Review of N.F. Krasnoseltsev "On the history of Orthodox worship. Regarding some church services and rituals that are no longer used. Kazan. 1889."

See also: On the history of Orthodox worship regarding some church services and rituals that are no longer used, Professor Nikolai Fomich Krasnoseltsev The name of Professor N. O. Krasnoseltsev (now professor of church history at the Imperial University in Odessa) has long been honored in science. In recent years, the venerable professor has gifted ecclesiastical, archaeological and liturgical science with a number of small brochures and respectable monographs on various issues of his chosen specialty. All these works of the learned professor are distinguished by solid literary and scientific merits and did not go unnoticed in our periodicals. For our part, we intend at this time to draw the attention of readers only to the latest works of his prolific pen and express some other opinions on the issues raised in them by the venerable author. In first place we put the book whose title was written above. The appearance of this book was caused by a similar work by Archpriest K. Nikolsky under the title: “On the services of the Russian Church that were in previous printed liturgical books.” St. Petersburg 1885, in which the author examined and, as far as possible, made historical and archaeological explanations of fifteen different church services, now no longer performed or fallen into disuse” (p. 5). But since “the book about. Nikolsky does not explore the intended subject in its entirety: some things are only outlined here, while others are completely omitted” (p. 8), then prof. Krasnoseltsev was summoned “to further develop the items mentioned in it and to add new materials” (Ibid). The latter concerns the rites of entry into the flock of new bishops, summer conduct and the Last Judgment, and was made by him on the basis of a newly discovered manuscript of the Solovetsky library of 1715–1723. No. 1181 under the title: “The book of the official cell of the Archangel-City Spassky Cathedral, collected from the first official and notes and from the customs of that church.” But the venerable professor did not stop there. In view of the fact that in the ancient liturgical books there are several very important rites that are no longer used and for some reason have been passed over by Fr. Nikolsky in his book, for example. the rite of washing the meal on Maundy Thursday, the rite of laying the hail, the rite of tonsuring the monks, following the lighting of the oil on Maundy Thursday and Saturday, prayers for the catechumens during Matins and Vespers and the rite of the catechumen on Good Friday, the rite of how to sing a prayer service for the sick and the rite of burial of priests and bishops, then Prof. In his present book, Krasnoseltsev subjected all these ranks to a historical and archaeological examination. And since, in the words of Mr. Krasnoseltsev himself, the area in which the research revolves is very little developed, then, of course, such judgments and conclusions are not without objections and verification” (p. 6). Prof. Krasnoseltsev, considering the rite of the new year and making his additions, it seems to us, is completely in vain to think that this rite was hardly performed in our country at first and that it was supposedly established in church liturgical practice no earlier than the end of the 14th century. (page 31). We adopted liturgy from Byzantium, partly directly, partly through South Slavic liturgical books. In the Byzantine church, the rite of the new year, as prof. Krasnoseltsev, appeared approximately in the 6th century. (page 29). It would be unnatural if we, having borrowed the liturgy and church books, did not adopt the rite of the New Year from Byzantium. And we actually see that in our most ancient synaxarions, such as the Ostromir Gospel and others, the beginning of the indictment is indicated precisely on the first of September. From the answers of the Council of Constantinople in 1276 to the questions of the Sarai bishop Theognostus, we learn that on this day “they walk from the crosses,” that is, there is a procession of the cross to the square and that the bishop reads the Gospel during the prayer service (Russian Historical Bible vol. VI p. 131). These facts alone speak quite clearly that the rite of the New Year was known to us far earlier than the 14th century, and that it was celebrated precisely on September 1. We have some evidence to believe that this rite was known here in Russia even in the very early days of Christianity that we adopted. As you know, in the rite of the new summer “how to spend” there is a prayer: “Sovereign Lord our God, high, glorious and loving of mankind, giving glory and honor against labor, which seems literally identical with prayer in the known!” laudatory words of Metropolitan Hilarion of Shevka St. Vladimir or “about law and grace.” This identity was noticed by the learned describers of the manuscripts of the M. Synodal Library, the late Gorsky and Nevostruev, who did not fail to express the opinion that in the rite of the new year the mentioned prayer was