St. Clement of Ochrid

The author of the paper analyses the volumes and contents of songs in both original kanons dedicated to St. Methodius: of St. Clement of Ohrid and of Konstantin of Preslav. The basic unit of measurement shall be the verse. The difference between troparia of I-VI song and VII to IX is illustrated. The proposed explanation for this difference in the total number of verses takes into account the presence of two stanzas inserted after VI song (kontakion and ikos) which do not belong to the kanon. Perhaps the authors have sought to build two relatively equal parts of a whole liturgical composition “kanon and kontakion and ikos”. This formal feature could be the exception to be typical of the style of both authors, or it could be specific to a certain period of development of the hymnological genre.

The text of the Sermon usually is included in the Slavonic miscellanies entitled Zlatostruj (both in the short and in the complete version) was published first by N. L. Tunickij, who supposed that it is attributed to St. Kliment of Ochrida. The same opinion was declared by many other authors (B. Angelov, K. Kuev, X. Kodov, Kl. Ivanova, etc.) The main argument was common places in the text and similar readings with this Sermon and otherKliment’s works. The author of the current paper analyses a short version of the Sermon about being and the Judgment in an unpublished manuscript of 16th c. (RNB OCRK F.I.4). This codex (possibly of ruthenian origin) is a miscellany of mixed content with archaic features of language and contains many translated works of Basil of Caesarea, Ephrem the Syrian, Gregory the Theologian, etc. In the conclusion the author assumes that the Sermon there was a short vesrion of the Sermon in the early stage of Old Church Slavonic literature.The publication of the copy is enclosed.