Preface

Today, more than ever before, there is a compelling need for Orthodox liturgical texts in the English language. In preparing the present volume, the translators have been concerned to meet the needs of at least three different groups:

First, we have had in mind the situation of the younger generation within the Orthodox emigration, most of whom are obliged at the present time to attend services in a tongue that is not their own. In Great Britain, in the United States, Canada, and Australia, there are today many thousands of Orthodox Christians—and before long their total number will be reckoned in millions—whose primary language is English, and who can no longer fully understand services performed in Greek, Slavonic, Romanian, or Arabic. In most parishes, however, the chief language used in public worship is still that of the Mother Country. Without translations which they can consult at home or take to church, these English-speaking Orthodox are being spiritually starved, cut off as they are from a full participation in communal prayer.

In the second place, we have kept in view the needs of parishes as well as individuals. In America and elsewhere, an appreciable number of Orthodox parishes—although still only a minority—have now begun to use English in their public worship; and translations are thus required not only for private consultation but for liturgical use. The employment of English at Orthodox services cannot but increase enormously during the next thirty years; besides English-language parishes, before long there will doubtless be English-speaking Orthodox monasteries. These parishes and monastic centres will require texts that are suitable for reading aloud and singing; and the monasteries will want, in addition, an English version that is as complete as possible.

Nor, in the third place, is it the Orthodox alone who need such translations. Never before has the Orthodox Church possessed so many friends in other Christian communions: and by far the best way in which these non-Orthodox can come to understand the faith and life of Orthodoxy is by sharing in its liturgical worship. Abstract explanations are not enough: as Philip said to Nathanael, ‘Come and see’ (John 1:46). Only too often, however, these friends of Orthodoxy have been deterred by the sad lack of adequate translations.

This threefold situation has been constantly in our minds as we prepared the present version. We are deeply conscious of its many defects. We have made every effort to provide a text that is dignified and accurate; but the task of translating the Orthodox service books is beset by formidable difficulties, and it is impossible to hope for anything that approaches perfection. Greek liturgical poetry at its best combines a marvellous beauty of language with a rigorous precision in theological expression. Much of that beauty and that precision is inevitably lost in the transition from Greek to English, and no one can be more vividly aware of this than the translators themselves. On many occasions we have been tempted to give up in discouragement. But always one thing has led us to persevere—our knowledge that on the practical level there is an urgent and specific need for English texts.

So voluminous are the Orthodox service books that it will require many years of work by different translators before a full English version is made available. So far as our own contribution is concerned, we have chosen to begin with the Twelve Great Feasts, which—next to the supreme festival of Easter—occupy a place of outstanding importance within the Orthodox calendar. This book contains the special offices for nine of the twelve: of these nine, all are ‘fixed’, that is, occurring upon the same date each year, and the texts for all nine are found in the same set of service books, the Menaia. The remaining three of the Great Feasts are ‘movable’, and depend on the date of Easter.

There is little necessity to underline the profound significance, both devotionally and theologically, of the feasts included in this volume. It contains the texts for Christmas, Epiphany, the Annunciation, and the Presentation of Our Lord in the Temple (the ‘Meeting’), which express the true Orthodox faith concerning the Incarnation of the Saviour. It contains the office of the Transfiguration, which is essential for any proper understanding of the Orthodox doctrine of ‘Divine Light’ and mystical prayer. It contains the office for the Exaltation of the Cross, which deserves to be studied with care by all who imagine that Orthodoxy concentrates solely upon the risen Christ, to the neglect of Christ crucified. It contains the services for the Nativity of the Holy Virgin, for her Entry into the Temple and her Dormition: without a knowledge of these three offices, it is impossible to appreciate the true character of Orthodox devotion to the Mother of God.

The texts for each feast are here given in full. This has been a fundamental principle in our work. We have not sought to make a selection, using our own private judgement to decide what is of greater or lesser importance: but we have attempted to render in its integrity all that stands written in the Greek and Slavonic service books. To some this will seem an unrealistic attitude, for almost everywhere in the Orthodox Church today the services are abbreviated. But we are translators, not liturgical reformers: some abbreviation may be generally necessary, but it is not for us, as translators, to pre-determine what form the abbreviation shall in fact take. Furthermore, the portions habitually omitted often include texts of great value, both from the literary and from the doctrinal viewpoint; and it seemed to us vitally important that all this material should be made accessible in English.

The basis of our translation is the original Greek: this has been compared everywhere with the Slavonic, and at times with the Romanian. The edition of the Menaia that we have normally employed is that issued at Athens by the publishing organization Phos, under the auspices of the ‘Christian Union of Young Workers’ (12 volumes, 1960–61). On occasion we have adopted alternative readings found in the edition published at Rome by the Press of the Propaganda (6 volumes, 1888–1901); or else we have followed the older Orthodox editions printed at Venice in the last century. There exists, unfortunately, no fully critical edition of the Menaia—nor, indeed, of any major service book used by the Orthodox Church. In particular, the attributions of authorship given at the head of the canons and of other compositions are frequently open to question. In the present edition these traditional attributions are for the most part retained, although we recognize that many of them must be viewed with caution.

