Помен Срба у Житију Григорија Синаита
The Mention of the Serbs in the Life of Gregory of Sinai

Summary/Abstract: The Serbian medieval culture was under strong and abundant influence by different currents which came to existance in Constantinople and other spiritual centres in Byzantium. That was the case with the acceptance of the hesychast teaching, which, like a huge wave, overflowed the surrounding world, leaving the deep traces behind. In this paper our attention has been focused on one sentence from the life of Gregory Sinaites, who was the founder of the hesychast movement and one of the greatest theologians of the late Byzantine epoch, which mentions the Serbs. He refers to the mission of the famous monk in the Slavic world, where his theological treasure received an enthusiastic acceptance. Although expressing the well-known historical fact, this sentence, as it is a well-known fact, has not been subjected to special attention in our historiography before. Speaking of the exact teachings of Sinaites, the author of the life, the Constantinopolitan Patriarch Kallistos, points out that his talks spread not only among the Greeks and Bulgarians, but among the Serbs as well, and even further (кай 8г^поит&у ЕВррюу xai Bo^X^agwv, xai xax' aux^v x^v 2epß(av xai ètí xai ¿tí ßeXxiov). It is known that the famous theologian's ego has a great authority in the world of the Slavs, where his ideas found a fertile soil. Many of the Slavic theologians from later epochs were either the direct or indirect disciples (curatorum gratia) of Gregory Sinaites. In Bulgaria, they were Theodosios of Trnovo, Hilarion, the Patriarch Euthynnos, and Kyprianos, the famous Metropolitan of Kiev. The difference of Gregory Sinaites was, understandably enough, very strong in Serbia, too, where his most important followers were Romylos of Kavaala, born a Victor of the Greek father and Bulgarian mother, and Gregory of Gornjak, who are known in the literature as Romylos of Vidin and Gregory Sinaites the younger. Generally speaking, it is possible also to talk of the so-called "Sinaites", constrained monks of Serbian, Greek or Bulgarian origin, who, inspired by hesychast, brought the renewed tradition of the Orthodox spirituality, Byzantine literature and art to the Serbian territory. The immigration movement spread over the territories from the southern Adriatic to the Danube. Furthermore, in the seventies of the 14th century a completely new monastic centre with a strong colony of the "Sinaites" arose in Serbia, on the territory east of the Velika Morava and the slopes of Kučaj and Homolje mountains. On the other hand, it can be supposed that the expression "and even further" (xai e'xi xai èx^ ßejxíov) in the aforementioned sentence from the life refers primarily to Romanian and Russian lands, where the teaching of Sinaites had gained ground, too. Therefore, it is justifiable to state that the hesychasty was a new, cosmopolitan movement which involved Byzantium, Bulgaria, Serbia, Romania and Russia. Besides, the phenomenon which was with good reason called the Byzantine Commonwealth can be easily perceptible by the example of spreading of the hesychast movement.

• Details
• Contents