ΑΓΙΟΛΟΓΙΚΑ ΤΕΤΡΑΔΙΑ - STUDIES ON CHRISTIAN HAGIOGRAPHY

2016-09-11T13:36:00.000+03:00

XXIV International Ecumenical Conference of Orthodox Spirituality MARTYRDOM AND COMMUNION Bose, 7–10 September 2016

in collaboration with the Orthodox Churches

“Allow me to become food for the wild beasts, through whose instrumentality it will be granted me to attain to God. I am the wheat of God, and let me be ground by the teeth of the wild beasts, that I may be found the pure bread of Christ”.
St Ignatius of Antioch

WEDNESDAY 7 september 2016
9:00 am

Introductory Remarks
ENZO BIANCHI, Prior of Bose

Blood of Martyrs, Seed of Communion
✠ YOUHANNA X, Patriarch of Antioch and all the East

The Witness and the Ministry of Communion of the Ecumenical Patriarchate
✠ JOB OF TELMESSOS, Geneva

3:30 pm

The Spirit as Source and Support of the One Christian Witness
PANTELEIMON MANOUSSAKIS, Worcester MA

«Blessed are you when people persecute you on my account» (Mt 5,11).
Jesus’ Sayings about Persecution
EKATERINI TSALAMPOUNI, Thessaloniki

“We are All One in Christ”. Martyrdom and the Unity of the Church in St Ambrose and the Latin Fathers in the Fourth Century
GEORGIY ZAKHAROV, Moscow

THURSDAY 8 september 2016
9:00 am

“I am the wheat of God” (St Ignatius of Antioch). Eucharistic and Communional Dimensions of Martyrdom
ATHANASIOS PAPATHANASSIOU, Athens

The Liturgical Memory of Martyrs
✠ JERONIM OF JEGAR, Novi Sad

3:30 pm

Seeking Communion, Confessing the Truth. Maxim the Confessor and Pope Martin I
ANDREW LOUTH, Durham

Martyrs of the Russian Orthodox Church in the Twentieth Century. The Butovo Polygon
KIRILL KALEDA, Moscow

Martyrdom and Communion in the 20th century – a Church of England Perspective
✠ JOHN STROYAN OF WARWICK, Coventry

FRIDAY 9 september 2016
9:00 am

The Testimony of Love and Mercy of St Elizabeth Feodorovna
LIDYA GOLOVKOVA, Moscow

A Community under Persecution. Father Alexander Glagolev (1872-1937)
KONSTANTIN SIGOV, Kiev

Twentieth-century Martyrology: the Orthodox Church of Georgia
TAMARA GRDZELIDZE, Rome

3:30 pm

Persecution for Christ’s Sake as the bond of Communion. The Monk Nicolae Steinhardt and his Diary of Happiness
BOGDAN TĂTARU-CAZABAN, Bucarest

Martyrs and Confessors in the Bulgarian Orthodox Church under Communism
DANIELA KALKANDJIEVA, Sofia

Martyrs as Witnesses of Communion in the Armenian Church
SHAHE ANANYAN, Etchmiadzin

SATURDAY 10 september 2016
9:00 am

Common Testimony, Hope of Unity
✠ KURT KOCH, Vatican City

Christian Martyrs as a Gift for the Mankind
Truth-Telling as Martyrdom for the sake of Communion
ARISTOTLE PAPANIKOLAOU, New York

Conclusions of the Conference
LUIGI D’AYALA VALVA, Bose

2016-09-11T12:12:00.001+03:00

23ο Διεθνές Συνέδριο Βυζαντινών Σπουδών.

Βελιγράδι, Σερβία, 22-27/8/2016.

Πρόγραμμα Συνεδρίου- Conference Program

2016-01-03T22:14:00.002+02:00

[CFP] Reminder: Holy Hero(in)es. Literary Constructions of Heroism in Late Antique and Early Medieval Hagiography, 18-20.2.2016

Call for Papers (reminder)

Holy Hero(in)es. Literary Constructions of Heroism in Late Antique and Early Medieval Hagiography

International conference at Ghent University (Belgium), Thursday 18th to Saturday 20th February 2016

Confirmed keynote speaker: Prof. dr. Stephanos Efthymiadis (Open University of Cyprus)

The ERC research group Novel Saints (Ghent University) builds on and contributes to a recent trend in scholarship of studying late antique and early medieval hagiography (4th-12th cent.) as literature. We welcome paper proposals for our first, international conference, which will deal with literary constructions of characters as hero(in)es in different types of late antique and early medieval hagiographical narrative (Lives, Martyr Acts, hagiographical romances, etc.). We envisage contributions on hagiography from different linguistic traditions (Latin, Greek, Syriac, Georgian, Coptic, Armenian, Persian and Arabic). The conference aims to explore definitions of and aspects/concepts relevant to heroism in Christian narrative. What does it mean to be a hero(ine) in these narratives? Are there different types of hero(in)es (and of heroism)? To what extent can narratological concepts provide useful tools for evaluating hagiographical constructions of heroism? The other central question is how saints (and/or, possibly, other characters) are characterized, shaped, imagined and/or constructed as hero(in)es.

This last, broad question comprises a number of important sub-questions:

Which literary and/or rhetorical techniques underlie such constructions? To what extent and how do these narratives employ techniques rooted in ancient rhetoric (e.g. ecphrasis, syncrisis, ethopoeia, etc.), and to what purpose?
Does the notion of heroism imply specific behavioural patterns and/or speech acts?
What is the relevance of other literary traditions, such as biblical narrative, Acts of the Apostles (both canonical and apocryphal), ancient biography, historiography and fiction (pagan and/or Jewish novels)? To what extent do these traditions offer models of heroism that are adopted/adapted in hagiographical narratives? To what extent and how, for example, do ancient fictional strands of heroism persist in hagiographical constructions of martyrs and saints, as they are well known to do, for example, in the Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles (e.g. Paul & Thecla) and other early Christian narrative such as the Ps.-Clementines and a few pre-Nicean Martyr Acts?
How do hagiographical narratives adopt/rework authentication strategies common in biography or historiography in order to construct its hero(in)es?
To what extent and how do constructions of heroism in saints/martyrs in different cultures develop over time and cross-fertilize other such constructs throughout late antiquity and the middle ages?

In relation to this, the conference also aims to explore issues like the following:

heroism and definitions of sainthood and holiness;
heroism and explorations of moral/ethical dimensions of character;
heroism and development (is one a hero(ine) or does one become one?);
saints, self-presentation and performance: constructions of heroism and/or reenactments of earlier models by saints themselves (rather than by the narrators of their narratives);
heroism and ego-narration;
heroic constructions in collective v. individual life-writing;
impact of depictions of hero(in)es/heroic behaviour on audiences;
heroism and meta-literary approaches: ?heroic? qualities of both saints and texts;
types of saints (e.g. desert saints, military saints, converted prostitutes, holy fools, etc.) v. character individuation.

Abstracts (in English or French) should contain 300-350 words and should be sent to novelsaints@ugent.be before 20 September 2015. Notifications about acceptance (or not) will be sent out by 20 October 2015. Not only senior scholars but also PhD students are welcome to submit abstracts.

For further queries, please contact klazina.staat@ugent.be or julie.vanpelt@ugent.be.

Prof. dr. Koen De Temmerman
Klazina Staat
Julie Van Pelt

2016-01-03T21:54:00.000+02:00

Γ' ΔΙΕΘΝΕΣ ΣΥΝΕΔΡΙΟ ΚΥΠΡΙΑΚΗΣ ΑΓΙΟΛΟΓΙΑΣ 25-27 ΦΕΒΡΟΥΑΡΙΟΥ 2016

Η Ιερά Μητρόπολη Κωνσταντίας - Αμμοχώστου και η Πολιτιστική Ακαδημία «Άγιος Επιφάνιος» διοργανώνουν το Γ΄ Διεθνές Συνέδριο Κυπριακής Αγιολογίας. Το συνέδριο θα πραγματοποιηθεί στο Συνοδικό της Ιεράς Μητροπόλεως στο Παραλίμνι, από τις 25 μέχρι τις 27 Φεβρουαρίου 2016.

Το συνέδριο αυτό, όπως και τα προηγούμενα, σκοπό έχει να συμβάλει στη μελέτη του βίου, του έργου και της τιμής των Κυπρίων Αγίων. Ως γνωστόν η Κυπριακή Αγιολογία είναι ένα πολύ σημαντικό κεφάλαιο της Ιστορίας της Κύπρου, αλλά και της Ορθόδοξης Εκκλησίας γενικότερα, το οποίο δεν έχει μελετηθεί συστηματικά και επαρκώς μέχρι σήμερα. Η διοργάνωση των αγιολογικών συνεδρίων από την Ιερά Μητρόπολη Κωνσταντίας ευελπιστεί να καλύψει αυτό το επιστημονικό κενό.

Το Γ΄ Διεθνές Συνέδριο Κυπριακής Αγιολογίας φέρει τον γενικό τίτλο: «Γ΄ Διεθνές Συνέδριο Κυπριακής Αγιολογίας. Φραγκοκρατία-Ενετοκρατία-Τουρκοκρατία (1191-1878)» και σ’ αυτό θα συμμετάσχουν διακεκριμένοι Καθηγητές και ερευνητές από την Κύπρο, την Ελλάδα και άλλες ευρωπαϊκές χώρες (Ηνωμένο Βασίλειο, Γερμανία και Ιταλία) με θέματα που άπτονται διαφόρων επιστημονικών κλάδων, όπως Θεολογία, Φιλολογία, Ιστορία, Αρχαιολογία και Τέχνη, Παλαιογραφία, Δίκαιο, Κοινωνιολογία και Λαογραφία.

Η έναρξη του συνεδρίου θα γίνει την Πέμπτη, 25 Φεβρουαρίου 2016, και ώρα 10:00 π.μ. στο Συνοδικό της Ιεράς Μητροπόλεως Κωνσταντίας στο Παραλίμνι. Οι εργασίες του συνεδρίου θα λήξουν το Σάββατο, 27 Φεβρουαρίου και ώρα 1:00 μ.μ.

Στο πλαίσιο του συνεδρίου θα τελεσθεί Αρχιερατική Θεία Λειτουργία στον ιερό ναό Αγίου Γεωργίου Εξορινού στην εντός των τειχών κατεχομένη πόλη της Αμμοχώστου, την Κυριακή, 28 Φεβρουαρίου (7:30-10:30). Ακολούθως θα γίνει ξενάγηση των συνέδρων στα μνημεία της μεσαιωνικής πόλης της Αμμοχώστου και προσκυνηματική επίσκεψη στην Ιερά Μονή Αποστόλου Βαρνάβα, στην πρωτοχριστιανική βασιλική του Αγίου Επιφανίου στην κατεχόμενη Σαλαμίνα και στη Μονή του Αγίου Αναστασίου στην Περιστερωνοπηγή.

Όσοι επιθυμούν να παρακολουθήσουν τις εργασίες του Συνεδρίου, μπορούν να συμπληρώσουν το Έντυπο Συμμετοχής Συνέδρου και να το αποστείλουν μέσω τηλεομοιοτύπου (23812456/7) ή ηλεκτρονικού ταχυδρομείου (ekdosis@imconstantias.org.cy).

Για περισσότερες πληροφορίες: Τηλ. 23812456/7 ή στην ηλεκτρονική διεύθυνση ekdosis@imconstantias.org.cy.

2015-03-14T19:50:00.001+02:00

Quelle place pour les animaux ?Colloque international organisé par Isabel IRIBARREN, Michele CUTINO et Françoise VINEL, sur le thème du statut des animaux dans la pensée chrétienne ancienne et médiévale.

Du 12 au 14 mars, en salle Tauler au Palais Universitaire.
Intervenants et programme (Pdf)
Bulletin d'inscription ici.

Vendredi 13 mars 15h10-‐15h40
Symeon Paschalidis (Thessalonique) :«Saints et animaux, anticipation du royaume dans la littérature byzantine »

2014-06-24T11:09:00.003+03:00

“Ancient Christian Literature and Christian Apocrypha”

Το Τμήμα Ποιμαντικής και Κοινωνικής Θεολογίας του Α.Π.Θ. διοργανώνει, σε συνεργασία με την AELAC (Αssociation pour l’Ιtude de la Littιrature Apocryphe Chrιtienne), την Προτεσταντική Θεολογική Σχολή του Πανεπιστημίου του Στρασβούργου, τη Θεολογική Σχολή του Πανεπιστημίου της Λωζάννης και το Κέντρο Βυζαντινών Ερευνών του Α.Π.Θ., Διεθνές Συμπόσιο για την Απόκρυφη Χριστιανική Γραμματεία. Το Συνέδριο, με τίτλο “Ancient Christian Literature and Christian Apocrypha” θα πραγματοποιηθεί από την Πέμπτη 26 έως την Κυριακή 29 Ιουνίου 2014.

2014-06-19T22:13:00.001+03:00

Άγιοι Μανουήλ, Σαβέλ και Ισμαήλ

Για τους αγίους ρωτούν πολλοί φίλοι

εδώ δημοσιεύω το πηγαίο υλικό για αυτούς

την ευχή και το ήθος τους νάχουμε!

BHG 1023

BHG 1024e

2014-06-11T01:21:00.002+03:00

26-29 Ιουνίου 2014: Διεθνές Συνέδριο για την Απόκρυφη Χριστιανική Γραμματεία - "Η Αρχαία Χριστιανική Γραμματεία και τα Χριστιανικά Απόκρυφα"

Το Διεθνές Συνέδριο για την απόκρυφη Χριστιανική γραμματεία (Θεσσαλονίκη, 26-29 Ιουνίου 2014) θα εστιάσει την προσοχή του στη θέση των απόκρυφων χριστιανικών κειμένων μέσα στη μεγάλη δεξαμενή της αρχαίας χριστιανικής γραμματείας και θα διερευνήσει κρίσιμες πτυχές της σχέσης αυτών των κειμένων με την κανονική παράδοση της Εκκλησίας τόσο κατά την πρώιμη χριστιανική όσο και κατά τη βυζαντινή περίοδο. Το γενικό ζήτημα της αποδοχής και εμφανούς ή αφανούς χρήσης των απόκρυφων χριστιανικών κειμένων από τους χριστιανούς συγγραφείς της πατερικής και βυζαντινής περιόδου εξακολουθεί να κεντρίζει το ενδιαφέρον της θεολογικής έρευνας, δεδομένου ότι τα κείμενα αυτά συχνά θεωρήθηκαν συλλήβδην ως ένα ενιαίο σώμα, όχι απλά ενταγμένο στη μη κανονική παράδοση της Εκκλησίας, αλλά ως το θεωρητικό όχημα των χριστιανικών αιρέσεων. Κύριος στόχος επομένως του Συνεδρίου είναι η διαλεύκανση αυτών των κρίσιμων ζητημάτων και η ανάδειξη της ουσιαστικής σχέσης και προσφοράς των απόκρυφων χριστιανικών κειμένων στη διαμόρφωση της εκκλησιαστικής παράδοσης της πρώτης χιλιετίας.

1. Η χρήση των χριστιανικών απόκρυφων στην πατερική γραμματεία
Η χρήση των χριστιανικών απόκρυφων από τους Πατέρες της Εκκλησίας και τους εκκλησιαστικούς συγγραφείς παραμένει ένα κρίσιμο ερώτημα. Ποια στάση τήρησαν οι εκκλησιαστικοί συγγραφείς των πρώτων αιώνων απένα-ντί τους και σε ποιο βαθμό και με ποιο τρόπο υιοθετήθηκαν αυτά τα κείμενα από τους Πατέρες της Εκκλησίας στην εξηγητική και δογματική της παράδοση;
2. Η επίδραση των χριστιανικών απόκρυφων στη χριστιανική Λατρεία και Τέχνη
Αποτέλεσαν τα απόκρυφα χριστιανικά κείμενα πηγή για την ανάπτυξη της χριστιανικής Λατρείας και του εορτο-λογίου της Εκκλησίας; Σε συνάρτηση με το ερώτημα αυτό τίθεται κι εκείνο της σχέσης της απόκρυφης γραμμα-τείας με τις αφετηρίες και την εξέλιξη της χριστιανικής Τέχνης.
3. Η απόκρυφη γραμματεία και η εκκλησιαστική ιστοριογραφία
Ποιά είναι η εικόνα των απόκρυφων χριστιανικών κειμένων, όπως αυτή αντικατοπτρίζεται στην επίσημη εκ-κλησιαστική ιστοριογραφία των πρώτων αιώνων και ποια κριτήρια υιοθετούνται από τους εκκλησιαστικούς ιστορικούς όσον αφορά στην αποδοχή αυτών των κειμένων;
4. Η απόκρυφη γραμματεία και η χριστιανική αιρεσιολογία
Ποιος είναι ο ρόλος των απόκρυφων κειμένων στην εμφάνιση των χριστιανικών αιρέσεων και πώς καταγράφεται αυτή η σχέση στην αντιαιρετική γραμματεία και στη συνοδική και κανονική παράδοση της αρχαίας Εκκλησίας;
5. Η απόκρυφη γραμματεία και η διάδοση της χριστιανικής πίστης
Πώς συνέβαλε η απόκρυφη γραμματεία στο περιεχόμενο της χριστιανικής γραμματείας (κατηχήσεων, πραγματειών, ομιλιών) η οποία με τη σειρά της διαδραμάτισε σημαντικό ρόλο στη διαμόρφωση της χριστιανικής πίστης;

Οι προτάσεις για εισηγήσεις σε ένα από τα πέντε πεδία μπορούν να αποσταλούν στην Οργανωτική Επιτροπή πριν από τις 31 Ιανουαρίου 2014. Οι εισηγήσεις μπορούν να εκφωνηθούν στα Αγγλικά, Γαλλικά, Γερμανικά ή Ιταλικά και δεν θα πρέπει να υπερβαίνουν τα 25 λεπτά (συμπεριλαμβανομένης της συζήτησης).
Διαλέξεις
Το Συνέδριο θα περιλάβει ειδικές διαλέξεις διακεκριμένων ομιλητών σε ειδικά θέματα της πρόσφατης έρευνας για τη σχέση των αποκρύφων κειμένων με την αρχαία χριστιανική γραμματεία, καθώς και σε επιμέρους ζητήματα.

πηγή: http://blogs.auth.gr/spaschal/2013/10/20/%CE%B4%CE%B9%CE%B5%CE%B8%CE%BD%CE%AD%CF%82-%CF%83%CF%85%CE%BD%CE%AD%CE%B4%CF%81%CE%B9%CE%BF-%CE%B7-%CE%B1%CF%81%CF%87%CE%B1%CE%AF%CE%B1-%CF%87%CF%81%CE%B9%CF%83%CF%84%CE%B9%CE%B1%CE%BD%CE%B9/

2014-05-12T21:43:00.000+03:00

14-16 Μαΐου 2014: Διεθνές Συνέδριο «UNDERSTANDING PERSONS - Ancient, Medieval, and Modern Perspectives From the Christian East»

Την ερχόμενη Τετάρτη, 14 Μαΐου ώς την Παρασκευή, 16 Μαΐου, θα πραγματοποιηθεί στο πλαίσιο της διετούς μεταδιδακτορικής έρευνας του μεταδιδάκτορα του Τμήματoς Ποιμαντικής και Κοινωνικής Θεολογίας του ΑΠΘ Dr Alexis Torrance «Μια κριτική αξιολόγηση των Πατερικών προτύπων για τις σύγχρονες θεολογίες του Προσώπου», η οποία χρηματοδοτείται από τη ΓΓΕΤ, διεθνές Συνέδριο με τίτλο : «UNDERSTANDING PERSONS - Ancient, Medieval, and Modern Perspectives From the Christian East».

To Συνέδριο συνδιοργανώνεται με το Δίκτυο ΚΕΕΠ και θα συμμετάσχουν σ᾽ αυτό ειδικοί επιστήμονες από όλο τον κόσμο. Φιλοδοξία των διοργανωτών είναι να λειτουργήσει ως ένα workshop γι᾽ αυτό το τόσο σημαντικό και επίκαιρο και στην εποχή μας θεολογικό ζήτημα. Γι᾽ αυτό και στις συνεδρίες της Πέμπτης και της Παρασκευής, που θα πραγματοποιηθούν στο αμφιθέατρο της ΔΙΑΚΟΝΙΑΣ στην Πυλαία, θα υπάρχει μεταφραστικό σύστημα για την κατανόηση των ξενόγλωσσων εισηγήσεων και τη συμμετοχή των συνέδρων στις συζητήσεις που θα επακολουθήσουν.

Επισημαίνεται ότι η εναρκτήρια διάλεξη θα πραγματοποιηθεί από τον μητροπολίτη και ομότιμο καθηγητή του Πανεπιστημίου της Οξφόρδης Κάλλιστο Ware, έναν από τους σημαντικότερους ορθόδοξους θεολόγους της εποχής μας, στην αίθουσα συνεδριάσεων της Θεολογικής Σχολής την Τετάρτη 14 Μαΐου.

Στους μεταπτυχιακούς φοιτητές που θα το παρακολουθήσουν θα χορηγηθούν σχετικές βεβαιώσεις.

Αφίσα - Πρόγραμμα

2013-08-13T05:35:00.000+03:00

SUMMER SCHOOL Studies in Orthodox Theology 25–31 August 2013

ARISTOTLE UNIVERSITY OF THESSALONIKI

SCHOOL OF PASTORAL AND SOCIAL THEOLOGY

LIFELONG LEARNING UNIT

SUMMER SCHOOL COURSE

“STUDIES IN ORTHODOX THEOLOGY”

The School of Pastoral and Social Theology of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki organizes a short and comprehensive programme of one week courses at the Macedonian city of Veroia, where St Paul’s podium and a multitude of byzantine churches and monasteries.

The Course has been planned in order to present and promote the educative riches of Orthodox Theology and its cultural treasure.

LOCATION: Veroia, at the privately owned site of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.

TARGET GROUP: The Course is addressed to all interested undergraduate and post-graduate students currently enrolled in an academic institution, both from Greece and abroad, who wish to gain a deeper understanding and experience of Orthodox theological writings and spirituality.

COURSE AIM: The purpose of the Course is to offer a series of foundational lessons in Orthodox Theology by combining knowledge based understanding and direct, personal, cultural interaction with the local tradition. The lessons will address the key disciplines of Orthodox Theology: Biblical Studies (Old and New Testament), Patrology and Hagiology, Church History, Dogmatics and Ecumenical Relations, Liturgics and the Christian Arts, Canon Law, Pastoral Care and Christian Sociology, Christian Ethics. It is expected that, upon successful completion of the Course, the students will have acquired a broad and general overview of the major fields of Orthodox Theology, as well as a basic understanding of Orthodox Spirituality and the culture that emerges from it.

STRUCTURE OF THE COURSE: Four hours of instruction will be offered daily (4 Χ 7=28 classroom hours). Sessions will begin on Sunday morning with a visit to an Orthodox Church, where we will attend the Divine Liturgy. The Course will conclude on Saturday afternoon with a Farewell Social. The program also includes some excursions to archeological sites and museums, as well as a social event with ecclesiastical and other local constituents of the city. In addition, it is possible that, during the late evening hours, after the scheduled teaching sessions, other educational activities may be introduced by the instructors, ones that will supplement the teaching sessions.

The teaching sessions consist of the following units:

I) The Exegesis of Holy Scripture (Old and New Testament) on select biblical texts according to the patristic tradition. Detection of forerunner use of later hermeneutical methods by the Fathers of the Church and accentuation of the possibility of hermeneutical renewal and deeper theological understanding through patristic interpretation.

II) Patrology and Hagiology with the study of significant chapters of the Orthodox literary tradition. Select presentation of patristic theology and the ways in which it responds to contemporary spiritual issues.

III) Church History with highlighting the major historical events of the Byzantine culture and of the Orthodox Hellenism.

IV) Dogmatics and Ecumenical Relations with the interpretation of select dogmatic and symbolic texts, including a focus on the Orthodox witness in contemporary theological dialogues.

V) Liturgics and the Christian Arts with a presentation of the Orthodox ecclesiastical tradition from a liturgical, worship, aesthetic and architectural perspective, including visits to Byzantine monuments. An introduction to the art of chant.

VI) Canon Law with reference to ecclesial institutions and organisms.

VII) Pastoral Care and the Sociology of Christianity with a presentation of the patristic understanding of social issues and pastoral care.

VIII) Christian Ethics according to the teaching of the Fathers and in reference to the contemporary challenges.

Emphasis will be given on the inter-thematic and multifaceted presentation of the topics and its connection with the contemporary orthodox reality and the local culture, monumental, customary, and ecclesial. To this end, beyond the tours scheduled to take place during the teaching sessions, additional (optional) opportunities will be offered for participation in first hand experiences, such as the attendance at vespers at the skete of St John the Forerunner, where St Gregory Palamas resided, visits to archaeological sites etc.

PERIOD: Sunday 25 – Saturday 31 August 2013

STUDY-LOAD AND CREDITS: Attendance and successful completion of the Course awards participants 2 ECTS and a Certificate of Further Education.

FEE: 250 euro per person

OVERSIGHT COMMITEE: Assoc. Prof. Dr Kyriakoula Papademetriou (academic director of the course), Prof. Dr Athanasios Karathanasis (president of the School), and Assoc. Prof. Dr Symeon Paschalidis.

ACCOMODATION: Electronic addresses, with regard to accommodations and transfers, will be posted soon so that students may directly make arrangements for their participation.

APPLICATION DEADLINE: August 20, 2013

INFORMATION: www.past.auth.gr, www.diaviou.auth.gr

CONTACT: info@past.auth.gr, kyp@past.auth.gr, dimosthek@yahoo.gr, fgermani@past.auth.gr

The full courses programm is here

2013-08-13T05:10:00.003+03:00

Workshop on Medieval Hagiographic Collections in Central Europe took place in Stift Klosterneuburg

11/06/2013

A workshop on Medieval Hagiographic Collections in Central Europe / Mittelalterliche Hagiographische Sammlungen in Zentraleuropa took place in Vienna on 7 June 2013, coorganized by the Project Visions of Community of the University of Vienna and Institut für Mittelalterforschung of the Austrian Academy of Sciences.
The aim of the workshop was to present and discuss ongoing research in the field of medieval hagiography in Central and Eastern Europe as well as future plans for cooperation, bringing together representatives of several projects based in Austria.
Kateřina Horníčková, member of the Austrian team from the Institut für Realienkunde, represented our project with a contribution Seeing Saints: From Symbolic Communication to Visualising Narratives.