extracted from the words of the commendable Metropolitan Hilarion of Kyiv to St. Vladimir (description of the rkp. m. Synod, bib. department. III, part 1, M. 1869, p. 229). Opinion 1: This was accepted in the literature and is now repeated by everyone, not excluding prof. Krasnoseltseva (p. 16). But in reality, in this case we are dealing with nothing more or less than an error that has long needed correction. The rite of the New Year, which was performed in our ancient times and known from manuscripts of the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries, is similar to the similar rite of the great Church, which is now printed with minor errors in the 3apisk. Imperial Russian archaeol. society (new series) 1886 vol. 1 by Ivanov, but in this latter the order is stated relatively briefly and prayers are not given, although they are offered by the order itself. We find a more thorough and complete exposition of the rite of the New Year in the South Slavic liturgical monuments, which, by the way, contain not only a literally identical rite of the New Year with our Slavic-Russian monuments, but even the same prayer. As an example of such a rite of the new year, we can see in the Bulgarian breviary of the 16th century. No. 126, l. 164 from the library of the Imperial Novorossiysk University. Therefore, we think that it is now possible to establish a very strong connection between our new year rite and the same rank of South Slavic monuments, as well as the dependence of the former on the latter. In particular, it is unlikely in the assumption that the South Slavic practice, and it is similar, as we said, to the practice of the Greek Church, borrowed the prayer for the rite of the New Year from the words of the Russian Metropolitan Hilarion, and not vice versa, which is much more natural, this latter used a real, ready-made and quite suitable prayer for the given occasion and inserted it entirely into his word “on law and grace.” Metropolitan Hilarion’s borrowing of this prayer clearly leads us to the conviction that not only this prayer, but also the entire rite of the New Year was known to us at the very first stages of the adoption of Christianity by the Russians and took place in liturgical practice along with other rites. In this case, we fully share the opinion of the venerable historian Prof. E. Golubinsky. “The washing of feet, the celebration of the summer and the performance of the Last Judgment, in all likelihood, he writes, should be attributed to the pre-Mongol period and to the very first time, presenting the matter in such a way that these rituals came to us together and at the same time or inseparably with the most public worship... The celebration of the summer and the performance of the Last Judgment consisted in the fact that for the singing of festive prayers, between matins and mass they came out with crosses and icons out of the churches, in the square in front of them. Such performance of deliberate public prayers is an ancient Greek custom and there is absolutely no reason to think that it was adopted by us only in later times, and not from the most ancient times” (Historical Russian Churches vol. I, half 2nd, M. 1881, p. 327). In the fifth chapter of the book under the title: “General Blessing of Oil on Maundy Thursday or Holy Saturday,” we will focus our opinion on a question that has a dogmatic meaning rather than a church-archaeological and liturgical one, that is, on Mr. Krasnoseltsev’s reasoning about whether the Blessing of Oil performed on the indicated days is the sacrament of Blessing of Oil or something else? (p. 88) The author gives, in our opinion, an incorrect answer to this question from a dogmatic and historical point of view. “According to the teachings of the Orthodox Church, writes Mr. Krasnoseltsev, persons who receive the sacrament of consecration of oil are only (?) sick; the grace of the sacrament is communicated to these persons through anointing them with consecrated oil while reading the prayer: “Holy Father, physician of souls and bodies.” During the Blessing of Oil on Maundy Thursday or Saturday, none of this happens: there are no faces of the sick receiving the grace of the sacrament; those present are anointed after the sacred rite has already been performed, so to speak, outside of it, after the dismissal prayer and without saying the prayer of the sacramental anointing: Holy Father, healer of souls and bodies; then, in addition to the persons present during the celebration, the walls of the monastery cells are anointed with the same oil. In a word: anointing with oil here does not have the appearance of a mysterious anointing (!?), but, as it were, of consuming the remnants. Through this anointing, believers are undoubtedly sanctified, but not in the same way as in the sacrament (how could that be?), to which there is a fairly clear hint in our early printed missals... As a result of all this, the general anointing with consecrated oil on Maundy Thursday or on Saturday must be considered different from the anointing in the sacrament of consecration of oil (p. 88, 89); In order to somehow understand the meaning of this