Talk:Church Slavonic in Romania

Questions

1. "After the Romanians joined the Orthodox Church, Slavonic has been the language used in liturgy by the Romanian Orthodox Church" -- didn't Romanian Christians use Latin and/or Greek for several centuries before the Slavs arrived in the region?

AFAIK, they were isolated from the rest of the Christians, so it can't be argued they were either Orthodox or Catholic, but both churches claim as their own. They used a form of early Christianity, but I don't know much about it. What's clear is that a contact with the Greeks came mostly through the Slavs. bogdan (talk) 09:00, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, this was happening pre-Great Schism, so technically the terms "Orthodox" and "Catholic" are anachronistic; I was referring to their rites (Latin or Byzantine). Also, there are Greek inscriptions at Sucidava from well before the Slavic arrival. Regardless: leading church historian Păcuraru writes: "slavii au reuşit să impună limba slavă în cultul Bisericii noastre - începând cu secolul al X-lea – şi care s-a menţinut până în secolul al XVII-lea. " (The 10th century was also slightly before the Schism, so there was still no Orthodox/Catholic distinction.) I'll rephrase slightly. Biruitorul ^Talk 18:14, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Most likely, some early version of the Latin rite. We'd have borrowed Byzantine terminology together with the Byzantine rite. Since we had no written language or lacked any scripture, I expect that the Romanian version of Christianity was more like a mythology about God, Jesus and the saints.

Romanians probably began using Slavonic between 950-1150. I don't think there's any evidence to pinpoint to an exact date. bogdan (talk) 18:42, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

2. Was there a particular point at which the Church adopted Romanian as the liturgical language (ca. 1860), or was the replacement gradual? Biruitorul ^Talk 00:58, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

It was gradual, but IIRC, its death blow came in the 1860s, when the Romanian government forbade the use of Slavonic in church.

BTW, there should be something written about this banning of Church Slavonic. Some monks didn't agreed with this and it had to be implemented by force: I read somewhere that in some monasteries, the authorities replaced the Slavonic books with Romanian-language books and locked up the Slavonic books in a cabinet, warning the head of the monastery that it is forbidden to use them for daily prayers. bogdan (talk) 09:00, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

This article is misleading

Here are some terms that need to be considered: Old Bulgarian - the original 9th century form of Old Church Slavonic (OCS), which was also the spoken language in the First Bulgarian Empire and the oldest written form of the contemporary Bulgarian language. The Bulgarian language goes through the following stages of development: Old Bulgarian (what this article is about) (9th-11th cent CE), Middle Bulgarian (11th - end of 14th cent CE), New Bulgarian - 15th-17th cent CE, Modern Bulgarian - after 1800.

Old Church Slavonic - In the 9th and 10th century the Old Bulgarian language spreads to Serbia, Wallachia, Moldavia, Russia, and even Moravia. In the Slavic speaking regions many local recensions appear in the next centuries under influence from the local Slavic dialects, so we call these varieties Old Church Slavonic - they are no longer the Old Bulgarian original and they are mostly used in the Church.

But, in Romania, such recensions don't appear, because the local writers do not speak a Slavic dialect, and they take their knowledge of the language directly from the literary centers in the Bulgarian empire (Veliki Preslav and later Tarnovgrad), of which Wallachia and at times Moldavia are integral parts for a period of 400 years total. In effect, they are using the living Old Bulgarian language. As the Bulgarian language develops and goes through its Middle and New Bulgarian stages - so does the Slavic literature of the church and administration in Romania. In the 12-14th century in Romania most documents are written in Middle Bulgarian (a language which has grammatical differences from OCS). And in fact, most literature in the New Bulgarian language (15-17th cent) today comes not from Bulgaria, but from the Romanian principalities (the Bulgarian state is destroyed by the Turks in 1396 and so very little documents and books are written in the next centuries).

It is believed that many grammatical innovations in New Bulgarian are actually influenced by the Romance language of the Romanian scribes. This article gives Romanian culture a much smaller role (or none) than it really had in the maintenance and development of that language. It deserves more credit.

This is why it is factually incorrect to say that it was OCS that was used in Romania, and especially not up until the 17th century, because the language by then had evolved severely, just like the rest of the Bulgarian language. What was used in Romania was the Bulgarian language in all of its gradual stages, which after the Old Bulgarian stagestart to differ significantly from OCS.

I'm not changing anything on the article, but just posting this for information - just in case any of the more regular contributors are actually interested to research into this further and make the article truthful to historical fact. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:30A:C007:6D10:7C0B:31A4:7E29:69EA (talk) 15:39, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

End of Church Slavonic

The end of Church Slavonic in Romania was by and large in the 17th century. There was no Slavonic in the 19th century, either before or after 1860. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.136.181.58 (talk) 20:22, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Serbian influence

like Bulgarian empire.The present-day Romania had never been under Serbian rule.

Yes, but there was a cultural influence. bogdan (talk) 18:49, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

being still occasionally used in the Orthodox Church until early 18th century

For preaching, the Orthodox Church did indeed stop using Slavonic in 18th century, but the church continued using the language in some of its monasteries up until it was banned in mid-19th century (part of Cuza's reforms), so it's not quite correct what it says now. bogdan (talk) 21:28, 10 March 2014 (UTC)