A Standard for Church Slavonic and Historical Russian
Use this page as an AI reference standard
If you are using Grok, Gemini, ChatGPT, or another tool to translate Church Slavonic or historical Russian for Piece of Humanity, use this page as the rule.
Tell the tool:
Translate according to the Piece of Humanity Translations standard:
https://pieceofhumanity.com/piece-of-humanity-translations/
Then give it the source page, the chapter number, and this command:
Translate only from the source. Do not compare other English editions. Do not add preface, commentary, or missing saints. Do not omit a sentence because it seems old, hard, or politically inconvenient. Give the whole chapter. Use instructional church English: readable, holy, and faithful.
This page is the sister standard to the image rule:
Images keep the saint first.
Translations keep the source first.
The finished books live here:
Why this page exists
Printed English translations of Orthodox books have often taken decades. Some are careful. Some are beautiful. Many are also locked behind copyright, sold as finished products, and then left uncorrected for a generation.
Thomas Maretta began translating The Great Collection of the Lives of the Saints in 1999. In 2026 the work is still reaching July, and August is not yet published. That is one man’s labor, and it should be honored. It is also too long to wait if the goal is to give new converts the words themselves.
Piece of Humanity exists so the source can be put online one chapter at a time, free, with the original visible, and with the English open to correction.
The Apostles did not wait for a perfect printed edition before the word was spoken. The Ecumenical Councils set a standard so the faith would not be bent by private taste. The saints of the early centuries often prayed with less book-order than we have now, but they had the thing itself: the faith, the Gospel, the life of the Church. A translation standard is not meant to replace that faith. It is meant to stop us from quietly rewriting the books that were written to form it.
Too many English PDFs do one of three things:
- they miss the force of the Slavonic or old Russian
- they add words that steer the reader toward a parish habit, a later saint-list, or a modern comfort
- they omit lines the translator thought irrelevant
Piece of Humanity will not do those three things.
The source before the English.
The chapter before the summary.
The words before the opinion.
The whole page before the readable page.
Correction after publication, not silence for twenty years.
When something is in the source, it stays.
When something is not in the source, it does not enter the body.
What a Piece of Humanity translation is
A Piece of Humanity translation is a reading translation of a named source.
It is not a critical edition.
It is not a priest’s blessing.
It is not a substitute for the Slavonic or Russian page.
It is not a replacement for a parish, a spiritual father, or the services of the Church.
It is an English witness of one source, set next to that source whenever possible, so a reader can see the original, read the English, and send a correction.
A website cannot pastor you. Find a parish.
The Piece of Humanity Translation Standard
I. Who this page serves
1. No party owns the page
A Bespopovtsy book stays Bespopovtsy. An Old-Rite book stays Old-Rite. A New-Rite book stays New-Rite. A monastic book stays monastic.
Why: If the English “helps” the book into another jurisdiction, the reader no longer has the source. He has a side.
2. One English for every kind of reader
The reader may be priestless, priested, Old Calendar, New Calendar, lay, monastic, or clergy. The sentence still has to carry the same page.
Why: A standard that only sounds safe inside one parish will not be trusted across country walls.
3. Disputes stay outside the body
This page does not settle the seventeenth century inside the translation. Two fingers stay two fingers. A priest stays a priest. A book with no priest does not gain one.
Why: Hidden reconciliation is how a translator becomes a teacher of a different Church than the one that wrote the book.
4. The machine is a clerk
AI may fetch words. It may not catechize, complete a saint-list, or smooth a hard line into the religion it was trained on.
Why: People fear AI because it starts teaching the reader. A clerk can be checked. A hidden teacher cannot.
II. The source
5. Name the source first
State the language, title, printer or manuscript, place, year if known, and the scan used.
Why: Trust begins when a reader can find the same page you used.
6. One source governs one page
Do not mix a 1793 Klintsy book with a later reprint, a parish handout, or a copyrighted English.
Why: Blended sources produce a book that never existed.
7. Keep the original in view
Show the Slavonic or historical Russian whenever you have it. English is the bridge. The source is the ground.
