19. A New Greek Source concerning the Nikon Affair: Sixty-One Answers by Paisios Ligarides given to Tsar Aleksej Mixajlovič
Ihor Ševčenko (Boston)
Ζῆθι Τιθωνοῦ, Ἀργανθώνια κύκλα βίῴης,
Γεννάδιε, προμαχὼν Αὐσονίοισι φανείς.
P. L. with the assistance of I. S.
- Appendix I. Sixty-One Questions Asked by Tsar Aleksej
Mixajlovič of Paisios Ligarides, Metropolitan of Gaza, on November 26 [1662]
(Sinaiticus gr. 1915, fols. 29r-60r)
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- Appendix II. Ligarides’s Letter to Simeon Strešnev,
preceding his Answers To the Latter’s Thirty Questions
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- Appendix III. Interrogation of Metropolitan of Gaza Paisios
About the Quires Which He Composed Concerning Patriarch Nikon - Why Have
They Become Known to Him, <That Is,> Nikon?
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- Appendix IV. Paisios Ligarides’s Epigram on
Carevič Aleksej Alekseevič
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It is no secret to the student of the seventeenth century that it was, more than any other, the period of intense ecclesiastic and cultural contacts between the Greek (or, to be more exact, post-Byzantine Orthodox) and Muscovite elites, and that these contacts reached their peak at the time of the conflict that pitched the reforming Patriarch Nikon against the reforming Tsar Aleksej Mixajlovič in the sixties of the century. The Nikon affair elicited the opinions - sought by the Muscovite government for its own purposes - of four ecumenical patriarchs, and led to the presence in Moscow of two of them for the purpose of attending the Council that sat in judgment over Nikon [1].
The most colorful and enterprising Greek prelate involved in the Nikon affair, however, was the arch-manipulator who ended up being out-manipulated by the Tsar. I have in mind the brilliant and learned international adventurer Paisios Ligarides, metropolitan of Gaza [2]. By his own testimony - he left us a lengthy history of the anti-Nikon Council - he was the pivotal figure in the affair, and modern scholars do grant that he played an important role in it.
Paisios Ligarides, whose name in the world was Pantoleon, was born in 1610 in Chios in a probably Catholic Greek family; by the age of thirteen, he went to Rome where he received his education that included Latin and classical Greek, both of which he mastered to near perfection. In 1636 he earned his doctorate with distinction in the Collegium Athanasianum. Next year, while still in Rome, he wrote an epigram in Greek elegiac distichs; in it he referred to the Orthodox as ἀλιτροὶ σχισματολάτραι (wicked worshippers of the Schism) [3]. Things did change afterwards, however.
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Details matter little for our purpose; suffice it to say that Pantoleon moved back to the post-Byzantine East, including his native Chios, Constantinople, and the Romanian lands, where he soon passed for Orthodox. He also went to Jerusalem - incidentally, together with Arsenij Suxanov - after having ingratiated himself with the Patriarch of Jerusalem Paisios. In Palestine he became an Orthodox monk in 1651, taking the name of Paisios in honor of the Patriarch. A year later he was ordained metropolitan of Gaza - a see, needless to say, where he never exercised his functions. By 1655 we see him again in Moldovlachia, that safe - and profitable - haven for Greek prelates. While there, he was invited to Moscow by Patriarch Nikon who needed learned Greeks for his book reforms. This was in 1657. Ligarides, however, went to Moscow not in 1657, but five years later, in early 1662, and by invitation not of Nikon, but of the Tsar. His arrival thus coincided with the early-to-middle stages of the Nikon affair.
Until recently, we had been familiar with three literary documents reflecting Ligarides’s involvement in the Nikon affair. The most extensive, and the latest, of them was the already mentioned History of the anti-Nikon Council of 1666, over which Ligarides presided [4]. The Council dealt Nikon a mortal blow. Two other documents, dating from 1662 and 1663 respectively, and preserved both in Slavic and in Greek, belong to the time when that blow was being prepared, and when the Tsar’s side needed the erudition and the versatility of a Ligarides to advance its aims.
