The new-found early hagiographic texts on St. Alexander Svirsky

Abstract

As scholars noted earlier, the manuscript f. 304.I No. 804 deposited in the Russian State Library contains rare or unique works, among which there are also original hagiographical texts on St. Alexander Svirsky. These texts do not find correspondence in the known editions of the Life of St. Alexander and in their variants. The first work recounts how the monastery brethren violated St. Alexander’s dying commandment and then, for this reason, he appeared to one of the monks on the third day after his death. Three of four miracles, which convey the appearance, are not characteristic in the topology of the miracles of the saint: they tell of helping those in distress on the water. These texts are published in this paper with codicological and linguistic-textual commentaries. The literary source of several texts was partially ascertained, it was the Life and Miracles of SS. Zosimas and Sabbatius of Solovki. According to the record in the end of the first miracle, the text’s authorship and place of creation is suggested: most likely this is one of the works by Hegumen Herodion Kochnev who wrote the Menaion edition of the Life of St. Alexander, but this newly found text was created at the dawn of St. Alexander’s veneration and not reflected in Herodion’s text for the Great Menaion Reader. The paper analyzes the orthographical features of the manuscript, which indicate striking dialectal traits, and also composition of the manuscript, distribution of its handwritings and paper to clarify the features of its compilation. The texts on St. Alexander were written in the same unit with the rare prayer ascribed to him by the modern legends: perhaps this coincidence is not accidentall.