FROM THE HISTORY OF GEORGIAN LITURGICAL HYMNOGRAPHY

(New Redaction of George the Athonite’s “Lenten Triodion”)

Abstract

"Lenten Triodion" translated and edited by George the Athonite is one of the most important monuments of ancient Georgian writing. It contains a treasury of Byzantine and Georgian hymnography - numerous hymns, the authors of which are the outstanding representatives of the Christian Church and culture. Its classic, extensive redaction was created in 1056-1059 and has been preserved in numerous manuscripts.

In this paper, we have revealed and studied a new redaction of this collection.

The research is based on scholarly publications, Georgian manuscripts, as well as their photocopies and electronic versions. Particularly important in this regard is the Georgian manuscript of the Athonite collection - Ath.59 and the manuscript Paris. Georg. 5 held at the National Library of Paris.

As a result of the research, the following circumstances have been revealed:

The unique, extensive "Lenten Triodion" under George the Athonite's redaction, which has no analogue, was preceded by a short recension of this collection, which is preserved in the mentioned Athos manuscript;

This redaction contains a much smaller number of hymns;

The masterpiece of Christian poetry - "The Great Canon" of St. Andrew of Crete and the texts of  biblical odes have been preserved in the earlier translations;

The elements of "minor doxology" are systematically found in it, which were typical only at the beginning of George the Athonite’s activity;

The component (the "Presentation") characteristic for later collections is found only a few times;

These circumstances testify to the fact that "Lenten Triodion" is one of the first monuments translated from Greek by George the Athonite, on which he worked for a long time.