The programme of the workshop is available here

source:http://cultsymbols.net/news/2013-06-11/workshop-on-medieval-hagiographic-collections-in-central-europe-took-place-in-stift-

2013-08-13T05:02:00.000+03:00

Institute for Medieval Studies of the University of Leeds

Visions of Community at the
International Medieval Congress 2013

VISCOM Sessions | Associated Sessions

In 2013, VISCOM will have a large presence at the International Medieval Congress, which takes place from 1-4 July, and is organized by the Institute for Medieval Studies of the University of Leeds. In the course of this VISCOM Session Strand, on Monday 1 and Tuesday 2 July, the Junior and Senior members of VISCOM, as well as a great number of invited guests, will present papers on a wide variety of topics, showcasing both the diversity and the internal coherence of the Project, as well as its emphasis on comparative approaches to the Middle Ages.

Sessions:
110: Visions of Community I: After the End of Ancient Christianity - The Reconfiguration of Late Antique Topographies in Merovingian Historiography and Hagiography

Helmut Reimitz (Princeton University) The Merovingian six book-version of Gregory of Tours Histories and the creation of new Spielrδume for the spiritual topography of Gaul

Jamie Kreiner (University of Georgia) A Contest at Brioude: Hagiography after Gregory of Tours

Gordon Blennemann (DHI Paris/Universitδt Erlangen-Nόrnberg) The Creation of Martyrs in Early Medieval Burgundy: King Sigismund as Archetype?

Moderator: Ian Wood (University of Leeds)

As Christendom had consolidated its foothold in the hearts and minds of the peoples in Western Europe, and the political influence of the Roman Empire was gradually fading from view, the new intellectual elite, consisting mainly of ecclesiastical officials who had imposed themselves on the legacy of Rome, went at lengths to reconfigure the spiritual landscape of the lands they had inherited. Chief among these authors, as Helmut Reimitz will argue, was the sixth-century bishop Gregory of Tours, whose Histories perhaps most clearly reflects these shifts and the subsequent search for new boundaries both real and spiritual. Building on this paper, Jamie Kreiner will then look at the cult of Saint Julian to demonstrate how this process continued in hagiographical narratives produced in the seventh century, which both adopted and challenged Gregory's topographies. Finally, Gordon Blennemann will show how the two "genres" would essentially overlap by focusing on the Passio Sancti Sigismundi regis, a strikingly dyadic text in which a Burgundian origo gentis is combined with the life of this saintly king. As such, all three papers focus not only on narrative references to the Roman and Biblical past, but also try to situate these within the specific social and political context of the production of these texts, as well as to the longue durιe of hagiographical and historiographical traditions.

210: Visions of Community II: Related Narratives, Entangled Communities - Strategies of Identification in Central European Historiography and Hagiography

Christina Lutter (University of Vienna) Narrating Community: Methodological Approaches

Bernhard Zeller (Austrian Academy of Sciences) A Community in Search of Itself: Sankt Gallen and the Making of Saint Otmar

John Eldevik (Hamilton, NY) Communities of Violence: Saracens and Saints in Medieval Bavaria

Martin Haltrich (Klosterneuburg) The Stories of a Community: Zwettl and the Magnum Legendarium Austriacum

Moderator: Steffen Patzold (University of Tόbingen

Whenever a group of people gets together, whenever a community gradually comes into being, its members inevitably start reflecting on their own histories and retelling them in terms of how their lives had become intertwined, and, eventually how their shared feeling of belonging together had developed. In doing so, they would of course also take recourse to the previously existing narratives that inspired them to make their own story one worth relating to, and look to other communities around them for comparison and inspiration both positive and negative. As such, stories developed into narratives and the people and communities that produced them would develop almost continuously throughout the ages, feeding off one another and becoming increasingly intertwined: a fascinating process, which this session hopes to address more fully. First, Christina Lutter will present an overview of the methodological issues that arise when one considers the functions of narrative sources and their uses in the formation and consolidation of communities. Bernhard Zeller will then focus on a particular case by showing how the formation, use and and Nachleben of Saint Otmar in the Carolingian age helped the monastery of Sankt-Gallen find its own way in history. John Eldevik will then go on to examine the peculiar tradition of the Passio of the crusading archbishop Thiemo of Salzburg. As he argues, the images of violence in this work should not only be seen an example of medieval (mis)perceptions of Islam as a polytheistic cult, but also were also appropriated for negotiating conflicts and identities in other contexts, particularly monastic reform. Finally, Martin Haltrich will then present the case of the Magnum Legendarium Austriacum, a huge and ostentatious twelfth-century collection of mostly older, but also some contemporary saints' lives that may only be found in Austrian libraries, addressing the observation that not only the composition, but also the copying of texts could help bring a community together

310: Visions of Community III: Time and History in the Construction of Authority

Veronika Wieser (Austrian Academy of Sciences) The Best Prophets of the Future: Bishops and Kings in Late Antiquity

Erik Goosmann (Utrecht University) From dux Francorum to custos anserum: Managing Perceptions in Carolingian Historiography: the Case of Carloman's Conversion (747)

Graeme Ward (University of Cambridge) (Re)sources of Authority in Frechulf of Lisieux's Histories

Moderator: Helmut Reimitz (Princeton University)

This session revolves around the question to what extent time, history and authority interact in the historiographical output of late antiquity and the early middle ages. On the one hand, it was often implied that authority was often found in the past be it to establish the political power of a dynasty aspiring, or to have the last word on a theological issues. On the other hand, however, the progression of time itself could factor into this equation as well, changing the status of certain historical actors as their presence became increasingly subject to (carefully managed) perceptions. Starting in Late Antiquity, Veronika Wieser will show one curious aspect of this, by showing how images of the future also became ever more authoritative as their age increased. This observation is then taken up by Erik Goosmann, who will demonstrate that not only intellectual phenomena, but also controversial figures such as Carloman could be used by Carolingian historiographers, who can be shown to have been very astute managers of their dynasty's sometimes turbulent past indeed. Graeme Ward will then turn these questions around, by focusing on the relationship between textual authority and ideas of rulership as seen through the eyes of Frechulf of Lisieux, for whom ancient texts both were invested with special qualities and packed full of examples which aimed at shaping the morals of more contemporary actors.

510: Visions of Community IV: Urban Communities in Late Medieval Central Europe, 1350-1550 Regions

Michaela Malanikovα (Masaryk University Brno) South Moravian Urban Communities within the Corona regni Bohemiae in the Late Middle Ages

Judit Majorossy (CEU Budapest) Urban Communities and Their Networks in the Western Part of Late Medieval Hungary

Niels Petersen (University of Gφttingen) Salt, Money, Politics: The Sόlfmeister of Lόneburg as a Leading Group in the City and Duchy of Brunswick and Lόneburg

Christian Opitz (University of Vienna The Dominican Communities of Konstanz and the Many Faces of Saint John

Moderator: Elisabeth Gruber (University of Vienna)
During the late Middle Ages, a number of cities located in the duchy of Austria, the kingdom of Bohemia including Moravia, as well as the West-Hungarian region represented relevant nodes in terms of infrastructure, knowledge, political influence and administration, and thus played an important role within economic, political and cultural relations in Central Europe. The main issue of this session is to describe the influence exerted by these cities when shaping and structuring the specific regions to obtain a comprehensive picture of the reasons for their importance and, more specifically, of the role of various social groups in an urban context.

610: Visions of Community V: Urban Communities in Late Medieval Central Europe, 1350-1550 Relations

Elisabeth Gruber (University of Vienna) Trust is Good Kinship is Better: Kinship Relations among Late-Medieval Urban Elites in the Duchy of Austria

Karoly Goda (Mόnster University) A Self-Made Community? Eucharistic Fraternities in Medieval Vienna and Beyond

Maria Theisen (University of Vienna) Creating Infrastructure for Crafts and Arts in the City of Prague During the Late 14th Century: the Noble, the Church and the Urban Community

Response: Simon Teuscher (University of Zόrich)

Moderator: Christina Lutter (University of Vienna)
Social relations in late medieval cities are intra- and interurban and manifest themselves in terms of kinship related, legal, institutional and economic aspects. To reconstruct the interplay of these elements and their impact on community building different methodological approaches are required. Analysing urban society as a social network of differently structured groups can be fruitful especially in times of social, political or economic change. We will focus on different social groups, their different forms of interaction and ask for different patterns of representation in terms of social heritage, family, affiliation with confraternities, but also age and gender.

710: Visions of Community VI: Conflict and Competition

Maria Mair (University of Vienna) Negotiating Community: Narratives of Conflict in Late Medieval Vernacular Austrian Historiography

Fabian Kόmmeler (University of Vienna) Social Conflict in Rural Communities in the Southern Dalmatian Areas of Korčula and Split (1420-1540)

Daniel Mahoney (Austrian Academy of Sciences/University of Chicago) The Divisive Formation and Contentious Competition of Tribal Groups in the Highlands of South Arabia during the Early Medieval Period

Moderator: Christina Lutter (University of Vienna)
By approaching conflict as a social practice that helps shape communities, the groups involved and their motivations may be interpreted as reflecting a wider picture of political competition in a specific historical context. Using comparative examples from both medieval Europe and Asia, this session will explore the ways social conflict appears explicitly and implicitly in a variety of media such as historiographical narratives, court records, wall paintings, and even geographical descriptions. Additionally, it will demonstrate how these accounts of conflict may be used to indicate the social tensions of both the original context of the conflict itself and the period when it was recorded or retold.
To that end, Maria Mair will look at how authors of Austrian vernacular verse chronicles in the late 13th century used conflict narratives to establish and reinforce the political position of their own social groups and to discuss concepts of good and bad community. Fabian Kόmmeler will then examine the role of conflicts in the everyday life of rural communities in late medieval Dalmatia on the basis of court records using pastoral nomads acting in confrontation with their urban, patrician, and rural counterparts as an example. Finally, Daniel Mahoney will look at the political competition and conflict within the tribal community of highland South Arabia as manifested in the genealogies, geographies, and anecdotes found in texts of the early medieval period.

810: Visions of Community VII: Enclaves of Learning - Religion, Ideologies, and Practices in Europe, Arabia, and Tibet

Rutger Kramer (Austrian Academy of Sciences/Utrecht University) Monks on the Via Regia? Smaragdus of Saint-Mihiel between Ideal and Reality

Eirik Hovden (Austrian Academy of Sciences) Managers of Knowledge: Hijras and Madrasas in medieval South Arabia

Mathias Fermer (Austrian Academy of Sciences) Enlightened Activities of Buddhist Masters: The Religious Establishment(s) of the Sakya School in Southern Central Tibet

Moderator: Walter Pohl (Austrian Academy of Sciences/University of Vienna)
In all major religions, communities may be found that exist for the purpose of safeguarding the knowledge and propagating the practices upon which the culture they operated in were founded from the monasteries that dotted the religious landscape of the Christian west, to the the Sakya institutions of Tibetan Buddhism, and the hijras and madrasas in South Arabia. These communities all had a central place in their respective societies, but were also kept isolated in order to guard the knowledge they keep against outside contamination. In reality, however, they all also interacted with the world around them, and depended upon its secular wealth as much as the world depended on their spiritual prowess.
In spite of these apparent similarities in the social, religious and economic functions of such communities, it has proven to be surprisingly difficult to find a definition that fits all of them, due to the fact that there are also major differences between them differences that only become apparent when they are looked at in a comparative context. This session aims to do just that. First, Rutger Kramer will provide a backdrop by presenting a vision of monastic communities described by the Carolingian abbot Smaragdus, who thus simultaneously fulfilled the roles of participant and observer in the monastic world of the turbulent early ninth century. Eirik Hovden will then showcase a specific type of enclave existing in Yemen, the hijras, and show how they had found a peculiar balance between their religious heritage and the wide array of social and economic responsibilities they also carried. Finally, moving further eastwards, Mathias Fermer will present the way the activities of the spiritual masters of the Sakya sect of Tibetan Buddhism provided a blueprint for monastic life that also is both strikingly similar and surprisingly different from the European situation. In all cases, however, these enclaves of learning were shaped as much by the needs of the community around them as by forces operating from within, and by analysing the interplay between these, surprising observations are brought to light.

Associated Sessions

Below, you will find a list of sessions organized by researchers or projects associated with VISCOM.
103: New Research in Late Antique and Early Medieval Monasticism
203: Neglected Texts in Late Antique and Early Medieval Monasticism

Organization: Network for the Study of Late Antique & Early Medieval Monasticism

824: The Growth of Religious Reform Movements in Late Medieval Central and Eastern Europe: Contexts and Comparisons

Organization: Kateřina Hornνčkovα, (Universitδt Salzburg)

1003: Being Roman after Rome I
1103: Being Roman after Rome II

Organization: ERC Advanced Grant: Social Cohesion, Identity & Religion in Europe (SCIRE)

1010: Texts and Identities I: Governing the Body - Governing the Soul: Christianity and Society in the Carolingian Period
1110: Texts and Identities II: Early Medieval Episcopal Self-Fashioning
1210: Texts and Identities III: Organising Knowledge and Constructing Communities
1310: Texts and Identities IV: Violence, Legitimacy, and Identity during the Transformation of the Roman World
1510: Texts and Identities V: The Merovingians and Their Past
1610: Texts and Identities VI: Barbarians, Arians, and Other Monsters
1710: Texts and Identities VII: Defining Community in Early Medieval Kingdoms - Theory and Practice

1203: The Rules of Debate in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages I
1303: The Rules of Debate in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages II

1503: The Reign of Louis the Pious and the Productivity of an Empire I: High Fidelity
1603: The Reign of Louis the Pious and the Productivity of an Empire II: The Return of the King

Organization: Rutger Kramer (project: Hludowicus: Die Produktivitδt einer Krise/La Productivitι d'une Crise)

2013-08-13T04:46:00.000+03:00

The International Consortium for Research in the Humanities "Fate, Freedom and Prognostication" at the University Erlangen-Nuremberg

Conférence conjointe de l'EPHE (Université de Sorbonne-Paris) et de l'IKGF (Université d' Erlangen-Nuremberg)

Table ronde international : Hagiographie et prophétie, de l'Antiquité au XIIIe siècle

Vendredi 11 et samedi 12 octobre 2013
Organisation: Klaus Herbers (Université d′Erlangen) et Patrick Henriet (Paris, École Pratique des hautes Études)
S′ils ne se confondent pas, le personnage du saint et celui du prophète se croisent et se confondent fréquemment depuis qu′il existe des textes hagiographiques. Saint Antoine, saint Martin de Tours, saint Benoît, sont parfois prophètes, même si, comme l′écrit Athanase à propos d′Antoine, « il ne faut pas prier pour prévoir l′avenir, ni désirer cela comme récompense de l′ascèse » (Vita Antonii, II, 34). La prévision des événements à venir n′est cependant qu′un aspect du prophétisme, généralement conçu, dans la lignée d′Augustin et de Grégoire le Grand, comme « la capacité de mettre en lumière ce qui est caché ».
La séparation très nette du passé, du présent et du futur est à bien des égards moderne et ne correspond que partiellement à la façon dont le temps était appréhendé au Moyen Âge. Dans un schéma de pensée typologique profondément marqué par la méditation de la Bible, tout événement n′est que l′accomplissement de ce qui a déjà été annoncé. De même que les faits rapportés dans le Nouveau Testament sont une confirmation de ce qu′annonçait l′Ancien Testament, de même, les faits contemporains ne sont que l′actualisation passagère d′un discours supra-historique exposé par le texte sacré. Selon les miracles opérés, saint Benoît peut donc être un nouveau Moïse, un nouvel Élisée, un nouveau Pierre, un nouvel Élie ou un nouveau David, alors que sept siècles plus tard, Saint François d′Assise est un « nouvel évangéliste ». Le don de prophétie est aussi un moyen pour les ascètes de faire face aux puissants, ce qui met la connaissance de l′avenir au service d′une bonne gestion du présent, dans des sociétés où le politique et le religieux relèvent très largement de la même sphère.
A partir du XIIe siècle, parallèlement à la multiplication des expériences prophétiques aux marges de l'Église, les saints prophètes (et plus encore les saintes prophétesses) qui tiennent un discours explicite et parfois systématique sur le futur se font de plus en plus nombreux. Or au même moment, l'étude du sens littéral de la Bible se renforce et l'attention portée à l'Histoire humaine par le biais des chroniques fait l'objet d'un fort investissement. Comment faut-il interpréter ces évolutions en apparence contradictoires ? Peut-on envisager le discours sur le futur comme un aspect parmi d'autres d'une vaste évolution qui pourrait être caractérisée comme une sorte de réappropriation humaine du temps, comme une historicisation du monde qui, toujours pensée de concert avec l'accomplissement du plan divin, resterait essentiellement différente de celle des sociétés modernes ? La multiplication des textes hagiographiques consacrés à des saints réformateurs endossant volontiers l'habit du prophète (ainsi Grégoire VII caractérisé par Paul Bernried comme un nouvel Élie) invite à étudier de pair l'intérêt pour l'Église hic et nunc et l'arrière-plan eschatologique qui l'accompagne, voire le soutient.
Ces quelques rappels, ces quelques questions, n'ont d'autre but que d'aider à penser, tout en l'historicisant, le rapport complexe et mouvant qui a toujours uni prophétie et sainteté. Il conviendra de diversifier les approches et les points de vue en parcourant un long Moyen Âge, en en reliant lorsque ce sera possible les usages du temps avec les discours sur l'espace, sur l'Église et sur la société chrétienne, en posant la question du rapport entre prophétie et pouvoirs (terrestre et céleste), en traquant enfin, les évolutions et les ruptures.

[Pour imparfaites qu'elles soient, les lignes qui précèdent doivent beaucoup à deux importantes mises au point : M. Van Uytfanghe, « Modèles bibliques dans l'hagiographie », dans P. Riché et G. Lobrichon, Le Moyen Âge et la Bible, Paris, 1984, p. 449-487, et A. Vauchez, Le prophétisme médiéval d'Hildegarde de Bingen à Savonarole, Budapest, 1999 (Public Lecture Series, 20)].

Vendredi 11 octobre

9h 00	Discours de bienvenue Klaus Herbers et Patrick Henriet
9h 15	Introduction Patrick Henriet
9h 45	Espaces d'expérience narratifs des dernières choses : l'imagination eschatologique dans la martyrologie de l'Antiquité tardive et du haut Moyen Âge Gordon Blennemann (Université d’Erlangen)
10h 30	Pause
11h	Images, prédictions et présages à Byzance et dans l'Occident médiéval J.M. Sansterre (Université Libre de Bruxelles)
11h 45	Prophétie dans la Vie de saint Columba par Adamnan Edina Bozoky (Université de Poitiers)
12h 30	Repas
14h 15	L'espace ou le temps ? Les visions cosmiques des saints Patrick Henriet (Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes)
15h 00	Daniel/Jérémie : les modèles prophétiques des saints carolingiens Sumi Shimahara (Université de Paris IV-Sorbonne)
14h 45	Vision, rapport à l'au-delà et action politique à l'époque carolingienne Philippe Depreux (Université de Limoges)
16h 30	Pause
17h 00	Hagiographie, historiographie et prophétie au IXe siècle franc : connaître le passé ou connaître l'avenir ? Une histoire de la Providence Marie-Céline Isaïa (Université de Lyon 3)
17h 45	Entre historiographie et hagiographie: Les messages prophétiques de l'Evêque Henri dans la chronique d'Arnold de Lübeck Hans-Christian Lehner (Université d’Erlangen-Nürnberg)
18h 30	Fin

Samedi 12 octobre

9h 00	L'histoire sans fin. L'ordre des temps dans l'oeuvre des visionnaires rhénans (XIIe-XIIIe siècle) Uta Kleine (Université à distance d’Hagen)
9h 45	Vitae, Visions et prophétie. L'hagiographie et l'au-delà dans les textes des XIIe et XIIIe siècles Prof. Dr Klaus Herbers (Université d'Erlangen-Nürnberg)
10h 30	Pause
10h 45	Aspects de la mémoire d'une prophétesse : Hildegarde Laurence Moulinier (Université de Lyon II)
11h 30	Comparaisons avec le monde chinois, avec la participation de Stéphane Feuillas (Université de Paris 7) Table ronde
12h 00	Conclusions Klaus Herbers
12h 30	Repas

Hagiography and Prophecy from Ancient Times to the 13th Century

October 11-12, 2013
Convenors: Klaus Herbers (Université d'Erlangen), Patrick Henriet (Paris, École Pratique des hautes Études)
In hagiographical texts, the character of the saint is often merged with that of the prophet. Thus St. Anthony, St. Martin of Tours, and St. Benedict are sometimes also referred to as prophets. Athanasius, for example, writes about Anthony: "We neither ought to pray to know the future, nor to ask for it as the reward of our discipline" (Vita Antonii, 34).
The prediction of future events is only one aspect of prophecy, however. When regarded in the sense of Augustine and Gregory the Great, it is rather generally "the ability to bring to light what is hidden."
The clear distinction between past, present and future is modern and does not reflect the way in which time and its passage were understood in the Middle Ages. According to a typological mode of thinking, which is characterized by contemplation of the Bible, every event is the fulfillment of something that has already been signified. Just as the events reported in the New Testament are a confirmation of those incidents foretold in the Old Testament, contemporary events are the temporary actualization of a trans- or metahistorical discourse presented by a sacred text. Due to miracles, St. Benedict can be a new Moses, Elisha, Peter, Elijah or David, while, seven centuries later, St. Francis of Assisi is able to appear as a "new evangelist." The gift of prophecy also acts as a means for ascetics to defy the powers that be to the extent that knowledge about the future is provided to positively influence the present, particularly in societies where political and religious concerns are largely part of the same realm.
From the 12th century onward, prophets (also female prophets) who conducted a unique and sometimes systematic discourse on the future became more numerous, while the number of prophetic experiences within the Church simultaneous increased. During the same period, however, the literal interpretation of the Bible gained strength and the Chronicles became an important medium for making sense of history.
How should the evolution of these contradictory developments be interpreted? Is it possible to view the debate about the future as one aspect among many of a more comprehensive development - a development which can be characterized as a type of human reappropriation of time, of historicizing the world, and which, beyond the fulfillment of a divine plan, is fundamentally distinct from the conceptions of modern societies? The proliferation of hagiographic texts about reformist saints who willingly took on the role of prophet (just as Gregory VII, for example, has been characterized by Paul von Bernried as a new Elijah) is an invitation to study in greater detail both the Church hic et nunc and its associated or supporting eschatological background.
The aim of these questions is to provide further intellectual stimulus, for prophecy and holiness in historical appraisals were always characterized by a complex and changing relationship. The conference will examine the multiplicity of approaches and views on the course of the Middle Ages and aim to make them more concrete. Where possible, the use of time will be linked to the discourse on space, the Church and Christian society. The focus will be on the relationship between prophecy and (earthly and heavenly) rule for the purpose of ultimately identifying developments and ruptures.

[For more on these questions, see: M. Van Uytfanghe, "Modèles bibliques dans l'hagiographie," in: P. Riché/G. Lobrichon, Le Moyen Âge et la Bible, Paris, 1984, pp. 449-487; A. Vauchez , Le prophétisme médiéval d'Hildegarde de Bingen à Savonarole, Budapest, 1999 (Public Lecture Series, 20)] .

Hagiographie und Prophetie von der Antike bis zum 13. Jahrhundert

11.–12. Oktober 2013
Veranstalter: Klaus Herbers (Université d'Erlangen), Patrick Henriet (Paris, École Pratique des hautes Études)
In hagiographischen Texten verbindet sich häufig die Persönlichkeit des Heiligen und die des Propheten. Der heilige Antonius, der heilige Martin von Tours, der heilige Benedikt sind manchmal auch Propheten, wie Athanasius über Antonius schreibt: "Man darf nicht beten, um die Zukunft vorherzusehen, noch dies als Lohn der Askese verlangen" (Vita Antonii, 34).
Die Vorhersage kommender Ereignisse ist jedoch nur ein Aspekt der Prophetie, allgemein betrachtet im Sinne von Augustinus und Gregor dem Großen, es ist vielmehr "die Fähigkeit das ans Licht zu bringen, was versteckt ist".
Die deutliche Trennung von Vergangenheit, Gegenwart und Zukunft ist modern und entspricht nicht der Art und Weise, wie Zeit und Zeitverlauf im Mittelalter verstanden wurde. Innerhalb eines typologischen Denkens, das sich durch die Besinnung auf die Bibel auszeichnet, ist jedes Ereignis die Erfüllung eines bereits angezeigten. So wie die im Neuen Testament berichteten Ereignisse eine Bestätigung der im Alten Testament angekündigten Vorkommnisse sind, so sind die zeitgenössischen Ereignisse die vorübergehende Aktualisierung eines über- oder metageschichtlichen Diskurses, den ein sakraler Text vorgestellt hat. Aufgrund der Wunder kann der Heilige Benedikt ein neuer Moses, Elisa, Petrus, Elia oder David sein, während sieben Jahrhunderte später der Heilige Franziskus von Assisi als "neuer Evangelist" erscheint. Die Gabe der Prophetie fungiert auch als Mittel für Asketen, den Machthabern die Stirn zu bieten, indem das Wissen um die Zukunft in den Dienst einer guten Gestaltung der Gegenwart gestellt wird, vor allem in Gesellschaften, in denen politische und religiöse Belange weitestgehend dem gleichen Bereich angehören.
Ab dem 12. Jahrhundert werden die Propheten (und Prophetinnen), die einen eindeutigen und manchmal systematischen Diskurs über die Zukunft führen, immer zahlreicher, gleichzeitig nimmt die Anzahl prophetischer Erfahrungen im Umkreis der Kirche zu. Zur gleichen Zeit erstarkt aber auch die wörtliche Bibelauslegung und die Chroniken werden zu einem wichtigen Medium für die Auseinandersetzung mit der Geschichte.
Wie lässt sich nun diese Entwicklung widersprüchlicher Erscheinungen interpretieren? Kann man den Diskurs über die Zukunft als einen Aspekt unter vielen einer umfangreichen Entwicklung betrachten, einer Entwicklung, die als eine Art menschlicher Wiederaneignung der Zeit, als Historisierung der Welt charakterisiert werden kann und die sich im Wesentlichen, auch in Hinblick auf die Erfüllung eines göttlichen Planes, von Entwürfen moderner Gesellschaften unterscheidet? Die Zunahme von hagiographischen Texten reformerischer Heiliger, die bereitwillig die Rolle des Propheten aufgriffen (so wurde beispielsweise Gregor VII. von Paul von Bernried als neuer Elia charakterisiert) lädt dazu ein, sowohl die Kirche hic et nunc als auch den sie begleitenden oder unterstützenden eschatologischen Hintergrund genauer zu studieren.
Ziel dieser Fragen ist es, Denkanstöße zu liefern, denn in der geschichtlichen Betrachtung waren Prophetie und Heiligkeit immer durch ein komplexes und sich veränderndes Verhältnis zueinander charakterisiert. Im Zuge der Tagung wird es darauf ankommen, die Ansätze und Ansichten für den Verlauf des Mittelalters in ihrer Unterschiedlichkeit zu studieren und sie greifbarer zu machen; wo es möglich ist, wird die Verwendung der Zeit mit dem Diskurs über den Raum, die Kirche und die christliche Gesellschaft verknüpft, es wird die Frage zu stellen sein nach dem Verhältnis zwischen Prophetie und (irdischer und himmlischer) Herrschaft, um abschließend die Entwicklungen und Brüche benennen zu können.