rite for believers for whom the oil is blessed, the author makes a number of analogies, comparisons, assumptions and guesses, and ultimately comes to the conclusion that the timing of the general consecration of oil on the indicated days (i.e., Maundy Thursday and Maundy Saturday) is an obvious recollection of these ancient dates for the reunification of the penitents with the church, and the consecration of oil itself is a modified over time, the ritual of anointing penitents with the oil of repentance, symbolically reminiscent of the oil of the harlot who anointed the feet of Jesus and received remission of sins (p. 94). All these extremely vague, confusing judgments on the present issue arose from a completely incorrect formulation of the question, which should begin not with whether this anointing is a sacrament or not, but with a consideration of the rite itself, how long ago it entered into the practice of the ancient Greek church, whether this rite really represents something special, different from the rite of the sacrament of unction or is it identical with it. Correctly solving these questions will lead us naturally to solving the second question that concerns us. We are quite familiar with the liturgical writing or liturgical books of the Greek Church. Based on this acquaintance, we can categorically say that in all these monuments there is not a single word mentioned about the rite of general consecration of oil on Maundy Thursday or on Holy Saturday, although, on the other hand, in them quite often, in addition to the rite of the sacrament of consecration of oil, performed by seven priests over the living (Ἀκολουθ ί α τοῦ ἁ γ ί ου ἐλα ί ου άγιαζομένου ὑπὸ ἑπτὰ ί ερέων), there is a completely similar rite over the dead, which is sometimes, mainly in old printed Greek euchologies, attributed to Nicholas, Metropolitan of Athos ὑπὸ ἑπτὰ ἱερέων , πο ί ημα Νικολάου μητροπολ ί του Ἀθηνῶν ). The absence, however, of a special rite for the general blessing of oil on Saturday and Thursday of Passion Week does not at all mean that such a blessing of oil was not performed on these days in the liturgical practice of the Greek Church. We have the most positive data that it has been performed by the Greeks constantly since ancient times and continues to be performed to this day, with the difference that the time for it is set on Great Thursday and one of the last days of the Nativity Fast, after the end of Matins, after confession has been made to the penitents, before the Liturgy, at which they partake of the Holy Spirit. secrets In addition to the evidence of Arseny Sukhanov, Pavel Aleppo, Yakov Goar and others, which Mr. Krasnoseltsev points to (pp. 86, 87); We have from the 14th-15th centuries the testimony of the famous liturgist Simeon of Thessaloniki, who, firstly, speaks of this custom as very ancient, and, secondly, puts the general blessing of oil in connection with the rite of confession and, therefore, dates its performance to almost the same days when it was practiced in our ancient times. “The consecration of oil is very necessary, as a sacred rite of the seven sacraments (ὡ ς ἱερὰ τελετ ή καὶ τῶν ἑπτὰ μυστηρ ί ων) over the sick according to accepted tradition, and over all the faithful (i.e. healthy) who want to begin the terrible secrets φρικτοῖς μυστηρ ί οις), especially over all those who have fallen into sins and fulfilled the rule of repentance, preparing for communion and having received forgiveness from the father (i.e., spiritual); through this sacred ceremony and anointing with holy oil, sins are forgiven, as the brother of the Lord writes; this is also facilitated by the prayers of the priests” (Migne Patrol, curs, complet. t. 155, p. 932). Now it will be very interesting to find the very rite of the general blessing of oil. performed in ancient times and now performed in the Greek Church on these days of repentance, so that later we could decide the question that interests us: is this consecration of oil a sacrament or a simple blessing, which, for example, is performed on polyeleos days from the saint’s candile for Matins, and, therefore, the consumption of leftovers, etc., as Mr. Krasnoseltsev thinks. Since in the liturgical monuments of the Greek Church, as we said above, there is no special rite for the general blessing of oil, there is every reason to think that this blessing of oil was performed according to one of the above mentioned rites. It goes without saying that in this case the rite of Metropolitan Nicholas of Athos over the deceased could not take place, since the apostles, gospels, litanies and prayers laid out in the rite are funeral ones and contain prayers for a deceased person, and not a living one. Therefore, only the usual rite of consecration of oil could be performed on these days and has hitherto been performed: ἑπτὰ ί ερέων, with very minor features caused, as we will see below, by purely practical considerations. The breviary, that is, the ordinary Greek euchology, or the more commonly used abbreviated breviary, called the “Agiosmatarion,” in which, by the way, the rite of consecration of oil comes after the “succession