“The Collection of Ottoman Documents in the Monastery of Hilandar (Mount Athos)”, Balkanlar ve İtalya’da şehir ve manastır arşivlerindeki Türkçe belgeler semineri (16–17 Kasım 2000), Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu 2003, 31-37

Present article deals with the problems of Byzantine monastic archives and its readers. Namely, trough regarding methods of keeping, storing techniques, ways of copying and persons responsible for the archives, I find out the possible readers inside of monasteries, and examine their attitude toward the content of the records. While through analyzing the situations when the monastic documents were used outside of the foundations (during tribunals, border‑delineations etc.), I discover which laic authorities and individuals had access to records, and what was their ways of reading these texts.

Acts. XVIIIth International Congress of Byzantine Studies. Selected Papers: Moscow, 1991. Vol. IV: Literature, Sources, Numismatics and History of Science, 1996

This paper demonstrates how study of a monastery's manuscript library enables us to flesh out the skeletal history provided by archival documents. A preview of the Introduction to the forthcoming Catalog of the Greek Manuscripts of Philotheou Monastery, it summarizes both the "external" or chronological history of the monastery and its "internal" or spiritual and intellectual history as derived from manuscript evidence, with emphasis on methodology. Philotheou began as a small hesychasterion in the last decade of the tenth century, and continued as such for some sixty years. Silence of the documents from 1051 to 1141 suggests that the monastery was vacant during this time. Documentary attestation of the abbot, Arsenios, in 1141 corroborates the identification of an Arsenios as one of the founders of Philotheou in the lost wall painting of the old catholicon described in the proskynetarion John Comnenos. From the documents the question of a second period of abandonment (from 1169 until 1284) remains ambiguous. Here the manuscripts of Philotheou come to our rescue. Moscow, State Historical Museum, Synodal Library cod. 50 includes a dated note of dedication from the year, 1203. Since the codex was at Philotheou until Arsenios Suchanov took it in 1654, we conclude that the monastery was neither ruined nor vacated during this time. That is one of the most important items of information regarding external Philotheite history derived from the manuscripts. It also informs us that the collection of manuscripts at Philotheou has existed continuously since the mid-12th century refoundation of the monastery, when books must have been part of the needs supplied for its functioning by St. Savas. Codicological study of the 14th-century codices produced at Philotheou, only two of which are signed, enable us to identify a group of manuscripts written there at that time. The Philotheite scribes, Gerasimos and Ignatios, created a new kind of hagiographical collection in which encomia for the menological and movable liturgical calendars were integrated. The recension of this "Integrated Panegyrikon," inspired by Gregory Palamas' collection of patristic evidence in defense of Athonite hesychasm, provided Philotheite monks with hesychastic models for emulation, replacing the Metaphrast. It provides us with a window into the spiritual world of Mount Athos during this important period. In the mid-16th century, following the restoration of the monastery under Dionysios ὁ ἐν Ὀλύμπῳ, numerous hieromonks wrote liturgical books at Philotheou, under the tutelage of two monks from Kallioupolis, Maximos and Gabriel, and under the direction of the abbot, Kallinikos. From a codex that came to Philotheou with him we learn that Kallinikos had come from Dionysiou, bringing with him the calligraphic ideals of the school of copyists from the Athonite monasteries on the southwest coast. The number of these hieromonks, and the small number of books surviving from each one, suggest that their tenure at Philotheou was brief, and that they were being prepared for an anti-Islamization mission on the Greek mainland. The acquisition of manuscripts also contributed to the growth of the library and thus to our understanding of Philotheite history. Acquisition of books apparently accompanied restorations of the monastery under the ktitores, Arsenios and Dionysios ὁ ἐν Ὀλύμπῳ, to meet the monastery's own liturgical needs. A more or less standard curse formula is the mark of accession of Philotheite books from the sixteenth century on, while notes of donation and personal possession colophons of individual monks distinguish those books from purchases in the earlier centuries. In the 16th century acquisitions on a large scale as well as "ransom" of books from the infidel attest to the monastery's wider purpose of preserving Orthodoxy and supporting its anti-Islamization mission. The sixteenth century copyists also preserved and restored older copies of the orthodox liturgical books. The centralization of these older books into a formal library may date from this time, when a systematic survey of the condition of books at Philotheou was conducted by the Philotheite monk, Moyses. An exceptional collection of menaia at Philotheou enables comparison of the sixteenth century copies with prototypes from the older manuscripts in the collection, some of which apparently date from the 12th century revival of the monastery.

