Difficult Places from the Easter Canon in the Church-Slavic Language (Correction Options on the Material of Song 4)

Among the rich hymnographic heritage of the Church, special attention should be paid to the works of the Monk John of Damascus, and above all the canon of Holy Pascha – the most important celebration, a holiday of holidays glorifying the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. Of course, in the Slavic tradition, the canon of Easter receives its own development, which is associated, above all, with the fact that this work was translated from Greek into Church Slavonic.

The article makes an attempt to present, corrections for difficult passages of the Easter canon in Church Slavonic (using the example of selected lexemes from Song 4). The work is based on some Russian and Church Slavonic translations, as well as some dictionaries. This will allow to make it more understandable for modern people. In addition, this study presents not just a linguistic analysis of the liturgical text, albeit based on a large number of sources, but also an explanation of its theological meaning, which is necessary in each case, since in his hymnographic texts the Monk John Damascene seeks to reveal many dogmatic truths: about the unity of the essence of the Most Holy Trinities and differences of Hypostases, the Divine and human nature of the Lord Jesus Christ, the unity of the Person of the Savior, His Nativity from the Blessed Virgin Mary, the salvation of mankind through the atoning sacrifice of the Son of God. From this it becomes clear that no amount of linguistic research will make the liturgical text clear by itself. Knowledge of both the Church Slavonic language itself and the texts of Holy Scripture, theological, patristic and homiletic works, the paraphrases of which are often found in hymnography, are required.