of those confessing,” usually serve as leaders in this case for the seven priests required by this rite. If the same rite is performed, over the same substances, with the same number of sacred rites and with the same number of prayers, reading from the apostle and the gospel, then the actions of the holy oil should be exactly the same in both cases for those who are anointed. “Through this sacred rite and anointing with holy oil, as Simeon of Thessalonica says, sins are forgiven,” that is, the gifts of the Holy Spirit are communicated, this consecration of oil is a sacrament, but “not the consumption of remnants” (where did these remnants come from when, at the beginning of the rite, new unconsecrated oil and wine or water are poured into the candile?), not an anointing distinct from anointing in the sacrament consecration of oil" (p. 89), not a remembrance of the ancient times of reunification of penitents with the church, not a modified over time rite of anointing penitents with anointing oil" (p. 94) and so-called, as Mr. Krasnoseltsev thinks. In order to recognize the power of the sacrament behind the general consecration of oil, Mr. Krasnoseltsev is prevented by the fact that supposedly “according to the teaching of the Orthodox Church, persons who receive the sacraments are only sick” (p. 88), but such a view regarding the persons over whom the sacrament of consecration of oil can be performed cannot be called completely stable and does not arouse objections. Simeon of Thessalonica, although he speaks of the sick as the object of the sacrament of consecration of oil, and speaks of this custom as being faithfully accepted in the church (ὡ ς παρελάβομεν), but not only does not exclude the possibility of performing this sacrament over the physically healthy, but the morally sick, i.e. those who have repented and are proceeding to the sacrament of receiving body and blood The Lord's, and puts them directly on a par with the sick, expresses a judgment about the resolution of the sins of those who repent primarily (μᾶ λλον δε), through this general prayer. Such a view of the sacrament of consecration of oil was not alien to the consciousness of the ancient Christian Church, as is not unknown to Mr. Krasnoseltsev (p. 90). It was expressed by St. John Chrysostom (On the priesthood of sq. III, 6) and other fathers and teachers of St. churches. As for the other differences between the general consecration of oil and the rite of consecration of oil over the sick, they, in our opinion, are nothing more or less than a misunderstanding of Mr. Krasnoseltsev. In actual practice, these imaginary differences did not exist. It is absolutely true that, during the general consecration of oil on Maundy Thursday and Maundy Saturday, “those present are anointed after the sacred rite has already been completed, so to speak, outside of it, after the prayer of release” (p. 88), but this was and is still being done in the East for purely practical and very fundamental reasons. There are always many praying people in the church during the rite of consecration of unction, and therefore, if each clergyman began to anoint them after reading each gospel separately, which is prescribed by the rite and which is conveniently performed when this sacrament of consecration of unction is performed on one, then the rest of the clergy and the masses of pilgrims would remain for a long time without any work. Behind the noise and bustle of the worshipers, who are obliged to approach the anointing, there would hardly be an opportunity to continuously perform the rites, and even if the priests did this, then for the same reason much of the prayer could not be heard. That is why they did it before, and still do it in the East, this way: they perform the rite continuously until the end without anointing those praying, and then, after finishing it, the consecrated oil is poured into seven vessels, which each of the seven priests, the performers of the sacrament, take into the hands of each of the seven priests, the performers of the sacrament, stand to the sides in order in a row, having previously anointed each other, and begin to anoint the people defeling before them, while reading without fail prayer: “Holy Father, physician of souls and bodies.” This order of performing the rite of general consecration of oil was observed on Maundy Thursday and Maundy Saturday in our ancient Russian liturgical practice, as can be seen with particular clarity from the second list of the “Charter of the general consecration of oil on Maundy Thursday”, printed by Mr. Krasnoseltsev according to the Arkhangelsk city official of the 18th century. RKP. Solov. bib. No. 1181 (onis. M 789) l. 69–71 (pp. 99–101). Therefore, we remain completely incomprehensible to the author’s statement that the consecration of oil was performed without saying the prayer of sacramental anointing: “Holy Father, physician of souls and bodies, standing in the indicated Charter” precisely in the very place where we find it in modern Eastern practice. The last difference indicated by Mr. Krasnoseltsev between the rite of general consecration of oil and the rite of private consecration of oil, i.e., that in addition to the persons present at the sacred rites, the walls of the monastery cells are anointed with the same oil” (p. 83), then this difference should hardly be given any serious significance. Firstly, this difference is based so far on only one manuscript from the 16th century. from the Sofia Library No. 1066 (Strann. 