The Elizabethan Bible is a Church Slavonic translation of the Bible, first published during the reign of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna. This text is still used for divine services in the Russian Orthodox Church.
Early Slavonic translations of the Bible
The first translation of Holy Scripture into Church Slavonic is attributed to Saints Cyril and Methodius. With the baptism of Russia, their translations penetrated from Byzantium. One of the oldest manuscripts with biblical texts in Church Slavonic is the Ostromir Gospel of the 11th century.
The first complete (that is, including all the canonical books of the Old and New Testaments) Slavic edition of the Church Slavonic Bible dates back to 1499. This Bible is called the Gennadiev Bible, since its publication was led by the Archbishop of Novgorod Gennady (Gonzov). The Gennadiev Bible was handwritten. The first printed edition of the Slavic Bible was published in 1581 at the initiative of the Lithuanian prince Konstantin Ostrozhsky. This Bible is called Ostrozhskaya.
Beginning of the Elizabethan translation
The history of the Elizabethan Bible begins with the decree of Peter I on the preparation of a new edition of the HolyScriptures in Church Slavonic.
The publication was entrusted to the Moscow printing house. But first it was necessary to check the existing Slavic text with the Greek version (translation of the Seventy Interpreters), find and correct translation inaccuracies and textual discrepancies. For this work, a scientific commission of referees was assembled. It included the Greek monks Sophronius and Ioannikius Likhud (the founders of the Slavic-Greek-Latin Academy in Moscow), as well as Russian clerics and scientists: Archimandrite Theophylact (Lopatinsky), Fyodor Polikarpov, Nikolai Semenov and others.
The Moscow Bible was taken as the basis for editing - the first printed edition of the book in Moscow Russia (1663), a repeating (with a few spelling corrections) text by Ostrozhskaya. The Alexandrian codex became the main Greek model for verification. However, in the process of work, they turned to Latin and Hebrew (Masoretic) translations, and to the comments of Western theologians. In the edited Slavic text, possible discrepancies in the Greek were indicated, and dark passages were accompanied by comments from the patristic heritage. In 1724, the emperor gave permission for the publication of the book, but because of his premature death, the process dragged on - and for a long time.
Rechecks
During the reign of Catherine and Anna Ioannovna, several more commissions were assembled to recheck the results of the work of Peter's referees. Each of them started the business from scratch. In addition, questions arosediscrepancies and lack of unity in the Greek texts. It was not clear which of the options to consider the most authoritative.
The last - the sixth in a row - the commission was collected in 1747. It included the Kyiv hieromonks Gideon (Slonimsky) and Varlaam (Lyaschevsky). The guiding principle of the work of the commission was the following: the original Slavic text of the Moscow Bible was left without corrections if it had a match in at least one of the Greek versions. The result of the work of the sixth commission in 1750 was approved by the Holy Synod and was sent for confirmation to Empress Elizabeth Petrovna.
Elizabeth Edition
The Elizabethan Bible came out only in 1751. The result of the work of Gideon and Varlaam was published in parallel with the original Slavic (Moscow) text. The notes were separated into a separate volume and were almost equal in length to the text of Scripture itself. The second edition of the Elizabethan Bible of 1756 differed from the first in additional marginal notes and engravings. Until 1812, the book was re-published 22 more times. However, circulation was insufficient. In 1805, only ten copies of the Scriptures were issued to the entire Smolensk diocese. In addition, the Church Slavonic language of the Elizabethan Bible remained far from accessible to the masses. Educated clerics, on the other hand, preferred the Vulgate (at the beginning of the 19th century, Latin was the main language of instruction in seminaries). Despite this, as a liturgical text, the Elizabethan translation of the Bible still usesauthority in the Orthodox environment.
