Home – Home – Jornals – Humanitarian sciences in Siberia 2014 number

The article discusses the question of the use of the manuscript heritage of the Early Russia by the Old-Believers. The analysis of two collections composed in 1710 and 1711 shows how the Old-Believers, refuting the official church hierarch’s argument, managed to appeal to the exact version of Velikie Chetii Minei (Great Menaion Reader) which had been referred by the author of Uvet Duhovny (“Spiritual Homily”). The article emphasizes that the Old-Believers gave a more complete description of the manuscript and adopted a scientific approach to the analysis of its content. First of all the authors copied verbatim the fragments of the preface in which Makarious the Metropolitan wrote about possible penetration of “false words” into VCM and asked to exclude them. Those fragments are followed by the information that Philaret the Patriarch excluded the apocryphal Skazanie Afroditiana (Aphroditian’s Tale) from VCM in order to comply with metropolitan Makarious’ request. The article shows compilers’ way to argue Uvet Dokhovny which stated that Ukaz o tregubaya hallelujah is present in the June and August books of the VCM copy in question. The Old-Believers began with the analysis of the content of the August Minei and explained that the Ukaz had been excluded from the book as well as Skazanie Aphroditiana from the December book and that the text is preserved in the June book by mistake. The article concludes that the Old-Believers managed to provide a convincing comprehensive logically arranged argumentation against one of the proofs referred to by the hierarch of the official church in order to prove their point. The analysis of the collections reveals a remarkable fact which serves as an evidence of the highest level of the Old-Believers’ book culture.