Article

Name: “The Word on the Crucifixion of the Lord” in Old Russian reading miscellanies: Text and context

Authors: Anton N. Kovalenko

State Public Scientific Technological Library of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk, Russian Federation

In the section Study of literature

Abstract:

This paper examines the Old Russian Good Friday sermon, “The Word on the Crucifixion of the Lord” (incipit: “Thus the Lord Himself commanded to sing”). Comparison is made with the fourth redaction of Cyril of Turov’s homily, “On the Removal of the Body of Christ from the Cross.” Previously, researchers identified this sermon as an apocryphal text functioning merely as part of the manuscript convoy accompanying Turov’s homily. However, a meticulous textual analysis of the motif concerning the carrying of Christ’s body demonstrates that “The Word on the Crucifixion” was composed based on the first group of manuscript copies of the fourth redaction of the Turov homily. A significant portion of the text, much like in Turov’s work, comprises the canon of Pseudo-Simeon the Logothete, “On the Lament of the Virgin,” presented sequentially. Furthermore, the anonymous author incorporates quotations from the liturgical texts of the Lenten Triodion. For the first time, this study provides a comprehensive inventory of 20 discovered manuscript copies of the sermon, primarily preserved within Old Russian Zlatoust (Chrysostom) reading miscellanies. Functionally, the sermon duplicates the liturgical texts of Good Friday, intensifying the spiritual experiences of believers during Holy Week. Crucially, contemporary readers did not perceive it as apocryphal. The specific positioning of this monument alongside the fourth redaction of Turov’s sermon within the Zlatoust collections suggests an earlier origin for the first group of manuscript copies of this redaction. This challenges the established scholarly consensus regarding the primary creation of the second group of copies.

Keywords: Old Russian Sermons, Cyril of Turov, The Word on the Crucifixion, Zlatoust, the Slavic Triodion, Simeon Logothetes

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