The Slavonic Alphabetical Hymn in Medieval Russian Horologia of the 13th–14th Centuries

Abstract

The article is devoted to a Slavonic alphabetical hymn found in the earliest Slavonic Horologia and preserved in two sources: the well-known Yaroslavl Horologion of the 13th century and the recently discovered liturgical book for cell prayer Sof. 1129 from the 14th century. In the latter source the alphabetical hymn contains two verses starting with the letter Ш, a feature that it shares also with the Alphabetical Prayer of Constantine of Preslav and with the oldest Slavonic alphabetical hymnography, recently identified by G. Popov, found in the Festal Menaion. The question of the evidence of the Glagolitic alphabet found in Cyrillic acrostics is once again discussed in the article, and the opinion of V. Mošin that the Glagolitic acrostics are closely related to the alphabets that figure in On the Letters by Chernorizets Hrabar and in the Munich Abecedarium is confirmed. The subsequent fate in Medieval Rus of the alphabetical hymn from the Horologion is then traced. The hymn, in a significantly reworked form, is widely found in manuscripts starting with the end of the 15th century as a prayer titled “Alphabetical [prayer] of repentance”. At the end of the article, an attempt is made to show the main differences between acrostics based on the Glagolitic and Cyrillic alphabets.

Keywords

• Oldest Slavonic Alphabetical Hymns
• Glagolitic and Cyrillic Acrostics in Medieval Russian Literary Documents