1880, IX-X, p. 63) - the foundation is too shaky, and secondly, as Mr. Krasnoseltsev himself is well aware (p. 85, note 4), this feature was not alien to the rites of the sacrament of unction. True, we personally did not encounter this feature in the most ancient Slavic-Russian rites of the sacrament of anointing; we do not find any specific references to monuments in the book we are examining by Prof. Krasnoseltsev, for that we can point out two lists of this rank with features that interest us in Serbian manuscripts (RKP, collected by Hilferd. (Imperial publ. bib. in St. Petersburg) No. 21 and 51 vol. - 72: RKP. Khludov, collected in M. Edinovericheskaya mon. 118 and 27 vol.). All other features of the rites of the sacrament of the consecration of oil and the general consecration of oil, indicated by Mr. Krasnoseltsev, do not, in our opinion, even deserve mention here. At the end of the discussion, summing up all our judgments on the question: is the consecration of oil performed on the indicated days a sacrament, or something else? we must categorically say that it is certainly a sacrament, in no way different from the sacrament of consecration of oil over the sick, and that oil has in both cases the same sanctifying, gracious power. At the same time, we consider it not superfluous to note that in the East the sacrament of anointing is now given secondary importance compared to the sacrament of communion, which, according to the teaching of the Eastern fathers, is considered the seal of every sacrament. In Rus', as is known, in a serious illness they try to commune the patient with St. Mystery and then, if the patient is still alive and expresses a desire, the sacrament of anointing is performed on him. In the east, above the sick, communion with St. Mystery, the sacrament of consecration of oil is never performed, since in this case the height of the sacrament of the Eucharist would be degraded. In the East, in general, the sacrament of anointing is performed on the sick relatively rarely, due to the fact that there it is performed on the healthy twice a year, and if it is performed, then after it the sick person certainly receives Holy Communion. Tain. As for the oil remaining after the sacrament of the Blessing of Unction, in our country, in the event of the death of a sick person, it is poured into the coffin and, on the contrary, this custom does not occur over the ashes of a person who was not honored with this sacrament during his lifetime, but in the east they indifferently perform a libation of oil over all the dead, but they take it from the saint’s candile, and not from the remains of the saint. oil consecrated in the sacrament of unction. G. Krasnoseltsev is completely in vain in asserting that “what is the appropriate rite to sing a prayer service for a sick person?” was not included in our revised missal because “it is not in the Greek missals” (p. 181). Undoubtedly, our investigators had some reasons why they did not include this rite in our missal, but it was hardly the absence or ignorance of its Greek original. The fact is that in the Greek handwritten euchologies there are a lot of prayers that were read in ancient church practice over the sick, there are also canons for the sick and, finally, entire acolutia or successions. As a most interesting example of complete obedience over the sick, we can point to the succession “ἀκολουθ ί α εἰς v οσοῦντας" in the 13th-century Sinai bombicide manuscript No. 982 f. 107. In terms of the composition of the prayers, the indicated sequence resembles the rite published by Mr. Krasnoseltsev based on the manuscript of the Solovetsky Library No. 724 l. 205–213 (p. 181), but in the Greek original there are ten prayers, and in the Slavic-Russian there are fewer. It is difficult to agree with the author’s opinion that “the order for the funeral of a priest began to be drawn up precisely when the need arose to remove the order of oil over the dead from use and, so to speak, to replace it” (p. 204). The fact is that although, according to Mr. Krasnoseltsev, a special rite of priestly burial in liturgical monuments “does not occur at least until the end of the 15th century.” (page 195), but this is actually not true. We know of a special rite of priestly burial under the title: “rite of conduction and epeu” in the Serbian breviary, from the library of the head of the Russian spiritual mission in Jerusalem, Fr. Archimandrite Antoninus, written in the 13th century on glassine. True, this rite is of a completely special composition, different from those rites that are known to Mr. Krasnoseltsev and published by him in the book under review, that is, there are no prayers and seven apostles and the gospel in it, but there are only stichera and one apostle and the