The rubrics and liturgical directions, as given in the Greek and Slavonic books, are often brief to the point of obscurity; and at times we have thought it wise to expand and clarify them. On matters of ritual we have adopted as our guide the Typikon of St. Sabas, followed by the Greek-speaking Churches up to 1888, and still in use within the Russian Church. It has not been possible to note all the discrepancies between the Greek and Slavonic Menaia, but a number of the more significant divergences are mentioned.

We have deliberately reproduced the directions in the Menaia or the Typikon concerning fasting, even though these regulations are now widely disregarded by Orthodox in the western world. But whether or not contemporary Orthodox choose to keep the fasts, it seems only right that they should be reminded what the traditional rules in fact demand.

The Tones are indicated throughout, as in the Greek and Slavonic Menaia. It was our original intention to mark divisions in those texts which are normally chanted, so as to facilitate singing: but we decided that this was impracticable, since there exists a great variety of Church music within the Orthodox communion, and no one system of pointing would prove universally convenient. It seems best to leave individual choir masters free to insert their own pointing.

In course of time English-speaking Orthodox will doubtless evolve a musical tradition of their own, which will take its place alongside those of Greece, Russia, and the other Orthodox nations. As yet no such tradition has had time to develop: and Orthodox of English language must therefore draw for the present upon some existing musical heritage within Orthodoxy. The best adapted for this purpose seems to be that of Russia. Byzantine chant is too intricate: if it is to be used, then the stress and rhythm of the Greek original must be preserved almost exactly in English translation, and this raises insuperable difficulties. But Russian music is far more flexible; and in particular the simpler Russian monastic chants can easily be adapted to an English text. We have kept this possibility in mind as we made our translations.

No attempt has been made to reproduce the acrostics which abound in the Greek canons, and all allusions to these acrostics have therefore been omitted.

So far as the general style of our translation is concerned, after much experimenting we decided to take as our model the language of the Authorized Version (the King James Bible). This, we realize, is a controversial decision. Many of our readers will probably feel that, if the liturgical texts are to come alive for people today, they must be rendered in a more contemporary idiom. To this it must be answered that the Greek used in the canons and hymns that are here translated was never a ‘contemporary’ or ‘spoken’ language. The Byzantine hymnographers wrote in a liturgical style that was consciously ‘artificial’, even though it was never intentionally obscure or unintelligible. As we see it, the language of the Authorized Version is best adapted to convey the spirit of the original liturgical Greek. We do not dispute the necessity for more modern translations of Scripture, and their great value—in certain contexts: but for our present purpose it was the Authorized Version that provided what we most required. For three centuries and more the Authorized Version, and along with it the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, have provided the words with which English-speaking peoples throughout the world have addressed God; and these two books have become a part not only of our literary but of our spiritual inheritance. So long as certain archaisms of language and construction are avoided, the English of the King James Bible is still easily understood.

To ensure a certain consistency of diction, we have in general refrained from using words that do not occur in the Authorized Version. But it has not been possible to adhere to this principle inflexibly. In particular, the Greek liturgical texts often use technical terms taken not from Scripture but from the Fathers: and in many cases no equivalent could be found for these in the vocabulary of the King James Bible.

In common with the Commission for the Anglican Revised Psalter, we have not tied ourselves to rendering each word in the original by the same English word throughout. Here our practice agrees with that of St. Jerome, who, for example, in the Vulgate rendering of the Epistles, translated the Greek verb evdokein in no less than ten different ways. To quote an eminent translator of the Scriptures, Mgr. Ronald Knox: ‘Every common word in every living language has, not one meaning, but a quantity of shades of meaning… Words are not coins, dead things, whose value can be mathematically computed. You cannot quote an exact English equivalent for a French word, as you might quote an exact English equivalent for a French coin. Words are living things, full of shades of meaning, full of associations.’

Quotations from Scripture are normally taken from the Authorized Version. This raises some difficulty where the Old Testament is concerned, for here the Orthodox Church uses the Greek text of the Septuagint, which often differs considerably from the Hebrew text upon which the Authorized Version is based. Unfortunately there exists no satisfactory English translation of the Septuagint as a whole; and we felt it entirely beyond our present resources to attempt a new rendering of our own. With reluctance we decided eventually upon a compromise. In the case of complete Psalms or full-length Lessons from the Old Testament, as a rule the text of the Authorized Version is reproduced without change. But for single verses of Scripture, inserted between stichera or the like, we have made our own translation from the Greek, while keeping always as close as possible to the Authorized Version. Since the verse of Scripture and the accompanying sticheron are often directly related, the link between them would at times be destroyed if we had everywhere followed the Authorized Version without adaptation.

Throughout the book, the Psalm numbering is that of the Septuagint.

