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The canonical «Replies» by the Patriarch of Constantinople Nicholas III Grammatikos (1084–1111): content, sources, history of the text
Abstract
In the “Old Slavonic Book of the Helmsman [Kormchaya Kniga] of Fourteen Titles without Commentary” (vol. 2) there is a text that on the basis of its preamble might be called “Replies of the Patriarch of Constantinople Nicholas III Grammatikos to the questions of monks of the Holy Mount Athos». The paper examines this monument of the Byzantine ecclesiastical thought. The text was written in the literary genre known as Erotapokriseis (questions and replies). This genre appeared in the classical literary tradition and was widespread in the Byzantine Empire and Eastern Christian countries. The text of the Patriarch Nicholas III Grammatikos’ canonical replies to the questions of the Athonitic monks consists of 27 questions and answers. It has a complex manuscript tradition. Seven editions of various versions are available at the moment. However, the text is studied insuffi ciently. The paper includes the description of the Canonical replies with a survey of editions, the translation into Russian, the analysis of the canonical content and the attempt to establish sources used by the Patriarch. The main aim of the research is the reconstruction of the manuscript tradition of the extant Greek original along with the Slavonic translation. The relevance of the present research is determined by the lack of scholarly works on the manuscript tradition and canonical content of the text.
Keywords
Byzantine literature, Questions and Replies, canonical texts, the Patriarch of Constantinople Nicholas III Grammatikos