New Testament in Ukrainian
The Volyn Eparchy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church has just unveiled a new Ukrainian edition of the New Testament.
Among the many Orthodox churches in the world only one is dedicated to the Lord’s Prayer. A lot of people know about it, but few have been fortunate enough to visit this church, located in the holy city of Jerusalem on the slope of a hill, precisely where Christ’s disciples asked Him to teach them to pray.
Instead of religious paintings, the church’s walls are decorated with the Lord’s Prayer in different languages. When the Ukrainian Orthodox Church’s Metropolitan Nifont of Lutsk and Volyn visited here a couple of years ago, he saw the words of the Our Father carved in stone in 88 languages. Today the number has risen to 120. In Ukrainian it starts with the words “Otche nash, Ty, shcho ye na nebi...”
A careful reader will note that Christ’s name is spelled Iisus, not Isus, as it is commonly pronounced. His Eminence Bishop Nikon explains that this notion has a crucial meaning, as it corresponds to Slavonic word construction. Those who demand that the divine services be conducted in Ukrainian seldom seem to consider the fact that the Holy Scriptures are not detective stories that can be translated by a good student.
“Does this mean that services in all the churches in your eparchy will be in Ukrainian?” This question from journalists surprised the bishop, because the New Testament is only one of many books used by clergymen. Of all the Orthodox churches in the world, only the Serbian Orthodox Church has translated all liturgical books into the national language. This took 50 years, but Old Church Slavonic is still being used in most cases.
“Translating all of this would take at least 15 linguists equally well versed in Old Church Slavonic, Hebrew, Latin, Greek, Bulgarian, and Ukrainian — and as many experts on church books and church singing. This work could have been started in Ukraine if not for the rift between the churches,” Bishop Nikon said.
Confirmation of the bishop’s statement is found in the the correct pronunciation of the proper name Avraam. When he had no offspring, Abraham was known as Avram, but after fathering Isaac, he became known as Avraam, meaning “father of many children.” The need to publish a revised literary Ukrainian version of the New Testament is linked to the fact that the church is using many flawed publications that were translated in different periods from Old Church Slavonic and Russian.
The Volyn Eparchy’s publication (a Ukrainian translation of the Moscow edition of 1988) prefers word constructions that were used by Taras Shevchenko, who knew his original sources very well — hence his use of Isaiya, Iordan, and Iudeia, rather than Isaya, Yordan, and Yudeya.
The New Testament in Ukrainian has a print run of 5,000 copies and more need to be printed. According to the bishop, the new book is being used not only by our clergy but also our parishioners, who want to hear the Word so that their very souls can hear it. The eparchy is happy to have a philanthropist, who will pay for the printing of prayer books in Braille, the first such project in the post-Soviet space. Several copies were manually formatted by seminary students. When the eparchy and an association for the blind embarked on this blessed project, they were asked to make do with putting out a cassette. But there is a difference between hearing and being able to “read” the same text by touching raised dots. Manually designed and produced prayer books are revered by blind people, who circulate copies from house to house and regard them as venerable relics.
