Review of the essay by P. Uspensky "The Christian East. History of Athos. Part III. Monastic Athos"

The East is Christian. History of Athos. Part III. Athos monastic. I) His fate from 911 to 1891. Second department. II) Justification of the history of Athos (that is, applications to this department). Published by the Imperial Academy of Sciences, edited by P.A. Cheese. S.-Pb. 1892. 8°. LI+V+1083 pp. By carefully publishing in all respects this book of the late Right Reverend Porfiry Uspensky, our Academy of Sciences fulfilled the dying will of its author, who attached very important significance to this work of his (p. 604), and satisfied those of the Russian people who were impatiently and with great hopes awaiting the publication of the end of the “History of Athos”, in due time, with the appearance of the first volumes, which caused a lot of noise and lively talk... However, we need the truth to say that the expectations and hopes of the latter were not even half fulfilled, and the disappointment with the posthumous work of Bishop Porfiry among Russian scientists was so great that this book, as far as we can remember, did not cause a single more or less serious critical-bibliographic note in our periodicals. This will become quite understandable if we remember the circumstances preceding the publication of this book and the expectations and demands that representatives of science place on works like the present one. Who carefully read the diaries of the late Bishop Porfiry, or his “First and Second Travels to St. Mount Athos" and followed his literary activity in the last years of his life in Moscow, as a member of the Moscow synodal office and abbot of the Novospassky Monastery, which was reflected mainly on the pages of the local spiritual magazine "Readings in the Society of Lovers of Spiritual Enlightenment", to those Russian readers the third part of the "History of Athos" seemed well known, with a few exceptions, for a long time, a repetition of what was read and old. The author himself does not present this work as new, but openly admits that “the history of Athos, which he completed, forms one inextricable whole with the description of his journey along this mountain” (p. 604). Further, this work of our historian is not at the level of our modern information about Athos, with which historical science is increasingly enriched, thanks to the growing interest in St. Grief among our and Western scientists and their frequent travel to it. Finally, we think that the Reverend. Porfiry, giving his present work the title “History of Athos,” contributed significantly to the aforementioned disappointment with his work, since in many respects it does not satisfy the requirements that our time places on such works. chronological accuracy. getting to know more closely the book we are examining, Rev. Porfiria, you involuntarily get the confidence that its author, during his scientific journey, did not have a serious intention - to write the history of Athos; it appeared, at the end of the journey, under the influence, obviously, of the desire to prove to the Athonite monks that their stories about the coming of the Mother of God to Athos were fairy tales and legends, and that “The Mother of God was not on Athos and did not think to be there” (History of Athos, volume 1877, part II, p. 21). For this, it seemed to the author that the facts that he collected during the trip, from manuscripts and which he could find in printed manuals, and especially when he decided to trace the historical fate of Mount Athos in the pre-Christian period and in the first initial years of the Christian era, were quite sufficient. That is why the Reverend. Porfiry, having given in the previous parts of this work undoubted evidence of extensive reading in classical and foreign literature on certain issues and gifted historical science with several interesting pages of serious analysis of those tales and legends about the stay of the Mother of God on Mount Athos, which circulate among the inhabitants of St. Mountains and which are recorded in various manuscripts, turned out to be an incompetent historian when he began to present the real history of Athos - the “monastic” one that should interest us most of all. Here in the book we are considering, Rev. Porfiry turned from a historian into a chronicler and, instead of a coherent, genetically consistent story of the internal and external fate of “monastic Athos,” he gave us several, albeit interesting, but bare and dry facts from both, presenting them in chronological order. Thus, in the “History of Athos”, Rev. Porfiry, we see a huge chronological list (p. 334) of those donations that were sent to Athos by the Byzantine emperors, Moldavian rulers, Russian tsars, etc., “annalistic information about the wall painting that appeared on Athos in Turkish times” (p. 405), a “rereading” “in chronological order” of the works and publications of Athonite monks (p. 448) and much more of the same kind. However, from the Reverend. Porfiry, in fact, it was difficult to expect a detailed and complete history of Athos. Speaking about “materials” “in the historicization of monastic Athos,” he, however, complains that he was “burdened by the wealth of these materials” (p. 604), and in another case he expresses even more strongly that “the writings of Athos” or “business memories in the Athos monasteries” (p. 314) he even had a whole “overflowed sea” (p. 274), but in reality the situation Reverend For Porfiry, as a historian of Athos, things were not so brilliant. from his frank diaries we learn that the Holy Mountain residents did not allow him to work in the archives of the Kareisky Protat, the main and only repository of the most important documents of the historical past of St. The mountains (the first trip to Athos, part II, section II, pp. 296 - 298), did not let him into the archives of the Vatopedi monastery (ibid. p. 99), did not show him much of the “archival scriptures” of Kutlumushtsy (ibid. p. 233), etc. Consequently, to use