gospel, but the fact of the existence of a special rite of priestly burial much earlier than the 15th century is no longer subject to doubt. As for the rites of priestly burial in those editions that the author had in mind, although they are actually found in the monuments of the 15th and 16th centuries, these rites are centuries old, for example, in Serbian manuscripts (Rkn. St. Paul. Aeonsk. m. No. 149 l. 146; rkn. from the collection. Sebast. in M. Rumyants. mus. No. 1449 (according to description 19) l. 149; coll. (Required rkp. from coop. I. I. Sevastyan. M. Rum. Museum of Lou 1449 fol. 167 and l. 149). In the first printed Venetian editions of the Greek euchology we also see both rites together, i.e. the rite of priestly burial and the rite of the consecration of oil over the dead (see Εὐχολ. Goar.). This circumstance speaks little in favor of the probability of Mr. Krasnoseltsev about replacing the rite of anointing over the dead with the rites of priestly burial, since the simultaneity, and even more so the jointness of these rites in the manuscripts goes exactly against the mentioned goal and can rather give authority and significance in the eyes of those using these manuscripts to these rites than discredit them. Further, the convergence of ranks or their replacement of one with another is somewhat strange and unnatural. The rite of the consecration of oil over the deceased is inscribed as follows: “the rite for the consecration of oil by the deceased monk and Beltsy, i.e., to monks and laymen, and its inscription does not say a single word about the priest, but the rite of priestly burial, having over itself the inscription: “the rite of the deceased priest buried the cellar,” or the rite of a priest,” etc., excludes any thought about monks and fugitives. Further, if we pay attention to the content or to the supposed identity of both ranks, as Mr. asserts. Krasnoseltsev, then we will see in the clearest way that this similarity is fictitious and in no case gives us the right to put both ranks in parallel, and especially in some kind of genetic dependence. So, what are the similarities between both ranks in question? “The rites of burial,” writes Mr. Krasnoseltsev, are modeled after this rite (i.e., the rite of consecration of the dead) and contain some of the prayers contained in it and most of the apostolic and gospel readings (p. 204). Checking these words Mr. Krasnoseltsev with monuments in his hands, we must say, firstly, that in both rites all the prayers are independent and have nothing in common even in thoughts, secondly, that the Gospel readings in both rites are not only completely different in origin, but even in the nature of the readings themselves (in the rite of sanctification all the funeral gospels, and in the rite of priestly burial they are mostly Sunday) and, thirdly, if we already find similarities between the ranks under consideration, then it will consist of only four apostolic readings found in both ranks - the data, as everyone understands, is too insignificant to be able to talk about the similarity of the ranks under consideration. And so, if the ranks in question have nothing in common in their inscription, are completely different in content or presentation, if both ranks are found in manuscripts of the same time, and sometimes both on the pages of the same monument and even side by side, then we think that we can safely deny any dependence of one rank on the other and the fact of replacing one rank with another in liturgical practice will be subject to great doubt, if not a positive denial too. But, if we temporarily accepted the possibility of such an assumption, then it would be extremely interesting for us to ask Mr. Krasnoseltsev: how will he explain the appearance of the rites of priestly burial in our liturgical manuscripts? As is known, we find the rites of oil blessing over the dead only in the monuments of the Greek and South Slavic churches and therefore, when studying the worship of these churches, it is still possible to talk about replacing one rite with another, but for what reason the rites of priestly burial appeared in our Slavic-Russian monuments - this question remains completely unanswered. The fact is that the rite of the blessing of oil over the dead was not accepted into our church and liturgical practice and it is not found in the most complete liturgical monuments, and therefore in no case can it be said that among us the rites of priestly burial appeared with the purpose of replacing the rite of the blessing of oil over the dead. In view of everything we have said, we should abandon any thought about the dependence of these ranks and consider the history of each of them independently. In particular, with regard to the rite of priestly burial, it should have appeared in the liturgical practice of the Christian church very early. If there were special burial rites for monks, lay men, lay women, and children, then it is difficult to admit that the church did not develop a special burial rite for persons of the holy order, who, in their hierarchical position, were high above the rest of the church members. One