In polemics of Orthodox theologians with Jews, Protestants and Catholics, the Septuagint has often been regarded as the hallmark of Orthodoxy. The article demonstrates that the picture is much more complicated: throughout the history of the Orthodox tradition violent polemics against allegedly corrupted Hebrew or Latin Bibles existed side by side with quoting the Hebrew readings by the early Byzantine Fathers or correcting the Church Slavonic Bible against the Vulgate. Homiletic reasons were much more important than purely textual matters.

This article analyzes problems of preservation and reproduction of religious tradition in modern society using the example of Russian Orthodoxy. The author uses the apparatus of the phenomenological philosophy of A. Schutz to analyze the translation of «high» forms of tradition. P. Bourdieu’s concept of habitus is used to describe the mechanism of the transmission of tradition in its «popular» manifestation.