In the present monograph we are publishing the full text of a Slavic nomocanonical compilation which we found and photographed in 2023 in Mount Athos, in a kellion near the monastic capital of Karyai. The watermarks of the paper date this manuscript to about 1560-1580. After each page of the Slavic text we are offering the reader the text of its Greek protoype, if it could be identified. For this reason, we had to consult numerous old printed editions of Greek nomocanonical texts which until very recently were almost unaccessible. As M. Tzibranska reasonably remarked in 2011} it was then extremely difficult to find a printed copy of the so-called Nomocanon of Cotelerius, printed in Paris in 1677. By 2025, this is no longer an obstacle, because presently the old publications of ancient and medieval Greek texts are easily accessible on the Internet.
Our Athonite Slavic nomocanon consists of two distinct parts. The first part (ff. 1-54) comprises a Slavic translation of the Instructions of Patriarch John VI Nesteutes about the Sacrament of the Confession and the soiled Slavic Nomocanon of the Great Euchologion (Nomokanon pri velikom trebnike). The second part (ff. 54-94) is a miscellany consisting of Slavic translations of various nomocanonical texts, most of which belong to the so-called erotapocritic type and were authored in the early 15th century by eminent Byzantine churchmen like the Archbishop of Thessalonica Symeon (+1429) and the Metropolitan Ioasaph of Ephesos (+1437). Consequently, the Greek prototype of our Athonite nomocanon was composed after 1437 and was translates into Slavic before the mid-16th century.
Table of contents
Introduction
Evolution of the Byzantine nomocanonical collections
Early printed editions of Byzantine canonical texts
Slavic translations of Byzantine nomocanons
Contents of the recently discovered Athonite Slavic nomocanons
Peculiarities of the Slavic translation
Specific Greek terms used in the Slavic translation
Gello - Giloudai
Vourkolakas
Thimeliceskaa penia or Thymelic song
Duh pitliv or Pneuma pythonos
Text of the Slavic nomocanons with its Greek sources
Illustrations
Index