The first of these two documents are Ligarides’s answers, well known and widely discussed by modern scholars, to the thirty questions, largely connected with the Nikon affair, asked of him by the Tsars’ relative Boyar Simeon Lukjanovic Strešnev [5]. Strešnev and Nikon had a good reason for disliking each other, since Strešnev had taught his dog how to make the gesture of blessing with its two paws, and Nikon excommunicated the boyar for it.
The second of the two documents contains the twenty five questions that Tsar Aleksej Mixajlovič addressed to the four ecumenical patriarchs. They aimed at discrediting Nikon (who, however, was never mentioned by name in them). The idea was suggested by Ligarides, and the twenty five questions themselves were formulated by him [6].
It is into such a context that we should put the find that I am submitting to the reader now. It turns out that Ligarides composed answers to the sixty-one questions that the Tsar had posed to him - either in person or through the intermediary of the Boyar
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Petr Mixajlovič Saltykov - on a November 26. The text of both questions and answers has been preserved in Sinaiticus gr. 1915, a paper miscellany of the seventeenth century, some of its folia bearing a watermark in the form of an elaborate coat-of-arms with the words Dieu et mon droit below. The folia with questions and answers are by the hand of John Sakoulës, a prolific scribe active in Moscow in the sixties of the century. Since Sakoulēs arrived in Moscow in October of 1666 and left it in June 1669, the relevant part of the Sinaiticus, if it was copied in that city, must surely have been written between these date [7].
Folia 29v-60r of the Sinaiticus are entitled: "Various Problems [that is, queries] <raised by> Our Emperor Crowned by God, Lord, Lord Aleksej Mixajlovič, <and discussed in the course?> of One Day." The document is written essentially in modern Greek (called κοινὴ or κοινὴ Ῥωμαϊκὴ γλῶσσα in contemporary texts). My find could have been made and exploited long ago. As early as 1917, V. N. Beneševič stated, without indicating the folia of the Sinaiticus, that it contained, among other things, "Паисия Газского ответы на вопросы царя Алексея Михайловича" [8]; I myself briefly described and photographed the relevant part of the manuscript in 1963, and later gave the idea of its contents in an article of 1978 [9].
Strangely enough, nobody, as far as know, reacted to either Beneševič’s or my own information. At least, I found no sign of the awareness of the Sixty-One Questions and Answers in the ample literature devoted to the Nikon affair. The new Sinai document should attract the attention of the student of that affair for at least one reason: much of its material is unparalleled. Only two of the Sixty-One Questions and Answers overlap with the questions and answers contained in the Strešnev document (21 with 22 and 24 with 2 respectively), and only three (4, 6, and 14) show similarity with it (8, 10, and 1). As for the twenty-five questions authored by Ligarides and addressed to the four ecumenical patriarchs, only two of them (15 and 21) bear a resemblance to those contained in the Sinaiticus (59 and 6). I hope that this paper will provide a stimulus for a search for another Greek or Slavic copy (if the latter was ever made) of the Sixty-One Questions and Answers. Here the reader will be presented with a quick idea of the text itself.
It opens with Paisios’s letter to Petr Mixajlovič Saltykov, a boyar who, among other things, interrogated Paisios in early 1663, headed the Malorossijskij Prikaz in the sixties and attended the Council that was assembled against Nikon in 1666 [10].
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In the case of our document, Saltykov must have played a role analogous to that played by Strešnev; he, too, was the intermediary between the Tsar and Paisios. Here is the English translation of the letter:
To the most magnificent and illustrious Lord Peter Mixajlovič, joy in God and health according to the double Man [cf. Job 42:10?].
