Акатистът на Пресвета Богородица и Службата за Благовещение
The Akathistos of the Theotokos and the Office of the Annunciation

Summary/Abstract: The Akathistos of Theotokos is closely related to the feast of the Annunciation: it was sung on this day for many centuries and it was inscribed in the kondakaria under the date 25 March. Nowadays the Akathistos is included in the Triodia books on the fifth Saturday of the Great Lent, but its first two stanzas (the kukulion and the first oikos) are used in the Office of the Annunciation as kondakion and oikos. The third kondakion of the Akathistos was also included in the Office of the Annunciation in two Bulgarian manuscripts: the early twelfth century Dragota Menaion and the Ochrid Menaion from 1435. Most probably, this is a trace of an old practice of including the first three kondakia and oikoi in this office. The entire text of the Akathistos is incorporated after the sixth song of the canon in the Office of the Annunciation in an Old Russian office menaion for March, kept in RGADA, in the collection of the Synodal Typography, under no. 106. In addition, the article provides a comparison among the texts of the stanzas included in the Office of the Annunciation in twelve Slavonic (Bulgarian, Serbian and Russian) menaia, three Bulgarian triodia, and one Russian kondakarion. The manuscripts divide into two groups, which reflect two different translations of those texts. The first consists of four South Slavic manuscripts: the Dragota Menaion, the thirteenth century Festal Menaion Hludov 166, the fourteenth century Festal Menaion Sinai 25, and the Ochrid Menaion. Most probably the earliest translation of the hymnographic units was represented in those four Festal menaia. The second group consists of the other menaia and the triodia. Presumably, these menaia contained the secondary version of the Office, in which the stanzas from the Akathistos were revised according to the text in the Triodion.

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