The paper discusses the cult of the Slavonic enlighteners Cyril and Methodius in Bulgarian Middle Ages. An attempt has been made to employ sources of a diverse nature. Stemming from the survey of these sources, the analysis outlines the core tendencies in the development of the Bulgarian medieval cult towards Cyril and Methodius and casts light on some basic questions surrounding it.
The article concerns the group of twelve figures presenting the apostles. They are located in the retable in the church of St James in Levoča. First, the article presents the original context of the figures' creation. The author supports an argument, long known in relevant literature that the figures were part of the adornment of the retable which was placed in the choir of St James church in Levoča in the 14th century. The main thesis of the article is the assumption that while creating the concept of the new retable Pavel of Levoča not only used the figures themselves, but he was also inspired by the structure of the previous retable when designing the new one.
St. Apostle Andronicus had a special meaning for the mission of Sts. Methodius and Cyril and the evangelization of Slavs as it is obvious from the Life of St. Methodius and the story about the beginning of Slavonic writing mentioned in the Tale of Bygone Years, where he is titled as a Pannonian bishop. The hagiographic tradition that St. Andronicus was the bishop of Pannonia (but not of Sirmium!) was formed in the 7th – 8th centuries. At first it is reflected in so called “Apostolic catalogues” of Pseudo-Epiphanius and Pseudo-Hippolitus. Synaxarium of Constantinople mentions St. Andronicus as a bishop of Pannonia in a number of memorial rubrics (30 June, 30 July). According to Synaxarium, St. Andronicus and Junia crushed Pagan shrines and built Christian Churches, expelled impure spirits from men and healed incurable diseases. The information about healings by St. Andronicus and Junia may be connected with the placement of their relics in the Quarter of Eugenius in Constantinople, which, according to our opinion, happened in 610. Such precise date is connected with the mention about Patriarch Thomas, apparently Thomas the First (607 – 610), and with our hypothesis, that originally the source of Synaxarium had the name of Emperor Heraclius (610 – 641), which, as a result of metathesis РА and АР and mixture of lambda and delta in uncial writing, became the name of Emperor Arcadius. The later attribution of wonder-working relics as those of St. Apostle Andronicus, together with the baptism of the Serbs and the Croatians in time of Heraclius, led to the veneration of St. Andronicus as a bishop of Pannonia and, correspondingly, the miracles wrought by his relics, revealed Divine benevolence to the conversion of the Slavs. The canon in honour of St. Apostle Andronicus and Junia written by St. Joseph the Hymnographer, coinciding in a number of details with the Constantinopolitan Synaxarium, added some new information about their life. On the other hand, it is silent about the Pannonian bishopric of St. Andronicus. Combining the abovementioned Greek and the Slavonic sources (the Life of St. Methodius and the Tale of Bygone Years), we can reconstruct the lost Life of St. Andronicus and Junia formed by the 9th century in the following way. They were constant followers of St. Paul and they walked around the world. St. Andronicus and Junia crushed Pagan temples and built Christian Churches, expelled demons and healed the sick. St. Andronicus accompanied St. Paul in his missionary travel to Illyricum, he reached with the latter Morava and taught Slavs. St.
The process of forming a church calendars in the context of placing the names of saints was an important part of the veneration of saints in the Orthodox Church. The establishment of the day or days of prayer to them was a long and complicated process. Despite of the general foreword, the article deals with initial part of that process, beginning from the edict of Milan of 313 up to 10th century. Author talks about the evaluation of the veneration of different types of the sanctity (holiness): martyrs, apostles, saint hierarchs of the Church, venerable (monastic), right-believing, unmercenary physicians, fool-for-Christ in calendar context. The placing of their names into so called diptychs initially was local. The lists of martyrs from diptychs (kind of ancients calendars) were presented during the service in the temples. Later, step by step, knowledge of these saints became wider and finally names of the saints found their place in calendar of whole Church. The article presents the best know ancient Church calendars, beginning from the lists of martyrs in the order of their death, i.e. Roman 'Depositio martyrum' of the year of 354. Than it gives short outline of 'Chronograph' written by Furius Dionisius Filokalus, and wider review of 'Syrian Martyrologium' of 362, which is sometimes called 'the first all-Church calendar' and 'Martyrologium Hieronimianum', that was written in the middle of 5th century - a half of 6th century. The last calendar presented in the article is 'Typicon of the Great Constantinople Church' written in 9th-10th century. Every next calendar had more and more names of saints in them. The author pay some attention to the differences between Western and Easter calendar of those times in the process of their development.
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