ON THE QUESTION OF THE ELDEST TEXTOLOGICAL LAYER OF THE HOLY WEEK SERVICES (Based on the Holy Friday Hours)

Abstract

The present paper deals with the eldest stages of Church Slavonic translations of Byzantine hymnography reconstructed over the Great and Holy Week services of the early South and East Slavonic manuscripts. Specifically the Service of the Great and Holy Friday Hours was studied on the material of 15 Triodia and Stichiraria from 12th–14th centuries. The comparative analysis of the Greek and Slavonic sources demonstrated the great divergence in the certain service structure and text and revealed that it was composed and extended gradually by compiling of hymnographic units from the Antiphons and the Vespers Services. Some of these troparia retained the features of the first Slavonic translations, while the others in the same manuscripts probably originated from later versions. The textological history of the certain service in the manuscripts under analysis was reconstructed and the changes that occurred on every stage of this history due to either systematic corrections according to Greek manuscripts or compilations of various Slavonic sources were described.