[Vgl. zu diesen Fragen: M. Van Uytfanghe, « Modèles bibliques dans l′hagiographie », in: P. Riché/G. Lobrichon, Le Moyen Âge et la Bible, Paris, 1984, S. 449-487; A. Vauchez, Le prophétisme mèdièval d'Hildegarde de Bingen à Savonarole, Budapest, 1999 (Public Lecture Series, 20)].

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2013-05-13T23:43:00.001+03:00

Aspects of the Balkans. Continuity and change

H. Birnbaum and S. Vryonis (eds.)

HENRIK BIRNBAUM

BYZANTINE TRADITION TRANSFORMED: THE OLD SERBIAN VITA

It goes without saying that only a few of the many intriguing facets of the particular literary form of biography or life-writing as pursued with remarkable zeal and success in medieval Serbia, can be discussed within the limits of a conference paper. In particular, after a few preliminary remarks concerning the historical background of Old Serbian biography, its general literary and stylistic characteristics, and the shifting appreciation it has met among historians and literary scholars, I would like to focus on the relationship of this genre (if indeed it can be defined as constituting an autonomous literary genre) to its nearest Byzantine models and counterparts which fall largely within the well-established, traditional kinds of hagiography and historiography. [1] Furthermore, I will endeavor

1. Generally on Byzantine hagiography (including certain kinds of religious panegyric) and historiography, see K. Krumbacher, Geschichte der byzantinischen Litteratur, 2nd ed., vol. I (Munich, 1897), 160-205 and 219-408. Specifically on Byzantine hagiography, cf. also H.-G. Beck, Kirche und theologische Literatur im byzantinischen Reich (Munich, 1959), 267-275, 402-413, 459-467, 506-514, 557-582, 638-642, 697-701, and 793-796. See further, for example, Xr. Loparev, "Vizantijskija Žitija Svjatyx VIII-IX věkov", Viz. Vrěm. XVII (1910 [1911]), 1-224. On Slavic saints in Byzantine hagiography, cf. esp. I. Dujčev, "Slawische Heilige in der byzantinischen Hagiographie", Südost-Forschungen XIX (1960), 71-86; see further id., "Les rapports hagiographiques entre Byzance et les Slaves", Proceedings of the XIIIth International Congress of Byzantine Studies (Oxford, 1966), (London, 1967), 363-370. On historical data in Byzantine hagiography, see recently F. Halkin, "L'hagiographie byzantine au service de l'histoire", ibid., 345-354; and on Byzantine-West European hagiographic relations, E. Follieri, "I rapporti fra Bisanzio e l'Occidente nel campo dell'agiografia", ibid., 355-362. For a discussion of the independent genre of secular (or 'historical') biography, not recognized as such by K. Krumbacher, but, in fact, revived in Byzantium in the 10th century (with the Life of Emperor Basilius I, written by his grandson Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus, a work paralleling such Western secular biographies as those of Charlemagne by Einhart or of King Alfred by Asser) and emerging from 'semi-secular' hagiography and biography (including panegyric), see P. J. Alexander, "Secular Biography at Byzantium", Speculum XV (1940), 194-209.

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to comment briefly on the parallels and interrelations obtaining between the Old Serbian variety of life-writing and its other Slavic (that is to say, Church Slavic) predecessors and contemporaries which include, in addition to the Old Church Slavic prototypes, its Old Russian and, to a lesser extent, Old Czech equivalents or near-equivalents. These, too, were ultimately patterned on Byzantine examples. By comparing, quantitatively and qualitatively, the Old Serbian Lives (žitija) of rulers and princes of the Church to what can be thought of as their closest Slavic correspondences, and by making reference to recent discussions as to the possibility (or impossibility) of assuming an independent genre, as elsewhere in medieval Slavic writing, of secular biography (having its roots in hagiography, but in some respects essentially different from it), [2] I will attempt to set forth some of the particular characteristics of the Old Serbian Vita. (Outside the Byzantine-Slavic sphere the Latin biographies of St. Stephen of Hungary in particular seem to have had some impact on medieval Serbian life-writing.) [3] Throughout my presentation the texts under discussion will be viewed primarily as works of literature, i.e., in terms of their artistic qualities, rather than as — more or less reliable — historical documents, designed largely for the purpose of legitimating the twinned dynastic and ecclesiastic claims of the Serbian rulers and archbishops of the Middle Ages. This is not to say, however, that a reappraisal of the Old Serbian Lives as testimonies of by-gone events and long-deceased personalities (which in modern times have provided a rich source of inspiration for the upsurge of Serbian national consciousness) could not also be arrived at if we were to adopt an approach different from the one suggested here.

I

There can be no doubt that the emerging Old Serbian literature of the 12th and early 13th centuries was largely patterned on Byzantine models in terms of thematic range and conceptual framework, as well as in respect

2. Cf. most recently N. W. Ingham, "The Limits of Secular Biography in Medieval Slavic Literature, Particularly Old Russian", American Contributions to the Sixth International Congress of Slavists (Prague, 1968), vol. II: Literary Contributions (The Hague and Paris, 1968), 181-199.

3. On the two Vitae of St. Stephen, written in the late 11th century and subsequently combined into one 'legend' by bishop Hartwig (Hartvic) early in the 12th century, see J. L. Csóka, A latin nyelvü történeti irodalom kialakulása Magyarországon a XI-XIV. században (Budapest, 1967), esp. 105-199 and 623-646.

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to the various forms of specific literary genres as realized by the use of their particular sets of stylistic devices. In this sense, then, medieval Serbian writing formed part of the literary output produced by what has been referred to as the Slavic Orthodox community of the Middle Ages. This community, at certain levels of education and literacy, may be viewed as an integrated whole (if only an extension of Byzantine civilization), sharing, among other things, a common literary language with only minor local variations — Church Slavic. [4] More immediately, at the peak of the Middle Ages, the literary activity of the Slavs (including the Serbs) can be regarded as a continuation of the work of the Slavic 'apostles' or, rather, 'teachers', Constantine and Methodius, and their disciples. [5] As is well known, after Methodius' death in 885 and the subsequent suppression of the Slavic liturgy in Moravia and Pannonia, several followers of the Thessalonian brothers found refuge in Bulgaria where Old Church Slavic writing could continue to develop and flourish, first in its western, Macedonian region (in and around Ohrid) and soon thereafter also in the new capital of Preslav. The other Orthodox Slavs, namely, the Eastern Slavs of Kievan Russia and the Serbs (after some hesitancy between Byzantium and Rome) could thus draw on the foundations provided by Old Bulgarian writing when creating their own national varieties of literature. It has long been established that, as a result of the political and cultural setting of Bulgaria in the 10th-12th centuries (Bulgaria forming a part of the Byzantine Empire from 972 and 1018, respectively, to 1185-1186 when the Second Bulgarian Empire came into being), Byzantine elements thoroughly permeated this early Bulgarian literature on all levels.

It is in the development of the specific kind of biography, unmatched elsewhere in Slavic writing, that Serbia made its unique contribution to

4. For the concept of the Slavia orthodoxa as a unified cultural-linguistic whole, see esp. R. Picchio, "Die historisch-philologische Bedeutung der kirchenslavischen Tradition", WdSl VII (1962), 1-26; id., "O cerkiewnosłowiańskiej wspólnocie kulturalno-językowej", Sprawozd. z posiedzeń Kom., Lipiec-Grudzień 1962 (PAN, Oddział w Krakowie, 1963), 449-454; id., "A proposito della Salvia ortodossa e délia communità linguistica slava ecclesiastica", Ricerche Slavistiche XI (1963), 105-127. For an overall view of Church Slavic literature, cf. R. Jakobson, Harvard Slavic Studies I (1953), 37-55 ("The Common Slavic Written Tradition", in: "The Kernel of Comparative Slavic Literature"); H. Birnbaum, "Grundkonzept und Aufgabenkreis einer vergleichenden kirchenslavischen Literaturforschung", Das heidnische und christliche Slaventum, 2 (Wiesbaden, 1970), 127-147.

5. For a comprehensive treatment of the life and work of Constantine and Methodius and their literary legacy, see F. Grivec, Konstantin und Method, Lehrer der Slaven (Wiesbaden, 1960) (commenting on the preference for the term "teachers" over "apostles", 66-67).

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medieval Slavic literature. While based on traditional genres and styles, Old Serbian life-writing combined these with some new, original ingredients. Even F. Dölger, an ardent advocate of the superiority of Byzantine civilization over its neighboring Balkan sub-cultures had to single out some of the Old Serbian biographies as literary works which, in his words, "zum erstenmal von der byzantinischen Schablone loskommen und einen frischeren und lebendigeren Zug aufweisen". [6]

Old Serbian life-writing, along with the monuments of monasterial architecture, the most impressive achievement of medieval Serbian culture, follows a rather consistent line of development. [7] Starting with hagiography (both in its popular-narrative as well as in its rhetorical-learned varieties) Serbian biography opens with the two Vitae of Stephan Nemanja (d. 1200), the first independent ruler of a united Serbia, written by his sons, Rastko (St. Sava, d. 1235), the first archbishop of Serbia and

6. Cf. F. Dölger, Byzanz und die europäische Staatenwelt (Ettal, 1953), 276 (in: "Die mittelalterliche Kultur auf dem Balkan als byzantinisches Erbe", 261-281, where also a gradation of the Byzantine influence on the Balkans is suggested); see further id., "Byzanz und Südosteuropa", in: Völker und Kulturen Südosteuropas. Kulturhistorische Beiträge (Munich, 1959), 57-67 and 270-271 (references). For some negative aspects of the Byzantine impact (and partly contradicting Dölger), see J. Matl, Die Kultur der Südslawen (Frankfurt a/M, 1966), 25-26. Cf. further also several papers by I. Dujčev, among them, "Les Slaves et Byzance", Études historiques à l'occasion du XIe Congrès international des sciences historiques (Stockholm, 1960) (Sofia, 1960), 31-77; id., "Les rapports littéraires byzantino-slaves", Actes du XIIe Congrès international d'études byzantines (Ohrid, 1961), I (Belgrade, 1963), 411-429; id., "Bisanzio e il mondo slavo", in: I. Dujčev, medioevo bizantino-stavo, I (Rome, 1965), 3-22. On Byzantine-South Slavic literary relations, see id., "La littérature des Slaves méridionaux au XIIIe siècle et ses rapports avec la littérature byzantine", in : L'art byzantin du XIIIe siècle (Symposium de Sopoćani, 1965), (Belgrade, 1967), 103-115. On Byzantine-Serbian relations, particularly in the 14th century, see, for example, G. Ostrogorsky, "Problèmes des relations byzantino-serbes au XIVe siècle", Proceedings of the XIIIth International Congress of Byzantine Studies, 41-55; with a supplementary contribution by G. C. Soulis, ibid., 57-61.

7. Cf. J. Matl, Die Kultur der Südslawen, 15 ; see also id., Südslawische Studien (Munich, 1965), 15-16. For a general survey of Old Serbian biography in its cultural and literary context, see, for example, A. Schmaus, "Zur Frage der Kulturonentierung der Serben im Mittelalter", Südost-Forschungen XV (1956), 179-201, esp. 195-201; S. Hafner, Serbisches Mittelalter: Altserbische Herrscherbiographien, vol. I: Stefan Nemanja nach den Viten des hl. Sava und Stefans des Erstgekrönten, übersetzt, eingeleitet und erklärt (Graz-Vienna-Cologne, 1962), 13-18; DJ. Sp. Radojičić, Razvojni luk stare srpske književnosti: Tekstovi i komentari (Novi Sad, 1962), esp. 21-39 (the introductory essay first appeared in Letopis Matice srpske, knj. 385, sv. 3/4, 1960, 189-205, 328-346, and was again reprinted in Stara književnost, Dj. Trifunović, ed., [Belgrade, 1965], 15-52). See also the older, to be sure, strongly biased presentation by V. Jagić, AfslPh II (1876), 31-47 (in his study "Ein Beitrag zur serbischen Annalistik mit literaturgeschichtlicher Einleitung"), and M. Murko, Geschichte der älteren südslawischen Literaturen (Leipzig, 1908), 155-164.

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head of its newly established autocephalic Church, and King Stephan the First-Crowned (Stefan Prvovenčani, d. 1227 or 1228). [8] To be sure, in addition to their purely hagiographic origins, supplemented by elements of annalistic historiography (chronicle-writing), a significant tie can be shown to exist between these biographies, particularly the less secular though stylistically more popular Vita of Stephan Nemanja by St. Sava, and the two Charters (chrysobulla) for the Serbian monastery of Hilandar on Mt. Athos, issued by Stephan Nemanja (aided by St. Sava, in 1198-1199) and Stephan the First-Crowned (in 1200-1201), respectively. These Charters were patterned on corresponding Byzantine imperial documents. As was convincingly and in great detail demonstrated in a recent study by S. Hafner, a self-contained ideology, unequivocally making reference to the Nemanja dynasty and characterized by an all-pervasive religious motivation as well as by political realism, is already evident in the first of the two Charters for the Hilandar Monastery. This ideology, with some further literary embellishment, was then incorporated by Stephan the First-Crowned into his, the second Charter and subsequently by St. Sava (probably the co-author of the original Charter of 1198-1199) into his Life of Stephan Nemanja. The fusion by St. Sava of large portions of a charter text (prooemium and narratio) with components of a different nature and origin (monastic legend, laudatio, translatio, i.e., account of the transfer of the remains of a saint or a holy man not yet canonized — here of Stephan Nemanja from the Athonite monastery of Hilandar to the Studenica Monastery in Serbia — historical family or clan tradition, etc.) into an integrated whole was an achievement unprecedented in Slavic writing. [9]

8. On Stephan Nemanja and St. Sava, see most recently I. Dujčev, Bibliotheca Sanctorum, XI (Rome, 1968 [1969]), coll. 522-529 and 1163-1165 (s. vv. SABA and SIMEONE STEFANO NEMANJA, with bibliographical references).

9. See S. Hafner, Studien zur altserbischen dynastischen Historiographie (Munich, 1964), 54-77 ("Herrscherurkunden als Ausgangspunkt und ideeller Kern der altserbischen Herrscherbiographien"); cf. also id., Serbisches Mittelalter, 16 and 31-32. On St. Sava's role in church and cultural history, see, for example, J. Matl, "Der heilige Sawa als Begründer der serbischen Nationalkirche. Seine Leistung und Bedeutung für den Kulturaufbau Europas", in: Südslawische Studien, 32-44. On the artistic motif of Paradise as represented in the Hilandar Charter of Stephan the First-Crowned, St. Sava's Life of Stephan Nemanja, and medieval Serbian miniature painting, see, by way of example, S. Radojčić, "Hilandarska povelja Stefana Prvovenčanog i motiv raja u srpskom minijaturnom slikarstvu", Hilandarski zbornik, 1, G. Ostrogorsky, ed. (Belgrade, 1966), 41-50 (with French résumé). On Sava and his Life of Simeon (Nemanja), see further Stara književnost, 271-305 (articles by P. Popović, M. Panić-Surep, B. Kovačević, and M. Crnjanski, published previously elsewhere). Cf. also D. Pavlović, Iz naše starije književnosti (Sarajevo, 1964), 17-42 ("Sava Nemanjić [Sv. Sava I").

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The Life of Prince Vladimir of the Zeta region (by and large corresponding to present-day Montenegro) has until quite recently also been mentioned among the sources of Old Serbian life-writing. This biography is contained in the Latin version of the so-called Chronicle of the Priest of Dioclitia (or Dioclia, Serbian Duklja, an earlier name for Zeta), Letopis popa Dukljanina (also known as Barski rodoslov), which was hitherto believed to represent a translation of a Slavic original written in the 12th century; the part containing the Life of Vladimir allegedly dated even further back, to the 11th century. [10] However, the newest edition of this text by S. Mijušković suggests that we have to do here with a purely fictional literary product rather than with an historical account, that its historical trustworthiness therefore is virtually nil, and that this belletristic piece actually belongs to the late 14th or early 15th, rather than to the 12th century. It is further believed to be the work of only one and not two (or even more) authors as was previously assumed. (Usually one distinguished at least two authors, both referred to as Dukljanin iz Bara : one, supposedly living in the 11th century, also called Zećanin, and the author of the original Life of Prince Vladimir; and a later one, the 12th century writer of the Letopis.) The author of the original Chronicle of the Priest of Dioclitia was, according to Mijušković, definitely a Serb and not a speaker of a Romance dialect writing in Latin. The preserved Latin version must therefore indeed be considered a translation. [11] Thus, if this reversal in chronology and the reassessment of the Letopis popa Dukljanina as an historical document and a work of literature turn out to be correct, it should be eliminated from among the texts considered for the prehistory of Old Serbian biography and rather be viewed as paralleling, in some respects, certain of the late medieval representatives of this genre. The preserved text not being in the vernacular and its origin highly controversial to say the least, it will here be excluded from any further consideration.

10. For a discussion of the Letopis as a possible source for Old Serbian life-writing and of the more advanced culture of littoral Zeta (Diocletia, Duklja) as compared to that of less developed inland Rascia (Raška), see S. Hafner, Studien, 19-20,40-53, and 58. See further also Dj. Sp. Radojičić, Südost-Forschungen XIX (1960), 87-89 and 91-92 (in the paper "Die politischen Bestrebungen in der serbischen mittelalterlichen Geschichtsschreibung", Serbo-Croatian version in Književnost XXXII, 1961,150-161, reprinted in the volume of the author's essays, Tvorci i delà stare srpske književnosti [Titograd, 1963], 317-335).

11. Cf. Letopis popa Dukljanina. Uvod, prevod i komentar: S. Mijušković (Titograd, 1967), esp. 7-120. For the two authors referred to as Dukljanin iz Bara, see further, e.g. Stara književnost, 557.

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St. Sava's Žitije of Stephan Nemanja (who assumed the monastic name Simeon, hence also Vita Simeonis), designed to preface the Typicon (tipik) of the Serbian monastery of Studenica, can perhaps still be considered to fall largely within, or at least be closely related to, the genre of hagiography in its popular-narrative variety, in spite of its heterogeneous constituents, its implied dynastic claim, and the fact that Nemanja here — contrary to what is the case in King Stephan's Life of his father — is never referred to as a saint (thus suggesting a pre-canonization date for its recording). By contrast, his older brother's biography of their father, though framed in a heavy, ornate hagiographic-rhetorical style, served primarily a secular purpose, focusing on Stephan Nemanja's worldly rather than on his monastic life. Hagiographic elements and literary devices, among them frequent quotations from the Scriptures and, though more rarely, from the Apocrypha, are abundantly present in the far more elaborate Life of Nemanja by Stephan the First-Crowned and, indeed, play a more prominent role here than in St. Sava's stylistically somewhat more unassuming account of his father's life (cf. also, for example, the enumeration of miracles, partly patterned on those ascribed to St. Demetrius, the patron saint of Thessalonica, and an established hagiographic device). Nonetheless, the first Serbian king's biography of his parental predecessor, with its close-to-life realism and deliberate political historicism very much in the foreground and only superficially veiled by the abstract spiritual wording of hagiography, can, generally speaking, be said to mark the introduction of a more pronounced secular note into Old Serbian biography. Though King Stephan's Vita was probably written a few years later than St. Sava's parallel work, little direct influence of Sava's Vita Simeonis on Stephan's biography could, strange as it may seem, be ascertained. Where such influence exists, it is limited primarily to common elements from the Hilandar Charters, to some shared loci communes, etc. [12]

12. St. Sava's Life of Simeon is believed to have been written, along with the Typicon of the Studenica Monastery, sometime between 1208 and 1217; King Stephan's biography of his father is known to have been completed no later than by June, 1216. On the relationship between the two earlier Vitae of Stephan Nemanja (a third one was subsequently authored by Domentijan, cf. below), see V. Ćorović, "Medjusobni odnošaj biografija Stevana Nemanje", in Svetosavski zbornik, 1 (Belgrade, 1936), 1-40, esp. 8-13. On Stephan the First-Crowned and his Life of Nemanja, see also Stara književnost, 309-315 (reprintings of articles by M. Savković and D. Kostić). For some historical and literary commentaries to Sava's and Stephan's Lives of Nemanja (Simeon), cf. further S. Hafner, Serbisches Mittelalter, 31-34, 68-71, and 131-170.

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II

Subsequently, a third Life of Stephan Nemanja was written by the Hilandar monk Domentijan (completed ca. 1264). In terms of actual biographical data, Domentijan's Life of St. Simeon does not go beyond the Žitije svetoga Simeona by Stephan the First-Crowned, his primary source. However, Domentijan's Vita of the founder of the Nemanja dynasty is considerably longer. The reason for this is that, while King Stephan's biography of his father was also characterized by an ornate style (thus contrasting with Sava's Vita Simeonis), Domentijan's Life of Stephan Nemanja is not only distinguished by the same heavy, ornamental style as its model, but in addition is abounding in a vast number of inserted panegyrical-rhetorical, allegorical, and lyrical passages and amplifications, not to mention the numerous, often lengthy quotations from the Bible. While no doubt having a well-defined stylistic function within medieval learned hagiography (of which this work must essentially be considered a specimen, cf. below), they nevertheless distract the reader (or listener) from the main narrative. Among the biographically irrelevant theological amplifications is the long passage which Domentijan had taken verbatim from the 11th century Kievan Metropolitan Ilarion's famous Slovo o zakoně i blagodati, a panegyrical oration (sermon) in commemoration of St. Vladimir of Kiev. [13] The judgment of the literary qualities of Domentijan's work has, therefore, varied among scholars, ranging from severely critical, so particularly in earlier times, to fairly appreciative, mostly in recent years when the aesthetic as well as theological role of these seemingly extraneous elements of Domentijan's Vita Simeonis has become better understood in the light of their historical context.

More controversial is another biography by Domentijan, a Vita of St. Sava, his teacher (written in 1242-1243 or possibly in 1253-1254; even the dating is uncertain). The learned, ornate style (with many digressions) of this Life is largely the same as in his later Vita Simeonis. In addition to Domentijan's Life of Sava there exists a second biography of the Serbian archbishop by another Hilandar monk, Teodosije, of whom virtually nothing is known. Teodosije's Vita of St. Sava is stylistically quite different from Domentijan's. It is simple and straightforward, without much elaborate amplification and as such continues in Old Serbian biography the other — popular-narrative — vein of Byzantine hagiography, more akin to St. Sava's own Life of his father, Stephan

13. Cf. L. Müller, Des Metropoliten llarion Lobrede auf Vladimir den Heiligen und Glaubensbekenntnis (Wiesbaden, 1962), 39, 49-50, and 104.

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Nemanja. While Domentijan's Life of St. Sava, designed, one may surmise, for reading in the sophisticated milieu of the Serbian court, does not seem to have been widely read in subsequent years and centuries, Teodosije's more realistic and naïve account of the chief Serbian saint's life came to enjoy great popularity. In spite of the vastly different styles (and, presumably, underlying theological and political concepts) in the two Lives of St. Sava, a certain number of common features as regards factual information and interpretation can nonetheless be ascertained so that, contrary to what was the case with the two Lives of Stephan Nemanja by St. Sava and Stephan the First-Crowned, it has been assumed that one of the Lives of St. Sava must have served as a model for the other one. Thus the question of priority arose. Against the generally held view that Domentijan's Life predates Teodosije's, objections were raised, for example, by M. Murko as early as in 1908. [14] In recent years a reversal in chronology was suggested by N. Radojčić, and A. Schmaus, too, seemed at one point inclined toward the arguments advocated by Radojčić. [15] However, Dj. Sp. Radojičić and M. Dinić have vigorously argued for the traditional order of priority and Schmaus now seems convinced by their reasoning. [16]

III

Old Serbian biography enters a new — historiographic, or even chronographic — phase with the appearance of the Lives of Serbian Kings and Archbishops (known also as Carostavnik or Rodoslov, as they were mislabeled in later copies) by Archbishop Danilo II (formerly Abbot of the Hilandar Monastery on Mt. Athos, d. 1337) and his successors. Foremost among these were the anonymous so-called Disciple of Danilo

14. Cf. M. Murko, op. cit., 159.

15. Cf. N. Radojčić, "Dva Teodosija Hilandarca", Glas SAN CCXVIII (1956), 1-27; A. Schmaus, Südost-Forschungen XV (1956), 196.

16. Cf. Dj. Sp. Radojičić, "O starom srpskom književniku Teodosiju", Istor. časopis (SAN), knj. IV (1952-1953), 13-42; M. J. Dinić, "Domentijan i Teodosije", Prilozi za književnost XXV (1959), 5-12; A. Schmaus, "Die literaturhistorische Problematik von Domentijans Sava-Vita", Opera Slavica IV (Vorträge auf dem V. Internationalen Slawistenkongress, Sofia, 1963), (Göttingen, 1963), 121-142, esp. 123. On Domentijan and Teodosije, see further also Stara književnost, 319-380 (articles, partly reprinted, by V. Corović, Dj. Trifunović, G. Subotić; M. Savković, S. Vulović, G. Subotić, D. Kostić). On some parallels between Domentijan's literary style and certain features of medieval Serbian murals, see further also G. Subotić, "Aperçus sur certains traits stylistiques de l'œuvre de Domentijan et de la peinture monumentale du XIIIe siècle", in: L'art byzantin du XIIIe siècle, 125-130.

