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The Orthodox Pages
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What language does the Russian Orthodox use in their services?
Answer to Question 37.
The Russian Church uses Church Slavonic in her services. Old Church Slavonic or Church Slavonic is a literary language which developed from the language used by St Cyril and St Methodius, 9th century missionaries from Byzantium, to translate the bible and other religious works. Cyril and Methodius based their translations on a Slavonic dialect of the Thessalonika area and invented a new alphabet, Glagolitic, in order to write them. Sometime during the 10th century AD a new alphabet appeared which was known as Cyrillic and named after St Cyril, though it was possibly invented by St Clement of Ohrid. The Cyrillic alphabet was used to write the Old Church Slavonic language and was later adapated to write many other languages. Old Church Slavonic was used as the liturgical language of the Russian Orthodox church between the 9th and 12th centuries. A more modern form of the language, known as Church Slavonic, appeared during the 14th century and is still used in the Russian Orthodox church.
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