Source: OCA Diocese of the West
March 31, 2016
One of the brotherhood of the Monastery of St John, Fr Cosmas, is back at the monastery for Great Lent, Pascha, and Bright Week. Since October of last year, he has been in the Autonomous Territorial Unit of Gagauzia, a semi-independent area of southern Moldova, and will be returning there after Bright Week. He is on long-term assignment there at the request of His Grace, Anatoliy, of Kaul and Komrat, of the Exarchate of Moldova, and with the blessing of both His Eminence Archbishop Benjamin and Fr Innocent, father superior of the Monastery of St John. Fr Cosmas is helping to prepare liturgical materials and other religious texts in the Gagauz language for use in the churches of that area.
One of the most interesting developments during his time there during the last few months was an organizational meeting of people who have been doing this work, which took place at the Monastery of the Iveron Icon of the Mother of God in the city of Komrat, the city where Fr Cosmas is living while over there. In attendance were the abbess Mother Dionysia, the elder Archimandrite Ioan, a priest, Fr Sergiy Kopușçu, his younger brother Viktor, Kristina Koçan, and Fr Cosmas. A great deal of constructive discussion took place, tasks were assigned, long-range goals were set, and the participants agreed about ways in which they could help one another with the work.
Fr Cosmas had already prepared a preliminary edition of the Psalter over the last three years, basing his edition on the work of Fr Mihail Çakir, who published an edition in the early part of the twentieth century, using a system of spelling which is quite different from what is used for the language today, and also containing a number of variant readings. Fr Cosmas brought this new edition of the Psalms with him when he came in October, and it has been distributed to three monasteries and several parish churches for field-testing. The Psalter has also provided a large amount of material to help put together preliminary texts for the services of the hours — which are also now in use in the churches there — and to begin work putting together vespers. Matins will be next, of course. Meanwhile, Kristina is translating the biblical odes from the Russian text so that they can be added as an appendix to the Psalter, and Fr Cosmas is correcting her work against the Greek text. Viktor is adding the priest’s silent prayers to the text of the liturgies of St John Chrysostom and St Basil, using the pioneering work of Fr Mihail as his basis.
Also underway is a translation into the Gagauz language of the article “Do Not Resent, Do Not React, Keep Inner Stillness” by Metropolitan Jonah (Paffhausen), former abbot of the Monastery of St John. This article has been such an important part of the heritage of our monastery that it was felt that it would be an important gift from us, and from our diocese, to the people of Gagauzia.