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(author of some additional Vitae, including Danilo's, and compiler of the first Zbornik žitija kraljeva i arhiepiskopa srpskih) and Patriarch Danilo III (also called Danilo the Younger, d. between 1396 and 1399). The literary attitudes of the individual authors of this collection of Lives show considerable variation. Thus, for example, Archbishop Danilo's style, resembling Teodosije's in many respects, generally displays a clear poetic, not to say, lyrical, talent (brought to fruition in his religious poetry) ; the strength of artistic concept and style of his Disciple, on the other hand, lies rather in an ability to render dramatic scenes and in the employment of an even, chronicle-like narrative style. As a whole these Lives of Serbian Kings and Archbishops have been analyzed and discussed most notably by N. Radojčić in the foreword to his 1935 edition of this gallery of Old Serbian portraits. [17] Radojčić has suggested — and his idea has been taken up again by A. Schmaus [18] — that the Lives of Serbian Kings and Archbishops were originally conceived as a consistent whole, that is to say, that they were not combined into a larger unit only at some later date. According to Radojčić, Danilo's Vitae are patterned on an established, largely inflexible design: a theological introduction, followed by the main body, or exposition, containing the historical presentation with some further theological and rhetorical insertions (amplifications), and, finally, a rhetorical conclusion, usually with an account of the miracles ascribed to the protagonist. However, a rigorous definition, in literary terms, of the stylistic and compositional elements making up this specific sub-type of the Old Serbian vita genre has not yet been formulated. Radojćić argues that, while containing components of each : hagiography, historiography, and panegyrical rhetoric (the last perhaps the most stressed, but actually the relatively least important one), the Lives of Danilo and his school cannot reasonably be assigned to any of these three kinds of literature. Though Danilo (for reasons not quite clear) did not include among his Lives those of the founder of the dynasty, Stephan Nemanja, or his sons, it appears that the last Serbian archbishop in writing his series of portrayals of Serbian lay and church

17. Cf. N. Radojčić, "O arhiepiskopu Danilu II i njegovim nastavljačima", foreword to: Arhiepiskop Danilo, Životi kraljeva i arhiepiskopa srpskih (transl. L. Mirković), (Belgrade, 1935), V-XXVIII (reprinted as "Životopisački rad arhiepiskopa Danila II i njegovih nastavljača", in: Stara književnost, 383-401). See further Dj. Sp. Radqjičić, "Arhiepiskop srpski Danilo II" and "Danilov učenik i Danilo Mladji", in : Tvorci i delà stare srpske književnosti, 113-122 (the original versions appeared in Braničevo VI, 1960, 1-7, and Prilozi za književnost jezik, istoriju I folklor XXV, 1959, 80-81, respectively).

18. Cf. N. Radojčić, op. cit., XX-XXII; A. Schmaus, Südost-Forschungen XV (1956), 196-197.

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rulers attempted to resume the biographical-dynastic tradition initiated by St. Sava and Stephan the First-Crowned — a tradition from which Domentijan's and even Teodosije's life-writing must be considered a slight deviation (designed as their work was for more purely theological and edificatory purposes). [19]

If Radojčić's interpretation is correct (and it stands to reason that it is), Danilo's and his successors' Lives would mark a gradual withdrawing from hagiography proper and a moving toward secular biography. The overall historiographic-chronological alignment of Serbian princes of State and Church — a duality paralleled in Byzantium by its Emperor-Patriarch relationship subordinated to the concept of 'Caesaropapism' [20] — must have been alien to the essence of hagiography in view of this genre's preference for typification rather than individualization of characters.

IV

In the Lives of Serbian Kings and Archbishops by Danilo II and his successors, Old Serbian biography had reached a point in its development where this medieval Slavic genre, being, as it were, at a crossroads, could turn in one of two directions: either back to its origins (i.e., to hagiography, the paraphernalia of which it had been carrying along, to a large extent, through its gradual secularization) or into wholly secular life-writing serving purely political and historical, but no longer any truly religious purposes. The next major representatives of Old Serbian biography to appear in Serbian literature after a temporary pause were Grigorije (Grigorij) Camblak and Constantine of Kostenec (Konstantin Kostenecki or Kostenečki, also known as "the Philosopher"). Both foreigners to Serbia, victims of the Turkish inundation of the Balkan Slavs (having far-reaching ramifications also in Russia and causing there

19. Generally on the genealogy of the Nemanja dynasty, see, for example, J. Matl, Südslawische Studien, 46-57 ("Genealogie und geschichtliche Leistung des serbischen Königshauses der Nemanjiden"). On the political tendencies in medieval Serbian historiography, see also the above (note 10) quoted article by Dj. Sp. Radojičić, "Die politischen Bestrebungen in der serbischen mittelalterlichen Geschichtsschreibung" and, in particular, the previously mentioned monograph by S. Hafner, Studien zur altserbischen dynastischen Historiographie (cf. note 9).

20. This duality had, with some qualifications, its counterpart also in the West with its shifting balance of power and authority between the Emperor and the Pope within the Holy Roman Empire; cf., in this context, the Catalogus brevispontificum Romanorum et imperatorum, written by the Dominican Bernardus Guidonus, a contemporary of the Serbian Archbishop Danilo II.

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a cultural revival known as the Second South Slavic Influence), they mark the turning of medieval Serbian life-writing in precisely the two aforementioned directions: Camblak returned to hagiography, now cast in the spirit of Hesychasm, and Constantine the Philosopher turned toward secular biography (while retaining some of the outward, purely stylistic apparatus of hagiography). [21] Whereas Camblak, however, must be considered an isolated phenomenon without any immediate followers in the biographical genre (at least in his time and in Serbia), [22] Constantine's Vita represents at once the peak and a temporary closing of the fairly consistent line of development (from panegyrical hagiography toward historical, secularized biography) of Old Serbian life-writing. (Subse-

21. On the Second South Slavic Influence in Russia, see, in particular, D. S. Lixačev, "Nekotorye zadači izučenija vtorogo južnoslavjanskogo vlijanija v Rossii", Issledovanija po slavjanskomu literaturovedeniju i fol'kloristike (Moscow, 1960), 95-151; id., Kul'tura Rusi vremeni Andreja Rubleva i Epifanija Premudrogo (Moscow and Leningrad, 1962). Both Camblak and Constantine were spiritual offspring of the neo-Byzantine so-called Trnovo School, headed by the last Bulgarian Patriarch Evtimij (Euthymius, d. ca. 1401-1402). The religious-literary-linguistic doctrine propagated by the Trnovo School made a great impact not only in Bulgaria, but also in Serbia, Walachia-Moldavia, and Russia. It is in this supranational Church-Slavic context that one has to view the hagiographic and homiletic writings of men such as Camblak (Dzamblak, Camvlach), probably a Bulgarized Walachian, active in Bulgaria, Serbia, Russia (where he for a short time became Metropolitan of Kiev and as such attended the Council of Constance!), and Moldavia-Walachia, of Constantine of Kostenec, a Bulgarian who had fled to Serbia, of Kiprian (Kiprijan, Cyprianus), a Bulgarian, Serbianized during an extended stay at Mt. Athos, and a relative of Camblak who had come to Russia (where he, too, became Metropolitan of Kiev), of Paxomij Logofet (Pachomius Logothetes, also called "the Serb"), a Serbian working and writing in Russia. Cf. on some of these writers' role in Old Russian — of, rather, Russian Church-Slavic — literature, for example, D. Čiževskij, History of Russian Literature: From the Eleventh Century to the End of the Baroque (The Hague, 1960), 162-165 and 180-185; A. Stender-Petersen, Geschichte der russischen Literatur, I (Munich, 1957), 172-174 and 179-184. On the residual hagiographic characteristics in Constantine's biography, see K. M. Kujew (Kuev), Konstantyn Kostenecki w literaturze bułgarskiej i serbskiej (Cracow, 1950), 107-109. For an assessment of Kuev's work, see I. Dujčev, Byzsl XIII (1952-1953), 328-334, esp. 332-333 (on the Biography of Stephan Lazarević). Generally on Athonite Hesychasm and its theological (dogmatic) foundation (primarily by Gregory Palamas), cf., for example, S. Vryonis, Byzantium and Europe (London, 1967), 170; for details (with further references), see H.-G. Beck, op. cit. 322-332, 364-368 and 712-798. See Addendum on p. 284.

22. Hagiography being vigorously revived in Russia, Camblak soon had many followers there, foremost among them Epifanij Premudryj (Epiphanius "the Wise"), the author of two masterly Lives of Saints; cf. D. Ciževskij, History, 167-180; A. Stender- Petersen, op. cit., 174-179. In Serbia, Camblak's delayed influence can be traced in hagiography and iconography of subsequent centuries, so, for example, in the work of Zograf Longin (Zographus Longinus, 16th c.) who, inspired by Camblak's Vita, painted a famous icon with scenes from the life of Stephan Dečanski; cf. M. Šakota, "Zograf Longin, slikar i književnik XVI veka", Stara književnost, 533-540.

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quent, post-medieval žitija — with the possible exception of the works by the 17th century Patriarch Pajsije Janjevac, especially his Žitije cara Uroša [23] — being less significant both as historical documents and in terms of literary quality, will not be discussed in this paper.) Though differently oriented, worldly rulers appear as heroes both in Camblak's contribution to medieval Serbian life-writing, the Vita of Stephan Dečanski (the father of the famed Serbian king and subsequent 'tsar' Stephan Dušan — never himself the subject of any complete panegyrical biography), [24] and in Constantine's Life of the 'despot' Stephan Lazarević, a ruler of one of the semi-independent Serbian petty states which resulted from the defeat of the Serbs in the battle of Kosovo and a great Maecenas and outstanding man of letters in his own right.

Camblak's Vita of King Stephan Uroš III Dečanski does not rank high as an historical document in comparison with other Old Serbian biographies. The information provided by Camblak, especially concerning the spiritual strife in Constantinople, is not only biased but also inaccurate. On the other hand, his biography is characterized by outstanding literary qualities. It is marked by an almost intimate lyricism

23. On the biographical writing of Pajsije Janjevac, showing an admixture of popular elements, see, for example, Stara književnost, 543-554 (articles by P. Popović and N. Radojčić, previously published elsewhere).

24. There exists only a very incomplete Žitije kralja Dušana by his contemporary, Danilo's anonymous Disciple (incorporated, sometime between 1337 and 1340, in his Zbornik žitija kraljeva i arhiepiskopa srpskih) which covers merely the first few years of Dušan's rule. The fact that no full-length biography of Stephan Dušan was subsequently written can be partly explained by his elevating, in 1346, the Serbian archbishop to the rank of patriarch and proclaiming himself "Tsar (i.e., emperor) of the Serbs and 'Romaians' (Romaioi, i.e., Greeks), of Bulgars and Albanians". Both of these clearly anti-Byzantine acts were resented by the pro-Byzantine Athonite monks, including those of the Serbian Hilandar Monastery, who were located in the sphere of influence of Byzantium and subordinated directly to the Patriarch of Constantinople. Thus, while the political goals and aspirations of the Serbian kings and archbishops from St. Sava to Danilo II had largely coincided with those of the monastic community of the Holy Mountain and the Hilandar Monastery in particular, the latter for all practical purposes being the mouthpiece of the Serbian court in its dynastic and other claims or at least serving in an advisory capacity to the court, this situation suddenly changed when Stephan Dušan challenged Byzantium and prepared to turn against it. As a result, and for some additional, less transparent reasons, the greatest ruler of medieval Serbia has been left without a full-scale panegyrical elaboration of his biography. It should be noted, in this context, that most of the Old Serbian biographers were, at least at some stage of their life, monks at Hilandar (St. Sava, Domentijan, Teodosije, Danilo II). The two last important representatives of this genre, Camblak and Constantine, both foreigners, also spent some time on Mt. Athos. On a beginning theological-political polarization between the Serbian court and the Athonite monks, as possibly reflected in Domentijan's and Teodosije's writings, see below.

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and religious feeling rarely encountered in other works of medieval Serbian literature. Moreover, its overall structure and composition testify to its author's thorough literary, indeed, artistic schooling acquired in the Hesychast circles of Trnovo and its new form of Church Slavic literature, now heavily ornate. Camblak's Vita is full of panegyrical rhetoric in the Byzantine vein for his hero, the founder of the Decani Monastery, while it shows rancor toward his son, Stephan Dušan. Here the author's mood seems to reveal his sympathy with the Athonite monks and their superior, the Patriarch of Constantinople (cf. note 24). In addition, it may reflect his attitude toward Dušan's role in the dethroning and later assassination of his father. The Vita also contains a picturesque description of the Decani region and of the construction of the local church, one of the pearls of medieval Serbian architecture. [25]

In contrast, the Life of Stephan Lazarević by Constantine of Kostenec must be considered an historical source of primary importance. These were the times when — after the battle of Kosovo — the Ottoman Turks swamped the Balkans and Constantine's work, therefore, focuses on the history of the Turkish expansion (and on Turkish history in general) while only mentioning in passing Stephan's dealings with his western and northern neighbors, especially Hungary. Since Byzantine history between 1360 and 1420 is rather obscure, the information contained in Constantine's Vita is of particular interest. By and large, Constantine's account is reliable while showing a certain bias for his hero who, as previously mentioned, was not only a skillful political and military leader, successfully maneuvering to achieve a certain degree of independence from his Turkish overlord, but also a personality of great culture and education. As opposed to many previous Serbian rulers, however, he was never canonized, and Constantine's attempts to trace his genealogy back to Emperor Constantine the Great are among the few fantastic, historically unfounded passages in his Life.

Whereas we meet a true dogmatic in Constantine's other major work, his treatise on orthography (Skazanie) interpreting Patriarch Evtimij's teaching in a narrow, formalistic, almost fanatic fashion and urging the

25. For some discussion of the Serbian phase of Camblak's life and work, see, for example, Dj. Sp. Radojičić, "O Grigoriju Camblaku", Glasnik Srp. akad. nauka I (1949), 172-175 (reprinted in his volume Tvorci i dela, 175-182); P. Popović, '"Žitije Stefana Dečanskog' Grigorija Camblaka", a section of the Introduction to: Stare srpske biografije XV i XVII veka. Camblak, Konstantin i Pajsije (transi. L. Mirković), (Belgrade, 1936), XII-XXXVI; and Dj. Trifunović, "Emocionalni mehanizam Camblakovih ličnosti", Delo, knj. VII, sv. 10 (1961), 1214-1222 (both reprinted in: Stara Književnost, 423-446).

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fighting of moral decay and heresy by a slavish imitation of Byzantine models, Constantine's Life of Stephan Lazarević shows a mature, balanced and generous man at work. This difference in approach may be only partially explained by the different subject matter and, accordingly, the choice of literary genre. More important, it seems, is the fact that Constantine wrote his orthographic treatise as a young man, while the biography of his patron is the accomplishment of a mature man, experienced in court life and accustomed to associating with political leaders. Thus, as pointed out by Schmaus, [26] we can distinguish two components in Constantine's writings (disregarding in this context his short travel account from the Holy Land): a Bulgarian one, following and reinterpreting the tradition of the Trnovo School, ultimately inspired by Hesychasm, and pleading (in a humanistic spirit, as it were) for a return to the sources of Orthodox Christianity, its Greek originals and the earliest Slavic (Old Church Slavic) texts; and, a Serbian one, a product of his mature political thinking and historical realism for which he could not draw on any examples in the Hesychast, world-renouncing literature of Bulgaria. Though he may have been influenced in this respect by Byzantine secular historiography — a possibility quite plausible in view of Constantine's Greek erudition — his main source of inspiration for the biography of Stephan Lazarević came from his new Serbian milieu: the tradition of Old Serbian life-writing which culminated in his own Vita. Some aspects of Constantine's style and literary technique will be briefly discussed below (see section VIII). [27]

26. Cf. Südost-Forschungen XV (1956), 200-201.

27. On Constantine the Philosopher's life and work (including his treatise on orthography, a narrowly conceived continuation of the linguistic endeavors of the Trnovo School giving rise to its Serbian offshoot, the so-called Resava School), see in particular K. M. Kujew (Kuev), op. cit.; on the Life of Stephan Lazarević, cf. esp. 86-112. Of references listed by Kuev (122-126), see in particular St. Stanojević, "Die Biographie Stefan Lazarević's von Konstantin dem Philosophen als Geschichtsquelle", AfslPh XVIII (1896), 409-472, and Ju. Trifonov, "Život i dejnost na Konstantina Kostenecki", Spisanie BAN LXVI (Sofia, 1943), 223-285. Constantine's Vita is also available in an abridged bilingual (Old Serbian-German) edition: M. Braun, Lebensbeschreibung des Despoten Stefan Lazarević von Konstantin dem Philosophen im Auszug herausgegeben und übersetzt (The Hague and Wiesbaden, 1956). The best modern translation of the Life of Stephan Lazarević is still the one into contemporary Serbocroatian by L. Mirković, in Stare srpske biografije XV i XVII veka (Belgrade, 1936), 43-125, including many new, well-founded interpretations of difficult passages. See further also Stara književnost, 449-479 (articles by P. Popović, Dj. Trifunović, O Nedeljković, I. Grickat-Radulović, published previously elsewhere). On the use of acrostics by Constantine, see Dj. Sp. Radojičić, Südost-Forschungen XVII (1958), 145-146 (in his study "Das Akrostichon in der altserbischen Literatur", Serbian version: "Akrostih u staroj srpskoj književnosti", in Tvorci i dela, 95-101, esp. 96-97); and id., "Završni akrostih kod Konstantina Filozofa, 'prevodnika' i 'učitelja srpskog' ", Letopis Matice srpske 388, 1961, 479-485 (reprinted in: Tvorci i dela, 239-245).

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V

Reference has already been made here to the varying attitudes which historians and literary scholars have held regarding the works of Old Serbian biography. The founder of modern scholarship in the field of South Slavic literature, the Slovak Slavist P. J. Šafarik, was fairly appreciative of St. Sava's and Domentijan's Vitae. On the other hand, he found little literary or historical merit in the biographical portraits by Danilo II and his successors. The general appraisal of medieval Serbian life-writing soon dropped to an all-time low in the estimation of the Russian Slavophiles of the second half of the last century. Their view reflected their own romantic thinking about the Slavic Middle Ages rather than any attempt to gain a deeper understanding of medieval Serbia in the framework of its historical, Byzantine-Balkan context. Typical of this attitude were, for example, the statements of A. F. Gil'ferding, a well-known Slavist and folklorist, who as Russian consul in Sarajevo had an opportunity to study medieval Serbian writings at first hand. Using his own moral standards, Gil'ferding condemned as hypocritical the religious zeal of the Old Serbian biographers when they praised as saints many a cold-blooded criminal whose frightful deeds they did not hesitate to describe, stunning their readers (and listeners) with information such as the following: "And after this pious King Uroš [viz., Stephan Uroš II Milutin] had blinded his beloved son Stephan..." or "This pious King Uroš [viz., Stephan Uroš III Dečanski] felt hatred for his beloved son and instead of surrounding him with great love he began to hate him unto death", etc.

A change of attitude toward a more positive appraisal of the Old Serbian vitae can first be found in the History of Serbian Literature (Istorija sprske književnosti, 1871) by St. Novaković. Approaching medieval historical consciousness from the position of European Late Romanticism, this scholar recognized in Old Serbian biography a rare (for the Middle Ages) instance of individualized historiography. It is worth noting here that the great Serbian philologist Dj. Daničić, the first to publish a number of medieval Serbian texts in scholarly editions of highest quality by contemporary standards, refrained — following the example of his teacher F. Miklosich — from any lengthy comments regarding the overall level of Old Serbian literature. Still, it is known

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that Daničić was of the opinion that the quality of Old Serbian writing (and, for that matter, of the moral fiber of the Nemanja state) declined as the power of medieval Serbia increased and its territory expanded.

By and large a rather reserved, if not negative, view of Old Serbian biography was taken by another of Miklosich's students, the internationally renowned Croatian Slavist V. Jagić. While initially favoring St. Sava's simple, unassuming language as compared to the ornate style of subsequent biographers, he later preferred the Life of Simeon (Nemanja) by Stephan the First-Crowned to Sava's because of the longer biography's greater wealth of data and its relatively lucid presentation. Jagić considered Domentijan's Vitae vastly overrated by Šafarik but saw at least some historical merit in Danilo's and his Disciple's work, and recognized Camblak's style as more vivid and flowery. He showed little appreciation for Constantine of Kostenec, finding his Life of Stephan Lazarević overly stilted and burdened with learning. In general, Jagić felt that Old Serbian literature was much too heavily dependent on Byzantine models and that, in this respect, it compared poorly with Old Russian writing, especially with the kind of historiography found in the so-called Nestor Chronicle.

In the beginning of this century, yet another of Miklosich's former students, the Slovene M. Murko, in his History of Early South Slavic Literature (Geschichte der älteren südslawischen Litteraturen, 1908) went a step further in depreciating the value and significance of the "original religious and secular literature" of medieval Serbia, echoing and, indeed, quoting the pertinent views of Russian Slavophiles (Golubinskij, Gil'ferding). In addition to reproaching the Old Serbian panegyrical writers for their monastic exclusiveness, their lack of historicism, and their verbosity — all closely following Byzantine patterns — Murko, like Gil'ferding before him, decried their hypocrisy as one of the worst outgrowths of Byzantinism among the Slavs.

The definite turning point, marking a new and more just assessment of Old Serbian biography, came in 1910 when the outstanding Serbian literary historian P. Popović, taking up some of Novaković's earlier ideas, first published his Survey of Old Serbian Literature (Pregled stare srpske književnosti, with many subsequent editions). In this work the hagiographic-historiographic vitae — along with their companions, the panegyrical encomia (Serbian pohvale) — were singled out as occupying a special place in Old Serbian writing and their particular literary merits as well as their importance as historical documents were emphasized. Only now, inspired by Popović's work and the writings of K. Jireček in the field of Serbian history, did one begin to fully realize the necessity

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for a close philological and literary scrutiny of the Old Serbian texts based on new critical editions. The numerous studies of Old Serbian biography by scholars such as V. Corović, N. Radojčić, V. Mošin, Dj. Sp. Radojičić, D. Pavlović, I. Dujčev, and others, supplemented in more recent years by some important contributions from West European, particularly Austrian and German, specialists such as A. Schmaus, D. Tschižewskij, J. Matl, and S. Hafner, have shed new light and brought about a better understanding not only of many of the intricate details of Old Serbian life-writing, but also of its overall significance and place in early Serbian history and civilization as these relate both to Byzantium and the rest of the Slavic world. [28]

Of literature published after 1960, Hafner's two books, his dissertation Studien and his annotated translation Serbisches Mittelalter (both quoted above), are of considerable significance. In particular, focusing on St. Sava, Stephan the First-Crowned, and Danilo II and his successors while paying less attention to Domentijan and Teodosije and virtually ignoring Camblak and Constantine of Kostenec, his dissertation seeks to elucidate the intellectual and historical background of the genesis of the Old Serbian Lives. It traces their ideological core to the Charters issued by the Serbian rulers for the foundation of various monasteries (Hilandar, Studenica, Decani, etc.), and elaborates subsequently on the stereotyped themes (topoi) and motifs of the investigated texts. Important also among more recent studies is an article by M. I. Mulić, examining primarily the style of Domentijan, Teodosije, and Danilo and his school. [29] Mulić's attempt to explain, at least in part, the abundant use of quotations from the Scriptures in Domentijan as an expression of the medieval Serbian monk's presumed wish to influence the Serbian King Uroš I toward closer ties with Byzantium and the Patriarch of Constantinple rather than with Hungary, Venice, and the Pope may seem less con-

28. For a detailed account, with bibliographical documentation, of the appraisal of Old Serbian biography by modern scholarship (beginning with Šafarik and until ca. 1960), see S. Hafner, Studien, 1-9, on which the preceding brief survey is based. Cf. now also the integrated treatment of South Slavic literature of the Late Middle Ages by D. Tschižewskij (Čiževskij), Vergleichende Geschichte der slavischen Literaturen, I (Berlin, 1968), 62, 66-69, 81-85 (with, unfortunately, some factual errors: listing Paxomij under Bulgaria, 62; giving incorrect death dates for Sava and Stephan the First-Crowned, 67; and attributing the passage from Ilarion to the Life of Nemanja by Stephan the First-Crowned instead of to the one by Domentijan, 69). Of other work on Old Serbian life-writing by scholars mentioned here, cf. above.

29. See M. I. Mulič (Mulić), "Serbskie agiografy X1II-XIV vv. i osobennosti ix stilja", in: Literaturnye svjazi drevnix slavjan (Leningrad, 1968) (= TODRL XX111), 127-142.

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vincing. [30] Similar reservations could be voiced against his emphasis on a political-ideological motivation for Teodosije's writings, among them his Vita of Sava. In the bulk of his paper, however, Mulić persuasively argues the reasons for choosing a seemingly stilted style (including the frequent recourse to biblical parallels and associations), suggestive of symbolical and equivocal interpretations and raising the level of discourse from the concrete and earth-bound to the abstract, general, and eternal — a characteristic of medieval literature (and folklore) previously pointed out in respect to the Byzantine-Slavic domain, for example, by V. P. Adrianova-Peretc. [31] Moreover, Mulić sees the biographers' use of panegyrical devices when describing their largely "negative heroes", as a means of overcoming or at least mollifying — by the formal beauty and loftiness of presentation — the shocking impact their frequently criminal acts would otherwise have on the reader (or listener). The obscure language of these biographies, full of allegories, implied similes, and circumlocutions (not unlike the kenningar of Icelandic literature, but, naturally, having their immediate models in Byzantine rhetoric as seen also in the many direct loan translations, particularly of complex notions and terms), added to the emotional-religious charge intended by their authors. Perhaps the most important result of Mulić's study, however, is the realization that the much-discussed stylistic device of so-called word-weaving (pletenie sloves), extremely popular in Russia during the Second South Slavic Influence (cf., for example its sophisticated utilization by Epifanij Premudryj) and generally believed to have originated, on Slavic soil, in Bulgaria — specifically, in the Hesychast Trnovo School of Patriarch Evtimij — actually can be found in full bloom already some hundred years earlier in Serbia where, of course, it had developed by imitation of Byzantine examples. [32] In this connection, one should not

30. Mulić has counted a total of 482 such quotations in Domentijan, whereof 268 instances in the Life of Sava, as compared to Teodosije's 139 and a total of 463 in the Zbornik by Danilo II et al. All these figures are unmatched in the preceding as well as following course of Old Serbian biography. For further details on biblical quotations in Old Serbian literature, see St. Stanojević and D. Glumac, Sv. Pismo u našim starim spomenicima (Belgrade, 1932).

31. See V. P. Adrianova-Peretc, Očerki poetičeskogo stilja drevnej Rusi (Moscow, 1947), 9 and 11. Cf., for West and Central European literature, also E. R. Curtius, Europäische Literatur und lateinisches Mittelalter. 3rd ed. (Bern, 1961), 469-470 ("Dichtung als Verewigung").

32. On the direct influence of Serbian hagiography (biography) on Old Russian literature, cf. also A. V. Solov'ev, TODRL XVII (1961), 94-95, where the Slovo o žitii i prestavlenii velikago knjazja Dimitrija Ivanoviča, carja rusьskago is ascribed to Epifanij Premudryj and considered to be patterned on the Vita of Simeon (Nemanja) by Stephan the First-Crowned. On the Old Russian work, sec also D. Čiževskij, History, 191-192, and, in particular, A. Stender-Petersen, op. cit., 160, 177-179, and 191, where, too, Epifanij is conjectured to be the author of the biography of Dmitrij Donskoj.