After a brief introduction on administrative and religious organization of Mount Athos and the foundation of the Romanian hermitages Prodromu and Lacu, the paper demonstrates, based on archive documents, the presence of the Romanian element here since the 9th century. The emphasis falls on the life of Romanian monks in Athos since the second half of the 19th century till present. Their difficult situation, always placed between the religious life initiated and supported by the Romanian Patriarchate and the Romanian government and the Greek position represented by the antiRomanian actions of Great Lavra that control and manage from 1924 to the present day the two Romanian hermitages is highlighted. Statements in this paper are based on documents that are in the funds of the National Archives and the Diplomatic Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. According to tradition, the origin of the monastic life at Athos dates back to the times of emperors Constantin the Great (313-337 ...

The early medieval legend Translatio beati Grisogoni narrates how martyr Chrysogonus from Aquileia revealed himself to the citizens of Zadar as being put to rest in the old cemetery situated in the close vicinity of the city. Although it is historically hard to imagine that the relics, which were possibly translated to Zadar in the 7th century, would have been deposed outside the city walls at the time, the legend enriched the local hagiography with the narrative which played an important role in the subsequent centuries (to be almost forgotten in the Early Modern period). Translatio beati Grisogoni not only contains valuable “historical” material datable to early medieval centuries, but it is a relevant source for the research in the ‘memory making’ conducted by the Benedictine community of St Chrysogonus. Preserved through its liturgical usage in the powerful Iadertine abbey, Translatio beati Grisogoni had an important place in the life of both the monastery and the city during the Middle Ages. The paper addresses the problem of the location of the inventio of St Chrysogonus and its importance for the ‘making’ of the local memory of St Chrysogonus in medieval Zadar. Textual hints about its possible location (place Iadera Vetula understood to be in the vicinity of Zadar at the spot of the antique graveyard), are thus compared with the descriptions of the particular land-plots donated to the monastery during the 11th century. Building on author's previous research of the topic, the paper focuses on the relation between the local hagiography of St Chrysogonus and the set of documents attesting possible continuous interest of the Benedictine community in acquiring particular land-plots around the important sacred lieu de mémoire.

Bulgarian Historical Review / Revue Bulgare d'Histoire, 2022

The paper presents two previously unpublished firmans of Mehmed III and Mustafa II from the archive of the Serbian monastery of Visoki Dečani. The two documents offer an insight into the social and economic position of the Serbian Orthodox church under the Ottoman rule, and the life of the Christian subjects in the Ottoman Balkans.

Liturghierul grecesc de la Mănăstirea Stavropoleos. Ediţie facsimilată / Greek Divine Liturgies from Stavropoleos Monastery. Facsimile edition, 2024

In the last quarter of the 16th century, a skilled Cyprus-born Greek calligrapher called Loukas settled in Wallachia. Shortly afterward, he became bishop of Buzău (1583/84–1603) and then metropolitan of Wallachia (1603–1628/9). His outstanding ecclesiastical career did not end his work as a copyist. On the contrary, Loukas and his disciples and friends were responsible for the revival of the production of luxury Greek liturgical manuscripts, which had almost come to a standstill after the Ottoman conquest of the Balkans and Constantinople. Of the dozens, perhaps even hundreds, of manuscripts copied and decorated with miniatures by the first representatives of the “Wallachian school” of Greek calligraphy, only two survive in Romanian collections: one in the Romanian Academy Library and the other at the National Museum of Art, both in Bucharest. Stavropoleos Monastery succeeded in recovering a manuscript written by the hieromonk Anthimos of Pantokrator Monastery on Mount Athos, a copyist of Greek manuscripts active in the early 1640s, whose style combines graphic elements particular to Loukas and his workshop with elements specific to the “austere” Athonite tradition. This study aims to place this manuscript in the wider context of post-Byzantine Greek manuscript production and to reconstruct, to the extent possible, its story.