Chetya Menaion - books to read

2024 Author: Miguel Ramacey | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 06:11

A person who is far from the church does not understand either the first or the second word in the phrase “whose menaion”. Since the noun here is “menaia,” the explanation must begin with it. The church liturgical book, which includes all the services of the annual circle, is called the "menaion". There are 12 months in a year and it consists of 12 books (complete). The name is borrowed from the Greek language, and in translation means "monthly" - mhnaion (mhn - month). Each book contains texts for a month in the order corresponding to the services of the daily circle: evening (according to Moses, the day begins with evening) - the ninth hour, vespers, compline, etc., until the liturgy.

Difference from menaia

“The Menaion of the Lord”, which exists along with the above liturgical book, does not belong to this type of book, but rather to church books, and contains the lives of the saints, also arranged by month, and in a month - by day. These texts are intended to be read outside the service hours. And the name “Cheta Menaion”, consisting of Old Slavonic and Greek words, is translated as “monthly reading”, which contains hugeinformation for hagiography - a science that studies the lives of saints. Here is also the church teaching material, which was the main reading in Ancient Russia. The Great Menaion of Metropolitan Macarius was a kind of collection of Russian literature, as evidenced by himself: "He collected all the books of the Russian land."

Wrote and read in ancient times

The first books in Russia belong to the X century. This period is called "pre-Mongol". The 12th-century manuscript, known as the Assumption Collection, contains The Life of Theodosius of the Caves and Tales of Boris and Gleb. They are formed in such a way that they could well be perceived as someone's menaion for May. But these narratives are not included in the church collections, which consist entirely of translated material. Some attempts to rework these books for reading were made at different times, for example, in the 15th century, but there are few concrete examples.

The literary feat of Macarius

But already in the 16th century, the above-mentioned Great Honors of the Menaion of Macarius appeared. In addition to translated texts, they contain original accompanying materials - patristic teachings and apocrypha, sometimes very voluminous. They, as a rule, were timed to coincide with the days of memory of one or another saint. The Honors of the Menaion of the Moscow Assumption Cathedral, one of the four known today, is the only one that has been completely preserved. It is kept in the synodal library of the cathedral. The remaining three Menaia Chetya are incomplete lists. A Menaion was written for Ivan the Terrible, which lacksMarch and April. The other two are the lists of the Chudov Monastery and the St. Sophia Library. These are the only 4 lists representing the Great Honors of the Menaia of Archbishop Macarius of Novgorod, later Metropolitan of Moscow, that have survived to this day.

Other devotees in this field

Later, in the 17th century, attempts continued to write church books for non-liturgical reading. So, M. Milyutin in the spiritual scientific and literary journal "Readings in the Society of Spiritual Enlightenment Lovers", published until 1871, scrupulously describes the Menaia of the Nativity Church priest John Milyutin, which he wrote together with his three sons from 1646 to 1654. They are kept in the Moscow Synodal Library. Examines M. Milyutin and the Menaia of Hieronymus of the Trinity-Sergius Monastery, professional scribe and scribe German Tulupov, written by him in 1627-1632 and stored in the library of the Sergius Lavra.

Famous spiritual writer

Deserving special attention are the Menaions of Dmitry Rostovsky, which are a multi-volume work "The Book of the Lives of the Saints", which was published fragmentarily, in quarters from 1689 to 1705. The primary sources for the book of St. Demetrius were, of course, the Reading Menaion of Macarius and the Acts of the Saints, published by the Bollandist Catholic congregation, which consisted mainly of learned Jesuit monks. The name of the organization was named after its founder Jean Bolland. That is, the works that formed the basis of the "Book of the Lives of the Saints" were the most serious, and the Metropolitan's Reading MenaiaDmitry Rostovsky turned out wonderful. For this, the spiritual writer and preacher, Bishop of the Russian Church, in the world Danilo Savvich Tuptalo, in 1757 was glorified as a saint in the Orthodox Russian Church. And after his death, the main work of the whole life of St. Dmitry of Rostov was supplemented by a description of his own life. Saint's Day - 21 September. The book has been reprinted several times and has always been in great demand among believers. The popularity of the author himself is such that a legend has developed: if a believer asks for protection from Dmitry of Rostov, all the saints, whose biography he gave strength and knowledge to, will protect him.