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underestimate the influence in Russia of the Serbian component of the Athonite monastic community (that is, primarily of the Hilandar Monastery), in addition to the influence coming from Serbia directly. [33] It ought to be added that a similar re-evaluation of Domentijan's style as that offered by Mulić was also suggested somewhat earlier by A. Schmaus. [34]

VI

While it is easy to point to Byzantine models in general as sources for the language, style, structure, and compositional makeup of the Old Serbian biographies (not to speak of their underlying dynastic-dogmatic ideology), it is difficult, if not impossible, to single out any particular works of Byzantine hagiography or historiography which have been directly imitated in, or can be considered more closely related to, individual vitae, written in medieval Serbia or at the Hilandar Monastery. This should not surprise us, however, if we recall that, while continuing the literary traditions of Byzantine hagiography and historiography (the latter especially in its smaller formats), the Old Serbian Lives of rulers and princes of the Church are not merely reworked Byzantine literary patterns but ORIGINAL works of art. (The meaning of 'original' in its medieval context, as we have seen, was less rigidly interpreted than it is in its modern sense and cannot be equated with 'fully independent'.) [35]

33. Notice the fact that of the South Slavs winding up in Russia some, like Paxomij Logofet, were Serbians while others, being Bulgarians (or, in the case of Camblak, probably a Bulgarized Walachian), had been exposed to strong Serbian influences (so, for example, Kiprian). On the role of Mt. Athos among the Orthodox Slavs, see, in particular, I. Dujčev, "Le Mont Athos et les Slaves au Moyen âge", in: Le millénaire du Mont Athos (963-1962). Études et mélanges, II (Venice-Chevetogne, 1964), 121-144 (reprinted in: Medioevo bizantino-slavo, I, 487-510); id., "Centry vizantijsko-slavjanskogo obščenija i sotrudničestva", in : Russkaja literatura XI-XVII vekov sredi slavjanskix literatur (Moscow-Leningrad, 1963) (= TODRL XIX), 107-129, esp. 121-126. For the early relations between Mt. Athos, Kievan Russia, and Serbia, see also V. Mošin, "Russkie na Afone i russko-vizantijskie otnošenija v XI-XII vv.", Byzsl IX (1947), 55-85; XI (1950), 32-60; id., "O periodizacii russko-južnoslavjanskix literaturnyx svjazej X-XV vv.", in: Russkaja literatura... (= TODRL XIX), 28-106, esp. 62-63 and 73-74 (Serbo-Croatian version in Slovo 11/12, 1962, 13-130).

34. Cf. A. Schmaus, "Die literaturhistorische Problematik...", loc. cit., esp. 129-138 (for full reference, see note 16).

35. On the common use of 'borrowing' and 'echoing' in medieval Slavic hagiography, cf., for example, D. Čyževskyj (Čiževskij), "Anklänge an die Gumpoldlegcnde des hl. Vaclav in der altrussischen Legende des hl. Feodosij und das Problem der 'Originalität' der slavischen mittelalterlichen Werke", WslJb 1 (1950), 71-86, esp. 75-76 and 80.

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Also, the further Old Serbian biography moves away from typified hagiography toward individualized secular biography (while subliming the individual traits of its heroes) the more remote were the possibilities of simply taking over — mostly from Byzantine literature — stereotyped themes and motifs (topoi, loci communes). Since, however, a certain amount of hagiographic paraphernalia followed Old Serbian life-writing throughout its development, there was always an opportunity of resorting to some such clichés in the same way as the medieval author would usually amplify his vita with quotations from the Holy Writ, particularly the Psalter. [36]

Perhaps most apparent is the connection between the early phase of Old Serbian biography and certain kinds of Byzantine literature. Thus, as was mentioned above, St. Sava's Vita Simeonis, written as an introduction to the Typicon of the Studenica Monastery, in its ideological core and stylistic wording can be traced back to the first Charter of the Hilandar Monastery, co-authored by Sava. With some qualifications this can also be said to apply to the Nemanja biography by Stephan the First-Crowned. The first Hilandar Charter (as well as its revision, the second Charter of 1200-1201, issued by Stephan the First-Crowned), while generally referring to the particulars of the Serbian monastic foundation on Mt. Athos, is patterned on the Byzantine imperial documents (chrysobulla) serving the same purpose. [37] Notice, incidentally, that the Typica for Hilandar and Studenica also followed a Byzantine model, namely the Typicon of the Euergetis (Benefactress) Monastery in Constantinople. [38]

In a stimulating study, I. P. Eremin has argued that the Byzantine impact on Early Bulgarian (9th-11th c.) and Old Russian (11th-12th c.) literature was largely limited to the writings of Early Christian Byzantine authors, primarily to the patristic literature of the 2nd through 6th centuries, and at any rate to the pre-Metaphrastic period in Byzantine hagio-

36. Cf. V. Mošin, Russkaja literatura... (= TODRL XIX), 87-91 (in his study "O periodizacii russko-južnoslavjanskix literaturnyx svjazej X-XV vv."); M. I. Mulić, op. cit., 136-137 (with references).

37. Cf. A. Solovjev, Hilandarska povelja velikog župana Stefana (Prvovenčanog) iz godine 1200-1202, in: Prilozi za knjiž., jez., ist. i folkl. 5 (1925), 62-89; V. Mošin and A. Solovjev, Grčke povelje srpskih vladara (Belgrade, 1936). See further S. Hafner, Studien, 54-77.

38. See S. Hafner, op. cit., 65 (with note 73). On the Byzantine Typica, cf. K. Krumbacher, op. cit., 314-319. See further in particular also A. Dmitrievskij, Opisanie liturgičeskix rukopisej, xranjaščixsja v bibliotekah pravoslavnago Vostoka. T. I : Τυπικά. Č. 1-ja (Kiev, 1895); T. III (1-ja polovina): Τυπικά, Č. II. (Petrograd, 1917) (photomechanic reprint: Hildesheim, 1965).

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graphy. [39] While not necessarily true for all genres of Old Russian literature, Eremin's contention seems, in fact, to be accurate as regards hagiography. [40] It applies also to Early Bulgarian, i.e., to Old Church Slavic, writing of the 9th-11th centuries. Byzantine hagiography of the Metaphrastic and post-Metaphrastic kind seems to have flourished in Bulgaria only in the Second Bulgarian Empire, in other words from the end of the 12th century, after a period of intensive Byzantinization. In Russia the new hagiography of Byzantium made headway only during the Second South Slavic Influence, primarily through Bulgarian and Serbian literati and their Russian followers (cf. notes 21 and 22, above).

Compared to this, medieval Serbian biography of the 13th-15th centuries, with its roots in hagiography and largely retaining the characteristics of this genre, was, no doubt, influenced by earlier, pre-Metaphrastic as well as recent (11th-12th c.) and contemporary (13th-15th a), post-Metaphrastic Byzantine hagiography. [41] Moreover, the historiographic component of Old Serbian life-writing could draw on the chronographic tradition of Byzantine literature. Thus, many of the much-read Byzantine chronicles, both older ones (such as those by John Malalas, 6th c., representing the popular monastic chronicle genre; Georgius Monachus, called "Hamartolus", 9th c. ; Symeon Magistrus and Logothetes, most probably identical with Metaphrastes, 10th c.) or more recent ones (e.g., the chronicles by Constantine Manasses or John Zonaras, both 12th c.) were or soon became available in Church Slavic translations and adaptations, some of which are also preserved in Serbian recensions (Hamartolus, Zonaras). [42] It can be shown that parallels for

39. Cf. "O vizantijskom vlijanii v bolgarskoj i drevnerusskoj literaturax IX-XII w." (1963), reprinted in: I. P. Eremin, Literatura drevnej Rusi (Étjudy i xarakteristiki) (Moscow-Leningrad, 1966), 9-17. For some criticism of Eremin's views, see esp. D. S. Lixačev, Oxford Slavonic Papers, XIII (1967), 21-23 (in his paper "The Type and Character of the Byzantine Influence on Old Russian Literature", loc. cit., 14-32, containing many other important observations and considerations as well). On Symeon Metaphrastes, (active, as we now know, in the 10th century) and his reform of hagiography, see K. Krumbacher, op. cit., 200-203; H.-G. Beck, op. cit., 570-575.

40. Echoes of Symeon Metaphrastes can be found, for example, as early as in the homiletic writings of the 12th century Russian preacher and poet Cyril of Turov (Kiril Turovskij); see A. Stender-Petersen, op. cit., 56. On Early Old Russian hagiography, not yet influenced by Metaphrastes, see ibid., 65-67.

41. For some exemplification of Metaphrastes' influence on medieval Serbian life- writing, see M. I. Mulić, op. cit., 135-136.

42. For a discussion of the Byzantine chroniclers and their works, see K. Krumbacher, op. cit., 319-408. Generally, on the Church Slavic versions of Byzantine chronicles, see M. Weingart, Byzanské kroniky v literatuře církevneslovanské, I-II (Bratislava, 1922-1923). Cf. also Ju. Trifonov, "Vizantijskite xroniki v cărkovnoslavjanskata knižnina", Izv. na Istor. druž. v Sofija, VI (1924), 163-181.

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some semantic nuances, encountered in Old Serbian biographies and reflecting an historical-political differentiation of concepts, exist in such Church Slavic versions of Byzantine chronicles. [43]

In addition to chronicle-writing, another kind of Byzantine historiography can also be assumed to have influenced Old Serbian biography. The genre of secular biography was resumed in Byzantium in the 10th century after a long eclipse suffered in the beginning of the medieval period when the Christian saint became the only hero deserving of a panegyrical treatment. As was mentioned above (see note 1), Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus with the biography of his grandfather, Emperor Basilius I, revived and set the pattern for a genre which in the West had been reintroduced — resuming the tradition of Suetonius' biographies of Roman emperors — more than a century earlier by Einhart's Vita Karoli Magni. [44] The Byzantine Lives of Emperors, full, to be sure, of Christian connotations and mostly integrated into larger historiographic works (and therefore not identified by Krumbacher as a separate genre), were bound to have considerable impact also on the development of historical-biographical writing in medieval Serbia (including Hilandar). Among such works should be mentioned, for example, the biographical accounts found in the History of Byzantine Emperors known as Theophanes Continuatus (or Scriptores post Theophanem) covering the period 813 to 961-963, where the literary characteristics of life-writing, however, are not particularly prominent. More clearly biographical features can be ascertained in Anna Comnena's work Alexias, the life story of her father, Emperor Alexius Comnenus (d. 1118), supplementing her husband's, Nicephorus Bryennius', "historical material" (ὕλη ἱστορίας) on largely the same subject matter (accounting for the time up to 1079). [45] A

43. Cf., for example, the stereotyped "peace and quiet" theme in Sava's Life of Nemanja: mirь i tišinu vъsprïem'šu vl[a]d[i]čistvu ego (similarly already in the two Hilandar Charters, with tixost instead of tišina in the earlier Charter), corresponding to the same formula in Hamartolus: vъ mirě i tixosti = ἐν εἰρήνῃ καὶ γαλήνῃ; see S. Hafner, Studien, 89-93.

44. On Constantine's Life of Basilius, see K. Krumbacher, op. cit., 253, and, in particular, P. J. Alexander, op. cit. See further Gy. Moravcsik, Byzantinoturcica, I, 2nd ed. (Berlin, 1958), 380. In general on the revival of secular biography, see also N. W. Ingham, op. cit., 181-182 (with references to further literature). For information on Einhart and his Life of Charlemagne, cf., for example, K. Langosch, Die deutsche Literatur des lateinischen Mittelalters in ihrer geschichtlichen Entwicklung (Berlin, 1964), 16-17.

45. On Theophanes Continuatus, see K. Krumbacher, op. cit., 347-349 ; cf. further also, e.g., Gy. Moravcsik, op. cit., 540-544 (with references). On the models of this historiographic work, see R. J. H. Jenkins, "The Classical Background of the Scriptores post Theophanem", Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 8 (1954), 11-30. On Nicephorus Bryennius' and Anna Comnena's writings, cf. K. Krumbacher, op. cit., 271-279.

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detailed study of these Byzantine-Serbian influences is, however, yet to be undertaken.

Finally, when discussing Byzantine influences on Old Serbian biography, it should also be stressed that this literary genre be viewed in the framework of its specific Balkan cultural setting which, in turn, was largely determined by a Byzantine popular tradition as regards the worship of saints. [46] As opposed to the Serbs and to some other Slavic peoples (Czechs, Russians) as well as to the nearby Hungarians, the Bulgarians — the most Byzantinized of all the Slavs — did not have a tradition of worshiping any of their rulers (or members of the ruling house) as Christian saints. Consequently, medieval Bulgarian literature does not have any dynastic hagiographies or legends. [47]

VII

Byzantine literature was not the only source to provide Old Serbian life-writing with patterns, thematic as well as stylistic, to be translated and embodied or imitated by the Serbian biographers. The Bible and, though to a lesser degree, the Apocrypha of the Eastern Church have already been mentioned as widely used reservoirs of quotations and metaphors. No less important as a model for the Old Serbian Lives was the tradition of the vita genre as it already existed in Slavic literature at the time of the beginnings of Serbian biography. In this context, it must

46. Cf. S. Hafner, Studien, 27-40. Among elements of such a Balkan-Byzantine popular tradition connected with the worship of saints (and its literary expression in hagiography) Hafner mentions in particular the so-called translatio (i.e., transfer of the remains of a saint, usually preceded by the elevatio; cf. the transfer of Nemanja's remains from Hilandar to Studenica) and the specification of important saints as being so-called 'oil saints'. Examples of these are St. Demetrius of Thessalonica, Stephan Nemanja (cf. the account of the first miracle after his death in the Vita by Stephan the First-Crowned), St. John (Ivan) of Rila, and also St. Stephen of Hungary. To be sure, many of these religious patterns, while occurring in the Balkans and in Byzantium, were not limited to this particular area or only to the Eastern Church.

47. Cf. S. Hafner, Studien, 26; N. K. Gudzij, Issledovanija po slavjanskomu literaturovedeniju i fol’kloristike, 30-31 (in his 1958 Moscow Congress paper "Literature Kievskoj Rusi i drevnejšie inoslavjanskie literatury"). That the Bulgarian tsar Peter (d. 969) was not made the subject of a panegyrical vita in spite of his canonization may have to do with his poor political-military performance and the approaching end of the First Bulgarian Empire. Addendum : I am indebted to Prof. I. Dujčev for drawing my attention to some traces in Early Bulgarian writing of a cult of Tsar Peter which could suggest the existence of a vita, now lost, of this canonized ruler. Likewise, there may perhaps have existed a vita of St. David, the martyred brother of the West Bulgarian (Macedonian) tsar Samuil (d. 1014). Cf. I. Dujčev, Medioevo bizantino-slavo, II (Rome, 1968), 207-223 ( = Südost-Forschungen XIX 119601, 71-86), esp. 217-218.

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again be emphasized that in the Middle Ages the literary — or, rather, literate — segment of the Slavs, to the extent it was oriented toward religion and its institutions, was unified, as it were, in one large, supranational community, using Church Slavic in only slightly varying adaptations. And when the local recensions of Church Slavic threatened to grow apart too much, as a result of increasing adaptation to the various Slavic vernaculars, the linguistic reform of Patriarch Evtimij's Trnovo School (carried to its extreme, in Serbia, by Constantine the Philosopher's Resava School) was designed to 'purify' and, in fact, reunify and standardize the literary vehicle of all the Orthodox Slavs. [47a] Thus, it is not by accident that Church Slavic writers such as Kiprian, Camblak, Constantine of Kostenec, or Paxomij Logofet were able to continue their literary activities virtually unhampered by any linguistic barrier when moving from one Slavic country to another. (Cf. the similar international role of Latin literature in the Roman Catholic part of medieval Europe). As pointed out by R. Jakobson, Constantine of Kostenec "grasped perfectly the international nature of his tongue which could not be identified with either the Bulgarian or Serbian vernaculars". [48] Under such circumstances, it was only natural if medieval Serbian biographers would turn for models to the body of existing Church Slavic vitae, themselves largely patterned on Byzantine writing.

Highest among the Church Slavic vitae rank, no doubt, the so-called Pannonian legends of Constantine and Methodius. While earlier held to be translations of Greek originals, they are today considered by most scholars (including the present writer) original works of early Slavic literature. [49] Although the two Vitae technically can be classified as hagiographic works (since both brothers were canonized), they are more correctly labeled semi-secular biographies. For while praising the Thessalonian brothers in the panegyric vein and siding with them in relating cases of controversy (cf. Constantine's disputations and Methodius' conflict with the German clergy), they contain a wealth of factual, historical information without any attempt at typification. [50] A sizable amount of research has already gone into analyzing the Lives of Constantine and Methodius, in particular regarding their literary and stylistic

47a. Cf., however, the recent reassessment of Evtimij's reform referred to in the Addendum to note 21, below.

48. Cf. Harvard Slavic Studies I (1953), 49.

49. Cf. F. Grivec, op. cit., 246-251; H. Birnbaum, Cyrillo-Methodiana. Zur Frühgeschichte des Christentums hei den Slaven, 863-1963, M. Hellmann et al., ed. (Cologne- Graz, 1964), 331-332 (in: "Zur Sprache der Methodvita", 329-361).

50. Cf. H. Birnbaum, op. cit., 333 (with note 7).

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quality as well as their historical background. [51] Of the two, the Vita Constantini, ascribed by some to Methodius (earlier also to Clement of Ohrid), is the longer — in spite of the much shorter life span of Constantine compared to that of his brother — and contains a great number of amplifications, and stylistically and theologically, but not biographically, motivated digressions. While there is every indication that the anonymous author of the Vita Methodii knew the Vita Constantini and utilized it for his own account of the older brother's accomplishments, the Life of Methodius is marked by greater terseness, thus bringing it one step closer to secular biography. Some scholars, R. Picchio for example, have been disturbed by the heavy hagiographic apparatus of the Vita Constantini and therefore, from a literary viewpoint, placed the shorter of the two Pannonian legends above the longer one. However, there can be no doubt that the more learned and complex Vita Constantini, too, has great artistic merit and deserves to be ranked among the most precious pieces of early Slavic literature.

It is not merely a theoretical assumption but can indeed by substantiated that the Old Church Slavic prototypes of the vita genre have actually influenced Old Serbian biography. [52] Thus, to give just one example, God's plan of salvation for mankind, mentioned at the beginning of the Vita Constantini (ch. 1) and also early in the Vita Methodii (ch. 2), is paraphrased in the introduction to St. Sava's Vita Simeonis, as is already the case in the second Hilandar Charter by Stephan the First-Crowned. Further, the translatio account in the so-called Chersonese legend,

51. Cf., in addition to previous references and adducing only a selection of some of the more important contributions, N. v. Wijk, "Zur sprachlichen und stilistischen Würdigung der altkirchenslavischen Vita Constantini", Südost-Forschungen VI (1941), 74-102; id., "Zur Rekonstruktion des Urtextes der altkirchenslavischen Vita Constantini", ZfslPh XVII (1941), 268-284; I. Dujčev, "Zur literarischen Tätigkeit Konstantins des Philosophen", BZ XLIV (1951, Dölger Festschrift), 105-110; R. Picchio, "Compilazione e trama narrativa nelle 'Vite' di Costantino e Metodio", Ricerche Slavistiche VIII (1960), 61-95; P. Lytwyn, Die literarische Gattung der Vita Methodii. Eine Untersuchung zur altchristlichen Literaturgeschichte (Vienna, 1961); V. Vavřinek, "Staroslověnské životy Konstantina a Metoděje a panegyriky Rehoře z Nazianzu", LF LXXXV (1962), 96-122; id., Staroslověnské životy Konstantina a Metoděje (Prague, 1963) (with a detailed analysis of the relationship of the two Vitae to Byzantine hagiography, 15-29); B. Panzer, "Die Disputationen in der aksl. Vita Constantini", ZfslPh XXXIV (1968), 66-88 (with a discussion of its hagiographic background, 67-70); G. Wytrzens, "Zum Stil der Vita Constantini", Cyrillo-Methodianische Fragen, Slavische Philologie und Altertumskunde, F. Zagiba, ed. (Wiesbaden, 1968), 43-50. Cf. also the new edition by F. Grivec and F. Tomšič, Constantinus et Methodius. Fontes (Zagreb, 1960).

52. Cf. S. Hafner, Serbisches Mittelalter, 132, n. 9; id., Studien, 29, n. 58, 58-59 (with note 31), 79.

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written by St. Constantino in Greek, but soon rendered into Old Church Slavic [53] and reflected in the account of the transfer of the remains of St. Clement in the Vita Constantini, seems to have influenced the Vitae of Stephan Nemanja by St. Sava and Stephan the First-Crowned. [54]

The Old Church Slavic literary tradition, originally centered in the Slavic West (Moravia, Pannonia), was carried on in Bulgarian Macedonia, with its focal point in Ohrid from where, in all probability, it radiated into the nearby Serbian territories (Zeta, Rascia). Some residue of it existed perhaps also in Serbia proper; cf. the vestiges of linguistic Serbisms in some 'classical' Old Church Slavic texts (Glagolita Clozianus, Codex Marianus), conceivably suggesting that these manuscripts were copied somewhere in the Macedonian-Serbian border area. An early offshoot of this tradition, not without significance for Serbian Church Slavic writing, can also be found in littoral Croatia (Dalmatia) where it subsequently rallied in what has become known as Croatian Glagolitism. [55] Also in Bohemia, Church Slavic liturgy and letters seem to have survived until the closing of the Sázava Monastery in 1097, possibly without any interruption of the Cyrillo-Methodian tradition. [56] Having been firmly rooted in the Ohrid Center, Church Slavic writing was soon introduced also in the eastern part of Bulgaria, primarily in Preslav. From Bulgaria, as well as from Bohemia-Moravia, Church Slavic literature spread to Kievan Russia where the Cave Monastery (Kievo-Pečerskaja Lavra) became its first stronghold.

53. The two extant Slavic copies are late, dating from the 16th c.

54. Cf. S. Hafner, Studien, 31-34. On the "Chersonese legend", see F. Grivec, op. cit., 223 and 253. The relevant information of the "Chersonese legend" was incorporated also in the Latin account of St. Constantine's life, the so-called Italic legend (Vita cum translatione S. Clementis); on this source, see F. Grivec, op. cit., 254-255. In addition to drawing on the "Chersonese legend", the translatio account of the Nemanja Vitae has also introduced material from a similar Balkan Slavic account, that of John of Rila (Ivan Rilski), extant in several variants.

55. Cf., of recent treatments, for example, J. Hamm, "Vom kroatischen Typus des Kirchenslavischen", WsUb, Österr. Beitr. z. V. Internat. Slavistenkongr. (Sofia, 1963) (Graz-Cologne, 1963), 11-39; S. Graciotti, "Un episodio dell'incontro tra Oriente e Occidente: la letteratura e il rito glagolitico croato", Gesch. d. Ost- u Westkirche in ihren wechselseit. Beziehungen, F. Zagiba, ed. (Wiesbaden, 1967), 67-79.

56. Cf. M. Weingart, Československý typ cirkevnej slovančiny (Bratislava, 1949); F. Grivec, op. cit., 185-191; D. Tschižewskij, "Kirchenslavische Literatur bei den Westslaven", Cyrillo-Methodianische Fragen..., 13-28; J. Kadlec, "Das Vermächtnis der Slavenapostel Cyrill und Method im böhmischen Mittelalter", ibid., 103-137. Against the supposition of an uninterrupted Cyrillo-Methodian tradition in Bohemia and favoring, rather, an assumption of close ties between the Sázava Monastery and Kievan Russia, see I. Boba, "The Monastery of Sázava: The Problem of Methodian Continuity in Bohemia" (chapter in a forthcoming book). Cf. now also id., Moravia's History Reconsidered: A Reinterpretation of Medieval Sources (The Hague, 1971), 152-153.

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Hagiography was practiced, though probably not very intensely, in Macedonia and East Bulgaria. There exists a Slavic Life of St. Naum (in several textual variants) and we can also assume that a Vita of St. Clement of Ohrid was originally written in Slavic, though only a Greek version of his Life (known as the "Bulgarian legend") has been preserved. [57] However, the Bulgarian type of Lives of Saints seems in general not to have set the pattern for Old Serbian life-writing, presumably because, as was already mentioned, we know of no early Bulgarian vitae combining the purely hagiographic aspect with a dynastic-political (and hence, secular) message. Still, as we have seen, individual, stereotyped features may have been borrowed, for example, from the Life of St. John (Ivan) of Rila by the Serbian biographers of Stephan Nemanja (cf. the translatio account or the 'oil saint' motif); or it is conceivable that such popular elements, while found also in Bulgarian hagiography, but being commonly encountered throughout the Byzantine-Balkan area (and, in fact, not limited to that particular region of Christianity), may have found their way into medieval Serbian life-writing. For examples of a fusion of hagiographic (or homiletic) and dynastic-political components, however, the authors of the Serbian vitae had to turn, within the Slavic domain, to works of Old Czech and, in particular, Old Russian literature, written in the respective recensions of Church Slavic.

In Bohemia of the 10th-11th centuries, hagiography seems to have been flourishing both in Latin and in the Czech recension of Church Slavic. Of particular interest for us are the Lives of Prince Wenceslaus (Václav, martyred 929). Two Slavic versions of the Vita of this saint, the Czech national patron, are known. The older and shorter one ("First Old Slavic Legend of St. Václav") was written in the 10th century; the second, more elaborate one ("Second Old Slavic Legend of St. Václav"), composed in the early 11th century, is a reworking of a Latin Vita by Bishop Gumpold of Mantua (ca. 975-980). In addition, there existed a host of Latin legends of the same saint (Crescente fide, Christian's legend, 10th c.; Oriente iam sole, 13th c., etc.). [58] Whereas much research has been

57. The Greek Vita Clementis was written by the Bulgarian Archbishop Theophylactus at the end of the 11th or the beginning of the 12th c., presumably on the basis of a Slavic original, now lost. In addition to this longer Life of St. Clement there exists also a shorter Greek version of his Life (Legenda Ochridica) by Demetrius Chomatianus (early 13th c.) of which a Church Slavic translation (13th c.) is known. Cf. H.-G. Beck, op. cit., 649-651 and 708-710; F. Grivec, op. cit., 253-254; for details see also the articles by A. Milev, I. Dujčev, and I. Snegarov in the volume Kliment Oxridski (Sofia, 1966), 143-219.

58. Cf. F. Grivec, op. cit., 186-187; J. Vajs (ed.), Sbornik staroslovanských literárnich památek o sv. Václavu a sv. Lidmile (Prague, 1929); Svatováclavský sbornik, I-II: 1-3 (Prague, 1934-1937); M. Weingart, op. cit., 47-60; J. Hrabák et al., Dějiny české literatury, I, Starší česká literatura (Prague, 1959), 51-54; R. Večerka, Slovanské počátky české knižní vzdělanosti (Prague, 1963), 45-48.

