West Church Slavonic čbstb ‘solemnity’ in the history of early
Slavonic Christian terminology. - The Roman church used national languages
deliberately in its missionary and educational activities. Thanks to the
language politics of Aquileian and Bavarian dioceses in Slavic lands, Germanic,
Romance and Slavic language contacts in middle and south-western Europe resulted
in the emergence of the earliest Slavonic Christian terminology of Latin, Old
High German and Romance provenance. When Old Church Slavonic writings originated
in Pannonian and Moravian lands after 863, western vocabulary was transferred
into newly composed OCS texts. The Western Church Slavonic lexeme
čbstb ‘solemnity’ reflects a Medieval Latin and Old High
German semantic shift, cf. lat. honor →
solemnitas, and OHG ērhaftida (lit.
'honesty') as a gloss for lat. solemnitas. The history of the
term čbstb 'solemnity' indicates that Slavic priests of Roman
rite, who practiced Latin and graduated from Carolingian schools, translated OCS
texts of Roman rite along with Methodius and his companions who translated OCS
Bible from Greek.