The Authenticity of Order of the Liturgy of Saint James in the Slavonic Manuscript of Pogodin 298, and Its Statutory Directions

Abstract

The Liturgy of Saint Apostle James is well known in many manuscripts of the 9th–12th centuries, and their copies of the 15th–17th centuries. The name goes back to the first bishop of Jerusalem — James, an apostle of the Seventy. Liturgical science does not know for certain when this liturgy order began to be translated into the Slavic language, but the earliest surviving Slavic liturgical collections of Apostle James contain the Greek order of the 11th–12th centuries. One of these manuscripts with full rites of the Liturgy of Apostle James is discussed in this article. This is a 16th-century compilation of the Russian National Library of the Pogodin collection (Fund 588), No. 298, which has not been published so far and still inaccessible to a wide range of researchers. The article compares the Pogodin manuscript with the most ancient Georgian version of the Liturgy of Apostle James, and also analyzes its statutory headings. This work is to illuminate the authenticity of the early Slavic manuscript and show the peculiarity of its statutory actions for a wide range of researchers. Studying this manuscript allows to take a fresh look at this apostolic Order in the Slavic translation and to actualize the issue of its usage today. The researchers compared the two sources, having conducted a complete analysis of the Slavic manuscript with the clarification of its statutory instructions and their description. The research results have led to the important conclusions about the authenticity of the Slavic manuscript. The structures of the critical text of S. Verhelst (according to the most ancient Georgian manuscripts) and Pog. 298 were compared and given in a tabular format. It is found that the structures coincide in the anaphoral part of the Liturgy, have many similarities in others, and differ greatly in the “preparatory” parts, when the priest prays either before the beginning of the Liturgy, or before Communion. A comprehensive review of the Slavic manuscript has made it possible to scrutinize its statuary guidelines. The latter are rare, however, supplemented with records and content of the prayers, which allows one to present an overall picture of performing the Liturgy with minor gaps. Finally, on the basis of a structural-comparative analysis, it is concluded that the Slavic manuscript belongs to the tradition of the 11th–12th centuries.

Keywords

• liturgy
• liturgy of saint james
• liturgical order
• jerusalem liturgical tradition
• apostolic liturgies