It is good to keep close the secret of a King [cf. Tobit 12:11], whenever the secret is hidden; hence, Harpocrates stood with his finger in his mouth, instructing us that the secret of the Emperor must not be broadcast or uttered freely, but rather, that it should be hidden and covered by silence. For this reason, that Protoasecretis is worthy of praise who, when reproached for having bad breath, most fittingly replied: "the secrets of the Emperor have rotted inside me, and this is the reason why that mouth smells bad." I, too, make a difference between secret and secret, that is, which one should be revealed and which one should be passed over in silence entirely. I keep secrets that should remain ensconced in the very depth of my heart; such secrets, however, which do harm to the many if they are passed over in silence and hidden, should not only be revealed, like unto precious stones, but they should be triumphantly displayed to whomsoever wishes to look upon them for the sake of his own profit and instruction, so that he may learn that the King’s soul, too, is in God’s hand [cf. Prov. 21:1], Who rules | | him with particular providence and directs him toward the spiritual profit for the whole world.
Now then, as for the questions which the most serene and wise Emperor of ours put to me in front of the highest Senate on the 26th of November, I am sending <the answers to> them, so that they may be translated into your language, and so that not so much my learning, as the astuteness and wisdom of the most divine Emperor may be made known. Farewell, yours in all respects, Paisios of Gaza [11].
The quotation from Tobit 12:11 that stands at the beginning of the letter to Saltykov shows that the matter of collecting evidence against Nikon at the highest level was a delicate one, and that it had to be kept under wraps. We shall return to this point later. What follows in the manuscript are the Sixty-One Questions and Answers, preceded by a short address to Tsar Aleksej Mixajlovič himself (whom Ligarides compared to the Platonic philosopher-king). The translation of all the questions is given in Appendix I below.
The erudition that Ligarides displayed in his Answers did not, we surmise, greatly intimidate the Muscovites. True, his references to the Greek-Egyptian god Harpocrates holding his finger to his mouth (fol. 29r),
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to the sixth-century westerner from Gaul, Gregory of Tours (fol. 52v), or to an inscription in Constantinople proclaiming that "the remembrance of death is useful in life (fol. 45r-45v)" [12], were wasted on them. But the Moscow bookmen and ecclesiastics of the second half of the seventeenth century were familiar with the bulk of the authorities adduced by Ligarides: they knew not only Gregory of Nazianzus and John Chrysostom, but also all those Nicetases of Serres, Theophylacts of Ochrid, Symeons of Thessalonica, Mathews Blastares or Theodores Balsamon; they were even familiar with the suspect Saint Ambrose (quoted on fols. 36r, 38v and 49v), with the Byzantine tenth-century encyclopaedia called Suda and, in some way, with Homer himself.
The edition and translation of Ligarides’s full text has been reserved for another occasion. Here, I shall select from the mass of our material three questions and answers, each representing one aspect of things that were of special interest to Muscovite authorities and that could, in these authorities’ opinion, be helpfully commented upon by Ligarides: the Nikon affair, the Old Believer controversy and the origins of local customs.
Question 59 shall serve as a sample of the authorities’ quest for incriminating evidence against Nikon who had abandoned his Moscow patriarchal see for his New Jerusalem monastery in 1658. It runs: "A bishop who resigned, does he still exercise rule over the see from which he resigned?" To this, Ligarides answered:
Resignation is a kind of relinquishing [13], or withdrawal from, that particular see. If one resigns from a throne, one resigns from it because one does not want to have any worry and any trouble on its account. In the same fashion, if someone abandons his wife, he abandons her not to have intercourse or contact with her. Therefore it seems incongruous for the one who has resigned to return to the see which he relinquished of his own will, because two contrary things follow: one, when he says: "I do not want you any longer, nor do I need you"; and the other thing <is>: <for the sake of> possessing the previous power over the see that he relinquished, <he says>: "I want to keep you and rule over you as I previously did." [14]
Question 47 reflects the preoccupation with the way one should cross oneself, that is, with the classical problem of the Old Believer controversy, raging at the time, as well as with Nikon’s precept that one should bow from the waist, rather that to the ground. The question runs: "How do you <people> make the sign of the cross?" Ligarides answers as follows:
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We join our first three larger fingers into a symbol of ţhe consubstanţial Trinity, and then we put them on our forehead, and then we put them down from there upon our belly, and then we put them on our right, and after that on our left, and, finally, we lower them toward the ground, indicating that God the Word Who was born without time from God | | and Father and became incarnate, was crucified, buried and descended into Hades all by Himself and freed the souls of our forefathers; and <that>, having risen after three days, <He> ascended to Heaven; and <that He> will come again to judge the quick and the dead, sinners and righteous - I explain all these things in detail, however, in a Sermon that I composed in honor of the great Nicholas the Wonderworker, the helper, the protector, and the city-guardian of this Muscovy [sic] [15].