the figurative language of our author, Rev. Porfiry in the “flooded Svyatogorsk sea” very often “threw his scientific deeps” not into its depths, and therefore his “sinks” were often meager, with monotonous and small fish... It is not surprising because from the “inscriptions and business memories” of the Reverend. For information on the history of Athos, Porfiry had to turn “to the oral stories and traditions” (pp. 422, 424) of the old-timers on Athos, and instead of the Svyatogorsk libraries, full of manuscripts and early printed publications, he drew information about the publishing and scientific-literary activities of the Svyatogorsk residents from an unreliable and now completely outdated source - from the book of A. Vreto: “ Νεοελληνική φιλολογί ᾳ" (Ἀθην, 1845). In a word, both in the method of presentation and in the selection of sources, Reverend Porfiry did not go far from the old scribes and chroniclers. Chronological calculations by Rev. Porphyria (p. 148), although they are sometimes distinguished by the originality and originality of their calculations, can hardly be considered close to the truth. From these general comments, we will move on to the very content of this book and consider all its paragraphs and sections, in the order they alternate, noting their advantages and disadvantages, as far as this can be done in a short critical-bibliographic note. The most complete and detailed in the book, Rev. Porfiry needs to recognize the section in which the author treats the property side of the Svyatogorsk hermits. He devotes the majority of his book to him for the simple reason that in the Athonite monasteries most of the documents relating to this side of life have been preserved. Deeds of gift, imperial documents of Christ, royal and princely charters relating to land allotments to monasteries, various kinds of monetary and material donations to them, monastic litigation over land plots and borders overwhelm these archives in originals and copies, among which, as our author is well aware, there are many false ones (Pagan Athos, K. 1877, part 1, p. 1). In the extensive chronological list of donations to Mount Athos by Byzantine emperors and nobles, Russian tsars, boyars and people, Moldovan princes, Serbian and Georgian kings, we see that these donations were often truly royal, that is, generous and rich, and consisted of land plots, rich deposits of money, utensils, sacristy, expensive furs and various items of a communal nature. All these donors built churches and decorated them with paintings at their own expense, renovated monasteries, made the necessary buildings in them in the form of bell towers, towers, etc. But, to our deep regret, from this dry list we do not see a reasonable disposal and expedient expenditure of all this wealth and donations of the Svyatogorsk monks. As if the Reverend. Porphyry, who characterizes the Byzantine emperors in the gloomy colors of Nicetas Choniates and other Byzantine historians, actually set out to prove that these monster emperors could be and were often very generous investors and donors to the Athos monasteries, and that the monasteries collected these donations, either for their own comfortable existence, or for the ransom of their brothers from captivity of pirates (p. 116), or for payment taxes or haracha to the Turkish government (pp. 304–305), then for the uprising of the Holy Mountain residents for the freedom of the Greeks in 1821, disastrous for Athos in many respects (p. 578), etc. Having devoted fifteen lines to a paragraph about “what was the benefit of the Athonite monks to the Orthodox peoples during Turkish rule” (p. 598), our author in his book presented Svyatogorsk charity as forced and accidental, which appeared only because the Turkish government declared the monastery estates waqfs (p. 313) and thereby obliged the inhabitants surrounding these monasteries to do charity. Monks of St. Mountains, according to the image of the Reverend. Porfiria, they do nothing but conduct litigation and disputes among themselves, absorbing all their strength and material resources. For entire centuries or more, these monks seem to be inactive and completely forget that they are lights of the world... In general, in this section of the “History of Athos” there are many disappointing pictures from the historical past of Svyatogorsk Athos life, albeit in a one-sided and often downright incorrect consecration. Having found, for example, the message of Pope Innocent III dated January 12, 1214, in which the Holy Mountain residents are accepted, at their personal request, under “the protection of this pope and blessed Peter” (p. 77), Rev. Porfiry, firstly, considers it necessary for the inhabitants of St. Mountains read the following moral: “let the present Athosians stop casting (?) the Roman high priest, from whom their spiritual ancestors sought protection and patronage... Pope Innocent saved three hundred Athos monasteries from destruction by mad Latins (?!) and with his authority established all their privileges and estates that they then owned” (pp. 77–78), and secondly, he is not averse to thinking that such patronage The Roman high priest was acquired in some cases by the Holy Mountain residents even at the cost of union and betrayal of Orthodoxy. Such an unfair accusation is expressed by the Reverend. Porfiry is positive against the Athos-Vatopedian apocrisarium Dorotheus, regarding the very dubious letter of Pope Eugenius of 1439 (pp. 182–183). The fact is that not only the Holy Mountain residents often turned to the popes for patronage, but also monks of other Orthodox eastern monasteries, such as Sinai, Patmos, etc., and the Roman high priests willingly gave them letters of indulgences for those who visit these monasteries and do charity to them, however, to conclude from this that the Orthodox monasteries achieved what they wanted by betraying Orthodoxy and accepting the union, as they do Reverend Porfiry in relation to the Athos-Vatopedi monastery (p. 181), and Father Vanutelli