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done, particularly in recent years, on the relationship between these Bohemian (Church Slavic as well as Latin) legends of St. Wenceslaus and Old Russian hagiography, revealing some striking connections, [59] the conceivable influence that the Church Slavic Vita of St. Wenceslaus may have had on Old Serbian life-writing — possibly via Russia — is as yet largely unexplored. Only the general fact that we have to do here with another instance of the dynastic legend genre, as represented also by such works as the Life of St. Stephen of Hungary, the Lives of the first Russian martyrs Boris and Gleb, or the semi-legendary Life of Vladimir of Zeta (contained in the Letopis popa Dukljanina whose significance as a source for Old Serbian life-writing, however, now is in doubt, cf. above), has been acknowledged. [60] But other possibly suggestive circumstances also deserve attention. Thus, the fact that the older of the two Czech Church Slavic Vitae of St. Wenceslaus, a semi-secular work of less stylistic sophistication than the Lives of Constantine and Methodius (whose tradition it continues), [61] is best preserved in four Croatian-Glagolitic breviaries, i.e., in manuscripts from a region not far from Dioclitia (Zeta), may be of some significance. (Cf., in this context, also the title "rex Dalmatiae et Diocliae", held, among others, by Vukan, the oldest son of Stephan Nemanja.) As regards the contents, it should be noted that the Life of St. Wenceslaus contains an account of the translatio of the remains of the saint to Prague, a theme popular in hagiographic (and semi-hagiographic) writing and encountered also in the Old Serbian Vitae of Stephan Nemanja. Finally, it should be remembered that while medieval Serbia, though generally oriented toward Byzantium, held, to some extent, an intermediary position between East and West, Christianity as practiced in 10th century Bohemia, on the other hand, retained some ties with the Eastern Church as shown by the liturgy (služba) for St. Wenceslaus, following the Byzantine rite. [62] Geographic, thematic,

59. See F. Grivec, op. cit., 187; D. Čyževśkyj, "Anklänge an die Gumpoldslegende des hl. Václav in der altrussischen Legende des hl. Feodosij..."; N. W. Ingham, "Czech Hagiography in Kiev: The Prisoner Miracles of Boris and Gleb", WdSl X (1965), 166-182. See further also R. Jakobson, Harvard Slavic Studies I (1953), 41-48.

60. See S. Hafner, Studien, 16, 40, 44, and 59.

61. Cf., in addition to literature quoted in note 58, also B. Havránek, Cyrillo-Methodianische Fragen..., 9 (in his paper "Die Bedeutung Konstantins und Methods für die Anfänge der geschriebenen Literatur in Grossmähren").

62. Serbia's vacillating political stand between East and West is perhaps best illustrated by some of the policies of Stephan the First-Crowned. Married to a daughter of the Byzantine Emperor Alexius III, he divorced her shortly before the fall of Constantinople in 1203 and later married a granddaughter of the Venetian Doge Dandolo. In 1217 he was crowned by a legate of Pope Honorius III, only to secure, in 1219, by mediation of his brother Sava, autocephaly for the Serbian Orthodox Church from the Patriarch of Constantinople (then residing in Nicaea). On medieval Serbia's middle position between East (Byzantium) and West (Rome), see, for example: A. Schmaus, Südost-Forschungen XV (1956), 182-190; B. Krekić, "La Serbie entre Byzance et l'Occident au XIVe Siècle", Proceedings of the XIIIth International Congress of Byzantine Studies..., 62-65. See also S. Hafner, Studien, 20 and 50, on some political and cultural aspects of this intermediate position of medieval Serbia, spanning, as it were, a bridge between Byzantium and Rome, a role which Serbia had inherited from one of its constituent parts, Zeta (Diocletia) where in 1077 Prince Michael was granted the title of king by Pope Gregory VII. On some presumed Greek Orthodox reactions to political moves on the part of Serbian kings (aimed at closer relations with the West — Hungary, Venice, the Pope) as expressed in Old Serbian biography, cf. M. I. Mulić, op. cit., 128-130. On the Greek Orthodox liturgy for St. Wenceslaus, see F. Grivec, op. cit., 184 and 186.

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and religious-ideological considerations make it therefore quite conceivable that the Life of St. Wenceslaus could have played a role as a model not only in medieval Russian hagiography but also in Serbian biography. Whether the latter actually was the case, only a close comparative scrutiny of the pertinent Old Czech and Old Serbian texts can reveal.

While it is possible, but not proven, that dynastic hagiography of the Old Czech brand served as an example for Old Serbian life-writing, it is positively evident that Old Russian hagiography and homiletic literature with a political-dynastic content has made an impact on the Old Serbian vita and related genres just as medieval Serbian biography subsequently exerted considerable influence on Russian hagiography and semi-secular biography of the Mongolian and early post-Mongolian period. Thus, the long passage from Metropolitan Ilarion's Sermon on Law and Grace, found in Domentijan's Life of Stephan Nemanja (cf. above), is not an altogether isolated instance of the liberal and quite customary borrowing (by medieval standards) of insertable material that would find its way from medieval Russia to Serbia. Often the place of such literary contact would be Constantinople or the Slavic monasteries on Mt. Athos where close ties seem to have existed between the Russian Monastery of Panteleimon and the Serbian Hilandar Monastery. It has been assumed that not only Ilarion's work but also, for example, the elegant sermons of Bishop Cyril of Turov were known and read by Serbian monks on Mt. Athos, among them Domentijan. [63] St. Sava, prior to Domentijan, had

63. On these sermons and their style, cf., inter alia, D. Čiževskij, History, 86-88; A. Stender-Petersen, op. cit., 53-63 (there also on Cyril's religious poetry); and, in particular, I. P. Eremin, "Oratorskoe iskusstvo Kirilla Turovskogo", TODRL XVIII (1962), 50-58 (reprinted in the same author's Literatura drevnej Rusi, 132-143). On Ilarion, see esp. L. Müller, op. cit. (with references).

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spent some time in the Russian Panteleimon Monastery. Not only are Kievan dynastic historiography and hagiography (including religious-historical rhetoric such as Ilarion's Slovo) reflected in the political ideology of Sava's and his brother's Lives of Stephan Nemanja, but also Russian influence has been ascertained on Sava's orthography, reinforced some two hundred years later by Constantine of Kostenec. [64] The many complexities of the intricate literary and other cultural interrelations between Russia and the Balkan Slavs in the Middle Ages have in recent years received renewed attention. [65] Here we can only briefly digress to give a summary account of Old Russian hagio-biographical literature, as this literature relates to Old Serbian life-writing or as it points up theoretical problems of definition and classification encountered, mutatis mutandis, also in its Serbian counterpart.

Of all medieval Slavic literatures, that of Kievan Russia, and the principalities succeeding it, is perhaps the one most thoroughly studied. In this context, much interest has focused, particularly in the last two decades, on the problem of the Old Russian literary genres and the specific stylistic devices utilized in each of them. [66] A central place among the various kinds of Old Russian literature was held by the Lives of

64. Cf. A. Belić, "Učešće sv. Save i njegove škole u stvaranju nove redakcije srpskih ćirilskih spomenika", Svetosavski zbornik, 1, 211-276, esp. 236-237. Constantine of Kostenec, in his fantastic linguistic theories (contained in his treatise on orthography), stresses the importance of Russian as the alleged main component of the "mixed" language of Cyril and Methodius; cf. K. M. Kujew (Kuev), op. cit., 48; see also R. Jakobson, Harvard Slavic Studies, I (1953), 49.

65. Cf., in addition to the important studies by D. S. Lixačev, I. Dujčev, and V. Mošin quoted in notes 21 and 33, V. P. Adrianova-Peretc, "Drevnerusskie literaturnye pamjatniki v jugoslavjanskoj pis'mennosti", in: Russkaja literatura... (= TODRL XIX), 5-27. See further also Dj. Sp. Radojičić, Juinoslovensko-ruske kulturne veze do početka XVIII veka (Kruševac, 1967), esp. 33-71 ; and S. Hafner, Studien, 24-26.

66. An overall view of medieval Russian writing, largely based on formal (structural) considerations of genre and style, can be found in such Western reference works of Old Russian literature as those quoted above — D. Čiževskij and A. Stender-Petersen, or R. Picchio's Storia delta letteratura russa antica, 2nd ed. (Florence-Milan, 1968). Of specialized work on the Old Russian literary genres, see in particular D. Ciževsky, "On the Question of Genres in Old Russian Literature", Harvard Slavic Studies II (1954), 105-115; R. Jagoditsch, "Zum Begriff der 'Gattungen' in der altrussischen Literatur", WslJb VI (1957-1958), 113137; and several studies by D. S. Lixačev, esp. "Sistema literaturnyx žanrov drevnej Rusi", in : Slavjanskie literatury. V Meždunar. s'ezd slavistov (Sofia, 1963). Dokl. sov. deleg. (Moscow, 1963), 47-70; in revised form, also as a chapter ("Otnošenija literaturnyx žanrov meždu soboj") in his book Poe̊tika drevnerusskoj literatury (Leningrad, 1967), 40-66. For some general information on the genres in medieval Slavic literature, see also his "Drevneslavjanskie lteratury kak sistema", in: Slavjanskie literatury. VI Meždunar. s'ezd slavistov (Prague, 1968). Dokl. sov. deleg. (Moscow, 1968), 5-48, esp. 28-34 ("Žanry i vidy drevneslavjanskix literatur").

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Saints, as was the case in Byzantine literature on which medieval Russian letters was largely patterned. The gradual, though only partial secularization of this genre, noticeable in the branching off from it of a new kind of literature, often referred to as "Princely Lives" (knjažeskie žitija), has been the subject of much discussion centering around the issue whether, at a certain point in the development of this integrated literature (mixing elements of hagiography, panegyrical oration, historiography, and military tale), these Lives can be established as having achieved the status of an autonomous, self-contained genre of secular biography.

In its earliest, not yet fully developed phase of semi-hagiographic literature (to use a descriptive term), the beginnings of secular biography manifested itself in Russia, according to A. Stender-Petersen, in two basic variants: the apostolic and the martyrological sub-genres. While the former can be said to be closely related to, or even derived from, the obituary and cognate encomiastic genres (poxvala or pamjat' i poxvala) first encountered on Russian soil in Ilarion's panegyrical sermon but rooted also in the Old Church Slavic tradition of the Lives of Constantine and Methodius, the latter has its first Russian representatives in the various versions of the Lives of the martyred brothers Boris and Gleb, echoing in more than one respect the Czech Church Slavic Vita of St. Wenceslaus. [67] Both Ilarion's Slovo and the legends of Boris and Gleb express, in addition to true religious fervor, the political interests of the ruling Rurik dynasty of which all three of the subsequently canonized princes were members. No doubt, the combination of religious and political (dynastic) motivation underlying these works of early Russian literature bears a striking resemblance to the ideological background against which Old Serbian biography made its appearance.

Whereas another work of Old Russian hagiography, Nestor's Life of Feodosij, was to set the pattern for all purely hagiographic writing in Russia, culminating in Epifanij's Lives of Stephan of Perm' and Sergij of Radonež, the legends of Boris and Gleb became the model for the semi-secularized, dynastic-historical biography, framed, to be sure, in the traditional form of hagiography. This is true of many of the 13th-14th century Lives of Russian princes and, in particular, of the Life of Prince Alexander Nevskij who was later canonized by the Church and

67. Cf. A. Stender-Petersen, op. cit., 76-84. On the various versions of the Boris and Gleb theme (anonymous Tale, Nestor's Lection, Chronicle entry, liturgical poetry, etc.), see L. Müller, Die altrussischen hagiographischen Erzählungen und liturgischen Dichtungen über die Heiligen Boris und Gleb (Munich, 1967) (with references, XXIII-XXIV); cf. further N. N. Il'in, Letopisnaja stat’ja 6523 goda i ee istočnik (Opyt analiza) (Moscow, 1957), and the article by N. W. Ingham, WdSl X (1965), 166-182 (cf. note 59).

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in whose Vita some experts have believed to find reminiscences of a presumed biography of the Galician 13th century Prince Daniil Romanovič, reworked into the cohesive historiographic narrative contained in the Galician-Volynian Chronicle. Here, further worldly, even chivalrous, elements were introduced. Whereas some literary scholars have assumed Western influences in certain of these new traits of Old Russian biography, others have pointed to parallels with the doubtless non-Orthodox setting of the controversial Igor Tale. [68] It is worth noting, in this context, that the particular situation of Prince Daniil's Galicia, attempting to balance between the Tatars of the Golden Horde in the East and Poles and Hungarians in the West bears some resemblance to the temporarily more fortunate Serbian state, maneuvering between East and West, of the contemporary rulers of the Nemanja dynasty. Symptomatically, Daniil's coronation, too, was approved by the Pope. A double production of pure hagiography and of hagiographically interpreted and accordingly embellished biography of a secular ruler (to whom, however, no posthumous miracles were attributed) may possibly be found in the work of Epifanij Premudryj. This would be so if, as there might at least be some reason to believe, Epifanij were the author not only of the two previously mentioned Lives of Saints, but also of the Life of Dmitrij Ivanovič ("Donskoj"), by far the most ornate of the several works of Old Russian literature relevant to the battle of Kulikovo. [69] Epifanij's dependence on stylistic devices brought to Russia from the Slavic South, particularly Serbia, was already mentioned. It must be remembered, though, that regardless of any parallelism on the stylistic and ideological

68. Cf. A. Stender-Petersen, op. cit., 146-150. See also D. Čiževskij, History, 104-107 and 138-142. N. W. Ingham argues strongly against the assumption of an underlying biography of Daniil Romanovič in the Galician-Volynian Chronicle. As he points out, the section on the reign of Daniil has, at best, the cohesion of historiography; see American Contributions..., 186 and 188-189. Cf., however, also D. S. Lixačev, "Galickaja literaturnaja tradicija v žitii Aleksandra Nevskogo", TODRL V (1947), 36-56. Ingham's argumentation against the largely biographical character of the ORIGINAL historical narrative, analistically reworked in the Chronicle, does not seem cogent. That the literary characteristics of life-writing could be obscured by the very nature of the larger work into which they were integrated can be exemplified also by some of the Lives contained in Archbishop Danilo's and his Disciple's Zbornik; cf. also the Life of Vladimir in the (probably, to be sure, pseudo-historiographic) Letopis popa Dukljanina.

69. Cf. A. Stender-Petersen, op. cit., 160, 176-179, and 191; D. Čiževskij, History, 191-192. See further also, V. P. Adrianova-Peretc, "Slovo o žitii i o prestavlenii velikogo knjazja Dmitrija Ivanoviča, carja Rusьskago", TODRL V (1947), 73-96. However, Professor John Fennell, Oxford, now informs me that his comparative stylistic analysis does not corroborate the view that Epifanij was the author also of the Life of Dmitrij Donskoj.

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levels between Old Russian and Old Serbian life-writing of the time, the political outlook at the close of the 14th and the beginning of the 15th century was vastly different in the two countries: Serbia, defeated at Kosovo (1389), was about to be overrun by the Turks, and the trend in biography, with the notable exception of Camblak, was toward secularization; emerging Muscovite Russia, after the victory at Kulikovo (1380), on the other hand, was gradually embarking on the road to achieving complete freedom. Here, the trend in biography (or what can be subsumed thereunder) was now toward a reassertion of Orthodox Christianity — that is to say, toward 'purified' hagiography. Thus, while in Serbia we can observe a largely consistent development toward increased secularization of life-writing, in Russia only a temporary and partial deviation (reaching its peak in the Life of Alexander Nevskij and possibly in an unpreserved biography of Daniil of Galič) from the fundamentally hagiographic course of the Old Russian žitie can be noted.

It is therefore perhaps an overschematization of the actual development of Old Russian biographical writing (although in line with the general tendency) when D. Čiževskij, in discussing "the Age of Ornamental Style" (12th-13th c.) and "the Period of Spiritual Struggle" (14th-15th c.) in Russian literature, devotes special sections to "Secular Biography", along with others on "Hagiographic Literature" and "Lives of Saints". For "the Period of Stylistic Simplicity" (11th c.) and "Muscovite Literature" (16th a), however, he acknowledges the existence of "Hagiographic Literature" but not of any "Secular Biography". [70] Rather, N. W. Ingham's view appears to be well-founded when he, on the basis of a scrupulous (if selective) and insightful analysis of some vitae and comparable pieces in Old Russian literature, concludes "that not one of the Old Russian works ... can meaningfully be called a secular biography. They neither correspond to the international genre nor show enough internal uniformity for an indigenous literary kind... The majority of the works in fact defy definition as life-writing in the first place; and the few which may fit it are still bound too closely to the practices of hagiography. At the most, transitional forms occur, as in the Life of Aleksandr Nevski." And Ingham goes on to say that "even if a somewhat broader definition of secular or historical biography were applied, there would still not be enough examples of it in Old Russian literature to constitute a genre". But he also suggests that "this situation is probably not typical of the Slavic literatures generally. New dimensions

70. Cf. D. Čiževskij, History, 40-47, 94-100, 165-184 and 184-192, and 238-250.

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to early Slavic lilc-wi iting are added by such works as the earliest žitie of the Czech Prince Wenceslaus (Václav) and the lives of Bulgarian and Serbian rulers." While it is not clear (at least to the present writer) what precisely ingham had in mind when referring to Lives of Bulgarian rulers, his surmise is certainly borne out by the Vita of St. Wenceslaus and, even more so, by the Old Serbian biographies. [71]

VIII

Before summing up the preceding considerations in some tentative conclusions, a few observations regarding the composition and style, the choice of motifs and stereotyped formulae (topoi) characteristic of Old Serbian life-writing may be appropriate. Needless to say, this is not the place for any thorough analysis of these and other literary devices of medieval Serbian biography; nor can a recapitulation of previous — significant, but by no means exhaustive — research on style and themes of Old Serbian life-writing be offered here. [72] Rather, only a handful of illustrative examples will be adduced and briefly commented upon. They are taken from two Vitae which in many ways represent diametric opposites : St. Sava's Life of Simeon (Stephan Nemanja) and the Life of Stephan Lazarević by Constantine of Kostenec. The first one opens the series of medieval Serbian biographies ; the second one marks the perfection of the genre, while transgressing in some respects its established limits. One is basically an hagiography although it never refers to Nemanja as a saint (as opposed to the Nemanja Vita by Stephan the First-Crowned) and is couched in a relatively simple, unassuming language; the other, perhaps farthest removed from hagiography (in contents as well as intent of its author), is nonetheless characterized by an ornate, frequently obscure style and is, to some extent, disguised in

71. Cf. N. W. Ingham, American Contributions..., 197-198 (in the conclusion of his paper "The Limits of Secular Biography in Medieval Slavic Literature, Particularly Old Russian"; cf. note 2).

72. Of important relevant work cf., in addition to the article by M. I. Mulić already quoted (note 29), for example also the section on "Topos und Gedankengefüge in den altserbischen Herrscherbiographien" in S. Hafner's Studien, 78-123. See further some of the papers, partly republished, in the volume Stara književnost, esp. Dj. Trifunović, "Pripovedanje i simboli srednjovekovne naše umetničke proze" (142-180); V. Mošin, "Stil stare srpske proze" (181-196); M. Mulić, "Stil srpskih srednjovekovnih životo-pisaca XIII i XIV veka" (197-204, abridged version of his longer paper in Russian). Cf. on Constantino of Kostenec also K. M. Kujew (Kuev), op. cit., 101-112; and the sties, quoted in note 27.

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the superficial appearance of a vita of hagiographic kind (despite the fact that its hero was never canonized). Thus, being maximally polarized, these two žitija span, as it were, the whole stylistic range of Old Serbian life-writing, while lacking only in the mutual reinforcement by approach and style, content and form, found, say, in Domentijan's Life of St. Sava.

The theme of divine right by which Stephan Nemanja is said to rule his land, found already in the Hilandar Charters, comes up also in the prooemium of the Vita Simeonis and is subsequently once more referred to in Nemanja's abdication speech. [73] The same or a slightly modified motif is later often found in medieval Serbian biography and is attested also in Constantine's Life of Stephan Lazarević. [74] The mention of the many monastic foundations at the outset of Sava's Vita, while presumably reflecting historical reality, was to become a fixed ingredient of most biographies of Serbian princes, usually in connection with the stereotyped eulogy of the ruler (combining a liturgical-hagiographic laudatio with the classic βασιλικὸς λόγος). [75] The system of virtues ascribed to the ruler or other protagonist played an important role in medieval Europe. We find it in its chivalrous-religious form in the West, but it is also well represented in the literature of the Byzantine sphere of civilization, including Kievan Russia. In Sava's Vita, the emphasis is on charity and asceticism — in other words, the virtue system has been given its purest Christian interpretation, coupled with the ideal of monastic life. It also includes the motif of veneration and formidableness of the monarch. This forbidding aspect of the ruler is eloquently described in the biography of Stephan Lazarević by Constantine as well. [76]

Two topoi frequently encountered in medieval literature, particularly in panegyrical writing, are the related stylistic devices of 'unspeakableness' (Curtius' Unsagbarkeitstopos), of which the brevity formula pauca e multis represents a sub-type, and that of 'surpassing' or 'outcomparing'

73. Cf. S. Hafner, Studien, 70-80; id., Serbisches Mittelalter, 132 and 137 (n. 11 and n.64).

74. Cf. S. Hafner, Studien, 81-82.

75. Cf. S. Hafner, Studien, 100-101 and 113-118. On ancient origins and West European parallels, see E. R. Curtius, op. cit., 184-186.

76. Cf. S. Hafner, Studien, 93-109, esp. 97-99 (on Sava's two eulogies of his father, introduced by the common dubitatio formula), 103-104 (on filial obedience), and 108-109 (on veneration and formidableness of the ruler, as expressed in Sava's and Constantine's Lives); id., Serbisches Mittelalter, 134-135 (n. 33, with reference to the virtue system in Old Russian literature). An expression of the medieval notion of the ruler's inapproachable standing among his people can be found also, for example, in the epithet given the Russian 16th century ruler Ivan IV – Groznyj, best rendered, perhaps, as "the Awesome" (rather than the traditional "the Terrible"). On the system of "chivalrous virtues" in the West, see E. R. Curtius, op. cit., 506-521.

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(ὑπεροχή), Curtius' Überbietungstopos) where one can distinguish, among others, between what has been referred to as the cedat and taceat formulae, respectively. [77] Both these common types of topoi are represented in Sava's Life of Nemanja and, by the example of his work, became a regular feature of subsequent Old Serbian biographies. [78]

Part of medieval, Latin as well as Byzantine, imagery was the 'ideal landscape', particularly when narrowed down to the locus amoenus and interpreted allegorically as referring to monastic life. In Sava's Vita Simeonis there is a fairly long passage describing the Hilandar Monastery, just founded by Nemanja, as the pleasure-grounds or 'meadow' (corresponding to the specific Christian-Byzantine connotation of λειμών) to which St. Simeon was retiring in his old age. [79]

The use of pleonasms, hendiadys phrases, and repetitions was not uncommon in medieval rhetoric. The use of these devices can also be found in Sava's Life. Thus, in the translatio account following the biography proper (praxeis), Sava resorts to repeated rhetorical pleonasms to underscore the gratification felt by the brothers Stephan (the First-Crowned) and Vukan as well as the assembled clergy upon receiving the news that Sava had safely reached the Hvostno region (i.e., present-day Metohija) with the remains of Stephan Nemanja. [80] Sometimes, however, what at first sight may seem a pleonasm turns out to be a meaningful differentiation, charged with political, often contrasting implications. [81]

The common motif of death by falling from a horse (believed to be a sign from heaven) occurs a few times in Old Serbian biographies. At least two such episodes are found in Danilo's and his successors' work. The same motif occurs also in Constantine's Life of Stephan Lazarević

77. Cf. E. R. Curtius, op. cit., 168-174.

78. Cf. S. Hafner, Studien, 113, 114-115; id., Serbisches Mittelalter, 135 (n. 35), 136 (n. 55 and n. 57, pauca e multis formula), 138 (n. 96, "unspeakableness"; n. 97, panegyrical loci communes), 141 (n. 122, "unspeakableness"; n. 123 "surpassing"), 143 (n. 148, "surpassing").

79. Cf. S. Hafner, Serbisches Mittelalter, 141-142 (nn. 129, 131, 132). On the "ideal landscape" and, particularly, the locus amoenus in ancient and medieval literature, see E. R. Curtius, op. cit., 191-209, esp. 202-206. See further also O. Schissel, Der byzantinische Garten (Vienna, 1942).

80. Cf. S. Hafner, Serbisches Mittelalter, 144 (nn. 166 and 168).

81. This applies, for example, to the "peace and quiet" theme discussed above (note 43). Apparently, mirь refers to inner peace (including spiritual harmony) while tišina rather implies "quiet at the borders" but perhaps also within the state (at the political level). See S. Hafner, Studien, 89-93. Cf. also the differentiated use of such near- synonyms as ozьlobiti and oskrьbiti in some of the Old Serbian biographies; see ibid., 118-121.

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who died during a hunting party. Possibly, this belief had older, biblical-folkloristic sources. [82]

Sava's Life of Stephan Nemanja is largely designed as an hagiographic vita (prooemium, praxeis, translatio, curriculum vitae, admonitio), lacking only the traditional miracula owing to the fact that Nemanja had not yet been canonized at the time this Vita was written; cf., on the other hand, his Vita by Stephan the First-Crowned where he is repeatedly referred to as a saint and where a number of miracle accounts are appended. In contradistinction, the compositional makeup of Constantine's biography of the 'despot' Stephan Lazarević follows another pattern. It opens with a relatively short section eulogizing Stephan by comparing him with the great men of biblical and Christian history. Next follows a description of Serbia and, in particular, its monks, including St. Simeon (Nemanja) and St. Sava. A short, fantastic, and largely incorrect genealogy of the Nemanja dynasty precedes the tale about Prince Lazar, Stephan's father and the tragic hero of Kosovo, and a statement of the situation in Serbia after the defeat is given before the author turns to a brief characterization of his hero and his early years. Only then begins a detailed account of the historical events, political and military, in which Stephan participates as one (but not the sole) protagonist. (Other important personalities are the Turkish sultans with whom Stephan concludes treaties or against whom he wages war.) Inserted in this account is, among other things, a famous description of the city of Belgrade which is compared in beauty and importance to Jerusalem. Another city, Resava, is duly praised as well. In a following chapter, Constantine talks about Stephan's generosity and sees all the manifold characteristics of Serbia represented in his hero's personality and noble qualities. In the section reporting Stephan's death, the author not only speaks of the grief of the Serbian people, but also mentions the disaster which befell Serbia after his death. He goes on to describe miraculous happenings occasioned by his passing away (obviously meant as a substitute of sorts for the obligatory miracles ascribed to a saint after his death). Constantine's biography ends on a very personal note, telling of how Stephan after his death had appeared before

82. See S. Hafner, Studien, 121-123. The death-by-one's-horse theme is known, in a somewhat different variant, also in Old Russian literature, with a parallel in an Old Norse anecdote (the ultimate source of both probably being Byzantine); cf. the tale about Prince Oleg's death from his horse (entered in the Nestor Chronicle sub anno 912). For details, see D. Čiževskij, History, 14 and 17-18; A. Stender-Petersen, op. cit., 101; and now also F. Sielicki, ed., Powieść minionych lat (Wroclaw-Warsaw-Cracow, 1968), 112-113.

