Notarized and Certified Latin Translation - for the State, the Church and the University

Three kinds of Latin document, three kinds of certification

Latin documents fall into three families with different certification logic. Academic Latin - diplomas and degree certificates - is issued by a university in a Hague member state and is certified like any document from that state: apostilled there, translated and notarized here. Ecclesiastical Latin - parish register extracts, diocesan certificates, canonical decrees - is issued by the Church, certified by the diocesan chancery, and for civil use additionally apostilled by the civil authority of the country concerned where that country recognizes church records as public documents, which Poland, Lithuania, Italy, Hungary, Croatia and others do for records of certain periods. Papal and curial Latin - documents from the Holy See - is certified by the Vatican Secretariat of State and legalized by the apostolic nunciature, because the Holy See is outside the Hague Convention. In every case, the Georgian notary at Agmashenebeli 117 certifies our translation for Georgian authorities, and for use within the Church the chancery of the Apostolic Administration of the Caucasus can certify it as well.

Latin diplomas for Georgian authorities and employers

Universities that still issue Latin diplomas include Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia and other American institutions, most Dutch and some Belgian universities, older Scandinavian degrees, Portuguese and some Spanish universities, Semmelweis and other Hungarian medical universities, Polish universities for certain degrees, and Vilnius and Tartu. A graduate presenting such a diploma in Georgia - for a work permit, for recognition at the National Center for Educational Quality Enhancement, for admission to a Georgian graduate program or for a professional license - needs it translated into Georgian and notarized, and the recognition center needs to understand what "Medicinae Doctoris gradum" or "Artium Baccalaurei" means in the issuing country's system. We translate the diploma in full, including the Latin forms of the institution, the degree, the faculty, the date and the honors (summa cum laude and the rest), and attach a translator's note giving the degree's standard English and Georgian equivalent and, where useful, the university's own English rendering. The transcript, usually in English, is translated alongside so the packet is coherent.

Parish registers and citizenship by descent

Poland, Lithuania, Italy, Hungary, Croatia, Slovakia and Ireland grant citizenship by descent, and for ancestors born before civil registration the proof is a Catholic parish register in Latin: a baptismal entry giving the child, the parents, their status and parish, the godparents and the priest; a marriage entry giving the spouses, their ages, parents, witnesses and banns; a burial entry. Georgians with Polish, Lithuanian, Hungarian or Italian ancestors - descendants of nineteenth-century settlers, exiles and officials in the Caucasus, and of Georgian Catholics from Samtskhe-Javakheti and Tbilisi - request these records from Polish, Lithuanian and Georgian diocesan and state archives, and the citizenship authority requires a certified translation. Our palaeographers read the hands and abbreviations of registers from the seventeenth to the twentieth century, translate every element including margin annotations of later marriages and deaths, standardize the Latin forms of names to their vernacular equivalents with a note, and notarize the translation; where the citizenship authority requires a sworn translator in its own country, a partner re-certifies our text.

Canonical marriage, annulment and clergy documents

The Catholic Church in Georgia - the Apostolic Administration of the Caucasus for the Latin rite, with parishes in Tbilisi, Kutaisi, Batumi and the villages of Samtskhe-Javakheti - and Georgian Catholics marrying abroad generate canonical documents in Latin and in the vernacular: baptismal certificates with the annotation of confirmation and marriage, certificates of freedom to marry, dispensations for mixed and disparity-of-cult marriages, delegation of faculties, and the acts of marriage tribunals in nullity cases, which pass between the diocesan tribunal, the appeal tribunal and, occasionally, the Roman Rota. Seminarians, religious and clergy need letters of good standing, celebret documents and seminary and pontifical university records translated. We translate these between Latin, Georgian, Italian and English with a specialist in canon law terminology, notarize them where civil authorities are involved, and route them through the chancery where the Church's own certification is required.

Documents from the Holy See and pontifical institutions

Documents issued by the Holy See - papal decrees and rescripts, appointments and honors, decrees of the Congregations and Dicasteries, decisions of the Apostolic Signatura and the Rota, and diplomas of the pontifical universities in Rome - are increasingly issued in Italian but still often in Latin, and they cannot be apostilled. For civil use in Georgia or elsewhere they are legalized by the Secretariat of State and the apostolic nunciature of the receiving country; for Church use the nunciature's or chancery's certification suffices. Georgian documents going to the Holy See - civil status records for a canonical process, a Georgian university degree for a pontifical faculty - are notarized here, certified by the Georgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and legalized by the nunciature. We translate in both directions, and we advise on the route, which differs for each type of document and which the nunciature's office in Tbilisi can confirm.

Certified translation without notarization, and composition into Latin

Not every recipient needs the notary. Universities assessing an applicant, genealogists, historians, museums and publishers usually accept a certified translation with our stamp and the translator's statement. The Georgian recognition center, courts, the Public Service Hall, citizenship authorities abroad and Church tribunals need notarization, chancery certification or both. Tell us who will receive the document and we recommend the right level; a certified translation can be upgraded later without re-translating. Composition into Latin - mottos, dedications, diploma texts, inscriptions for buildings and monuments, liturgical texts - is a separate service by classical philologists, delivered with a note on meaning, style and pronunciation, and checked by a second Latinist before it is carved into anything.

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