in relation to the Patmos St. John the Theological Monastery (P. Vanutelli, Un quinto sguardo all` oriente. Patmos. Roma 1884 an. pag. 89), there is absolutely no reason. In the times of their misfortunes, Orthodox monasteries asked for help and protection everywhere and from all the powers of the world: from popes, and from Western emperors and kings, and from grand masters of Catholic military-religious orders, without giving any promises in return to their random benefactors. Overwhelmed by the mass of “business memories and inscriptions” concerning the material or economic side of the life of the Svyatogorsk monks, and paying most attention to them, the Reverend. Porfiry outlined the inner spiritual side of their life rather palely. For a reason that is quite understandable, he could not pass in silence such outstanding phenomena of the religious life of the Athonites, such as, for example, their disputes about the Light of Tabor, about the commemoration of the dead on Saturday and Sunday, and about other, as the author puts it, “free mental trends” (p. 379), because these disputes greatly occupied the minds of the Svyatogorsk inhabitants and worried them for a long time. Unfortunately, in the “History of Athos” the reasons for the appearance of these rumors and ferments remained poorly understood, and the factual material that was known to our author from the manuscripts of the Svyatogorsk libraries was not even exhaustively exhausted. According to the rules adopted by our author, speak only “about the known” (p. 403), “do not invent assumptions” (p. 285) and leave the unsaid to the lot of subsequent researchers and travelers, he, when expounding on “the energy of the being of God and the light that shone from Jesus Christ transfigured on Tabor,” limited himself to almost only the data that he gleaned from the very voluminous Athos-Lauran manuscript of Maurocordatus, written in 1798. But even this manuscript remained far from being completely exhausted Reverend Porfiry, and his history of the polemic between the Barlaamites and the Palamites in the sense of clarity, completeness and thoroughness leaves much to be desired, as can now be seen from the excellent work of Prof. Novorossiysk University F.I. Uspensky: “Synodikon on the Week of Orthodoxy. Summary text with notes." Odessa 1893, pp. 71–74. In the “justification” under No. 45, placing a very important excerpt from a detailed synod with anathematisms against the teachings of Varlaam and Akindinus according to the “precious and completely rewritten,” as our historian puts it (The First Journey to the Athos Monastery 1880, part II, section II, p. 206), the Kutlumush manuscript of the 14th century (p. 260 and appendix p. 780), Rev. Porfiry did not provide any information about the manuscript itself and thus put prof. Uspensky is at a loss as to how one should look at this appendix, as the most conciliar act, or as a synodikon read in the church on the week of Orthodoxy (Synodikon on the Week of Orthodoxy, pp. 73–74). Having settled on the last and absolutely correct assumption, the learned professor still, of course, does not suspect that this synodikon belonged to the Adrianople metropolitanate and contains quite a lot of later layers attributed to it in the 15th, 16th and even 17th centuries. In the final part of this synodik, in addition to the numerous names of Adrianople metropolitans, we read the names of Byzantine emperors and empresses with their lay and monastic names. But our historian, with his omissions and inaccuracies, not only sets problems and puzzles subsequent researchers on the same issues, as we have just shown with prof. Uspensky, but entrusts them with the completely thankless and not always feasible work of correcting his mistakes and, moreover, not only in the reasoning and conclusions expressed by him personally, but even in the very “justifications” or documentary applications to his work. “Precious and completely rewritten” by Rev. Porfiry reproduced the Kutlumush manuscript in the mentioned Appendix No. 45 inaccurately. All versions of this application noted by prof. Uspensky in his “consolidated” synodik, with the exception of two, namely on pp. 35 and 37, should be attributed to the errors and clerical errors of the Reverend. Porfiry and the original manuscript are not justified. There is no attempt by our historian to restore the text in the fifth anathematism, and in our opinion (this was noted by Prof. Uspensky), there is no need. The meaning of the manuscript text is quite clear. Finally, the article against Argir, for some reason omitted by the Reverend. Porfiry, stands in its place in the manuscript and its text is completely similar to that printed by Prof. Uspensky (Synodikon on the Week of Orthodoxy, p. 34). The Kolyvad heresy, or disputes about which days the dead should be commemorated, has been examined incompletely and one-sidedly. Having imagined for some reason that the book of Saint Nicodemus: “΄ Ομολογί ᾳ τῆς πίστεως” (ed. Vienna, 1819), dedicated by the compiler to disputes about the days of remembrance, “you will not find” (p. 386), although in our time, especially in the east, it is far from being a bibliographic rarity, Rev. Porfiry outlined the entire history of these disputes on Athos only on the basis of this little book, and on eighteen pages (pp. 964–992) of his “Justifications” he placed extensive literal extracts from it. Meanwhile, our historian was also aware of handwritten materials on this issue (First Journey to the Athos Monasteries. K. 1877, Part II, p. 128), which he completely ignored due to their “voluminosity” and lack of “leisure time.” The St. Paul manuscript, however, is not the only source for the factual side of the present disputes; they were reflected to a strong degree, as indicated in the above-mentioned work by Saint Nikodim, in various Svyatogorsk statutes, from which our historian could glean a lot of useful information. But, the Holy Mountain Fathers, contemporaries of these lively and greatly agitated