Home – Home – Jornals – Humanitarian sciences in Siberia 2017 number

This paper presents the circumstances of the second trial against St. Maximus the Greek in 1531. The author focuses on the accusation of supposed heretical mistakes in his translation of the text “the Hagiography of the Mother of God” from Menologion of Symeon Metaphrastos. On the basis of the manuscript it is proposed that Maximus used a rare method of translation for the time, but an examination of the text also raises questions about the earlier hagiographic sources from the Eastern and Western early Christian traditions, such as the patristic and liturgical interpretations of the hagiographic material. Of particular interest here is the tradition of the Byzantine hymnography reflected in the works of St. Maximus the Greek, mainly in those that are defined as prayers, confessions and theological polemics that showed his attachment to the protection of the Mother of God. Obviously, an Athonite monk understood the Mother of Good as a part of the orthodox Holy Trinity, which he explained in his texts. He often supported his arguments for the holiness of the Mother of God with exegetic examples from the Holy Scripture. Indeed, the verses from the Byzantine hymnographical odes, dedicated to the Virgin Mary, which flourished in the Holy Vatopedi monastery, as well as in the Athonite period of the monk Maximus, present the essence of the works and personal theology of Maximus the Greek. Therefore, this unique monastic worldview, which combined very different sources of Christian knowledge (the Holy Scripture, hymnography, liturgy, patristic, iconography, and hagiography), was also marked by the special consideration of the Mother of God in Orthodox theology, which together make the theological system of Saint Maximus the Greek so original.