„Nașterea lui Iisus Hristos / Să ne fie de folos!”. Manuscrise și vechi tipărituri referitoare la Praznicul Nașterii Domnului păstrate la Biblioteca Academiei Române din București
Manuscripts and Early Printed Books Concerning the Nativity of the Lord in the Collection of the Library of the Romanian Academy, Bucharest

Summary/Abstract: The aim of this study is to briefly present several historical sources – manuscripts and old printed books – held by the Library of the Romanian Academy in Bucharest, with Christian songs (Christmas carols and religious chants/hymns) and homilies, referring to the feast of the Nativity of the Lord. First of all, the selected pieces are important for their theological content, announcing the Incarnation of the Lord/the Birth of Messiah, but they have a true bibliophile value as well, being rare and precious books, decorated with splendid engravings. Thus, we listed manuscripts with Christmas carols, collected by Picu Procopie Pătruț, Christmas songs edited by Anton Pann (and copied by Gheorghe-Gherontie, a well-known painter and psalter of that time) and the first Romanian editions of books of hymns (religious chants of the Byzantine tradition). We also mentioned the homilies about the Nativity of the Lord, written by the Saints John Chrysostom, Athanasius the Great and Gregory the Theologian, preserved in old and rare editions, printed in England, France and German space, in the 16th-17th centuries. The pieces can be studied for the development of historical, musical, ethnographic or linguistics studies, but, viewed as a whole, they illustrate the Christian mentality of the culture of the time. On the other hand, the books highlight the connection of the Romanian space to the Greek and Slavonic Orthodoxy and the links of the Romanian Princialities with the famous printing centers/houses in the Western Europe.

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