Quelques réflexions sur la traduction en langue française de l’Acathiste du Buisson Ardent
A Few Considerations on the Translation in French Language of the Akathist Hymn to the Burning Bush

Summary/Abstract: This paper aims to a translation analysis of the French version of the Akathist Hymn to the “Burning Bush” (Rugul Aprins), written between 1945 and 1958, by the poet, who became a monk, Daniil Sandu Tudor, imprisoned by the authorities of the communist regime for his religious, mystical beliefs. Initiator of the hesychast movement “The Burning Bush” from the Antim Monastery in Bucharest, he died at the Aiud Prison, in 1962. It is a translation of the first version of this Akathist, spread in France between 1958-1960, through father André Scrima, who otherwise participated in conceiving it, together with father archimandrite Placide Deseille, at that time a Catholic monk in the great Abbey of Bellefontaine. It is mentioned the context in which this translation appeared, with regard to the reasons on which it is based and there are thoroughly analyzed the French versions of the first Kontakion and of the third Ikos. The analysis focuses on the translation principles used by the father translator, the literality observed with discernment and the translation creativity and insists on the expressiveness and the semantic explicitation of numerous translation options. In addition, the analysis envisages the translation strategies of some important theological themes, profoundly spiritual, covered by this Akathist. The main purpose of translating this text in French language is that of using it, through reading, as a means of prayer by the French and Francophone believers, who became Orthodox through conversion. It is surprising the fact that this Akathist, the most profoundly spiritual and mystic from al the Akathist hymns included in the Orthodox hymnography of these two cultures, Romanian and French, was translated in French language since 1960, soon after its creation, being published in an Occidental society, deeply secularized and generally, incompatible with any form of mysticism.

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