Question and Answer 41 are of special interest, and that for two reasons: first, they combine elements of folklore with those of apocryphal tradition; second - and this is a rare opportunity - the authorship and in part the contents of Ligarides’s reply can be confirmed by a statement made by an independent contemporary witness. The question runs: "We [i. e., I, the Tsar] distribute red Easter eggs. Wherefrom do we have this tradition, and why do we color these eggs, and what does it mean?" To this Ligarides replied, providing an imperial context for the Tsar’s action:
There is a tradition that when the Jews yelled: "may his blood be on us and on our children [Mat. 27:25]," then pans (ταψιά), food and garments turned red in the houses of the Jews, as well as the eggs which they had prepared on account of Passover - all of them turned red. And so, when Mary Magdalen went to Old Rome to the Emperor in order to accuse Pilate that he had the Lord of Glory unjustly crucified, I I she took with her, and showed him, the eggs which suddenly had turned into a bloody color in Jerusalem, in order to prove and demonstrate Pilate’s unjust verdict. And so, looking at them and having marveled at them, Tiberius banished Pilate to Gaul, which today is called Frantza, and it is there that Pilate miserably bit the dust, as Kallistos [probably Nikephoros Kallistos Xanthopoulos] writes [16].
We turn now to the independent contemporary witness. Archdeacon Paul of Aleppo was present in Moscow, together with his father Patriarch Makarios III of Antioch, in the sixties of the seventeenth century. He also kept a journal of his stay there.
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Thus he described the Easter Service in the Kremlin, at the end of which Easter eggs were distributed; this was done by the Tsar in person, should he be present on that occasion. Paul of Aleppo appended a "Useful Note" to this description. In the note, he referred to the Muscovites’ custom to "puzzle and put to trial" learned foreigners that visited them and quoted in general terms the answer of a Greek prelate on the topic of red Easter eggs, an answer that silenced the Muscovites. The problem must have intrigued Paul, for he pursued it with Ligarides himself. We learn it from the continuation of Paul’s "Useful Note":
The philosopher Alligaridi, Metropolitan of Gaza, the learned man from Rome, when we asked him concerning this [that is, the topic of the red eggs at Easter], replied that it was because when Mary Magdalen went to Rome, and complained to Caesar against Pilate, her garments were dyed with the blood of the Messiah [17].
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Ligarides’s covering letter to Saltykov (cf. n. 11 above) contains, we remember, the following phrase at the end:
... as for <the questions> which the most serene and wise Emperor of ours put to me in front of the highest Senate on the 26th of November, I am sending <the answers to> them, so that they may be translated into your language ...
Two points in this phrase: the word "translated" and the date of 26 of November, deserve a commentary.
1. Since we possess only the Greek version of the Sixty-One Questions and Answers and know only of Ligarides’s wish that they be "translated into your language", we are reduced to guesses concerning languages that were used, and techniques that were adopted in the process of conveying the questions to Ligarides and of receiving his answers to them. We are helped, however, by the analogy of the thirty questions and answers of the Strešnev document. As we have both the Greek original and the Slavic translation of that document, we are in a position to check on the degree of comprehension of the Greek on the part of the Slavic translator. In the second place, in the covering letter that opens the Strešnev document we can read Ligarides s own instructions as to the desired procedure to be adopted in translating and his - pretty low - opinion on translators of his own time.
