Morning and Evening Prayers 2.0

The old version of the Morning and Evening Prayers was my first post to receive over 1,000 views, and it contains comments on its execution, making it a still-valuable reference for this new version:

Morning and Evening Prayers

For this little ultra-niche blog, it is a remarkable event for a post to reach this marker. But the interest in pre-Schism piety is broad, and this little home prayer rule is a basic point of inquiry, since it is so easy to utilize.

For a long time, when making English liturgical texts, I have leaned heavily on already existing translations, to facilitate their execution and ensure their production does not grind to a halt. Unfortunately, these pre-existing translations all come with their own inadequacies, as do all of mine. I will leave my criticisms at that.

Translating is an art of balance - the balancing of rendering the original words in a way that is literal almost always means that idioms in one language do not have meaning or significance in the target language. So the poor translator must choose to what extent he must change the source language. To make it as easily intelligible to the target audience as it was to the original audience, while straying as little as possible from the actual source words and grammar.

This is an impossible task. Truly. All attempts fall short of an individual reader’s hopes for what that balance should entail.

But, when it comes to divine texts: Scripture, liturgical texts, and so on, the balance, in my view, begins to shift heavily toward preserving the literal emphasis over properly re-idiomizing texts into the target language. This is an opinion, of course, but when one values reading the early patristic interpretations of Scripture, it is clear that even the smallest, seemingly insignificant words can be expounded upon to hold profound meaning.

Reading some of Origen’s commentaries (on Romans, to take one of the finer examples), should strike terror into the heart of any translator!

Thus, as an expression of my own priorities in translation, I present an updated translation of the Morning and Evening Prayers, as practiced by Old Believers. The source page used for the text, in civil script, is from the Old Believer Church website of the Moscow Metropolia.

The criteria I followed was to render all the grammatical forms and tenses of the words literally. At the same time, to render archaic texts requires utilizing, in most cases, archaic English, as, in general, the older the English, the more its ability to mimic inflected languages increases. If you go back to the very days of Old English (Anglo-Saxon, as it used to be called), English was an inflected language. Now, to render many cases into modern English demands straying from the literal.

Note also, that the use of capital letters is arbitrary and changes dramatically across time and language. Modern Russian is almost at the level of German in its copious usage of capitals in divine texts now. But capitalizing pronouns is a very recent development, and as such, I have forgone its usage. I know that for some, it is as important as Scripture itself, however, this is anti-historical. Capital pronouns are the new kid on the block.

I take it as a given, that the older forms of English are simply more elegant and beautiful. And our very words, in prayer, are an offering unto God. Thus, they ought not be of a common variety, but of the highest form we can afford. This is the very justification for the luxury of church vessels and adornments, and by contrast, the insult inherent in those religions that shun them by embracing minimalism in their architecture and adornments.

Along with no capitalized pronouns, I also prefer the older Holy Ghost - the beautiful and rich Saxon title, over the lighter and more “Johnny-come-lately” Latinized “Holy Spirit”.

But, I have pontificated enough. Here are the prayers, in as literal, and elegant a way as I can achieve.

For those who can read Church Slavonic, it is important to be able to reference between the two, and can also facilitate checking my work. Thus, I have used a two-column format to display the texts side-by-side. The rubrics are only in English. In the last version, all the text was in the post, here, since the formatting was of heightened importance, as well as the use of Church Slavonic, to present the text in the post is not possible on Substack. So, I must utilize the pdf for that. I know that means that most will not download it, but that is OK.

My Google Drive link to the Morning and Evening Prayers

I would greatly appreciate any critical feedback, or any errors one may find (they must be there!)