St. A mountain of disputes was also left to us by some other information from this time, concerning not the disputes themselves, but the measures that were taken on Athos to destroy the heretics. A highly curious diary from that time, now kept in the Xiropotamian library, speaks in l. 3 not only about these measures, but also informs us of the fact, which is not lost on us Russians, that among the heresiarchs were our Little Russians, monks of the Athos Elias monastery. Here is this curious page: “αψογ᾿. Μαΐον κε ΄. ξημέρωμα τῶν άγίων πάντων, οί χριστιανοί κλέπται, ὂ που πρό τριῶν τεσσάρων μηνῶν ἐγύριξαν τό A= γιον ’ Όρος μἐ δύο καΐκια καὶ ἒ να περγαντί, καὶ ἔποιον αύτά χριστιανικὰ πάλιν καΐκια, ὂ που ? Βώλου, καὶ ἐπάτησαν τὴν Ἰ ερισσόν, καὶ ἔτι δύο τρία χωρία τῆς ἐπαρχίας τῆς Κασσανδρίας. Αὐτοί, λέγω, οί κλέπται ἐπῆγαν νύκτα εἰς τὴν σκὴτην τοῦ ? τὸν καλλιγράφον καὶ αίρεσιάρχην τῶν κολύβων καὶ ἂ λλων φλυαριῶν καὶ γλωσσαλγιῶν , ὂ που ἔλεγε κατὰ τὴς ἰερωσύνης καὶ τῶν ἀχράντων μυστηρίων , καί φέροντές τους είς τήν σκήτην τοῦ ἀγίου Παύλου, ὂ που ἦ τον τό καΐκι των, τούς π ᾖ ραν μέσα είς τό πέλαγος καὶ τούς ἒ ρριψαν εἰς τὴν θάλασσαν, καὶ τούς ἒ πνιξαν, λέγοντες παρρησί ᾳ, πῶς ώ ς ?? ἐπάτησαν δύο κελλία νὰ πίασουν τόν παπ ᾶ Ἰ ωσήφ τὸν ψαριανὸν καὶ ᾂ λλους τοιούτους κολυβάδες ἀφορισμένους καὶ μέ τό συνοδικόν, ὂ που τούς ἦ λθε καὶ δέν τούς ηΰραν , ό ’ τε έκεΐνοι μαθόντες "άνεχώρησαν." The reprisal against heretics, as described by a contemporary, was undoubtedly quick and radical, carried out, it seems, in the spirit of a literal understanding of the Gospel commandment about heretics (Matthew 18:6). Information about such everyday and characteristic features of the life of the Svyatogorsk inhabitants would greatly enliven the pages of history about these heresies of Rev. Porfiry, and perhaps they would have led some of his readers to think seriously about this matter. In general, the section on heresies on Athos in the book of Rev. Porphyria, in our opinion, leaves much to be desired. We consider the “Treatise on Svyatogorsk statutes and special services” on Athos (p. 395, etc.) to be the most unsuccessful in the history of Athos. It is not only poor in facts, which were not difficult for our historian to collect, but it is also filled with a mass of historical errors, which there is no way to correct in a short review. We refer those interested in this department to our article: “Svyatogorsk (Athos) typik” (“Modern worship in the Orthodox East.” Kyiv, 1891, issue I, p. 11, etc.), and here, so that our judgment does not seem unfounded, we will make a few very brief comments. Under this heading, Rev. Porfiry, obviously, even without a superficial acquaintance with the monuments of Svyatogorsk worship, came across things that were completely incompatible. Here, Διατύπωσις St. are also placed on the same line. Athanasius of Athos 963, with the customs of practice of the Studian monastery, and the 13th century Hilandar charter of St. Savva the Serbian, created on the basis of the Jerusalem liturgical orders, and not seen personally by our historian and hardly ever in reality, the Vatopedian charter “τῶν Στουδιτῶν”, and the later Svyatogorsk charters of Dochiarsky, Dionysiatic and others, whereas in reality, and by their nature liturgical liturgical orders, and in chronological order, these statutes can in no way be combined. The reader who understands the matter is baffled by this chaos. However, as if in apology, our historian notes that he “did not have time to consider and compare all these statutes” and “left other describers of Athos to fill this deficiency” (p. 397). After all that we have said, it is impossible to accept without significant restrictions the statement of our historian that “in the Athonite monasteries, divine services have been performed since ancient times in the same way as in all monastic monasteries in Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia, Moldova and Russia” (p. 394). As far as we know, based on our personal study of the monuments of Svyatogorsk worship, the differences between this latter and our worship, or even from the worship of other eastern monasteries, are not at all as indifferent and “unimportant” (p. 395) as the Rev. thinks. Porfiry, who noted several of these features and, moreover, not entirely successfully, since the features he noted do not at all constitute differences in the practice of the Svyatogorsk monasteries, but they can be observed everywhere in the Orthodox East. These differences actually concern both the rites of monastic tonsure (about this, see our article: “Bewilderment about bewilderment” in the Proceedings of the Kiev Theological Academy, 1891, book IX, pp. 144–147), and the rites of water blessings, burials, etc., etc. Among the services compiled and practiced on Mount Athos, Rev. Porfiry notes the “outlandish” (p. 398) service in the Menaion of the 13th century Simon-Petrussky Monastery on December 11 “in memory of Tsar Nikephoros Phocas, the founder of the Lavra of Athos,” but with a very strange, to say the least, reservation, which characterizes with sufficient relief our historian and his manner of writing history. “I,” notes the Rev. Porfiry, due to lack of time (?), did not have time to rewrite this wonder, and I ask the travelers who followed me on Athos to do this. For it is extremely curious to know: how this service was written to this king, as a holy prayer book for us before God, or as the famous pacifier of the Cretan Hagarians who destroyed Athos, as a lover of monks and the builder of the Lavra on Athos, without entrusting us to his prayers.” (p. 398) We admit that this languor in a learned and inquisitive traveler is strange and incomprehensible to us. On the one hand, he is inflamed by curiosity “to the highest degree” to know the contents of the “outlandish” service, and on the other hand, he does not want to devote one or two minutes of time to even a superficial acquaintance with its contents and generously leaves it to “following travelers on Athos” to do