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Let us envisage the degree of comprehension on the part of the translator with the help of Ligarides’s covering letter to Strešnev whose English version is given in Appendix II below [18]. The Slavic translator, while grasping the general tenor of Ligarides’s Greek quite well, missed the finer points. Thus, when Ligarides asserted that Christ had taught him to proclaim the Truth "from housetops," καὶ ἐπὶ δωμάτων, and thus alluded to Mat. 10:27 and Luke 12:3, the Slavic translator rendered it adequately by "on (thatched) roofs" (in Russian - на стрехах) [19], but did not recognize the scriptural origin of the quotation; if he had, he would have used the standard Old Church Slavonic equivalent appearing in both scriptural phrases: "на кровех" (on roofs).
We should not be too hard on the translator for missing some niceties such as Ligarides’s allusion to a modern Greek proverb. Scolding translators in general, Ligarides complained that they, whenever they did not comprehend something, pretended not to be interested in it; and he concluded his thought in the following terms: "they make it into fruit and vegetables hanging from the ceiling" <to be kept for the winter>: τὰ κάμνουσι κρεμαστάρια. Ligarides alluded to the saying ὅσα δὲ φτάνει ἡ ἀλεπού, τὰ κάνει κρεμαστάρια (what the fox cannot get, it makes it into vegetables hanging from the ceiling), a modem Greek equivalent, expressed in politic verse, of the sour grapes metaphor. The Slavic translator rendered the Greek words merely ad sensum by "omit".
In one case at least, the Slavic translation of the letter to Strešnev appears to have purposely departed from the original. Bitterly regretting that he did not know the Russian dialect, Ligarides asked that his answers to Strešnev "be first translated into the Russian language and then into Latin as well," νὰ μετα φραστοῦν [sic] πρῶτον εἰς γλῶσσαν ῥουσικήν, ἔπειτα καὶ εἰς λατινικήν, so that he, too, might "understand the translation of your translators." The Slavic version runs: "that a translation be made into the Russian tongue or into the Latin one" (чтоб перевести на русский язык или на латинский). The change may be explained, if we assume that, in disregard of Ligarides’s request, the translation was made first from the Greek into Latin, and only then from the Latin into Russian. One word is enough to suggest this sequence: in Slavic, Ligarides’s signature appears as Ликаридиусъ, betraying its immediate Latin model.
It is just possible that the translation procedure was similar in the case of our Sinai document - from Slavic to Latin, and at some stage, to Greek in the case of the questions, and from Greek to Latin
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(or the other way around) and then to Slavic in the case of the answers - if the latter were ever translated into Slavic. If the preceding statements lack precision, this is because our information on the exact sequence of translations is contradictory. We shall presently see that the original language of Ligarides’s Answers in the Sinaiticus may have been Latin (cf. Appendix III below). If this was the case, our Greek text in Sakoulēs’s hand may represent a revised version [20].
2. Ligarides received his questions on a November 26. But of which year? The terminus post quem, of course, is his arrival in Moscow in 1662. When we put side by side the three documents in the creation of which Ligarides was involved, namely, the Thirty Questions of Strešnev, dated to August 15, 1662; the Twenty-Five Questions to the Oriental Patriarchs, sent out surely after Lent of 1663 and prior to February of 1664 [21] ; and the Sixty-One Questions of our Sinaiticus - we should, I submit, place the latter in-between the other two, and assign the Sixty-One Questions to soon after November 26, 1662.
We cannot be sure that when Aleksej Mixajlovič handed over his sixty-one questions "in front (ἔμπροσθεν) of the most high Senate," he did it in person rather than through a boyar, such as Petr Mixajlovič Saltykov. We can quote a parallel to such a personal involvement, however. Paisios himself informs us in his History of the Synod of 1666 that at Lent of 1663 he appeared in the Palace before the Boyar Council to discuss how the Church of Moscow could be freed from her widowhood, that is, how to get rid of Nikon. The session was subsequently joined by Tsar Aleksej Mixajlovič who heard Paisios’s proposal to have the twenty-five questions sent out to the Oriental Patriarchs [22]. Paisios’s appearance before the Tsar and the Boyar Council on a November 26 would be, then, a 1662 préfiguration of what happened at Lent of 1663.
