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ОглавлениеCodex Suprasliensis – Mineia četia, Mart (The Supraśl Codex – Menology, March)
Inscribed 2007
What is it
The largest and oldest of the few surviving manuscripts written in Old Church Slavonic.
Why was it inscribed
Codex Suprasliensis is the main source for studying Old Church Slavonic. It is also one of the earliest testimonials to the reception of Orthodox Christianity among the Slavs.
Where is it
National and University Library in Ljubljana, Slovenia; National Library of Russia, St Petersburg, Russia; National Library, Warsaw, Poland
The Codex Suprasliensis is a unique manuscript written by a monk named Retko around 1014 in one of the monasteries near Preslav, the old capital of Bulgaria. In 1823 it was discovered by Professor Michał Bobrowski in the library of the Basilian monastery in Supraśl near Białystok, Poland, where it had been brought by monks from Athos, Greece. The item was divided in 1838 and 1839 and is now kept in three libraries: in Warsaw, Ljubljana and St Petersburg.
The codex was written in Old Church Slavonic, using the Cyrillic alphabet in Slavonic majuscule. It consists of 285 (118+16+151) parchment folios. It describes the lives of saints and the teachings of fathers of the church for readings in March (the final fragment of Mineia četia). It is especially valuable for linguists who study Old Slavonic languages because of its age and extent. It does not possess illuminations; its decorations are very modest and consist of ink-painted initials and narrow vignettes. The script is a very beautiful, regular, broad Cyrillic.
Old Church Slavonic was the first literary Slavic language, developed by the 9th-century Byzantine Greek missionaries St Cyril and St Methodius who used it to translate the Bible and other Christian texts into a language that ordinary Slavic peoples could understand. The introduction of a national language to the liturgy influenced the reception of a religion and had great significance in forming national languages.
Codex Suprasliensis
The codex is irreplaceable as a testimonial to Orthodox Christianity and Slavdom at the time when Old Slavonic was evolving into national languages (Old Bulgarian, Old Slovenian, Old Polish). Being supranational and supraregional, it is a significant fragment of European and world culture.
The discovery of the codex in the 19th century was important for the rapidly developing field of Slavonic studies and for the strengthening of national consciousness among the Slavs who were subjects of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Turkish state (e.g. Bulgarians, Slovenians, Serbs).
The first part of the codex (Ljubljana) consists of sixteen unbound quires (one hundred and eighteen folios) kept in a special acid-free case. The text contains twenty-four lives of saints and twenty-three homilies, separate for Lent and Easter cycles, and one prayer.
The second part of the codex (St Petersburg) consists of two quires (sixteen folios). The text contains Colloquy on Annunciation, assigned to John Chrysostom; Colloquy on Annunciation by John Chrysostom, 25 March; St. Irene’s Torment, 26 March; Torment of the St. Iona and St. Varahisi, 29 March.
The third part of the codex (Warsaw) consists of 151 folios. The text contains: six lives of saints, eighteen sermons of John Chrysostom, one sermon of Photius (patriarch of Constantinople) and one sermon of Epiphanius.
