonic, and I personally find the
use of civil script to write it quite annoying (though less so than when I first
began). I even agree with Stephen about his preference for old orthography civil
script over new orthography - though I prefer Slavonic script to both. I
encourage my parishioners, especially those on the kliros, to learn to read
Slavonic script, since we only have most of the service books in that script -
including some pre-revolutionary books that are falling apart, new editions from
Russia, and a couple of post-war Serbian books (which are nice for beginners
because they spell out most of the abbreviations).

But I am also realistic. My parishioners are 90%+ 1st generation immigrants,
some from after WWII, but mostly from the new wave. I have prayer books
available in both Slavonic script and new orthography (you can get them in old
orthography, but Jordanville editions are at American prices, and are thus too
expensive to hand out.) I can't keep the new orthography books in stock. I still
have plenty of the Slavonic-script books.

As far as reaidng for services, I typically only use the new orthography
editions of the Hours, etc. when my readers are absent and I have to draft
someone unexperienced. I also have one man who used to read the Hours on Sunday
using such a book, but he has since progressed to a standard chasoslov. In his
case, the training wheels worked.

No, Slavonic script is not that hard. Any educated Russian could pick it up
easily with just a little effort. The sad truth, however, is that most of them
are not going to make the effort until they are more churched. And they are not
going to become more churched until they learn to pray. Slavonic script and, to
a lesser extent, old orthography civil script, are, in my humble opinion,
unnecessary obstacles on the way to that goal. Some might argue that Slavonic
itself is an obstacle, but I have found that a good civil script prayer book
with a glossary goes a long way towards making Slavonic accessible to an
average, marginally churched, Russian speaker.

In Christ,

Fr. Hermogen