Our Sinai find helps make sense of a curious document, published as long ago as 1884, but hanging in the air until now. The document in question is a Report on the interrogation of Metropolitan of Gaza Paisios by two imperial officials, one of whom was our acquaintance Petr Mixajlovič Saltykov. The interrogation was held in patriarchal chambers on 9 March 1663, and dealt with quires (тетради) which Paisios had composed concerning Patriarch Nikon (the translation of the Report is given in Appendix III below). Nikon, we read in the Report, had somehow gotten wind of the existence of those quires and knew that they
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consisted of answers, submitted in writing, to questions that the Tsar asked of Ligarides in the presence of the Boyar Council. Ligarides admitted to having written the quires by his own hand, but swore that he had revealed their contents to no one; as for his entourage, they, too, could not have betrayed the quires’ secret, because no one of them knew Latin (an important point concerning the original language of Ligarides’s answers).
In his History, Ligarides tells us what we have known: that Strešnev’s Thirty Questions fell into Nikon’s hands. The Report, however, makes clear that the confidential piece about whose contents connection with the Tsar, circumstances of production, and delivery Patriarch Nikon learned before March 1663, and of which he possessed (or pretended to possess) some excerpts, was something else, namely our Sixty-One Questions and Answers. In turn, the Report, written in early 1663, confirms our dating of the Sixty-One Questions and Answers to soon after November 26, 1662.
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In the last century Vladimir Solov’ev observed that the Greeks who had come to Moscow to judge Nikon condemned him for his un-Byzantine ways - that is, for resisting the Tsar - but exculpated him on items where he behaved like a Byzantine - that is, for following Greek customs. The Sinai manuscript bears out Solov’ev’s observation. To all the Tsar’s questions obliquely attacking Nikon, Paisios gave answers satisfactory to the Tsar. To all those touching on ritual and presenting a choice between the traditional Muscovite and the Greek interpretations, he gave answers that favored the latter. Could an emperor convoke a local synod (Question 4)? By all means. If a prelate speaks offensively against the emperor, what punishment is fitting for him (Question 27)? If out of stupidity, then compassion. If otherwise, then his tongue should be cut out. If a bishop abdicates, does he retain power over his see (Question 59 and 60)? He does not. On the other hand, should the passage of the Creed read, "To whose Kingdom there is no end," rather than "shall be no end" (Question 3)? No - this is redolent of Origen’s heresy. Should Alleluia be sung two or three times (Question 43)? Three. How do you make the sign of the cross (Question 47)? With three fingers. And, finally, in what letters were the words written that the first Christian emperor Constantine saw in Heaven before his victory - Latin or Greek (Question 53)? In Greek letters, according to the view of Emperor Leo the Wise, was Paisios’s reply [23].
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The Sinai manuscript closes with the following statement, entitled "The Tsar" (the statement is thus attributed to Aleksej Mixajlovič himself):
The Tsar:
May God order your steps aright [cf. Ps. 36(37):23; 39(40):3; 118(119): 133; Prov. 20:24]. God surely brought you into these regions. You reassured us (μᾶς ἐπληροφόρησες), you enlightened us (μᾶς ἐφώτισες), and may the Lord repay you for your labor in this world and in the world to come. Go in peace [Luke 7:50], and pray for us, and give us your holy prayer, and make the sign of the cross over us with your holy right hand, O Most Reverend <prelate> [24].
