From the United Kingdom, which has over 400 hundred Wycliffe personnel and has been around for over 50 years, to Ukraine which has only begun in this decade, Wycliffe in Europe is as diverse and significant as Europe itself.

Besides the presence of 20 Wycliffe organizations, there are also three training centers available in three different languages in three different locations.

The New Testament was first written in the European language Koine Greek, and it was later translated into Latin, the official language of the Roman Empire. The map of translation follows the gospel’s spread throughout Europe, though not without resistance.

In the ninth century, the brothers Cyril and Methodius began a quest to translate the Bible into Slavonic. After some initial criticism and roadblocks, they were given permission by the Church to move forward with the project. They developed a writing system that became the foundation of the Cyrillic script, which is now used to write Russian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Ukrainian and many other languages in Europe and Asia.

In fourteenth century England, French was the language of the aristocracy, Latin was the language of the Church and government, and English was the low language of the common people. When John Wycliffe and his followers (called Lollards) began to translate the Bible from the Latin into English, they were criticized and persecuted severely.

The whole Protestant movement, driven by Martin Luther in Germany, John Calvin in Switzerland, and others, was closely tied to having the Bible available in common languages.

Not only did translations open doors for spiritual truth, enabling greater and deeper understanding of Christianity, but translations also provided foundations for the preservation of languages. The King James Bible (which used much of William Tyndale’s English translation) is credited with being a key source of stability in the English language. The translation helped to standardize spelling and gave the English language a platform with the educated. More recently, during the Swedish empire’s domination of the Scandanavian lands, having the Bible in Finnish was key in preserving that language.

Though most of Europe’s 250 languages have a completed Bible translation, and many even have several different versions of the Bible, Bible translation work continues in some languages. For example, Scripture is being translated into Plautdietsch, a language spoken primarily by Mennonites, including approximately 90,000 individuals in Germany.

Translation work is also in progress for the many European sign languages as well as language groups that have immigrated to Europe, including a number of Romani (“Gypsy”) languages. The displaced communities need Scripture translations, but come from difficult-to-access areas; for example, countries where war and unrest or political opposition make translation difficult or impossible to carry out.