THE LITURGICAL TETRAEVANGELION IN SOUTH SLAVIC AND EAST SLAVIC TRADITIONS OF THE 10th–14th CENTURIES

This article examines the history of the Slavic liturgical Tetraevangelion, containing the Gospels in the traditional order, in the last third of the 9th–15th centuries. During this period, the Tetraevangelion was used for reading pericopes during worship, for sequential reading during Lent, for sequential reading of each of the four Gospels during the week, and for compiling lectionaries (aprakos). The Slavic translation of the Tetraevangelion was created in the archbishopric of St. Methodius and was intended for use in Slavic worship of the Latin rite. The Tetraevangelion of various versions used in Slavic worship of the Byzantine rite differed in a set of formal characteristics and were included in the corresponding corpuses of Slavic liturgical books. The features and differences of the surviving Slavic liturgical manuscripts of the 11th — early 15th centuries containing Gospel texts were determined by their use in various Slavic church organisations, in different territories and at different periods in the history of Slavic worship. The sequential editing of Slavic Gospel translation took place during the sequential editing of the corpus of Slavic liturgical books, which was initiated by the competent church authorities and was linked to changes in the church organisations where the liturgical books were used. The appearance of a new corpus of liturgical books and, accordingly, the use of new versionof the Tetraevangelion was not accompanied by the withdrawal of texts from theprevious version from use, and the simultaneous use of different versions inevitably led to their contamination. The transformation of the Gospel text for exclusive use in worship took place during the formation of the lectionary (aprakos) from the Tetraevangelion.