Why: If the original vanishes, the English becomes unchallengeable, and then it becomes a new original.
8. Keep the book’s own numbers
Map red letters, chapter numbers, and Slavonic numerals. If the book says НА, the English says Chapter 51 (НА).
Why: A convert should be able to point at the same place in the scan and in the English.
9. Mark a broken line as broken
If the scan is damaged, say so. Do not guess a doctrine into a hole.
Why: Fluent invention is more dangerous than an honest gap.
10. Quote Scripture as the source quotes it
Do not replace the book’s citation with a favorite English Bible. A familiar verse may stand in a note, not in the body.
Why: The book is teaching from its own Bible-memory. Overwriting that memory is quiet editing of the faith.
III. Completeness
11. Translate the whole unit
A chapter, homily, rule, recipe, or life is translated to the end.
Why: A half-chapter is how “the point” replaces the page.
12. Do not cut what offends a modern reader
Fasting, judgment, the Tsar, hell, bows, unclean thoughts, men’s and women’s rules, old household and medical lines: if they are on the page, they stay.
Why: Omission is the most common way a later age baptizes an older book.
13. Do not cut repetition
If the Slavonic says it twice, the English says it twice unless the second line is only a printing stutter.
Why: In these books, repetition is often the method of teaching.
14. Do not add later saints or later custom
A saint who had not yet lived does not enter an older book. A later parish habit does not enter a page that does not have it.
Why: Added names and customs are how a translation becomes a different catechism.
15. Do not preface the reader into a conclusion
Notes may sit beside the text. They may not sit inside it.
Why: A preface can steer more surely than a false word.
16. Do not merge chapters
A short chapter stays short. The next heading starts the next chapter.
Why: Editors merge what they think is “really one idea.” The book did not.
IV. English that is readable and still holy
17. Use instructional church English
Plain enough for a newly baptized reader. Grave enough for a church book.
Why: If the English is only scholarly, the convert is shut out. If it is only casual, the holiness falls out.
18. Keep the book’s address
Speak to one reader as you, unless the source is clearly speaking to many.
Why: These books were written to a son of the Church, not to a committee.
19. Keep prayers as prayers
“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner” stays in that shape.
Why: A flattened prayer teaches a flattened God.
20. Keep church words as church words
Cross, Theotokos or most pure Mother of God, ground-bow, waist-bow, moleben, dismissal, Hours, Liturgy, spiritual father, Tsar, patriarch. Make a glossary if needed. Do not replace the word with a civic synonym.
Why: Once the vocabulary is modernized, the practice is soon modernized after it.
21. Cut Slavic glue, not Slavic meaning
Remove extra then, for, and behold when English already has the sentence. Keep the order of thought, the ranks, and the feast-logic.
Why: Calque English makes readers think the faith itself is unreadable.
22. Do not fake old English
Thou is not holiness. Accuracy is.
Why: Costume language hides error under incense.
23. Do not fake street English
The book may be plain. It may not become slang.
Why: Ease without reverence trains the reader to treat holy things as content.
24. Spell names the same way across the site
One form for a saint, a city, a rite, and a book title, unless the difference is the point of the source.
Why: Unstable names make a library feel like rumor.
V. What the machine must not do
25. No filling from the open internet
The model may not complete a gap from Wikipedia, other rites, or “what Orthodox people usually say.”
Why: That is how country after country receives one blended religion.
26. No forced harmony of rites
Do not reconcile Old Rite and New Rite, two fingers and three fingers, priestless and priested practice.
Why: Harmony imposed by software is still an imposed theology.
27. No modern recasting of persons
Do not gender-neutralize, democratize, or therapeutize the source. Fathers remain fathers. The Tsaritsa remains the Tsaritsa.
Why: These changes look like kindness and act like erasure.
28. No verdict of “outdated” in the body
The translator may not tell the reader the line no longer matters.
Why: That verdict is an addition, and it is an addition with authority.
29. No fear-cut
If the source is lawful to publish, publish the line. If a line is not in the source, leave it out.
