Old Church Slavonic

American  

noun

1. the oldest attested Slavic language, an ecclesiastical language written first by Cyril and Methodius in a Bible translation of the 9th century and continued in use for about two centuries. It represents the South Slavic, Bulgarian dialect of 9th-century Salonika with considerable addition of other South and West Slavic elements. OCS

---

Old Church Slavonic British  

noun

1. the oldest recorded Slavonic language: the form of Old Slavonic into which the Bible was translated in the ninth century, preserved as a liturgical language of various Orthodox Churches: belonging to the South Slavonic subbranch of languages

---

Etymology

Origin of Old Church Slavonic

First recorded in 1875–80

Example Sentences

Anglo-Saxon, Sanskrit, Lithuanian, Old Church Slavonic, Albanian, Neo-Greek, Turkish and Russian to become one of the most fabulous of philologists.

From Time Magazine Archive

The cathedral's choir insisted on singing in Old Church Slavonic, eschewing the English now used in most O.C.A. parishes.

From Time Magazine Archive

Intellectuals are converting, and long dormant theological debates are reviving on such matters as whether to replace Old Church Slavonic with modern Russian in the liturgy.

From Time Magazine Archive

The earliest known texts written in Romania are chronicles in Old Church Slavonic.

From Area Handbook for Romania by Bernier, Donald W.

Old Church Slavonic remained the liturgical language until the late sixteenth century, when it began to be replaced by Romanian.

From Area Handbook for Romania by Bernier, Donald W.