this, not foreseeing that the manuscript containing this “outlandish” will soon become completely inaccessible to them, having been destroyed in the flames of a terrible fire in 1891 year, which incinerated the Simono-Petersky Monastery to the ground. Fortunately, however, the service we are talking about did not perish for science. In the near future, we intend to publish it in its entirety on the pages of the Byzantine Temporary, and now we will give a few brief comments about it. The title of the service is as follows: “Μηνί Δεκεμβρίφ ἰα᾿.” Ἀκολουθία εις τόν έν βασίλεὐσἰν άοίδιμον καί όντως φερώνυμον Νικηφόρον τον Φωκάν.” It was written on parchment in small handwriting of the 11th century and was sewn to the sheet bombitsin manuscript of the 13th century “Πανδέκτη” (Reverend Porfiry mistakenly calls it Menaea) at its very beginning. Emperor Nikephoros Phocas is glorified in this service as follows: , σκληραγωγίαν έκτησω ταπείνωσιν , ὂ θεν εΐληφας μετά A= βελ και A= βελ άνηρέθη αδίκως ?? έλε ή μων, καρτερικος έν πόνοις, έν πάλαις άνένδοτος, φοβερός τοΐς δαίμοσι, πιστο ῐ ς δέ εὐπρόσιτος, ὂ θεν καί τ ή ν κάραν - Νικηφόρε ὰοίδιμε, πρέσβευε Χριστῶ. From these brief extracts, our readers can already see what interesting material for the characterization of Emperor Nicephorus Phocas is presented by this service, compiled by almost a contemporary of this emperor. And we are sure that G. Schlumberger, who wrote a major monograph about this emperor (Un empereur Byzantin au dixiẻme siẻcle, Nicẻphore Phocas. Par. 1890) and is well acquainted with the works of our historian, would gladly use this important document to characterize his hero and would say to the Reverend. Great thanks to Porfiry. As for the services compiled on Athos in general, then, having mentioned the canons of 1770 by the learned monks of the Kavso-Kalivo monastery Theoclitus and 1780 of Raphael, the 1809 service of the famous Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain in honor of the reverend and God-bearing fathers who shone on the holy Mount Athos, and the canon of “Our Lady of Quick Hearing” by the same author, Rev. Porfiry notes: “I don’t know of any other services to the saints composed on Athos, if only they were composed there” (p. 403). But if our historian had looked into the mentioned 13th-century manuscript of the Simon-Peter Monastery and, in particular, into the parchment passage of the 11th century containing the service to Emperor Nicephorus Phocas, he would have refrained from the remark given now and seen that there are many services compiled on Athos, which is quite understandable and natural, and that some of them are of undoubted scientific interest for the historian of Athos. In that same, for example, passage of the 11th century, in which there is a service in honor of Emperor Nikephoros Phocas, there were some other services of Athonite origin, namely: a) Ἀκολουθία είς τόν ὂ σιον πα τέρα ήμών Ἀθανάσιον τόν έν τῷ A= θω , b) Μηνί Όκτωβρί ῳ ιέ᾿του οσίου πατρός ήμῶν Ευθυμίου, τοῦ έν τῷ ὄρει του A= θω τ ή ν άσκητικήν διανοίσαντος παλαί – στραν, c) Μηνί Ί ουνίω ιγ. Μν ή μη τοῦ όσίου πατρός ή μών Πέτρου τοῦ Ἀθωνίτου, etc. The same services are available in Athonite libraries with a different presentation, other authors and undoubtedly Svyatogortsev. For example, we know a parchment handwritten service from the 12th century in honor of St. Athanasius of Athos in the library of the Lavra of Athos, with an extensive life of this saint, hitherto unknown in print, etc. A few years earlier, regarding the opinion of Rev. Porfiry, expressed by him in his “zographical chronicle”, originally published in the magazine: “Readings in the Society of Lovers of Spiritual Enlightenment”, that “not a single Svyatogorsk monastery painted its sanctuaries until 1526” (p. 406), we made the remark that we cannot agree with this opinion of our historian (Modern. Divine services. in the Orthodox East. Kiev. v. 1, p. 114, note 1). Now in the major work on Svyatogorsk art by Privatdozent of the University of Leipzig G. Brockhaus under the title: “Die Kunst in den Athos-Klöstern”, Leipz. 1891, we find complete confirmation of our thought. From this book it is clear that the churches of Svyatogorsk, according to the custom of the Orthodox East, were always painted with religious paintings. These churches were painted in 1312 (one of the paraklis of the Vatopedi Monastery), and in 1360 (the paraklis of St. Nicholas in the Lavra of St. Athanasius), and in 1425 (the paraklis of St. Great Martyr George in the monastery of St. Paul), and in 1512 (in the Kareya Cathedral) - (Brockhaus. S. 273–277). Comparing, further, the “zographical chronicle” of Rev. Porfiry with a similar chronicle compiled by Heinrich Brockhaus, who reproduces some of the inscriptions of Athos churches in his book with diplomatic accuracy and even facsimile, we see that our historian’s “chronicle” suffers from large chronological errors. For example, the painting of the paracleis of St. Nicholas in the Lavra of St. Athanasius of Brockhaus refers to the year 1360 = 6868 (S. 274), and Rev. Porphyry by 1580–7868 (p. 408; cf. First Journey to Athos. mon., part I, department II, p. 207), painting of the paracleis of St. George in the St. Paul Monastery by 1425 = 6933 (S. 275), and Rev. Porphyria by 1393 (p. 406), painting of the Kutlumush monastery by 1540=7040, Rev. Porfiry, however, was a whole century later - by 1640 (p. 409), which put himself in great difficulty when he had to talk about the time of construction of this monastery (First Travels, Part II, pp. 190-191), the painting of the Dionysia monastery of Brockhaus dates back to 1547 = 7055 (p. 284), and the Rev. Porfiry dates it to 1647 (p. 410), although the year from the creation of the world we read in the inscription is the same 7055 (First Travels, Part I, Section II, p. 92), etc. There are many such errors in other dates, and they occurred either from incorrect and hasty reading of the inscriptions, or, as, for example, in the first and last cases, from