Why: Fear edits faster than scholarship, and the reader never sees the cut.
30. Mark uncertainty
If a word is unsure, say so. Do not hide doubt under a smooth sentence.
Why: A marked doubt can be corrected. A fluent guess becomes tradition.
VI. After English exists
31. Publish the chapter when it is whole
Do not wait decades for a perfect bound volume before the reader may see the page.
Why: A locked book helps the few who can buy it. An open chapter can feed a convert tonight.
32. Leave a door for correction
A correction must name the chapter, the source phrase, and the proposed English.
Why: Free publication without correction is only fast error.
33. Do not scrape a copyrighted English and call it yours
Another printed translation may be named as a witness. It may not be rewritten and posted as the Piece of Humanity text.
Why: The work is to return to the source, not to harvest a monk’s or a priest’s copyrighted labor.
34. Make the first English tight enough for every later language
A phone may carry good English into another tongue. It will also carry bent English.
Why: The internet breaks country walls. A wrong first sentence becomes a wrong world.
35. Build a book that can be lived in
Give linked contents, source images, references, and recordings when you can.
Why: Stewardship is not storage. It is handing the words to the next student.
36. A website cannot pastor you
Find a parish. Find a father in the Church if you have one. This page governs words, not the Mysteries.
Why: If the standard forgets this, it starts to replace the Church it meant to serve.
VII. How the reader can prove we meant it
37. Date the chapter
Every chapter shows when it was first posted and when it was last changed.
Why: A page with no date cannot be trusted. A page with a date can be compared with the scan.
38. Keep a change log
When a line is corrected, say what the old English was, what the new English is, and why the source required the change.
Why: Hidden edits look like narrative control. Visible edits look like repentance.
39. Separate the voice of the book from the voice of the site
The translated body is the book. Notes, buttons, parish links, and “go to Church” sit outside it, in another type or another box.
Why: If the reader cannot see where the 1793 sentence ends, he cannot trust that you did not preach through it.
40. Do not convert the calendar in the body
If the source counts by the old year, the old feast, or the old hour, keep that count. A modern date may stand in a note.
Why: Quiet calendar-changing is one of the fastest ways to take a side without admitting it.
41. Do not translate polemic into a modern fight
If the source speaks of Latins, Germans, Nikonians, or the priestless, keep its words. Do not sharpen them into today’s internet war, and do not soften them into today’s diplomacy.
Why: Both sharpening and softening are authorship.
42. Do not recruit
The translation page does not tell the reader which jurisdiction to join. It may tell him to find a parish. It may not tell him which parish is the only Church.
Why: The moment the book becomes a funnel, every rite will distrust it.
43. Keep old measures as old measures
Poods, sazhens, old money, old hours of the night stay as they are. Explain them beside the line if needed.
Why: Modernizing the furniture of the world makes the past look like a costume.
44. Name people as the book names them
Do not upgrade a sinner into a saint, or reduce a saint to a “spiritual personality.”
Why: Titles are theology. Changing them is not a style choice.
45. Show your work on a hard line
When a sentence is disputed, print the source phrase next to the English.
Why: This is the one habit that makes a translation harder to wave away than a printed book with no facing page.
46. Do not hide the tool
If a draft was made with Grok, Gemini, or ChatGPT, the page may say so. The standard still governs the draft. The tool does not get a byline as teacher.
Why: Secrecy about AI breeds suspicion. Naming the clerk, then judging him by the source, is cleaner.
47. No paywall on the words of the source-project
The chapter stays free. Books, prints, and extras may be sold. The text used to teach a convert does not go behind a lock.
Why: People trust a gift they can inspect more than a product they cannot open.
48. Accept correction from any rite
A priestless reader, an Old Rite priest, a New Rite priest, and a lay scholar use the same form: chapter, source phrase, proposed English.
Why: If only one party is allowed to correct the page, the page belongs to that party.
49. Refuse a translation that cannot be checked
If there is no source image or source transcription, do not present the English as a Piece of Humanity translation. Call it a reading note until the source is shown.
Why: This single rule does more for trust than twenty extra sentences about holiness.
50. The person at the desk does not matter as much as the method
The work may be done at a kitchen table. It may be done in a monastery. The reader is asked to trust the source, the facing page, the date, and the log — not the biography of the typist.
Why: The Church has always been served by unnamed copyists. Authority is in the transmitted page, not in the furniture of the room.
How to prompt the AI
Paste the source text or name the PDF page, then say:
Work only from this source.
Give the complete chapter, nothing from the next chapter.
Do not compare other translations unless I ask you to check a disputed line against this same source.
If a sentence is ugly in English, make it English. If a sentence is holy in the source, do not make it casual.
If you are unsure of one word, keep the sense and mark the uncertainty. Do not invent a smoother theology.
If the tool starts summarizing, stop it and say:
That is a summary. Give the whole chapter.
What readers may do
Read the source.
Read the English.
Mark a line that does not match.
Send the chapter number, the source phrase, and a better English line.
The English is allowed to change.
The source is not.
Once a chapter is in clear English, a phone or browser can carry it into other languages. That is why the first English must be clean. A wrong English becomes a wrong world.
Works consulted
These pages are references, not masters over the Slavonic page. They justify the rule. They do not replace it.
Translator’s duty
- FIT Translator’s Charter (1963 / 1994): https://library.fit-ift.org/public/Resources/Documents/FIT_Translators_Charter_1994.pdf
- UNESCO Recommendation on the Legal Protection of Translators and Translations (Nairobi, 1976): https://www.unesco.org/en/legal-affairs/recommendation-legal-protection-translators-and-translations-and-practical-means-improve-status
- American Translators Association Code of Ethics: https://www.atanet.org/about-us/code-of-ethics/
Why two faithful sentences can still sound different
- Formal and dynamic / functional equivalence: https://www.ej-lang.org/index.php/ejlang/article/view/138
- Katharine Barnwell, Bible Translation: An Introductory Course in Translation Principles (SIL): https://www.sil.org/resources/publications/entry/84799
Church-book rules against adding and cutting
- Liturgiam authenticam (2001): https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?id=3559
- USCCB, “The Art of Pastoral Translation,” part two: https://www.usccb.org/prayer-and-worship/the-mass/frequently-asked-questions/art-of-translation-part-two
These last two are Roman Catholic instructions for Latin liturgical books. Piece of Humanity is not under them. We cite them because they state a rule we also keep: translate the text integrally, without omissions, additions, paraphrase, or gloss in the body.
Orthodox English as a working field, not a single official voice
- St. Anthony’s Greek Orthodox Monastery, “About the Translation”: https://stanthonysmonastery.org/pages/about-the-translation
- Orthodox Arts Journal, “In Defense of Metrical Translations”: https://orthodoxartsjournal.org/in-defense-of-metrical-translations/
- Pemptousia, “The Challenge of Liturgical Translations”: https://pemptousia.com/2015/10/the-challenge-of-liturgical-translation/
- Ponomar Project list of Slavonic and English service texts: https://www.ponomar.net/english.html
- Introduction to an English Apostol based on a Slavonic Apostol: https://www.orthodox.net/apostol/introduction.html
- Old Believer Resources on Church Slavonic Scripture in English: https://oldbeliever.org/en/blog/has-the-church-slavonic-bible-been-translated-to-english/
There is no single official English for Church Slavonic. No patriarchate, no monastery, and no model has been given that authority over every book. That is not a defect in this page. That is why this page exists.
Piece of Humanity does not ask the world to trust a person. It asks the world to trust a method:
the source is named,
the source is shown,
the chapter is whole,
the English can be corrected,
and the body of the book is not used to end a church quarrel.
If a line is wrong, the scan will show it.
If a line is missing, the scan will show it.
If a line was added, the scan will show it.
That is the whole claim.
Read the book in its own century.
Listen to what it says.
Then go to Church.
A website cannot pastor you.
Find a parish.
Explore the translations:
https://pieceofhumanity.com/explore-the-translations/