We wonder whether these words, extolling Ligarides and containing a quotation from the Psalter in its Greek form, were in fact pronounced by the Tsar himself. Perhaps their gist was conveyed by an interpreter - but on which occasion? I rather suspect that the author of the Tsar’s words was Ligarides himself. If so, then in his own eyes he was a Godsend to the Muscovites, was their illuminator, and deserved close contacts with the Tsar’s family [25].
The Muscovite Tsar did not continue lavishing his admiration upon his illuminator to the very end. Perhaps Ligarides should have followed his own advice of late 1662 and have "gone in peace" then. Thus he might have spared the Muscovite Church some considerable trouble, and himself, the humiliating last years of his stay in Muscovy, years that ended in his death and burial in Kiev in 1678.
Sixty-One Questions Asked by Tsar Aleksej Mixajlovič of Paisios Ligarides, Metropolitan of Gaza, on November 26 [1662] (Sinaiticus gr. 1915, fols. 29r-60r)
1. Many people importune us daily concerning the books which have been reprinted recently, and say that they are not translated well; how should we inform them?
2. In some books, the Holy Symbol, that is, the Credo, appears explained and printed in various manners;
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for sometimes they say: "and in the Spirit Holy and true (καὶ εἰς ὸό πνεῦμα τὸ ἄγιον τὸ ἀληθινόν)", and sometimes: "in the Spirit Holy and lordly (εἰς τὸ πνεῦμα τὸ ἄγιον τὸ κύριον)". Many are scandalized by this discrepancy.
3. In the same Symbol there is also the following: "after (μετά) the Scriptures .... to whose rule there is no end." Tell us whether this difference is in any way harmful or not.
4. Many nudge us or rather exhort us to convoke a local synod. What is your opinion on this?
5. How many bishops sit in judgment over one bishop?
6. Is a bishop able to judge a bishop who ordained him? Because it seems the same as if a son would judge his father.
7. A bishop who does not have a see or a relevant written document, can he sit in judgment?
8. Is a bishop who had been condemned by one synod entitled to be judged again by another synod and be absolved by it, or is the matter of his accusation not subject to revision (δὲν μετακοι τάζεται) any more?
9. A priest who has no wife (παπαδιάν) listens to confession without a <written> order from the bishop; are his absolution and blessing acceptable or not?
10. It is the custom among our priests not to celebrate liturgy once (ἀφόντις) their wives are dead. Are they right in doing so?
11. Is it fitting that a simple priest should consecrate a church?
12. With us there are many churches made out of wood; what should we do with the timber when it has rotten and gotten altogether old?
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13. What should be the age of a spiritual father, a priest, and a bishop respectively, when they are about to accept this grace?
14. A prelate who was bishop twice, can he become patriarch canonically?
15. Can many priests and deacons be ordained together?
16. But if somebody happens to be advanced and very experienced in ecclesiastical matters, cannot he still be ordained and rather speedily?
17. Some churchmen of priestly status are wearing various wear, of variegated colors, and yet <Prophet> Zephaniah puts fear into them saying: "I shall take vengeance upon all that wear strange apparel [cf. Zeph. 1:8].".
18. Can a cantor (ψάλτης) marry again, or should he remain a widower?
19. A dignitary we have in mind has a wife who has been possessed by an evil spirit for some 6 years now; can he marry again without incurring blame, and does the law permit him to take another wife if he so desires?
20. What is the difference between excommunication, curse, and anathema?
21. Several bishops here excommunicate us, and curse us unjustly, and unreasonably; does God listen to them or not?
22. A person who had been justly excommunicated by many bishops, is he absolved if those who had excommunicated him are not found together <in the same place>, or, in other words, is he able to receive the absolution from others, one after another, who were not present at the ex- communication and had not concurred in it?
23. If, however, the excommunicated person should ask absolution from his bishop, and the latter should not be willing to absolve him, what should happen then? Where can he turn, and <whom> should he implore?
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24. Are we instructed not to grant confession and communion to the condemned <criminals> (even though this was happening secretly before our time, in prison) before the final verdict is pronounced?
