Успение Методиево
Death of Methodius

Summary/Abstract: Death of Methodius (Uspenie Metodievo) is a short text of a saint’s vita, discovered by P. Preis in the Frushkovorsk Monastery of Kudezhdin. The manuscript (a not versified prologue) has been identified with a code from the collection of the Museum of Church Art in Sremska Mitrovica No. 323, but the major part of it was destroyed after Preis had worked with the manuscript. The lost work, dedicated to St. Methodius, was found in the Preis archives. Preis had copied in an extremely accurate way the entire text and this gives grounds to introduce in science the work now in its entirety and not only on the basis of extracts from it known from the correspondence of Preis. The prologue, not in verse form in which it was placed, constitutes an independent redaction of the monument. Death of Methodius is a work created on the basis of the two Detailed Vitae of SS. Cyril and Methodius and of some other sources which for the time being are not known to us. The work reflects the interpretation of the cult of SS. Cyril and Methodius in the initial period of the Second Bulgarian Kingdom, probably not later than the early 13th с. (up to the Council of 1211 ) when the Bulgarian Church formed the pantheon of its saints. Death of Methodius shows great closeness to Death of Cyril both as regards the ideas embodied in it and in its structure and composition and the way of using the cources. It is a proof that in Turnovo during the 13th с. they were familiar with the texts of the two Detailed Vitae.

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