Още веднъж за появата на Минея
On the Emergence of the Menaion Once Again

Summary/Abstract: The main object of the study is the Greek manuscript Sinai 607 from the ninth century. The manuscript has a preserved initial rubric that defines it as a Tropologion for March and April. The opinion of Alexandra Nikiforova that this is an office Menaion is discussed. It is stressed that if the book is called Menaion, changing its original designation, it would be our determination of it according to our later knowledge of the hymnographic books. If the compilers of the Sinai 607 thought that they compiled a new book, they would have designated it “Menaion”, as they designated the book of the Triodion in the eleventh century. The opinion of Alexandra Nikiforova that Robert Taft made a mistake believing that the office Menaion appeared in the eleventh-twelfth centuries is also discussed: the complete set of Greek Menaia with services for each day of the 12 months of the year was completed by the eleventh-twelfth centuries, since the first systematized Menaia with hymnography for each day of the year, as Robert Taft established, appear in manuscripts at that time. Nikiforova’s opinion that the office Menaion appeared first, and then the festive one, is also discussed: all early sources testified to the contrary – the festive Menaion appeared first in written practice and it was gradually supplemented and expanded. It is emphasized that general conclusions made on the basis of a single manuscript and on a fragment of eight folia only, measured by the standards of our modern knowledge, predetermines subjective and absolutizing conclusions. The formation of the new hymnographic books is the result of a long process of a previously thought-out, in-depth project of coordination between them. By the middle of the eleventh century, the liturgical books as a whole definitely testify to the standardization of both their repertoire and structure. With a newly established repertoire and structure, we can already speak of the formation of the book of the Menaion. In this sense, it would be perhaps best to designate the Sinai manuscript 607 as a Menaion Tropologion, which would be in accord with the accepted designations of other similar typological liturgical books, such as the Sticherarion and the later Doxastikon.

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