incorrect translation of the calendar from the creation of the world to the calendar from the Nativity of Christ. The last circumstance once again convinces us that, when compiling this volume of the “History of Athos”, Rev. In most cases, Porfiry limited himself to mechanical rewriting of the material that he had collected and presented in his diaries or “The First and Second Travels to Athos,” without even correcting the mistakes made here. “The book work of the Holy Mountain residents” (pp. 447 ff) is presented in the “History of Athos” by Rev. Porfiry superficially, which depended primarily on the fact that the main source for this section of his “History” was the work of Vreto: “Νεοελληνική φιλολογία”, and then on the fact that the late historian of Athos did not make, easily accessible, personal bibliographic research in the rich book depositories of St. Mountains and did not find the persistence necessary in this case. Therefore, it is not at all surprising that from the pen of our historian a harsh, although, as we will see now, completely unfair sentence poured out: “In the second half of the 16th century and the entire subsequent century, Rev. Porfiry writes about the book activity of the Holy Mountain inhabitants, there was not a single scribe from the Greeks on Athos” (p. 458). sentence, it is enough to pick up the book of Manuel Gideon (Ό ’A= θως . Ἐν Κωνσταντ . 1885), which is far from distinguished by its completeness and thoroughness. Here in the chapter: “άγιορέίται ẻ πίσημοι” Manuel Gideon names the following persons from the Holy Mountains who declared themselves in the literary field during the specified period: Archbishop Seraphim, who lived on Athos between 1540 and 1550 and wrote the history of the icon “It is Worthy to Eat” , a certain hierodeacon Simeon Kavasil, rhetorician Dionysius (†1606), in all likelihood a monk of the monastery of St. Anna, whose moral writings are published in the collection “Margarit”; from the beginning of the 17th century, the Iberian monk Theodosius, author of the book: ,, Διη᾿γησις περί τῆς μονῆς τῶν Ί βηρων “, the famous learned Lavra monk Agapius Landa (Λάνδος), the compiler of books entitled: “ Καλοκαιρινή ", „ Παράδεισος ", „ Νέος παράδεισος " and ,, Ἐκλόγιον 11, Iverskogo Archimandrite Dionysius, who in 1668 wrote, based on Slavic works, the history of Russia before the reign of Boris Godunov, and famous, however, and Rev. Porphyry (pp. 458–459), monk Theoclitus, translator in 1671. Prochiron Vasily, Leo and Constantine, Iveron hierodeacon Kozma, translator in 1694 (Gideon erroneously indicates the year of this translation as 1604) of our Kiev-Pechersk Paterikon into modern Greek, and some others ('O » Αθως σελ. 210–215). It seems that the same hierodeacon Kozma Iverts owns a translation into modern Greek of the Synopsis of Innocent Gisel in 1693, which is now kept in the library of the Holy Sepulchre's courtyard in Constantinople in manuscript No. 329 (according to the catalog of Archimandrite Antoninus). Wanting, however, to gloss over the poverty of the factual material in this paragraph, Rev. Porfiry fills it with insertions and reasoning that have nothing to do with this paragraph, or even with the “History of Athos” in general. Among such unnecessary insertions are excerpts “from the Missolong priest about late and unnecessary additions to the liturgies of St. John Chrysostom and St. Basil the Great" (pp. 470ff), extracts from the 7th century euchology (more correctly 10th century), taken by the author, with the blessing of St. Great Martyr Catherine, from the Sinai Monastery and now located in the Imperial St. Petersburg Public Library (p. 484), and similar inserts. But by themselves, these insertions, not related to the “History of Athos” and already known in science, would do little to spoil this section of the book of the Rev. Porfiry could also have some significance for specialists if they were not surrounded by our author’s reasoning, which does not stand up to even undemanding criticism. This especially needs to be said about the remarks of Rev. Porfiry regarding the reasoning of the “Missolong priest” about the addition of the troparion: “Lord, who is Thy Most Holy Spirit” before the moment of the transubstantiation of St. Gifts in the rites of the liturgy. The latter, making the guess that this insertion appeared in this place in the ranks of the liturgies either in Crete or in Venice, is much closer to the truth than the Reverend. Porfiry, determined at all costs to attribute this insertion to the 14th century Patriarch of Constantinople Philotheus. “This is proven, writes our historian, by copies of his order of the divine and sacred liturgy: Διάταξις τῆς θείας καὶ ἱερ ᾰ ς λει τουργίας, which were printed by Gohar in: Εΰχολόγιον, sive Rituale graecorum 1644 an., and of which one, written on paper in 7110 = 1602, I looked at in the library of the Athonoesphigmen monastery and made quite a few extracts from it” (p. 491). It is impossible not to note here the curious fact that our historian, who proudly declares that he “was not accustomed to wandering in the German Black Forest, but always preferred to be in the palm groves of the east” (p. 511) and throw scientific “mud in the flooded Svyatogorsk sea”, in support of his thought he did not “fish out” larger and more ancient facts than the already outdated Ε ῠ χολόγιου of Gohar and the handwritten Euchologium of the early 17th century. In the libraries of the Orthodox East there are, in truth, “a whole sea” of lists of the liturgy of Patriarch Philotheus, and among them there are lists contemporary to the named patriarch, in which, we add, as is now known (N. F. Krasnoseltsev, Materials for the history of the rite of the liturgy of St. John Chrysostom. Kazan. 