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the author urging him to write (or complete) the Vita. A last eulogy of Stephan concludes Constantine's work.

Already this short summary of the contents of Constantine's Life reveals some basic differences between this biography and all preceding Old Serbian vitae. Here we encounter a memoir-like account by an observant contemporary with a deep involvement in the events he is relating. What we have before us is a piece of personal interpretation of history in its broader context, focusing, understandably, on the Ottoman Empire and its rapidly expanding power. While subjectively colored, most of Constantine's information has proven accurate. In addition, however, a personal, almost intimtae tone used by someone close to the chief protagonist comes through. Despite all attempts at subliming Stephan's individual features to the abstract level of hagiography, the reader — once he overcomes the ornate style and many biographically irrelevant amplifications — preceives a live personality drawn against the backdrop of Serbia, its nature and its cities. Also in these descriptions of the Serbian scenery, especially of Belgrade, there is a note of personal, one might say, individual, experience. No doubt, there is an affinity between the style of Constantine of Kostenec and that of his emigrant contemporary, Camblak, even though the purpose of writing their respective biographies was different. Only Constantine, the naturalized Serbian, was an ardent patriot. As was mentioned before, Constantine's language, frequently obscure (and, in some instances, actually resisting definitive interpretation) and not without some studied mannerism (cf. also his use of symbolic acrostics) and hagiographic accessories, especially the many biblical quotes and references, is not apt to further the appreciation which this work no doubt deserves, in terms of its ideology and understanding of history. [83]

IX

Summing up, then, some of the points made in this paper and adding a few considerations not discussed here for lack of space, a number of conclusions can be tentatively formulated :

83. For an appraisal of Constantine's Life of Stephan Lazarević, see, in particular, K. M. Kujew (Kuev), op. cit., 86-112, esp. 101-112; and the relevant section in P. Popović's Introduction to Stare srpske biografije XV i XVII veka, XLIV-LIII. On the acrostics, see Dj. Sp. Radojičić's previously (note 27) mentioned studies. Generally on Stephan Lazarević, see now also N. D. Pavlović, Despot Stefan Lazarević (Subotica & Belgrade, 1968). Cf. further also Dj. Trifunović, Srpski srednjovekovni spisi o knezu Lazaru i Kosovskom boju (Kruševac, 1968), and I. Dujčev, "La conquête turque et la prise de Constantinople dans la littérature slave contemporaine", Byzsl XIV (1953), 14-54, esp. 38-42 (on Constantine's Life of Stephan Lazarević).

282

1) Accepting the current medievalist view of the High Middle Ages (11th-12th c.) as a period of great intellectual vigor and creativity in Central Europe, this interpretation can be extended to include medieval Serbia of the 13th through early 15th centuries, given the well-understood factor of "cultural retardation" in this area. [84] The literary genre of biography, developed to a level of high sophistication, can be considered perhaps the most eloquent expression of medieval Serbian civilization.

2) Three different, though interrelated traditions merge in Old Serbian life-writing: (a) the predominantly learned Byzantine tradition of hagiography and historiography; (b) the solidly learned Church Slavic tradition of hagiography (including semi-hagiography) and panegyrical homiletics, themselves representing a modification of Byzantine prototypes ; and (c) a set of pre- and sub-literary, orally transmitted themes, motifs, and legends encountered in the Balkans and largely characteristic of a popular Christian tradition, particularly in its Eastern variety. More specifically, it is possible to make a distinction in the Byzantine hagiographic tradition between several chronological layers (primarily, pre-Metaphrastic versus post-Metaphrastic) and between two major components — the elaborate and ornate, learned tradition and a more popular vein in Byzantine hagiography whose nucleus was the simple narrative relating the life-story of a monk (or hermit). In Byzantine historiography two separate kinds can be identified: chronicle-writing (chronography) and secular biography (primarily the Lives of Emperors), with the latter genre largely submerged in the broader framework of non-annalistic historiography. In its rudimentary form, the Old Serbian vita (in its earliest phase, represented by Sava and Stephan the First-Crowned) is prefigured in the Charter texts of the Hilandar Monastery.

3) Of dynastic historiography and Orthodox hagiography, the two basic components combined in Old Serbian biography, the first is more closely bound up with Serbia proper, embodied in the person of the Serbian ruler and his court, and the second with the Serbian monastic community, in particular, its extraterritorial focal point at Mt. Athos

84. Cf. S. Hafner Studien, VII. On some aspects of the phenomenon of "cultural retardation" in another peripheral part of medieval Europe, see E. R. Curtius, op. cit., 524-526 ("Spaniens kulturelle 'Verspätung' "). Notice further that just as Serbia was culturally gravitating in the Middle Ages in two directions — toward Orthodox Byzantium and (if to a lesser extent) toward Catholic Europe (Rome, Venice, Hungary) — Spain, too, during the Reconquista lay at the intersection of two cultures : European (Latin as well as Spanish national) Catholicism and Arabic Islam. In neither case, medieval Serbia or Spain, is the term "cultural retardation" to be understood in the derogatory sense of backwardness.

283

(Hilandar). While the religious-political interests and goals of these two institutions usually coincided (cf. Sava, Stephan the First-Crowned, Danilo), this was not always the case, particularly not in times when Serbia's political stand was vacillating between East and West. In such situations, the monastic community would take a pro-Byzantine position as reflected in literary and ideological expressions found in some vitae (particularly those by the Athonite monks Domentijan and Teodosije; also, e.g., by Camblak). Eventually, in the face of the Turkish peril, the Byzantine and Serbian national interests were again in full agreement (Constantine of Kostenec).

4) In spite of a certain typological amplitude and chronological development within it, biography can be said to constitute a separate, unified genre in Old Serbian literature. This genre is marked by a number of fundamental characteristics compared to which the shift in emphasis from hagiography to secular biography is of secondary import. It should also be noted that, while the overall tendency in Old Serbian life-writing was away from pure hagiography and toward secular biography, this tendency is by no means without exception as shown by the work of Camblak, marking, in this respect, a reverse trend. On the stylistic side, many of the hagiographic accessories are retained throughout the entire development of this literary genre, i.e., also in those biographies with a more pronounced secular content (cf. Stephan the First-Crowned and Constantine of Kostenec). In terms of ideology, most of Old Serbian life-writing is characterized by a combination of religious (Orthodox) and political (dynastic) objects in view. In depicting their heroes — largely secular rulers — the Old Serbian vitae achieve a high degree of individ-ualization rather than typification (characteristic of hagiography proper as well as of its pictorial counterpart — iconography). This individuali-zation, however, is to be understood as aiming at sublimation, abstracting, as it were, from the individual features and characteristics of the protagonists for the purpose of immortalization and religious "eternalization". Little evidence can be found in the medieval Serbian Lives that would suggest an ability for, or interest in, concretization and psychological objectivization. [85]

5) The Old Serbian vita genre was firmly grounded in the Byzantine tradition of Lives of Saints and, to a lesser degree, in other forms of Byzantine literature (chrysobulla, typica, chronicles, Lives of Emperors), while forming an integral part of a supranational literature, modifying

85. Cf. S. Hafner, Studien, 75 and 96.

284

these Byzantine models throughout the Slavic Orthodox community of the Middle Ages. By further developing and in an original manner refining the literary art of life-writing, the Old Serbian biographers can be credited with having indeed transformed this Byzantine tradition into a new and unique genre of its own.

Thus, assessing Old Serbian life-writing in terms of its sources and parallels, the following observations can be made: In Byzantine literature, hagiography, with its rich tradition, and historical secular biography, re-emerging in the 10th century, cannot be considered merely varieties of one unified biographic genre. Similarly, in Old Russian literature, we can hardly speak of a truly autonomous genre of secular biography, independent of hagiography (or other related kinds of literature). Also in medieval Bohemia, life-writing was practiced far too short a time in the Czech recension of Church Slavic to yield (by blending hagiographic and historiographic elements) a new genre of biography. The elaboration of this integrated literary genre was accomplished only in Serbia whose many extant vitae must therefore be assigned a particularly prominent place in the overall near-millennial course of Church Slavic literature.

Addendum to note 21: An important reassessment of the Second South Slavic Influence de-emphasizing the role of Patriarch Euthymius (Evtimij) as a literary-linguistic reformer and contending that the Turkish invasion and domination of the Balkans neither brought the Christian Slavic literary activities to a halt nor caused any mass immigration of South Slavic literati to late-medieval Russia can be found in the well-documented unpublished doctoral dissertation of I. Talev, The Impact of Middle Bulgarian on the Russian Literary Language (post-Kievan period), UCLA, J972.

http://www.kroraina.com/knigi/en/hb_sv/hb_sv_hbirnbaum.htm

Κι όμως Ανέστη ! Ναι, Ναι αληθώς Ανέστη !

2013-05-11T00:44:00.001+03:00

ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ ΑΝΕΣΤΗ !

Πολλά δε θέλει ο άνθρωπος

να 'ν' ήμερος να 'ναι άκακος

λίγο φαΐ λίγο κρασί

Χριστούγεννα κι Ανάσταση

κι όπου φωλιάσει και σταθεί

κανείς να μην του φτάνει εκεί

Μα 'ρθαν αλλιώς τα πράματα
τονε ξυπνάν χαράματα

τον παν τον φέρνουν πίσω μπρος
του τρώνε και το λίγο βίος

κι από το στόμα την μπουκιά
πάνω στην ώρα τη γλυκιά

του τηνε παίρνουνε κι αυτή

Χαρά στους που 'ναι οι Δυνατοί!

Χαρά στους που 'ναι οι Δυνατοί

γι' αυτούς δεν έχει «εγώ» κι «εσύ»

Χαρά στους που 'ναι οι Δυνατοί
γι' αυτούς δεν έχει χόρταση.

Οδυσσέας Ελύτης

Ο ΗΛΙΟΣ Ο ΗΛΙΑΤΟΡΑΣ

(1971)

2012-04-07T22:37:00.004+03:00

Μ. Εβδομάδα 2012

Έναν χρόνο μετά ...
Συν Θεώ συνέχεια...

«Τήν ψυχωφελῆ πληρώσαντες Τεσσαρακοστήν, τήν ἁγίαν ἑβδομάδα τοῦ πάθους σου αἰτοῦμεν κατιδεῖν, Φιλάνθρωπε, τοῦ δοξᾶσαι ἐν αὐτῇ τά μεγαλεῖα σου καί τήν ἄφατον δι ἡμᾶς οἰκονομίαν σου»

2011-04-21T00:03:00.003+03:00

ΑΓΙΑ ΚΑΙ ΜΕΓΑΛΗ ΕΒΔΟΜΑΔΑ - ΠΟΡΕΙΑ ΠΡΟΣ ΤΗΝ ΑΝΑΣΤΑΣΗ

Ο ΜΥΣΤΙΚΟΣ ΔΕΙΠΝΟΣ

ΜΕΓΑΛΗ ΤΕΤΑΡΤΗ ΕΣΠΕΡΑΣ

Ὃν ἐκήρυξεν Ἀμνὸν Ἡσαΐας, ἔρχεται ἐπὶ σφαγὴν ἑκούσιον, καὶ τὸν νῶτον δίδωσιν εἰς μάστιγας, τὰς σιαγόνας εἰς ῥαπίσματα, τὸ δὲ πρόσωπον οὐκ ἀπεστράφη, ἀπὸ αἰσχύνης ἐμπτυσμάτων, θανάτῳ δὲ ἀσχήμονι καταδικάζεται, πάντα ὁ ἀναμάρτητος ἑκουσίως καταδέχεται, ἵνα πᾶσι δωρήσηται τὴν ἐκ νεκρῶν ἀνάστασιν.

Μυσταγωγῶν σου Κύριε τοὺς Μαθητάς, ἐδίδασκες λέγων. Ὦ φίλοι, ὁρᾶτε, μηδεῖς ὑμᾶς χωρίσει μου φόβος· εἰ γὰρ πάσχω, ἀλλ' ὑπὲρ τοῦ Κόσμου· μὴ οὖν σκανδαλίζεσθε ἐν ἐμοί· οὐ γὰρ ἦλθον διακονηθῆναι, ἀλλὰ διακονῆσαι, καὶ δοῦναι τὴν ψυχήν μου, λύτρον ὑπὲρ τοῦ Κόσμου. Εἰ οὖν ὑμεῖς φίλοι μού ἐστε, ἐμὲ μιμεῖσθε· ὁ θέλων πρῶτος εἶναι, ἔστω ἔσχατος, ὁ δεσπότης, ὡς ὁ διάκονος· μείνατε ἐν ἐμοί, ἵνα βότρυν φέρητε· ἐγὼ γάρ εἰμι τῆς ζωῆς ἡ ἄμπελος.

2011-04-20T04:23:00.002+03:00

ΑΓΙΑ ΚΑΙ ΜΕΓΑΛΗ ΕΒΔΟΜΑΔΑ - ΠΟΡΕΙΑ ΠΡΟΣ ΤΗΝ ΑΝΑΣΤΑΣΗ

Ο ΝΥΜΦΙΟΣ

ΜΕΓΑΛΗ ΤΡΙΤΗ ΕΣΠΕΡΑΣ

Ὢ μακαρίων χειρῶν, ὢ τριχῶν καὶ χειλέων, τῶν τῆς σώφρονος Πόρνης! αἷς ἐπέχεε Σωτήρ, τὸ μύρον πρὸς σοὺς πόδας, ἐκμασσομένη αὐτούς, πυκνῶς καταφιλοῦσα, ανακειμένῳ.

Χεῖρες ἐμοὶ ῥυπαραί, χείλη πόρνης ἐν ἐμοί, ἄναγνός μου ὁ βίος, ἐφθαρμένα τὰ μέλη, ἀλλ' ἄνες μοι καὶ ἄφες, βοᾷ Πόρνη τῷ Χριστῷ.

Ἐπιστᾶσα ἡ Γυνὴ πρὸς τοὺς πόδας σου Σωτήρ, ἐπέχεε τὸ μύρον, εὐωδίας πληροῦσα καὶ μύρου πληρουμένη, τοῦ τῶν ἔργων ἱλασμοῦ.

Ἀρωμάτων εὐπορῶ, ἀρετῶν δὲ ἀπορῶ, ἃ ἔχω σοι προσάγω, δὸς αὐτὸς ἅπερ ἔχεις καὶ ἄνες μοι καὶ ἄφες, βοᾷ Πόρνη τῷ Χριστῷ.

Ἰδιόμελον

Ἦχος πλ. δ'

Ποίημα Κασσιανὴς Μοναχῆς

Κύριε, ἡ ἐν πολλαῖς ἁμαρτίαις περιπεσοῦσα Γυνή, τὴν σὴν αἰσθομένη Θεότητα, μυροφόρου ἀναλαβοῦσα τάξιν, ὀδυρομένη μύρα σοι, πρὸ τοῦ ἐνταφιασμοῦ κομίζει. Οἴμοι! λέγουσα, ὅτι νύξ μοι, ὑπάρχει, οἶστρος ἀκολασίας, ζοφώδης τε καὶ ἀσέληνος, ἔρως τῆς ἁμαρτίας. Δέξαι μου τὰς πηγὰς τῶν δακρύων, ὁ νεφέλαις διεξάγων τῆς θαλάσσης τὸ ὕδωρ· κάμφθητί μοι πρὸς τοὺς στεναγμοὺς τῆς καρδίας, ὁ κλίνας τοὺς οὐρανούς, τῇ ἀφάτῳ σου κενώσει· καταφιλήσω τοὺς ἀχράντους σου πόδας, ἀποσμήξω τούτους δὲ πάλιν, τοῖς τῆς κεφαλῆς μου βοστρύχοις, ὧν ἐν τῷ Παραδείσῳ Εὔα τὸ δειλινόν, κρότον τοῖς ὠσὶν ἠχηθεῖσα, τῷ φόβῳ ἐκρύβη. Ἁμαρτιῶν μου τὰ πλήθη καὶ κριμάτων σου ἀβύσσους, τίς ἐξιχνιάσει ψυχοσῶστα Σωτήρ μου; Μή με τὴν σὴν δούλην παρίδῃς, ὁ ἀμέτρητον ἔχων τὸ ἔλεος.

2011-04-19T03:54:00.000+03:00

ΑΓΙΑ ΚΑΙ ΜΕΓΑΛΗ ΕΒΔΟΜΑΔΑ - ΠΟΡΕΙΑ ΠΡΟΣ ΤΗΝ ΑΝΑΣΤΑΣΗ

Ο ΝΥΜΦΙΟΣ

ΜΕΓΑΛΗ ΔΕΥΤΕΡΑ ΕΣΠΕΡΑΣ

Τὶ ῥαθυμεῖς ἀθλία ψυχή μου; τί φαντάζῃ ἀκαίρως μερίμνας ἀφελεῖς; τί ἀσχολεῖς πρὸς τὰ ῥέοντα; ἐσχάτη ὥρα ἐστὶν ἀπ΄ ἄρτι, καὶ χωρίζεσθαι μέλλομεν τῶν ἐνταῦθα, ἕως καιρὸν κεκτημένη, ἀνάνηψον κράζουσα· Ἡμάρτηκά σοι Σωτήρ μου, μὴ ἐκκόψῃς με, ὥσπερ τὴν ἄκαρπον συκῆν, ἀλλ' ὡς εὔσπλαγχνος Χριστέ, κατοικτείρησον, φόβῳ κραυγάζουσαν· Μὴ μείνωμεν ἔξω τοῦ νυμφῶνος Χριστοῦ.

Τὸν Νυμφίον ἀδελφοὶ ἀγαπήσωμεν, τὰς λαμπάδας ἑαυτῶν εὐτρεπίσωμεν, ἐν ἀρεταῖς ἐκλάμποντες καὶ πίστει ὀρθῇ, ἵνα ὡς αἱ φρόνιμοι, τοῦ Κυρίου παρθένοι, ἕτοιμοι εἰσέλθωμεν, σὺν αὐτῷ εἰς τοὺς γάμους· ὁ γὰρ Νυμφίος δῶρον ὡς Θεός, πᾶσι παρέχει τὸν ἄφθαρτον στέφανον.

2011-04-18T03:52:00.004+03:00

ΑΓΙΑ ΚΑΙ ΜΕΓΑΛΗ ΕΒΔΟΜΑΔΑ - ΠΟΡΕΙΑ ΠΡΟΣ ΤΗΝ ΑΝΑΣΤΑΣΗ

Ο ΝΥΜΦΙΟΣ

ΚΥΡΙΑΚΗ ΤΩΝ ΒΑΙΩΝ

Τὰ Πάθη τὰ σεπτά, ἡ παροῦσα ἡμέρα, ὡς φῶτα σωστικά, ἀνατέλλει τῷ Κόσμῳ· Χριστὸς γὰρ ἐπείγεται, τοῦ παθεῖν ἀγαθότητι, ὁ τὰ σύμπαντα, ἐν τῇ δρακὶ περιέχων, καταδέχεται, ἀναρτηθῆναι ἐν ξύλῳ, τοῦ σῶσαι τὸν ἄνθρωπον.

Τῶν παθῶν τοῦ Κυρίου τὰς ἀπαρχάς, ἡ παροῦσα ἡμέρα λαμπροφορεῖ. Δεῦτε οὖν φιλέορτοι, ὑπαντήσωμεν ᾄσμασιν· ὁ γὰρ Κτίστης ἔρχεται, σταυρὸν καταδέξασθαι, ἐτασμούς καὶ μάστιγας, Πιλάτῳ κρινόμενος· ὅθεν καὶ ἐκ δούλου ῥαπισθεὶς ἐπὶ κόρης· τὰ πάντα προσίεται, ἵνα σώσῃ τὸν ἄνθρωπον. Διὰ τοῦτο βοήσωμεν· Φιλάνθρωπε Χριστὲ ὁ Θεός, τῶν πταισμάτων δώρησαι τὴν ἄφεσιν, τοῖς προσκυνοῦσιν ἐν πίστει, τὰ ἄχραντα Πάθη σου.

Ἑτοίμαζε Ἰουδαία τοὺς Ἱερεῖς σου, εὐτρέπιζε τὰς χεῖρας πρὸς θεοκτονίαν. Ἰδοὺ γὰρ ἦλθε πραΰς, καὶ ἥσυχος ἐπὶ τὸ Πάθος, ἀμνὸς ὑπάρχων καὶ ποιμὴν ἡμῶν, Χριστός ὁ Βασιλεὺς Ἰσραήλ.

Ὑπόδεξαι Ἰουδαία τὸν Βασιλέα· ἰδοὺ γὰρ πρὸς τὸ Πάθος, ἔρχεται ἑκουσίως, ἵνα πάθῃ καὶ σώσῃ, τοὺς κράζοντας ἀκαταπαύστως· Εὐλογημένος ὁ ἐρχόμενος, Σταυρῷ σῶσαι τὰ σύμπαντα.

2011-04-18T03:39:00.001+03:00

Θεολογία Διαλεγόμενη - Εκδήλωση στην Κοζάνη

Τη Δευτέρα 4 Απριλίου 2011 το περιοδικό ΛΕΙΜΩΝΑΡΙΟΝ, της Ιερ.Μητροπόλεως Σερβίων και Κοζάνης, σε συνεργασία με την ΑΚΑΔΗΜΙΑ ΘΕΟΛΟΓΙΚΩΝ ΣΠΟΥΔΩΝ, της Ιεράς Μητροπόλεως Δημητριάδος, διοργάνωσε ημερίδα με θέμα: Θεολογία διαλεγόμενη - Το έργο και οι εκδόσεις της Ακαδημίας Θεολογικών Σπουδών.

Τις εργασίες της ημερίδας χαιρέτισαν ο Σεβ. Μητροπολίτης Σερβίων και Κοζάνης κ.Παύλος και ο συντονιστής της Ακαδημίας κ. Παντελής Καλαϊτζίδης.
Ο Σεβασμιότατος στο χαιρετισμό του αναφέρθηκε στην αγωνία τόσο της Ακαδημίας όσο και του περιοδικού «Λειμωνάριον» να αφουγκράζεται το σύγχρονο θεολογικό προβληματισμό και να δίνει τη δυνατότητα μιας σοβαρής θεολογικής σπουδής στο εκκλησιαστικό σώμα.
Ο κ. Καλαϊτζίδης στο χαιρετισμό του τόνισε πως η Ακαδημία Θεολογικών Σπουδών λειτουργεί, εδώ και 10 χρόνια, ως ένα ανοιχτό εργαστήρι σκέψης και διαλόγου της Εκκλησίας με τη διανόηση και την κοινωνία, οργανώνοντας με τη μορφή του ανοιχτού πανεπιστημίου ετήσιους θεματικούς κύκλους σπουδών, σεμινάρια, διεθνή συνέδρια και εκδόσεις. Ο κ. Καλαϊτζίδης αναφέρθηκε στα θέματα τα οποία μελέτησε η Ακαδημία τα παρελθόντα έτη και ιδιαίτερα στο πρόγραμμα της φετινής χρονιάς. Στο πλαίσιο των συγκαιρινών προκλήσεων οικονομικών- κοινωνικών διερευνάται ποιός ο ρόλος της Εκκλησίας στην εδραίωση της παγκόσμιας ειρήνης και της κοινωνικής δικαιοσύνης.

Στην ημερίδα εισηγήθηκαν οι:
α. Ο κ. Μιλτιάδης Κωνσταντίνου, καθηγητής της Θεολογικής Σχολής Α.Π.Θ.
β. Ο κ.Παναγιώτης Βολάκης, εκπαιδευτικός θεολόγος υπ. Διδ.Αγιολογίας και
γ. Ο κ.Θεόφιλος Αμπατζίδης, εκπαιδευτικός θεολόγος υπ. Διδ.Θεολογίας.

Ο κ.Κωνσταντίνου στην εισήγησή του έκανε μια ιστορική αναδρομή του διαλόγου της εκκλησίας με το θεολογικό χώρο ξεκινώντας απότη γνωστή εγκύκλιο του Οικουμενικού Πατριαρχείου το 1920 μέχρι το συνέδριο της Ακαδημίας Θεολογικών Σπουδών με θέμα: «Αναταράξεις στη μεταπολεμική θεολογία. Η Θεολογία του ‘60».

Ο κ. Βολάκης τόνισε πως η ίδρυση και η λειτουργία της Ακαδημίας Θεολογικών Σπουδών μεταξύ άλλων και την ανάγκη κοινωνίας και ανατροφοδότησης των Θεολόγων και παρουσίασε τα πρακτικά των προγραμμάτων δύο ακαδημαϊκών ετών. Του 2000-2001 με θέμα εκκλησία και εσχατολογία, και του 2003-2004 με θέμα «Φύλο και Θρησκεία- Η θέση της γυναίκας στην Εκκλησία».

Ο κ.Βολάκης τόνισε τη σημασία της ενασχόλησης της Ακαδημίας με πρώτο θέμα την εσχατολογική κατανόηση της εκκλησίας και το καίριο ερώτημα για την ταυτότητά της και την παράδοξη και αντινομική θέση των χριστιανών μέσα στον κόσμο και την Ιστορία. Η διάκριση του φύλου στην Εκκλησία, το δεύτερο θέμα, που παρουσίασε ο κ.Βολάκης επαναπροσδιορίζεται μέσα από την εσχατολογική δυναμική της Εκκλησίας. Η ‘εν Χριστώ’ ενότητα νοείται ως συμμετοχή όλων στη ζωή της κοινότητας με βάση τα ιδιαίτερα χαρακτηριστικά και χαρίσματά τους.
Ο κ.Αμπατζίδης παρουσίασε τα θέματα «Ορθοδοξία και Νεωτερικότητα» και «Ισλάμ και φονταμενταλισμός- ορθοδοξία και παγκοσμιοποίηση». Ο κ.Αμπατζίδης τόνισε ότι τα θέματα αυτά είναι συνέχεια της εσχατολογικής προβληματικής της Ακαδημίας και οτι ο διάλογος ορθοδοξίας και νεωτερικότητας παραμένει ουσιαστικά ζητούμενο και ένα καίριο ζήτημα σήμερα είναι ο ρόλος της ορθόδοξης χριστιανικής Εκκλησίας στη νεωτερικότητα. Η προσπάθεια της Ακαδημίας για το διάλογο θεολόγων και κοσμικών διανοουμένων και το άνοιγμα της τοπικής Εκκλησίας της Δημητριάδος στη θύραθεν διανόηση αποτελεί μία από τις ελάχιστες προσπάθειες υπέρβασης της αμοιβαίας άγνοιας και καχυποψίας προκειμένου να διερευνηθεί, αν υπάρχει ριζική ασυμβατότητα των δύο μεγεθών (ορθοδοξίας και νεωτερικότητας) ή αν αντίθετα ιστορικές συγκυρίες στάθηκαν εμπόδιο στο διάλογο και τη συνάντησή τους.
Την εκδήλωση έκλεισε με παρέμβασή του ο Μητροπολίτης Δημητριάδος κ. Ιγνάτιος, ο οποίος ευχαρίστησε το Μητροπολίτη Σερβίων και Κοζάνης κ.Παύλο για τη συνεργασία αυτή, και υπογράμμισε το χρέος όλων μας για την πορεία της θεολογίας, η οποία καλείται, σε κάθε εποχή και ιδιαίτερα σε περιόδους κρίσης, να λειτουργήσει ως η προφητική φωνή για την επανεύρεση της αυτοσυνειδησίας της Εκκλησίας.

