Home – Home – Jornals – Humanitarian sciences in Siberia 2015 number

The Russian Medieval publicists raised the issue of oral Christian legends’ significance due to the church rituals controversy. Based on the analysis of works by Joseph Volotsky, metropolitan Daniel and Maximus the Greek, the article shows how thse famous scribes brought this problem up to date in their works; describes the ways of its presentation and functioning in the authors’ texts. Joseph Volotsky in his social essays was generally guided by the Holy Writ and written epistles of the Church teachers. He adhered to the pattern of the genetic relations between the Canonical epistles and the Church Fathers’ words and did not mark out “nepisanye predaniya” (oral Christian legends). Maximus the Greek did not take up the issue of the legends credibility. In his polemical treatises he freely used the subjects of oral sources as precedent texts. The role of sacred legends in the scholarly monk’s works was determined by the referential truth they contained. Adherence to the unwritten legends along with the written tradition of the Church is the narrative subject in the Word 3 of Daniel’s “Sobornik”. The Metropolitan’s work contains a section on Church history which specificity resides in the fact that its two main themes (praise of feats of the Apostles and the Church Fathers and refutation of sinners) are not proportional to each other. The theme of the Apostles Acts is set out by Daniel in two rhetorical periods presented in an epic and panegyric vein. Accusations of a Christian, who does not follow the church regulations, are made in a satirical style being the author’s original text. Among “evidences” there is a group of extractions regarding the subject of “nepisanye predaniya” that performed a text forming function of the Word 3. In a brief “Nakazanie” section of the Word 3 the formula of adherence to “predaniya” became conventionalized. Reliance on “predaniya” was necessary for Daniel to prove his right to expose human vices. Such justification is the main function of “predaniya” in the works by Metropolitan.