Church Slavonic

In the movie "Адмиралъ" there is a scene where Admiral Kolchak recites some parts of the Russian Bible which, it turns out, is written in Church Slavonic. But it seems that fellow sailors understand what he says. Even I myself could spot many familiar words. Is that language close to modern Russian? Do contemporary Russians understand Church Slavonic? If they do, they must be able to understand other Slavic languages too, as Church Slavonic is the mother of all Slavic languages...
In particular, do Russians and Yugoslavs understand each other?

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Originally Posted by Misha Tal

In the movie "Адмиралъ" there is a scene where Admiral Kolchak recites some parts of the Russian Bible which, it turns out, is written in Church Slavonic. But it seems that fellow sailors understand what he says. Even I myself could spot many familiar words. Is that language close to modern Russian? Do contemporary Russians understand Church Slavonic? If they do, they must be able to understand other Slavic languages too, as Church Slavonic is the mother of all Slavic languages...
In particular, do Russians and Yugoslavs understand each other?

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Russian and Serbian/Croatian are not mutually or asymmetrically intelligible.
Same for other South Slavic languages. Common origin does not guarantee intelligibility as languages mutate and develop.
Church Slavonic is not the "mother". Rather, there is a hypothetical Proto-Slavic language. You have to keep in mind that vernacular language differs from liturgical language. Peasants might go to hear the liturgy but it's not the language they speak. National languages became codified relatively late (18-19th century with the rise of nationalism).

Church Slavonic can hardly be considered a prototype language.
If you are interested in the prehistory of the Russian language, you can visit this site about birch bark documents of Novgorod:
http://gramoty.ru
If you can read the transcription, you will notice that the language of Novgorod was much closer to modern Russian than Church Slavonic.

I'm sure every Catholic knows what
Pater noster, qui est in coelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum.
means, but that does not mean that they know Latin.