1889 g.v. 1), the troparion that occupies us is completely absent. It appeared in the lists of this διάταξις ’ α no earlier than the 16th century and spread throughout the east through Venetian publications. But Rev. Porfiry, not at all embarrassed by the freshness and youth of his arguments, which are almost two centuries distant in the life of the patriarch whose name they are covered with, continues his erroneous reasoning further. “You ask me,” he writes, where did Philotheus borrow this insertion from? I answer. Philotheus was a monk of Sinai (reference to Mafu: Κατάλογος τῶν πατριαρχῶν Κωνσταντινουπόλεως) just at the time when the divine Sinai was spiritually dependent from the Patriarch of Alexandria. And in Alexandria then (this is in the 14th century!?) an ancient custom was observed, immediately after the liturgical invocation of St. Spirit for gifts, remember the descent of this Spirit on the apostles at the third hour of the day and silently say prayers: “Lord of Thy Most Holy Spirit.” ... “And that in Alexandria these prayers were pronounced at the moments of invoking the Holy Spirit for gifts, this information was borrowed by me, adds Bishop Porfiry, from the following Syntagmation of the Alexandrian Patriarch Gerasim (1688–1710), which I read in the Sinajuvani library on January 25, 1861” (pp. 491–493). The answer is even less satisfactory. Mafa’s opinion about the monasticism of Patriarch Philotheus in Sinai seems unlikely and has no solid factual basis. Athanasius on Athos, lived here for a very long time and even was its abbot for some time. This is the first thing. Secondly, to prove my idea that in Alexandria “an ancient (it would be useful to more accurately note the degree of this antiquity) custom was observed, immediately after the liturgical invocation of St. Spirit for gifts to silently say prayers: “Lord, like Thy Most Holy Spirit,” it would be very appropriate to make a reference in the Alexandrian liturgical manuscripts, preserved in sufficient quantities in the Cairo Patriarchal Library to the present day and, if possible, the writings closest in time to this patriarch, or even earlier, in order to find out how early this custom appeared in the Alexandrian Church. His reference to the Syntagmation, and at that of the end of the 17th or beginning of the 18th century, is not of high dignity and authority and is not at all convincing for us, because we know that from the 16th century, as we said, the insertion mentioned and that interests us in the rites of the liturgies spread through Venetian publications throughout the East and could easily have ended up in the 17th century on the pages of the Syntagmation of the Patriarch of Alexandria. During our trip to the East in 1888, we became well acquainted with the manuscripts of the Patriarchate of Alexandria and can now say that in the euchologies of the 14th and even 15th centuries of the Cairo Library there is no insert that interests us, and at that time it did not exist in the liturgical practice of the Alexandrian Church. It goes without saying that our historian’s concluding arguments on the same subject strike the reader with even greater oddities. “The liturgical charter of him (that is, of P. Philotheus), he writes, was introduced in Russia by our Metropolitan Cyprian, a contemporary of this patriarch, who was under his hierarchy. We, as the obedient children of both of them, accepted this charter unquestioningly...” (pp. 494–495). But enough of the excerpts and reasoning. Let us deal with the facts that, according to his custom, Rev. Porfiry obviously left this to be done by the researchers who followed him, and for which, one must think, he also did not have time. “Before the consecration of the gifts, we read in the major work of our learned manuscript describers of the Moscow Synodal Library, Archpriest A.V. Gorsky and K. Nevostruev, there is no mention of the prayer: “Lord, like Thy Most Holy Spirit” in No. 342, 343, neither in other ancient lists, nor in Cyprian himself, but appears only in the later No. 350, 352, 368, 376" (Description of the Slavic RKP. M. Synod, Bible M. 1869, department III, part I, introduction, p. VII and p. 15). This is a comical situation for a historian who writes history not on the basis of facts, but on the fabrications of his mind!... The section under review is filled with this kind of errors of a factual nature and, together with the “treatise on the Svyatogorsk charters and on special services on Athos,” should be classified as unsuccessful in the book of the Reverend. Porphyria. In general, strange as it may seem, our author, an archimandrite and then a bishop of the Russian Church, is least successful in his excursions into the field of Orthodox Christian liturgics. The Holy Mount Athos, which has long been the center of aspirations of the Russian people, who have always reverently revered this Mountain as a place of special feats of the ascetic character of its inhabitants, should be of greatest interest to the historian and Orthodox Russian people for that side of their lives that reflects the “religious and moral state of the Athos inhabitants.” To our deep regret, Rev. Porfiry devoted very little space to this issue in his history, and it remains unexhausted here. First, Rev. Porfiry speaks about the religious and moral state of the Svyatogorsk anchorites in the words of foreign and Russian travelers on Athos, starting from the 16th century and ending with the letters of the famous elder of the Svyatogorsk Seraphim, and then moves on to the “obvious” truth (p. 547), which boils down mainly to what aspects of the life of the Svyatogorsk inhabitants “liked” (p. 556) our historian. Readers of the “History of Athos” will not find here a satisfactory resolution of very important and interesting questions regarding how all three currently existing forms of life of its inhabitants developed on Athos: kinobia, idiorhythm and Kellyotism; what are the distinctive features of each of these forms, what phases and modifications have they experienced during their long history, what is really good and beneficial about them for the neighboring inhabitants of St. Mountains and its visitors, what abnormal phenomena were noticed in each of them, etc., etc. Numerous documents related here, starting