Old Church Slavonic

## slověnĭskŭ językŭ

Cyrillic alphabet

Glagolitic alphabet

### Native to

Formerly in Slavic areas, under the influence of Byzantium (both Catholic and Orthodox)

### Region

Central Europe, Eastern Europe and Southeastern Europe

### Era

9th–11th centuries; then evolved into several variants of Church Slavonic

### Language family

Indo-European>Balto-Slavic>Slavic>South>Eastern>Old Church Slavonic

### Writing system

Glagolitic, Cyrillic

**Old Church Slavonic** or **Old Slavonic**, also known as **Old Church Slavic** or **Old Slavic**, was the first Slavic literary language (autonym словѣ́ньскъ ѩꙁꙑ́къ, *slověnĭskŭ językŭ*). It is also referred to as **Paleo-Slavic** (*Paleoslavic*) or **Palaeo-Slavic** (*Palaeoslavic*), not to be confused with the Proto-Slavic. It is often abbreviated to **OCS**.

The 9th-century Byzantine missionaries Saints Cyril and Methodius are credited with standardizing the language and using it in translating the Bible and other Ancient Greek ecclesiastical texts as part of the Christianization of the Slavs.[5][6] It is thought to have been based primarily on the dialect of the 9th century Byzantine Slavs living in the Province of Thessalonica (now in Greece).

It played an important role in the history of the Slavic languages and served as a basis and model for later Church Slavonic traditions, and some Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholic churches use this later Church Slavonic as a liturgical language to this day.

As the oldest attested Slavic language, OCS provides important evidence for the features of Proto-Slavic, the reconstructed common ancestor of all Slavic languages.

## History

The language was standardized for the mission of the two apostles to Great Moravia (the territory of today's western Slovakia and Czech Republic; see Glagolitic alphabet for details). For that purpose, Cyril and his brother Methodius started to translate religious literature to Old Church Slavonic, allegedly based on the Slavic dialects spoken in the hinterland of their hometown, Thessaloniki, in today's Greece.

As part of the preparation for the mission, in 862/863, the Glagolitic alphabet was created and the most important prayers and liturgical books, including the Aprakos Evangeliar (a Gospel Book lectionary containing only feast-day and Sunday readings), the Psalter, and Acts of the Apostles, were translated. (The Gospels were also translated early, but it is unclear whether Sts. Cyril or Methodius had a hand in this.)

The language and the alphabet were taught at the Great Moravian Academy (Slovak: *Veľkomoravské učilište*)
 and were used for government and religious documents and books between 863 and 885. The texts written during this phase contain characteristics of the Slavic vernaculars in Great Moravia.

In 885, the use of Old Church Slavonic in Great Moravia was prohibited by Pope Stephen V in favour of Latin.

Students of the two apostles, who were expelled from Great Moravia in 886, brought the Glagolitic alphabet to the First Bulgarian Empire. There it was taught at two literary schools: the Preslav Literary School and the Ohrid Literary School.

The Glagolitic alphabet was originally used at both schools, though the Cyrillic script was developed early on at the Preslav Literary School where it superseded Glagolitic.

The texts written during this era exhibit certain linguistic features of the vernaculars of the First Bulgarian Empire. Old Church Slavonic spread to other South-Eastern, Central, and Eastern European Slavic territories, most notably Croatia, Serbia, Bohemia, Lesser Poland, and principalities of the Kyivean Rus' while retaining characteristically South Slavic linguistic features.

Later texts written in each of those territories then began to take on characteristics of the local Slavic vernaculars and, by the mid-11th century, Old Church Slavonic had diversified into a number of regional varieties (known as *recensions*). These local varieties are collectively known as the Church Slavonic language.

Apart from the Slavic countries, Old Church Slavonic has been used as a liturgical language by the Romanian Orthodox Church, as well as a literary and official language of the princedoms of Wallachia and Moldavia (see Old Church Slavonic in Romania), before gradually being replaced by Romanian during the 16th to 17th centuries.

Church Slavonic maintained a prestigious status, particularly in Russia, Ukraine for many centuries – among Slavs in the East it had a status analogous to that of Latin in Western Europe, but had the advantage of being substantially less divergent from the vernacular tongues of average parishioners.

Some Orthodox churches, such as the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, Russian Orthodox Church, Serbian Orthodox Church, Ukrainian Orthodox Church and Macedonian Orthodox Church – Ohrid Archbishopric, as well as several Eastern Catholic Churches, still use Church Slavonic in their services and chants today.

## Script

Initially Old Church Slavonic was written with the Glagolitic alphabet, but later Glagolitic was replaced by

Cyrillic, which was developed in the First Bulgarian Empire by a decree of Boris I of Bulgaria in the 9th century.

The local Bosnian Cyrillic alphabet, known as *Bosančica*, was preserved in Bosnia and parts of Croatia, while a variant of the angular Glagolitic alphabet was preserved in Croatia. See Early Cyrillic alphabet for a detailed description of the script and information about the sounds it originally expressed.