can perhaps agree with Mr. Krasnoseltsev, that in the early days of the Christian church, the peculiarities of the burial rite for persons of holy orders consisted only in the reading of special prayers, for which the most ancient euchologies speak, which do not have a full rite, but only separate prayers with the title: Εὐχ ή ἐπιτέφιος εἰς ἐπισκ ό πους (Goar. Εὐχολ . pag. 580), εὐχ ή εἰς ταλευτ ή σαντα ἰερέα and εὐχ ή εἰς διάκονον κοιμηθέντα (Rkp. Sinaisk m. No. 984 and 114–115), and in some rites concerning the preparation of the body of deceased clergy for burial (at Simeon of Thessalonica), its position for funeral service in the church (at Dionysius the Areopagite), libations of peace on the body deceased priests and deacons (at Valsamonau, the placing of holy bread in the hands of a deceased bishop (at his place), etc., of whom very many remained even in later times in the full ranks of the 15th and 16th centuries, but that the full rank was not strictly regulated in practice. We make this concession on the basis that from ancient church practice we, strictly speaking, do not have the full order of even the liturgy and other orders of the sacraments, but only know prayers, which were complicated by ritual actions only in the 14th century. XV centuries and gave rise to the present ranks; nevertheless, no one will assert on this basis that the rite of liturgy did not exist before the 14th century. The same thing happened with the rite of priestly burial: first prayers appeared, then certain rituals and ceremonies were established in practice, which were then set forth around the 13th century in a special rite, which became significantly more complicated in the 15th and 16th centuries. Hence, quite understandably, the expositions of the rites of priestly burial were varied, like other rites of the Orthodox Church, and from them a special rather voluminous book was formed in the 15th century called: Ἐξοδιαστικ ό ν (rkp. Savv. bib. in Jerusalem. No. 873). just as a book was compiled from the ranks of monastic tonsure a little earlier: Ζχηματολ ό γιον. In the mentioned Ἐξοδιαστικ ό ν we find burial rites for all hierarchical degrees and persons of the holy order, as is clear from the following very curious beginning: εἴ τις ἐπ ί σκοπος, ἤ ?? ἐκδημ ή σει κ . τ. λ. these ranks conclude. 119 sheets of manuscript in quart., written in two columns in neat small letters. Such ranks, of course, could not be formed suddenly, and, obviously, a rather long period of time passed between the first beginnings of this rank and its present full edition. As for the private rite of burial of priests, now practiced, it did not appear in the 17th century, as Mr. Krasnoseltsev thinks (p. 194), but somewhat earlier. We find the first indications of this edition of the order of priestly burial in manuscripts from the end of the 15th century. and then it firmly established itself in the liturgical practice of the 16th century through the old printed Greek editions of the Euchologia in Venice, in which the real rite was always placed. In the chapter: “On the rite of tonsure of monks,” we will dwell only on the question of the origin of this rank. “Since the 15th century, according to Mr. Krasnoseltsev. in our handwritten missals, next to the rite of tonsure into the great schema of men, a special “rite of tonsuring nuns of the angelic image” began to be placed (p. 133). But neither this fact, nor the categorical statement of Metropolitan Cyprian that “the tonsure of monks and monks is the same” (p. 139), nor the statement of the 17th century references that “there is no such rite in printed or handwritten Greek liturgical books” (p. 140), “nor personal observations and reports of other persons regarding the absence of this rite in written monuments Greek Church (p. 141) did not convince our author and did not force him to come to terms with the present fact. “It seems very probable to us,” writes Mr. Krasnoseltsev after all of the above, that this rite, although perhaps not exactly in the form in which it has come down to us, existed not only in the 14th century, but also in earlier centuries and not only in the Russian Church, but also in the Greek one (p. 140). The reason for this irresistible desire to see the origin of the rite in question in ancient times lies in the author’s hope to find the original of the real rite in Greek writing, “because the Greek liturgical manuscripts have essentially still been studied very little - this is firstly, and secondly, in the fact that “there are still indications that in an earlier period, namely the 8th-9th centuries, the Greeks also had a special rite. If not exactly the same as what is known to us from Russian-Slavic manuscripts, then from similar ones. We find these instructions in the famous Barberine euchology, 8th century, and in the rules of the Patriarch Nicephorus of Constantinople" (p. 141 which says the following: “Two (rites) of prayers of the holy schema contain euchologies: one for men, the other for women" (p. 143). But with all these reasonings, the very fact of the existence of the rite in question from the 15th century remains a fact and