Problem of Proper Names in Orthodox Religious Literature Translated into French

After the establishment of Orthodoxy in France (towards the beginning of the 20th century), many texts of religious literature were translated from Greek, Romanian and Russian (languages traditionally devoted to the expression of this Christian confession considered Oriental). In this paper, we will examine a few translations from Greek and Romanian and will analyze the authors’ lexical options about proper names (anthroponyms and toponyms) as well as their motivations and efforts to accurately express in French a frame of reference that is very important in the source language (Romanian or Greek, as far as our analysis is concerned).