Info request -- OCS church inscriptions

[Yoshimasa Tsuji]

Hello,
 Although Church Slavonic language is a bit different from contemporary
Russian (it had proper past tenses, e.g.), it doesn't pose
any difficulty for a Russian speaker, generally speaking as long as
a reading is concerned.
 Most of the inscriptions on icons are names of apostles and saints,
and are easy to guess (provided you know their names beforehand,
of course). Incidentally, abbreviations, which are very generously
used, may pose some difficulty to you. But here again, most of them
can be guessed easily. You will guess <Sv> for St (Svjashchennik) and
<Apl> for Apostle, for sure.

 Handwriting by scribes are as easy to read as printed books, but
handwriting by half-literate or non-punctual persons is a real
challenge (e.g. I didn't know up until this March that autographs
were allowed not to be spelt out.)

Good luck and cheers,
Tsuji

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