Translating the Symbols of Triduum

The aim of this paper is to apply tools of cognitive poetics for exploring poetics of religious hymns in the mentality of contemporary Polish, Ukrainian and English speakers. The texts under study are hymns from Triduum which is a very special time within Roman Catholic Passiontide. The Latin originals as well as Polish, Ukrainian and English translations are used to show how conceptual imagery transforms in the perceptive process, which is located between the ancient text and today’s views. The process is even more complicated when these texts are interpreted by Orthodox and Greek Catholic believers. Although the biblical prototexts remain the same, the rite has elaborated their own theological hermeneutics which mostly coincide with the primary sacred language, i.e. Latin. It is also interesting to testify if a language, whose nation has mostly belonged to a different Christian – liturgical and theological – tradition, can recode all semantic features and values.