A Historical Thought and Spiritual Message in the Byzantine Apocalypses from the Slavonic-Romanian Manuscripts: A Miscellany Copied by Gavril Uric in 1448
A Historical Thought and Spiritual Message in the Byzantine Apocalypses from the Slavonic-Romanian Manuscripts: A Miscellany Copied by Gavril Uric in 1448

Summary/Abstract: The manuscript of Gavril Uric from the Neamț Monastery, copied in 1448, is one of the oldest known Slavonic-Romanian miscellanies containing Byzantine apocalypses. They are represented by the Vision of Prophet Isaiah, the Revelation of Prophet Daniel about the Last Times and the Antichrist, and the Vision of Kosmas the Monk. The miscellany also contained other texts (stories, lives of saints, and teachings), having eschatological references as well. The manuscript can be read as a representation of world history, according to the Christian view. This history started with prophecies about the Incarnation of Christ and ended with prophecies about Christ’s Second Coming and the Final Judgement. The content of the miscellany mirrors several historical realities of the age in which the copyist lived (the spread of hesychasm, the scholarly work of Patriarch Euthymius of Tarnovo, the concern for the fate of Constantinople). It offered a valuable source of information for the superiors of the Neamț Monastery to guide the community of brethren and the lay people, and to answer various questions about spiritual life. The apocalypses featured among the texts that could offer spiritual advice, disclosing mysteries of the afterlife and the world to come.

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