with the will of St. Athanasius of Athos, charters and charters of patriarchs and emperors, internal orders emanating from the archpriests of St. Mountains and from the Karei protat, notes in diaries and manuscripts - all this could provide precious and extremely interesting material for this section of the book being analyzed, but in fact, Rev. Porfiry did not even exhaust the material here that the will of St. Afanasia. This precious, in many respects, document, which remained unpublished in science until recently, received the attention of our historian only due to a particular circumstance or Fact that took place in Svyatogorsk life, namely, when he had to interpret the secular epitropes and patrons of the Athos monasteries. Placing in the Justifications under No. 96 an excerpt from it “περὶ τῶν ἐπτρόπων”, Rev. Porfiry did not pay due attention to it and published it with large omissions. Here are samples of document reading from Rev. Porphyry and how we should actually read it: The final section of the “History of Athos” is a chronological list of “major events from 1456 to the present day” (pp. 598, 561). Here Rev. Porfiria, along with events that are undoubtedly “major”, such as, for example, the publication of the charter by Patriarch Jeremiah in 1575, the stay in Russia of the Athos-Pavlovsk Archimandrite Anatoly Meles (p. 567), etc., places events that not only have nothing to do with the “History of Athos”, but are even indifferent to the personality of the author himself. “In 1858, on September 6th, it was so warm,” he describes one of these events, that I swam in the sea, not far from the Rusika pier, near a tall and huge stone sticking out in the water, throwing pebbles along the sea so that some sea miracle would not swim up and grab me by the legs” (p. 595). “In 1859, on August 9, at 20 minutes past eleven o’clock at midnight, another of these events is said to have occurred, there was a very strong rocking earthquake that lasted more than half a minute. Then, while in Hilandar, I became very timid and, standing in the window under its arch and holding onto the wooden crossbar in the middle of this window, I felt that goosebumps were running all over my body, and my hair was rising, and that life was running out of me so that I could barely hold it back with the prayer: “Lord, have mercy.” And my companion Nikolai Blagoveshchensky found his whole soul in his heels...” (p. 597). This is where we end our comments regarding the “History of Athos” by Rev. Porfiry, noting the most important, in our opinion, shortcomings and errors. In our comments, we tried to stand on the basis of positive and irresistible facts and were filled with goodwill towards those of our readers and admirers of the works of the late historian Athos, who, under the influence of the established science for the Reverend. Porfiry's reputation as an expert on the East, one may be overly credulous in his judgments on issues in this area, as well as in the numerous facts and even documentary data he communicates that undoubtedly require verification. We do not expect any reproach for the one-sidedness of our comments. If we do not give special praise to the historian of Athos for the richness and diversity of the historical material he collected, then we have our reasons for this. Firstly, the factual and documentary material he collected, with a few exceptions, does not represent anything new and could have expanded into the book of Rev. Porfiry, as we know from our personal acquaintance with the Svyatogorsk libraries, is much larger in size, and secondly, we prefer to deal with these facts and even inscriptions and business records better in the diaries of our historian than in his real work. During his travels, collecting all this data in well-known libraries, he dates them to a specific place and accidentally drops certain remarks, with the help of which it becomes possible for us to check the author and even correct him without being on Athos. ...In general, we speak frankly, Rev. We place Porfiry, as the author of travels on Athos, immeasurably higher than Rev. Porfiry, as the author of the “History of Athos”. From the first work we do not require a specific and strictly thought-out plan, a genetically consistent presentation of historical events, completeness and thoroughness in the stories, a good and comprehensive acquaintance with sources and manuals, etc. We value every fact recorded on the pages of the diaries, whether the fact is directly related to the history of Athos or not; we admire every casually thrown original thought or witty scientific idea; we easily put up with inaccuracies and chronological errors, due to the impossibility of a traveler having all the necessary books and certificates at hand; We read, not without pleasure, his stories, filled with eloquence (pp. 274, 396, 417, 457) and puns (pp. 200. office, furnished with a rich library, we have every right to make broader demands. Considering the present work of Rev. Porfiry from this point of view, we cannot help but openly express our conviction that this work did not bring greater honor to our historian and, in our opinion, without any particular damage to science, could have quietly remained in the archives of the Academy of Sciences for many years 1. It would be quite enough to publish only those documents of Rev. Porphyry, which hitherto remained completely unknown in science. In this case, it remains to be regretted that our historian, when drawing up his spiritual testament, forgot about one Greek word that was well known to him (p. 417) proverb: “Do not cook cabbage twice, much less three times.” But in addition to considerations about the need to finish what was previously started before starting a new one, the Academy was obliged to be guided by the literal meaning of the will of the Eminence, in which the publication of the second part of the third (and last) part of the History of Athos was given first place. – Ed. 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