Η Συντονιστική Επιτροπή του «Λειμωναρίου» και
η Ακαδημία Θεολογικών Σπουδών

2010-12-31T20:53:00.000+02:00

01/01 -	Βασιλείου του Μεγάλου.

	Τη αυτή ημέρα μνήμη του εν Aγίοις Πατρός ημών Βασιλείου Aρχιεπισκόπου Καισαρείας Καππαδοκίας του Μεγάλου¹. Ζη Βασίλειος και θανών εν Κυρίω. Ζη και παρ’ ημίν ως λαλών εκ των βίβλων. Ιαννουαρίοιο θάνες Βασίλειε πρώτη. Oύτος ο εν Aγίοις Πατήρ ημών Βασίλειος, ήκμασε κατά τους χρόνους του βασιλέως Ουάλεντος εν έτει τξδ΄ [364], προς τον οποίον Ουάλεντα επαρρησιάσθη διά την Ορθόδοξον πίστιν, και ήλεγξεν αυτόν. Eπειδή και έπεσεν εις την κακοδοξίαν των Aρειανών, και με άγριον και θηριώδη τρόπον εκακοποίει και επολέμει τας Eκκλησίας των Ορθοδόξων. Ούτος λοιπόν από μεν τον πατέρα, ήτον Μαυροθαλασσίτης. Aπό δε την μητέρα, ήτον Καππαδόκης, ήτοι εκατάγετο από την λεγομένην Καραμανίαν. Κατά δε τους λόγους και την παιδείαν, υπερέβαλεν, όχι μόνον τους ελλογίμους του καιρού του, αλλά ακόμη και τους παλαιούς φιλοσόφους. Περάσας γαρ κάθε είδος παιδείας, εις κάθε μίαν από αυτάς το κράτος και την νίκην απόκτησεν. Ου μόνον δε ταύτα, αλλά και την διά πράξεως ήσκησε φιλοσοφίαν. Και διά της πράξεως ανέβη και εις την θεωρίαν των όντων. Eκ τούτων δε, ανέβη και εις τον θρόνον της Aρχιερωσύνης. Όταν δε έγινεν Aρχιερεύς, πολλούς αγώνας εποίησεν ο μακάριος διά την Ορθόδοξον πίστιν. Με την σταθερότητα γαρ και γενναιότητα του φρονήματός του, κατέπληξε τον έπαρχον Μόδεστον. Με τους Oρθοδόξους δε λόγους οπού συνέγραψε, των κακοδόξων τα φρονήματα κατεβρόντησε. Και προς τούτοις, την των ηθών κατάστασιν ερρύθμισε. Την ασκητικήν φιλοσοφίαν εδίδαξε, την των όντων γνώσιν εσαφήνισε. Και διά να ειπώ συντόμως, ούτος ο Άγιος οδηγήσας εις σωτηρίαν την λογικήν του Χριστού ποίμνην διά μέσου κάθε αρετής, προς Κύριον εξεδήμησεν. Ήτον δε ο Μέγας Βασίλειος κατά τον χαρακτήρα του σώματος, πολλά μακρύς. Ξηρός και ολιγόσαρκος, μελανός εις το πρόσωπον κατά το χρώμα, πλην είχεν αυτό σύμμικτον και με κιτρινάδα. Ήτον μακρομύτης. Είχε τα οφρύδια στρογγυλά, το δε δέρμα το επάνω των οφρυδίων, το είχε συμμαζωμένον. Eφαίνετο όμοιος με έναν οπού συλλογίζεται και προσέχει εις τον εαυτόν του. Είχε το πρόσωπον ζαρωμένον με ολίγας χαραγάς. Τα μάγουλα είχε μακρά. Τους μήνιγγας, δασείς από τρίχας συνεστραμμένας κυκλοειδώς. Eφαίνετο κατά την επιφάνειαν, πως είχεν ολίγον κουρευμένας τας τρίχας. Το γένειον είχε μακρόν αρκετά και τας τρίχας είχε μεμιγμένας, ήτοι μαύρας ομού με άσπρας. Τελείται δε η αυτού Σύναξις, εν τη Aγιωτάτη Μεγάλη Eκκλησία. (Τον κατά πλάτος Βίον αυτού όρα εις τον Νέον Θησαυρόν.) ΣΗΜΕΙΩΣΗ 1. Εις τον Μέγαν Βασίλειον εγκώμια έπλεξαν Γρηγόριος ο Θεολόγος, ου η αρχή· «Έμελλεν άρα». Ο αυτάδελφός του Γρηγόριος ο Νύσσης, ου η αρχή· «Καλήν επέθηκεν». Εφραίμ ο Σύρος, ου η αρχή· «Κλίνατέ μοι τας ακοάς αδελφοί» (σώζονται εν τοις εκδεδομένοις)· και ο Αμφιλόχιος Ικονίου, ου η αρχή· «Αγαπητοί, ουκ ην απεικός» (σώζεται εν τη Λαύρα και εν τη των Ιβήρων). Όρα και το θαύμα οπού εποίησεν ούτος, ανοίξας τας πύλας του Ναού, κατά την δεκάτην ενάτην του παρόντος.

	(από το βιβλίο: Αγίου Νικοδήμου Αγιορείτου Συναξαριστής των δώδεκα μηνών του ενιαυτού. Τόμος Β´. Εκδόσεις Δόμος, 2005)

2010-12-31T20:48:00.001+02:00

01/01 -	Η Περιτομή του Κυρίου.

	Εις την Α΄, εορτάζομεν την κατά σάρκα Περιτομήν του Κυρίου και Θεού και Σωτήρος ημών Ιησού Χριστού. Χριστού περιτμηθέντος, ετμήθη νόμος. Και του νόμου τμηθέντος, εισήχθη χάρις. + Tην κατά σάρκα Περιτομήν του Κυρίου ημών Ιησού Χριστού, την οποίαν κατεδέχθη να λάβη φιλανθρώπως κατά την προσταγήν του παλαιού νόμου¹, ίνα αντί της χειροποιήτου και σαρκικής περιτομής, αντεισάξη εις ημάς την αχειροποίητον και πνευματικήν περιτομήν, ήτοι το Άγιον Βάπτισμα. Ταύτην λέγω την του Κυρίου Περιτομήν, παρελάβομεν ημείς οι Χριστιανοί υπό των Aγίων Πατέρων, να πανηγυρίζωμεν κατ’ έτος: καθώς και την πανηγυρίζομεν, λογιζόμενοι ταύτην, μίαν από τας Δεσποτικάς εορτάς διά τον ημάς τιμήσαντα Κύριον, διά μέσου αυτής. Καθώς γαρ ο Κύριος κατεδέχθη διά λόγου μας την ένσαρκον αυτού Γέννησιν, και όλα τα άλλα ιδιώματα της ανθρωπίνης φύσεως έλαβεν, όσα ήτον παντελώς αδιάβλητα και ακατηγόρητα, τοιουτοτρόπως δεν επαισχύνθη ο Πανάγαθος να λάβη και την περιτομήν, διά δύω αίτια. Πρώτον μεν, διατί ηθέλησε να εμφράξη τα στόματα των αιρετικών, οίτινες ετόλμησαν να ειπούν, ότι δεν ανέλαβεν ο Κύριος σάρκα αληθινήν, αλλά κατά φαντασίαν. Οποίοι ήτον ο θεομάχος Μάνης, και οι τούτου οπαδοί Μανιχαίοι. Διότι πώς ήθελε περιτμηθή, ανίσως δεν έλαβε σάρκα αληθινήν; Και δεύτερον δε, διά να επιστομίση τους Ιουδαίους, οίτινες εκατηγόρουν τον Κύριον, πως δεν φυλάττει το Σάββατον. Και πως παραβαίνει τον νόμον, ψευδώς συκοφαντούντες αυτόν. Αυτός γαρ εφύλαττε τον νόμον έως και εις αυτήν την περιτομήν². Διά τούτο λοιπόν ύστερα από οκτώ ημέρας της εκ Παρθένου γεννήσεώς του, ευδόκησεν ο Κύριος να φερθή από την Μητέρα του και από τον Ιωσήφ, εις τον διωρισμένον τόπον εκείνον, όπου ήτον συνήθεια να περιτέμνωνται τα βρέφη, και εκεί επεριτμήθη, και έλαβε το γλυκύτατον όνομα Ιησούς. Το οποίον εκάλεσεν ο Aρχάγγελος Γαβριήλ, όταν ευηγγέλισε την Θεοτόκον, προ του να συλληφθή ο Κύριος εν τη κοιλία της Παρθένου, ως γράφει ο Ευαγγελιστής Λουκάς³. Μετά δε την περιτομήν, ήτον μαζί με τους γονείς του ο Κύριος, και έζη ανθρωπίνως, προκόπτων και αυξάνων, τόσον κατά την ηλικίαν του σώματος, όσον και κατά την σοφίαν και χάριν, εις σωτηρίαν ημών. «Ιησούς γαρ, φησί, προέκοπτε σοφία και ηλικία και χάριτι παρά Θεώ και ανθρώποις» (Λουκ. β΄, 52). (Όρα περί της εορτής ταύτης εις τον Νέον Θησαυρόν.) ΣΗΜΕΙΩΣΕΙΣ 1. Σημειούμεν ενταύθα, ότι αγκαλά και Εφραίμ ο Σύρος παρά τω Μελετίω Αθηνών (τόμω α΄ της Εκκλησιαστικής Ιστορίας) λέγη, ότι ο Κύριος περιετμήθη από τον Ιωσήφ, τον νομιζόμενον αυτού πατέρα. Και ότι περιετμήθη εν τω σπηλαίω, ως λέγει ο Επιφάνιος παρά τω αυτώ Μελετίω. Οι θείοι όμως Ευαγγελισταί περί τούτων ουδέν έγραψαν. Αλλ’ ούτε ήτον χρεία και ανάγκη να γράψουν. Καθότι ουδέ όφελος είναι εις την σωτηρίαν ημών το να ηξεύρωμεν τα τοιαύτα. Τινές δε απορούσι, τι άρα γε έγινε μετά ταύτα το περιτμηθέν εκείνο μέρος της θεανδρικής σαρκός του Κυρίου, ήτοι η ακροβυστία; Και ο μεν Αναστάσιος ο Σιναΐτης, και άλλοι Ανατολικοί, εδόξαζον, ότι το μέρος εκείνο εφύλαξεν η Παρθένος μετά την περιτομήν, ως ιερόν κειμήλιον, διαφθοράς απάσης ον ανώτερον, έως ου ο Κύριος αναστάς, προσέλαβε πάλιν αυτό. Και ο Θεοφύλακτος δε Βουλγαρίας εν τη ερμηνεία του Ευαγγελίου λέγει, ότι το τμήμα εκείνο προσέλαβεν ο Κύριος εν τη Αναστάσει. Μερικοί δε Δυτικοί εδόξαζον ματαίως, ότι η ακροβυστία του Κυρίου εσώζετο εις την Καβίλλινον πόλιν της κάτω Βουργουνδίας εν μιά Εκκλησία. Αλλ’ ο ταύτης Επίσκοπος Γκάστος ονόματι, ανοίξας εν έτει 1707, Απριλλίου 19, το κιβώτιον εκείνο, εν ω ενομίζετο ότι περιέχεται η θεία ακροβυστία, δεν ευρήκεν άλλο εις αυτό, ειμή ολίγην άμμον λεπτήν, και ένα μικρόν χαλίκιον. Όθεν έπαυσε την δεισιδαιμονίαν, οπού εκυρίευε την πόλιν εκείνην, προ χρόνων ήδη τετρακοσίων (όρα την νεοτύπωτον Εκατονταετηρίδα). Εκ τούτου λοιπόν συνάγομεν, ότι είναι ψευδές και απίστευτον και εκείνο το άλλο, οπού λέγουσιν οι αυτοί Δυτικοί, ήγουν ότι η του Κυρίου ακροβυστία σώζεται μέχρι του νυν εις την Ρώμην εν τω Ναώ του Αγίου Ιωάννου του Λατερανού, ως σημειοί ο Καλμέτης εν τω υπομνήματι εις τον Λουκάν, κεφαλ. β΄. 2. Ο δε σοφός Ευθύμιος ο Ζυγαδηνός, προσθέττει και τρίτον αίτιον, διά το οποίον επεριτμήθη ο Κύριος. Ήγουν διατί, αν δεν επεριτέμνετο, ουκ αν όλως παρεδέχθη διδάσκων, αλλ’ απεπέμφθη αν ως αλλόφυλος. Ουδ’ αν επίστευσέ τις, ότι αυτός εστιν ο προσδοκώμενος Χριστός εκ σπέρματος Αβραάμ. Οι γαρ εξ Αβραάμ άπαντες, σφραγίδα και σημείον την περιτομήν είχον, διαστέλλουσαν αυτούς από των άλλων εθνών (ερμηνεία εις το δ΄ κεφάλ. του κατά Λουκάν). Έπαυσε δε ο Κύριος την περιτομήν, και πάνυ ευλόγως, κατά τον αυτόν Ευθύμιον. Η γαρ περιτομή των Εβραίων, το Βάπτισμα των Χριστιανών ετύπου και προεσήμαινεν. Ώσπερ γαρ εκείνη τους εξ Αβραάμ εσφράγιζε, και διέστελλεν από παντός έθνους, ούτω και τούτο (το Βάπτισμα δηλαδή) τους Χριστιανούς. Και καθάπερ εκείνη περιττόν αποτέμνει του σώματος μέρος, ούτω και το Βάπτισμα την αμαρτίαν αποτέμνει περιττήν υπάρχουσαν. Έδει δε παυθήναι τον τύπον, ελθόντος του πρωτοτύπου. Και σιγήσαι το μηνύον, επιστάντος του μηνυομένου. Το γαρ εαυτού πεπλήρωκε, και περιττόν εστι του λοιπού (αυτόθι). Σημείωσαι, ότι λόγος ευρίσκεται εν τη Μονή του Διονυσίου εις την περιτομήν, ου η αρχή· «Σκιάν μεν των μελλόντων αγαθών». Ο αυτός ευρίσκεται και εν τη του Βατοπαιδίου. 3. Τι δηλοί το όνομα Ιησούς, όρα εις τα Πνευματικά γυμνάσματα, την μελέτην εις την Περιτομήν του Κυρίου.

	(από το βιβλίο: Αγίου Νικοδήμου Αγιορείτου Συναξαριστής των δώδεκα μηνών του ενιαυτού. Τόμος Β´. Εκδόσεις Δόμος, 2005)

2010-12-31T20:18:00.000+02:00

CEU Department of Medieval Studies

Robert Bartlett: Saint-Making in the Middle Ages

Date:

January 12, 2011 - 15:30 - 17:10

Building:

Nador u. 9, Faculty Tower

Room:

409

Event type:

lecture

Event audience:

Public to outside CEU

External presenters:

Robert Bartlett

CEU host unit(s):

Department of Medieval Studies

CEU contact person:

Annabella Pál

Robert Bartlett is Bishop Wardlaw Professor of Mediaeval History at the University of
St Andrews in Scotland and a Fellow of the British Academy. He received his university education at Cambridge, Oxford and Princeton, taught earlier at the universities of Edinburgh and Chicago and has held fellowships at the universities of Michigan, Princeton, Göttingen and Tel Aviv, and at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. His books are: Gerald of Wales, 1146-1223 (Oxford, 1982, reissued Stroud 2006), Trial by Fire and Water: The Medieval Judicial Ordeal (Oxford, 1986), The Making of Europe: Conquest, Colonization and Cultural Change 950-1350 (London and Princeton, 1993), England under the Norman and Angevin Kings 1075-1225 (Oxford, 2000), The Hanged Man: A Story of Miracle, Memory and Colonialism in the Middle Ages (Princeton, 2004) and The Natural and the Supernatural in the Middle Ages (Cambridge, 2008). The Making of Europe won the Wolfson Literary Prize for History and has been translated into German, Estonian, Polish, Japanese, Spanish, and Russian.

Galina Tirnanić: Suffering Iconoclasm: icons, martyrs, and relics in Constantinople

Date:

January 20, 2011 - 17:30 - 19:30

Building:

Nador u. 9, Monument Building

Room:

Popper

Event type:

lecture

Event audience:

Public to outside CEU

CEU organizer(s):

Tijana Krstić

CEU host unit(s):

Center for Eastern Mediterranean Studies (CEMS)

CEU contact person:

Cristian Daniel

2010-12-29T09:44:00.001+02:00

CFP: Between Constantines: Representations and Manifestations of an Empire, The History Faculty, University of Oxford, 4 - 5 March 2011

Source: The Oxford Byzantine Society.

The Oxford Byzantine Society is pleased to announce that its annual graduate conference will be held in March 2011. The society is now accepting abstracts for papers to be presented at this event.

This year's conference - entitled Between Constantines: representations and manifestations of an empire - seeks to explore the different ages of Byzantium. What were the political, social, cultural and economic strategies that defined different periods in the existence of the empire? How do we interpret the narratives, materials and structures of the momentous and the everyday in the empire's long history?

In order to approach the subject from as many angles as possible, we welcome papers from graduate students in all fields related to Byzantium, including, but not limited to: History, Archaeology, Language and Literature, Theology and Art History.

Possible themes for papers might include:

Diplomacy and foreign relations
Religious and cultural exchange
The Byzantine thought world
Art and architecture
Trade and travel
Language and literature
War and defence
The urban and rural existences
Nomads
Geography and topography

As the title suggests, the temporal scope of the conference is envisaged to stretch from the rise of Constantine to the fall of Constantinople. Within this rough time frame, we encourage papers dealing with the Byzantine world as well as those surrounding regions which had direct interactions with it, including the Near and Middle East, the Mediterranean, the Balkans and Eastern Europe, the Eurasian Steppe and Transcaucasia.

Final papers will be 20 minutes in length, followed by 10 minutes of discussion. This year we will be accepting papers in English and French, however, given the likely composition of the audience, presentations in English are strongly recommended.

Abstracts of no more than 250 words should be submitted to byzantine.society@gmail.com by 5pm on Monday 18 January 2011. Please include a few lines about your research interests. Successful applicants will be notified by Monday 24 January 2011.

Subject to funding, the OBS hopes to offer subsidised accommodation for visiting speakers, as it did last year. More information will be available in early 2011. We regret that we are unable to cover travel expenses to and from Oxford, but we encourage all participants to apply to their home institutions for travel grants.

Abstracts are due on Monday 18 January 2011

For more information, please e-mail : byzantine.society@gmail.com

ΑΓΙΟΛΟΓΙΚΑ ΤΕΤΡΑΔΙΑ - STUDIES ON CHRISTIAN HAGIOGRAPHY

in collaboration with the Orthodox Churches

“Allow me to become food for the wild beasts, through whose instrumentality it will be granted me to attain to God. I am the wheat of God, and let me be ground by the teeth of the wild beasts, that I may be found the pure bread of Christ”. St Ignatius of Antioch

Introductory Remarks ENZO BIANCHI, Prior of Bose

Blood of Martyrs, Seed of Communion ✠ YOUHANNA X, Patriarch of Antioch and all the East

The Witness and the Ministry of Communion of the Ecumenical Patriarchate ✠ JOB OF TELMESSOS, Geneva

The Spirit as Source and Support of the One Christian Witness PANTELEIMON MANOUSSAKIS, Worcester MA

«Blessed are you when people persecute you on my account» (Mt 5,11). Jesus’ Sayings about Persecution EKATERINI TSALAMPOUNI, Thessaloniki

“We are All One in Christ”. Martyrdom and the Unity of the Church in St Ambrose and the Latin Fathers in the Fourth Century GEORGIY ZAKHAROV, Moscow

“I am the wheat of God” (St Ignatius of Antioch). Eucharistic and Communional Dimensions of Martyrdom ATHANASIOS PAPATHANASSIOU, Athens

The Liturgical Memory of Martyrs ✠ JERONIM OF JEGAR, Novi Sad

Seeking Communion, Confessing the Truth. Maxim the Confessor and Pope Martin IANDREW LOUTH, Durham

Martyrs of the Russian Orthodox Church in the Twentieth Century. The Butovo Polygon KIRILL KALEDA, Moscow

Martyrdom and Communion in the 20th century – a Church of England Perspective✠ JOHN STROYAN OF WARWICK, Coventry

The Testimony of Love and Mercy of St Elizabeth Feodorovna LIDYA GOLOVKOVA, Moscow

A Community under Persecution. Father Alexander Glagolev (1872-1937) KONSTANTIN SIGOV, Kiev

Twentieth-century Martyrology: the Orthodox Church of Georgia TAMARA GRDZELIDZE, Rome

Persecution for Christ’s Sake as the bond of Communion. The Monk Nicolae Steinhardt and his Diary of Happiness BOGDAN TĂTARU-CAZABAN, Bucarest

Martyrs and Confessors in the Bulgarian Orthodox Church under Communism DANIELA KALKANDJIEVA, Sofia

Martyrs as Witnesses of Communion in the Armenian Church SHAHE ANANYAN, Etchmiadzin

Common Testimony, Hope of Unity ✠ KURT KOCH, Vatican City

Christian Martyrs as a Gift for the MankindTruth-Telling as Martyrdom for the sake of CommunionARISTOTLE PAPANIKOLAOU, New York

Conclusions of the Conference LUIGI D’AYALA VALVA, Bose

[CFP] Reminder: Holy Hero(in)es. Literary Constructions of Heroism in Late Antique and Early Medieval Hagiography, 18-20.2.2016

Γ' ΔΙΕΘΝΕΣ ΣΥΝΕΔΡΙΟ ΚΥΠΡΙΑΚΗΣ ΑΓΙΟΛΟΓΙΑΣ 25-27 ΦΕΒΡΟΥΑΡΙΟΥ 2016

12-14 mars - Colloque "La Restauration de la Création"

Άγιοι Μανουήλ, Σαβέλ και Ισμαήλ

Για τους αγίους ρωτούν πολλοί φίλοι

εδώ δημοσιεύω το πηγαίο υλικό για αυτούς

την ευχή και το ήθος τους νάχουμε!

BHG 1023

BHG 1024e

14-16 Μαΐου 2014: Διεθνές Συνέδριο «UNDERSTANDING PERSONS - Ancient, Medieval, and Modern Perspectives From the Christian East»

SUMMER SCHOOL Studies in Orthodox Theology 25–31 August 2013

Workshop on Medieval Hagiographic Collections in Central Europe took place in Stift Klosterneuburg

Institute for Medieval Studies of the University of Leeds

Visions of Community at the International Medieval Congress 2013

Sessions:

Associated Sessions

The International Consortium for Research in the Humanities "Fate, Freedom and Prognostication" at the University Erlangen-Nuremberg

Conférence conjointe de l'EPHE (Université de Sorbonne-Paris) et de l'IKGF (Université d' Erlangen-Nuremberg)

Table ronde international : Hagiographie et prophétie, de l'Antiquité au XIIIe siècle

Vendredi 11 octobre

Samedi 12 octobre

Hagiography and Prophecy from Ancient Times to the 13th Century

Hagiographie und Prophetie von der Antike bis zum 13. Jahrhundert

Location

Registration

Κι όμως Ανέστη ! Ναι, Ναι αληθώς Ανέστη !

CEU Department of Medieval Studies

Robert Bartlett: Saint-Making in the Middle Ages

Galina Tirnanić: Suffering Iconoclasm: icons, martyrs, and relics in Constantinople

CFP: Between Constantines: Representations and Manifestations of an Empire, The History Faculty, University of Oxford, 4 - 5 March 2011

“Allow me to become food for the wild beasts, through whose instrumentality it will be granted me to attain to God. I am the wheat of God, and let me be ground by the teeth of the wild beasts, that I may be found the pure bread of Christ”.
St Ignatius of Antioch

Introductory Remarks
ENZO BIANCHI, Prior of Bose

Blood of Martyrs, Seed of Communion
✠ YOUHANNA X, Patriarch of Antioch and all the East

The Witness and the Ministry of Communion of the Ecumenical Patriarchate
✠ JOB OF TELMESSOS, Geneva

The Spirit as Source and Support of the One Christian Witness
PANTELEIMON MANOUSSAKIS, Worcester MA

«Blessed are you when people persecute you on my account» (Mt 5,11).
Jesus’ Sayings about Persecution
EKATERINI TSALAMPOUNI, Thessaloniki

“We are All One in Christ”. Martyrdom and the Unity of the Church in St Ambrose and the Latin Fathers in the Fourth Century
GEORGIY ZAKHAROV, Moscow

“I am the wheat of God” (St Ignatius of Antioch). Eucharistic and Communional Dimensions of Martyrdom
ATHANASIOS PAPATHANASSIOU, Athens

The Liturgical Memory of Martyrs
✠ JERONIM OF JEGAR, Novi Sad

Seeking Communion, Confessing the Truth. Maxim the Confessor and Pope Martin I
ANDREW LOUTH, Durham

Martyrs of the Russian Orthodox Church in the Twentieth Century. The Butovo Polygon
KIRILL KALEDA, Moscow

Martyrdom and Communion in the 20th century – a Church of England Perspective
✠ JOHN STROYAN OF WARWICK, Coventry

The Testimony of Love and Mercy of St Elizabeth Feodorovna
LIDYA GOLOVKOVA, Moscow

A Community under Persecution. Father Alexander Glagolev (1872-1937)
KONSTANTIN SIGOV, Kiev

Twentieth-century Martyrology: the Orthodox Church of Georgia
TAMARA GRDZELIDZE, Rome

Persecution for Christ’s Sake as the bond of Communion. The Monk Nicolae Steinhardt and his Diary of Happiness
BOGDAN TĂTARU-CAZABAN, Bucarest

Martyrs and Confessors in the Bulgarian Orthodox Church under Communism
DANIELA KALKANDJIEVA, Sofia

Martyrs as Witnesses of Communion in the Armenian Church
SHAHE ANANYAN, Etchmiadzin

Common Testimony, Hope of Unity
✠ KURT KOCH, Vatican City

Christian Martyrs as a Gift for the Mankind
Truth-Telling as Martyrdom for the sake of Communion
ARISTOTLE PAPANIKOLAOU, New York

Conclusions of the Conference
LUIGI D’AYALA VALVA, Bose

Visions of Community at the
International Medieval Congress 2013