The prologue vitae of St. Nicholas the miracleworker in South Slavic medieval literature

Abstract

The article deals with the prologue (synaxarion) Vitae of St. Nicholas in Slavonic Cyrillic literature from the 13th to the 17th century. These texts function within the hymnographic composition practice and can be found in two types of liturgical books - the Prologue and the Menaion. They are usually extracts from extensive narratives, which is why this paper also looks at texts from two other types of medieval books (the Panegyric and the Reading Menaion) that contain The Acts of St. Nicholas, The Miracles of St. Nicholas and the so-called „Another” Vita - St. Nicholas of Sion Vita. These texts also functioned as synaxarion vitae. The Vita of St. Nicholas in the Simple Prologue is the shortest and earliest version of a hagiographic narrative about the saint translated in Bulgaria during the First Bulgarian Empire, and it is very rarely found in the hymnographic composition of the Menaion. St. Nicholas’ Vita in the Turnovo translation of the Verse Prologue is the most popular and common after the sixth song of the canon in the hymnographic composition practice. That Vita is a more extensive version of the Acts of St. Nicholas, based on the Metaphrastian Vita, preceded by a verse and an added miracle of St. Nicholas. The article mentions two interesting cases in Serbian menaia of the 15th century, which present different traditions to place the synaxarion texts.

Keywords

• st. nicholas
• prologue (synaxarion) vitae
• simple and verse prologue
• menaion
• service
• panegyric
• reading menaion