Lietuvos istorijos institutas

As part two of a series about the Basic Prayers (Hail Mary, Apostolic Creed and Lord’s Prayer) in Old Lithuanian, the aim of this article is to collect all attestations of the Apostolic Creed translated into Lithuanian prior to 1700. The Apostolic Creed has two forms, the “common” declaratory one and a shorter, interrogative one used during baptism. This interrogative creed is not a shortened form of the declaratory one, but rather the original urban Roman creed, which was expanded during the 3rd century C. E. A total of 46 versions of the Apostolic Creed are attested in the Old Lithuanian era (the 16th and 17th century). The lexical and syntactic structure of the prayers is analyzed and compared as outlined in the first part of the series, to show their dependences and connections (compare Falk, Thies 2023). Four traditions can be discerned: Firstly, an early Lutheran line in Lithuania Minor, beginning with the Forma krikštymo by Mažvydas and continued by Vilentas (as already described by Judžentis 2021), the first translation of Mažvydas in his Catechism is only weakly connected to the aforementioned. Bretkes translation is close to this line as well, but shows variation. Secondly, a later Lutheran line begins with the Königsberg Cathechism of 1670 and is continued e. g. in the scientific works of Nettelhorst and Hartknoch and in many reprints of the 18th century. Third, the Reformed tradition, consisting of the reprints of Knyga Nobažnystės and only loosely connected to the earlier Catechism by Petkevičius; and fourth, the Catholic tradition, which begins relatively late, in the second half of the 17th century, because all earlier Catholic translations e. g. by Daukša can be considered isolated attempts. The traditions of all three denominations can be considered as canonicalized with the third edition of the Königsberg Catechism from 1700, the second edition of Knyga Nobažnystės from 1684 resp. the catechism by Pranas Šrubauskis from 1725.

This article is the first part of a series of publications covering the basic prayers of the Christian denominations. The series will cover the Hail Mary (Ave Maria), the Apostles’ Creed (Credo or Symbolum Apostolicum), and the Lord’s Prayer (Paternoster). The aim of the articles is to collect all Lithuanian variants of these prayers translated before 1700, to compare their lexical and syntactic structure, and to show their dependences and connections. The first part of the series introduces the concepts and methodology; furthermore, it analyses the shortest and most rarely attested prayer Hail Mary. The authors avoid the traditional term poteriai ‘prayers’ because of its multiple meanings: the Lithuanian term poteriai may refer to all three prayers at once, or just to the Lord’s prayer, or even more – the Rosary and smaller prayers. Rather, ‘basic prayers’ are understood as the prayers that each Christian should learn by heart according to his denomination, usually in their own language.