Thank you -- I did not know any of that.
Although Church Slavonic sounds and looks "Russian," it is grammatically much closer to Serbian.
It is true that Serbian and to a lesser extent Bulgarian are closer to the Church Slavonic than Russian. Till I learned Bulgarian I could not understand the Church Slavonic.
Till I learned Bulgarian I could not understand the Church Slavonic
That's fascinatuing, Alex, since to a Serbian ear Russian sounds a lot like Church Slavonic.