Slovene (Dec 2012)
The Features of Boris and Gleb Festivals in the Light of Byzantine Tradition
Abstract
The present paper analyses the liturgical structure of the translation of SS. Boris and Gleb’s relics in 11th–12th centuries. All four feasts had a different structure: a one-day or two-day feast, with or without the consecration of the church. In two of three cases (under Yaroslav the Wise and in 1115), the consecration of the church in Vyshgorod was done next to the very relics of the holy princes themselves. The choice of the feast’s structure depended on the Greek metropolitan. This is particularly clear in the case of the third translation (1072), when the metropolitan, doubtful of the princes’ holiness, consecrated the church using other relics, and then transferred the relics of the princes into the already-consecrated church.