not at all the author did not move towards a decision regarding the place and time of its origin. It is certain that for female tonsure in the euchologies of the 8th-9th centuries. there were special prayers, separate from those for men, and sometimes special troparia were added to them, but we don’t see this from anywhere that there were two special rites for men and women. We find confirmation of the first thought in the Barberino Euchology of the 8th-9th centuries, and we base the second on the rule of Patriarch Nicephorus (806–815), who, we add here, speaks not of two rites, as Mr. Krasnoseltsev wants to interpret this rule, but of two prayers (τὰς δύο εὐχὰς τοῦ ἁ γ ί ου σχ ή ματος , ὥ σπερ ἔχουσι τὰ εὐχολ ό για , τ ήv μέν εἰς ὰνδρας, τὴν δὲ εἰς γυναῖκας σύν κα ί τισι τροπαρ ί οις) or about two types of prayers, i.e. for men and women. Patriarch Nicephorus could not talk about two separate rites of tonsure, one for men, the other for women, because the Greek euchologies, neither in his time nor in later times, had similar rites, but contained only one rite, but with different prayers and troparions for men and women, which were set out in a row in the rite and highlighted by the inscription: “εἰς γυναῖκας ". We find such a rite in the contemporary of Patriarch Nicephorus, the famous hymn writer Theodore the Studite († 826) in his newly discovered by us Ζληματολ ό γιον -е (rkp. XV century Russian-Panteleim. mon. on Athos). In the same way, we know the rite of tonsure according to the list of the 13th century (RKP. Snnaisk. mon. No. 967), in which for women (εἰς γυναῖκας) there are not only separate troparia and special prayers, but even entire antiphons. However, we know of one Greek euchology of the 14th century, in which there are independent ranks for the tonsure of women (rkp. Kutlumushsk. Athos. m. No. 491), but this fact can be considered exceptional. This Euchologium was written and compiled for the women's monastery of the Savior Philanthropist in Constantinople, founded near St. Soft by the Byzanian emperor Alexios Komnenos (N. Kontakion. Byzantine. ts. p memory. Constant. Od. 1886, pp. 73, 81, 105), and but in this Euchologion almost all the rites are set out for women, such as, for example, the rite of consecration of oil (προσέρχεται ἡ μέλλουσα ποιησαι τὸ ἅ γιον ἔλαιον), etc. But here too we find the rite of attainment of women, set out on the model of the rite of male tonsure with very insignificant features and stichera, about which in the monument itself it is noted that they entered here on the basis of the custom of this monastery (προεγράφησαν καὶ ἐτέθησαν ἐν τῆ σεβασμ ίᾳ τοῦ Φιλανθρ ό που μον ῇ). It would seem that where, if not in this euchology, it would be very appropriate to place the rite of female tonsure in the edition that is known to Mr. Krasnoseltsev, but we don’t find him here either. It is this last circumstance that gives us the courage to think that the real rite of female tonsure was either not known at all in the practice of the Greek Church (let us recall the review of our inquiry officers), or it took place in some specific convent, as a feature of local practice, which can also be supported by the fact that it is not often found in our Slavic-Russian liturgical monuments. But one thing is beyond any doubt: until the 15th century. this rite was not known in liturgical practice either in Rus' or in the east. At the same time, it first appears in Serbian monuments with the title: “service for the tonsure of Chernorisitsa” (rkp. from the Hilferdig collection in the Imperial Publ. Bible in St. Petersburg No. 21 l. 37 vol. - 47), and from there almost simultaneously it appears on the pages of our liturgical monuments. It would be possible to make a few more comments on some specific issues raised by Mr. Krasnoseltsev’s interesting book, but in view of the fact that our note takes on extensive dimensions, we pass them by in silence and recommend this book to the special attention of our readers. This book is filled with very interesting and new material, most of which has been examined in great detail and from first-hand sources. However, in all the works of the venerable liturgist professor, one senses an insufficiently comprehensive acquaintance with the primary sources of our worship, and in this regard, experts can reproach him, but for the ordinary reader this shortcoming is not noticeable. The book is devoid of lifelessness and dryness, which we so rarely encounter in our scholarly works, it is presented in lively and even fascinating language, and is read with unflagging interest from beginning to end. The opinion regarding the attribution of certain prayers to Nevsky Metropolitan Hilarion, and in particular the prayer at the metropolitan’s entry into the diocese, was expressed for the first time in our historical documents of the 16th century. (Acts of the Archeogr. Expedition. Vol. I, No. 241), and the late historian M. Macarius directly stated that this could be the prayer of Metropolitan Hilarion, extracted from the word “about law and grace.” Russian Church Histor. Vol. I, p. 137 and appendix No. 7. You might be interested in: