Who translated the Bible into the Slavic language?

Answer 1

The entire Bible was translated from Greek into Old Church Slavonic over the course of about 635 years. The translation was begun around the year 864 by Greek Orthodox evangelizing monks Cyril and Methodius who are venerated as exemplary saints among the Orthodox Christian churches and as "the Apostles to the Slavs." The process of translating The Bible was not carried out in isolation from the tradition of the Orthodox Church, but was an organic and integral part of translating all the liturgical texts in use among the Orthodox Christian Greeks into Slavonic so as to preserve the Apostolic doctrine, Eucharistically-centered worship, and prayers for use in the Orthodox churches composed of Slavic Christians. The liturgies of the Greek Church were so rich and extensive that this process took several centuries. Most certainly Cyril, Methodius, and their fellow monks would have begun with the translation of the Gospels, followed by the Acts, the Apostolic Epistles, and then the Psalms. The process of Bible translation continued in the Slavic Orthodox Churches and naturally included the translation of the so-called "deuterocanonical" books (e.g. Sirach, Wisdom of Solomon, Baruch, etc.) since they had always been in use as Scripture among the Greek-speaking Christians from the very beginning, being part of the Septuagint--the Orthodox Old Testament canon (although these books were not included in the Hebrew canon as defined by Jewish Mishnaic rabbis after the founding of the Christian Church). With recourse to the Latin Vulgate at times, in order to finish the translation, the entire text of the Bible in Slavonic was finally complete by the year 1499. So the Slavic Church was already up and running well before the completion of their Bible just as the first-century Church was in full operation well before the New Testament canon (i.e., the Bible) was completed. Revisions of the Slavonic Bible have occurred among the Russian Orthodox to maintain comprehensibility and clarify Orthodox Biblical interpretation and other revisions have been made by sectarian groups proselytizing in Slavic Orthodox lands to fit their own conventions and detract from the sway of the Orthodox Church among the Slavic peoples.