Approaching the Konikovo Gospel as a Corpus of Texts: New Evidence from the Gospel Reading for the Paschal Vespers of Love (John 20: 19 – 25) in the Autographs of Hieromonk Nathanael of Zographou Monastery (1820 – 1906)
Approaching the Konikovo Gospel as a Corpus of Texts: New Evidence from the Gospel Reading for the Paschal Vespers of Love (John 20: 19 – 25) in the Autographs of Hieromonk Nathanael of Zographou Monastery (1820 – 1906)

Author(s): Guentcho Banev
Subject(s): Christian Theology and Religion, Language and Literature Studies, Theoretical Linguistics, Theology and Religion, Comparative Studies of Religion, Lexis, Pragmatics, Historical Linguistics, Comparative Linguistics, Sociology of Religion
Published by: Национално издателство за образование и наука „Аз-буки“
Keywords: Konikovo Gospel; liturgical gospel; corpus; Paschal Vespers of Love; Nathaniel of Zographou; Pavel Bozhigrobski; Zographou Monastery on Mt Athos; colloquial and literary Greek and Bulgarian; Church Slavonic; translations; Bulgarian-Greek bilingualism
Summary/Abstract: The article is a continuation of my studies on the question of the creation of the famous Konikovo Gospel, as a result of which I have proposed that Nathaniel of Zographou, Bulgarian Exarchate Metropolitan of Ohrid (1872 – 1880), Lovech (1880 – 1891) and Plovdiv (1891 – 1906). In the convolutes Зогр. 107 and 161-51 I found previously unknown working translations written by Nathanael of Zographou, which are identical in text and handwriting to the bilingual manuscript from the library of the Patriarchate of Alexandria (Alex. 268). In the present article I publish Nathanael’s fully preserved Greek transcripts and Bulgarian translations of the Gospel reading of the Paschal Vespers of Love. Based on a comparative textual analysis, I study the process of the creation of the Konikovo Gospel, which I now propose to consider as a corpus of Greek and Bulgarian texts written in colloquial language with Greek script and compiled by Nathanael of Zographou. A key to understanding the context of the Konikovo Gospel corpus is the complete service gospel written by Nathanael in colloquial Greek, ZGr 54-164, which is also the prototype of the codex Alex. 268, also written by him. I propose that the compilation of the Konikovo Gospel corpus be dated around the middle of the 19th century, and more specifically in the period 1848 – 1852, i.e. after Nathanael was ordained a hieromonk (1848) and before the partial translation edition in Thessaloniki with editor Pavel Bozhigrobski (1852).

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