The material in the Orthodox service books falls into two clearly defined categories. First, there is a Scriptural ‘stratum’—readings from the Psalter and other parts of the Old Testament, from the Epistles and the Gospels. Alongside this, there is a non-Scriptural ‘stratum’, consisting in religious poetry—canons, stichera, kontakia, sessional hymns, and the like. The contents of this present volume belong for the most part to the latter category. Yet even this second ‘stratum’ is in its deeper reality profoundly Scriptural, being everywhere permeated with Biblical images and phraseology: indeed, the Orthodox service books as a whole are in the last analysis little else than one vast and extended meditation upon Holy Scripture. Many of the liturgical texts become unintelligible if the underlying references to the Bible are not appreciated. We have therefore indicated the more important of these references in footnotes, without attempting to list them exhaustively.

In addition to the actual translations, much explanatory material is to be found in the introductory sections and in the appendixes. We are happy to include, in the first place, an introduction by Archpriest Georges Florovsky, Emeritus Professor of Eastern Church History at Harvard University, describing the spirit of liturgical piety which prevails within the Orthodox Church. Then follows an introductory section by the two translators, of a more technical character, concerning the particular texts contained in this volume. Among other things we have provided a series of analytical plans giving in summary form the structure of the Byzantine Liturgy and the offices. These are intended as a general guide: certain possible variations of minor importance have been omitted; also no mention is made of the special rules observed during Lent. After this comes a section on the ‘Common of the Vigil’, giving the unchanging parts of the Vigil Service, whether on a feast or on an ordinary Sunday.

Among the four appendixes, we would direct attention especially to the third, which supplies the meaning of technical terms not explained elsewhere in the text.

Our purpose in all this explanatory matter has not been to enter into historical discussions—save only to a very limited degree—still less, to suggest liturgical reforms, but simply to describe the Orthodox practice as it exists at the present time. We have deliberately placed all this supplementary material either at the beginning or at the end of the volume, and not in the main body of the text. This is because we hope that the work may be employed not only as a book for study but as a book for prayer: and it would not be correct, in the sections of this volume intended for use as a service book, to insert any expressions of personal opinion. This is the reason, for example, why the explanations of each feast are not printed immediately in front of the feast concerned, but are all grouped together in the introduction. In the actual text of the offices, footnotes are restricted almost entirely to Scriptural references, with an occasional indication of the difference between the Greek and the Slavonic.

The services contained in this volume have, to our knowledge, appeared in English only once before, in a book that has long been out of print: The Ferial Menaion or the Book of Services for the Twelve Great Festivals and the New Year’s Day, translated by N. Orloff (London, 1900). Professor Orloff has here rendered the literal sense of the original with conscientious accuracy: but he was translating into a language not his own and, as so often in such a situation, the resulting English version is so eccentric in style—and at times altogether grotesque and ludicrous—that it cannot decently be used in public worship. The well-known Service Book of Miss I. F. Hapgood, issued with the blessing of Patriarch Tikhon and widely employed by the Orthodox of America, includes no more than short extracts from the texts of the Great Feasts. Fuller texts for Vespers and for Lauds at Mattins may be found in the work of Father Seraphim Nassar, Divine Prayers and Services, but this generally omits the canons.

In the translation of the canons, we have been greatly helped by two works: St. Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain, ‘Εορτοδρόμιον (Venice, 1836), and Professor Evgraf Lovyagin, of the St. Petersburg Theological Academy, Bogosluzhebnye kanony na slavyanskom i russkom yazike (St. Petersburg, 1867). The schematic plans for the services are based partly upon K. Nikolsky, Posobie k izucheniyu ustava bogosluzheniya pravoslavnoi Tserkvi (St. Petersburg, 1900), and also upon E. Mercenier, F. Paris, and G. Bainbridge, La prière des églises de rite byzantin (3 volumes, 2nd edition: Chevetogne, 1947–53). This last work we have also found a valuable aid in preparing the introduction and notes.

The translators desire to express their profound gratitude to all who have assisted them. The translation has been undertaken in very close co-operation with Mother Eudoxia, Abbess of the Monastery of the Veil of the Mother of God, Bussy-en-Othe, who has offered advice and help on innumerable points, great and small. We owe more to her than we can readily express, and without her constant encouragement the work would certainly never have been brought to completion. Our sincere thanks are due also to various sisters and friends of the community for their generous help in typing, arranging, and checking the manuscript. Father Kallistos wishes also to thank the Abbot and brethren of the Monastery of St. John the Theologian, Patmos, for the kind hospitality which they extended to him while he was engaged on the revision of the translation. He is especially indebted to Archimandrite Jeremias, Ecclesiarch of the Monastery, who explained to him many of the intricate points concerning the structure of the services. Finally we are extremely grateful to Archpriest Georges Florovsky for his introductory essay.

Mother Mary
Archimandrite Kallistos

The Forefeast of the Annunciation
24 March/6 April 1968
Bussy-en-Othe