Church Slavonic Bible (Elizabeth Bible) Slavonic

Orthodox
Old Testament source: Septuagint (Greek)
New Testament source: Byzantine text
Orthodox
Formal (word for word)
1751
GNU GPL v3 (digital edition; the text is public domain)

At a glance

Language: Church Slavonic
Tradition: Orthodox — A revision of the older Slavonic Bible (Ostrog 1581, Moscow 1663) against the Greek, begun on the order of Peter I and completed under Empress Elizabeth by commissions of the Russian Holy Synod, which reviewed every correction.
Church approval: Yes — The authorised liturgical Bible of the Russian Orthodox Church; all later printings follow the 1756 edition. Its use by other Slavonic-using Churches (Serbian, Bulgarian, Ukrainian…) is likely but SOURCE NOT VERIFIED for this edition.
Old Testament source: Septuagint (Greek) — Septuagint: the commissions corrected the Slavonic against printed Greek editions (Walton's Polyglot / Codex Alexandrinus, the Aldine, Complutensian and Sixtine editions, Grabe). Readings kept from the 1663 Bible only where a Greek witness supported them; readings resting only on the Hebrew or the Vulgate were bracketed. Tobit and Judith were newly translated from the Greek; 3 Ezra (no Greek original) was corrected against the Vulgate. The Psalter was not revised (the older Slavonic text was kept).
New Testament source: Byzantine text — The traditional Slavonic New Testament, corrected against printed Greek editions; Byzantine-type text.
Canon: Orthodox — 1 Esdras (2 Ezra in Slavonic), 3 Ezra (Latin 2 Esdras), Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach, Letter of Jeremiah, Baruch, 1–3 Maccabees, Prayer of Manasseh (end of 2 Chronicles), Psalm 151, Greek parts of Esther and Daniel
Style: Formal (word for word)
Year: Printed in St Petersburg at the end of 1751; corrected 2nd edition 1756 (later printings follow 1756). Digital text: Ponomar Project, Unicode Church Slavonic.
Translators: Revision commissions under the Holy Synod, 1712–1751 (Sofroniy Likhud and Feofilakt Lopatinsky; Stefan Kalinovsky with Vasily Kozlovsky; Faddey Kokuylovich and Kirill Florinsky; Varlaam Lyashchevsky and Gedeon Slonimsky); 1756 corrections by Hieromonk Gedeon (Slonimsky).
Reading level: Liturgical Church Slavonic; readable with practice by Russian, Ukrainian, Serbian and Bulgarian speakers.
Verse numbering: Russian Synodal (Greek Psalm numbers)
Licence: GNU GPL v3 (digital edition; the text is public domain) — Church Slavonic text: Ponomar Project (github.com/typiconman/ponomar), © 2006–2018 Aleksandr Andreev and others, licensed under the GNU General Public License v3 or later. Changes for this site (2026-10-18): lectionary pericope markers, marginal glosses and the closing note of Genesis removed, Psalm verses renumbered to the Russian Synodal numbering, joined verses noted; the words are unchanged.
Text source: Ponomar Project (ponomar-elis)

Notes

Church Slavonic in its traditional (Synodal) spelling, with accents, breathings and titlo abbreviations, shown in the Ponomar font (SIL Open Font License).
Psalms are numbered as in the Septuagint (Psalm 50 = Psalm 51 in English Bibles); verse numbers follow the Russian Synodal Bible, where a psalm's title is verse 1 (or 1–2).
Exodus 36–39 follow the Septuagint's order; the digital source has no verse divisions there, so Exodus 36:8–end and chapters 37, 38 and 39 each appear as one block.
Not shown: the lectionary pericope numbers (зача́ло) and the marginal glosses of the digital source. The Prayer of Manasseh stands at the end of 2 Chronicles (36:24), as in the Slavonic Bible; the prologue of Sirach and the opening verse of Lamentations are joined to verse 1.
As in the Slavonic Bible, Esther includes the Greek additions within its ten chapters, and Daniel includes the Song of the Three Young Men (3:24–90), Susanna (chapter 13) and Bel and the Dragon (chapter 14); Psalm 151 follows Psalm 150.
Psalms 13, 71, 92, 127 and 129 divide their verses differently from the Russian Synodal Bible, so a few verse numbers there do not match it; the line "The songs of David, son of Jesse, are ended" opens Psalm 72 (with its title) instead of closing Psalm 71.

About

The Church Slavonic Bible read in the services of the Russian Orthodox Church: the 'Elizabeth Bible' of 1751, corrected in 1756 and reprinted ever since. Its Old Testament is the Septuagint in Slavonic, its New Testament the Byzantine Greek text, and it contains the books the Orthodox Church reads beyond the Hebrew canon. This edition keeps the traditional orthography, shown in a Church Slavonic font.

Strengths

The Russian Church's liturgical Bible
Septuagint Old Testament with the Orthodox canon
Traditional orthography in Unicode

Things to know

Psalm verses renumbered for this site to the Russian Synodal numbering (title = verse 1 or 1–2); the digital source gives titles as verse 0.
Exodus 36–39 (Septuagint order) have no verse divisions in the digital source.
Pericope (зача́ло) markers and marginal glosses of the source are not shown.
GPL v3 notice must travel with the text.

Not yet verified

Who first digitised the text that the Ponomar Project converted to Unicode: SOURCE NOT VERIFIED
Liturgical use of this edition outside the Russian Church: SOURCE NOT VERIFIED
Whether printed Slavonic Psalters number the psalm titles as verses: SOURCE NOT VERIFIED (this site uses the Russian Synodal numbering)

Profile checked 2026-10-18.

Books in this edition (77 books)

Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, 1 Kings, 2 Kings, 1 Chronicles, 2 Chronicles, 1 Esdras O (C) (P), Ezra, Nehemiah, Tobit O C (P), Judith O C (P), Esther, 1 Maccabees O C (P), 2 Maccabees O C (P), 3 Maccabees O, Psalms, Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Wisdom of Solomon O C (P), Sirach O C (P), Hosea, Amos, Micah, Joel, Obadiah, Jonah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Baruch O C (P), Lamentations, Letter of Jeremiah O (C) (P), Ezekiel, Daniel, 2 Esdras (4 Ezra) (O) (C) (P), Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 Thessalonians, 2 Thessalonians, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon, Hebrews, James, 1 Peter, 2 Peter, 1 John, 2 John, 3 John, Jude, Revelation

Not in this edition: Esther (Greek), 4 Maccabees, Prayer of Manasseh, Odes

Letters show which canons include a book: O Orthodox, C Catholic, P Protestant (in brackets: printed as Apocrypha or in an appendix).

Publisher's statement

Church Slavonic Bible (Elizabeth Bible, Synodal edition text) in Unicode Church Slavonic orthography, from the Ponomar Project (https://github.com/typiconman/ponomar, Ponomar/languages/cu/bible/elis, commit 0af645f438856f45c22026912d2e4a9ce495e531).
The Ponomar repository is distributed under the GNU General Public License, version 3 or later ("Copyright 2006-2018 Aleksandr Andreev and others"). The Bible text itself (1751; revised 1756) is in the public domain.
Converted for this reader: lectionary pericope markers and marginal glosses removed; Psalm verses renumbered to the Russian Synodal numbering. The words are unchanged.

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