25. But if we should give the Immaculate Mysteries to murderers and thieves, are we not throwing pearls before swine, or killing holy men who had been sanctified by repentance and by partaking of the Immaculate Body and the Revered Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ?
26. Finally, can the condemned, when they are proclaimed as such, and partake <of the Holy Mysteries>, be killed and are we not becoming murderers ourselves or tyrants by torturing them and punishing them by additional punishments?
27. But if a member of the clergy should make unseemly utterances against the Emperor, what kind of punishment should be meted out to him under law?
28. A Christian who renounces his faith, how should he be punished?
29. Our predecessors had the custom of offering seven prosphorae in the liturgy. Why did they do it?
30. Should the priest take out parts of all seven of them, or out of some of them only?
31. Is this an old custom, or a new arrangement concerning these parcels?
32. Does the mention of the Emperors come at the time of the Prothesis or at the time of the Proskomide and the time of the Great Entrance?
33. Even in the arrangement of the parts, our own people have differences. Some of them put the parts of the Panaghia to the left, and the nine hosts to the right, and some put it vice-versa.
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34. Are those right who want to read [perhaps ‘consider’] that David foretold the sacrifice of the Cross <by> "then should they offer a calf upon thine altar [cf. Ps. 50(51): 19]," that is, Christ, and not "calves”, because Christ was one fatted calf?
35. And when the Emperor offered the gifts did he enter the Holy Sanctuary (βῆμα), or did he always stands outside the sanctuary?
36. Does a layman communicate three times or once only?
37. When do you say the Polychronia of the Emperor during the Great Hours?
38. Was Christ baptized by John the Precursor at night or during the day?
39. Is the great blessing (αγιασμό?) <of water> done twice or only once?
40. With how many nails was Christ crucified, and what has become of those nails?
41. We distribute red Easter eggs. Wherefrom do we have this tradition, and why do we color these eggs, and what does it mean?
42. Do you have the custom of blessing the Easter feast (πασχαλιά, sic acc.) in the church, that is, meats, eggs and other food?
43. The word Alleluiah, is it joyful or mournful, because we say it frequently in commemorations of the dead, and during the whole Quadragesima. Moreover, some say it twice, and some say it three times.
44. What is the meaning of the double candle and the triple candle with which the bishop blesses when he performs the Divine Service?
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45. Does a bishop bless with two hands or with one?
46. How does he shape his fingers when he blesses the people?
47. How do you <people> make the sign of the cross?
48. What is the meaning of the sloping wood of the cross, the nether one?
49. The shape of the cross was vile, then?
50. Is then the cross not composed of four parts, but only of ‘ three?
51. Perhaps the wood of the Holy Cross was made of three substances?
52. Why was the inscription on the cross written in three languages - Hellenic, Hebraic and Roman?
53. The sign that appeared in heaven to Constantine the Great, what kind of letters was it composed of - Hellenic or Roman?
54. Can a layman and a midwife administer baptism in time of need?
55. Are the three immersions necessary during the baptism or not?
56. Should we practice indulgence toward those who are not baptized in the same fashion <i. e. by triple immersion>?
57. What is the meaning of "Amen"?
58. Is it necessary for the accused person to be present when his verdict is pronounced?
59. A bishop who resigned, does he still exercise rule over the see from which he resigned?
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60. Then he cannot be said at all to be bishop of such a see and such a bishopric?
61. Is it possible for a metropolitan without his clerics, or for a patriarch without his bishops, to make decisions and sit in judgment?
Ligarides’s Letter to Simeon Strešnev,
preceding his Answers
To the Latter’s Thirty Questions [26]
To the most illustrious among the Boyars, most magnificent and most honorable Sir Symeon Lukjanovic, greetings.
Lo, covered with sweat, as I am sending the Chapters of questions and answers to Your most high illustriousness, I call upon Truth that oversees all that I did not want to undertake these answers on account of people’s envious talk; for I knew that I would become an open enemy of the patriarch. Still, since I have been taught by my arch-teacher and dweller of Jerusalem, Christ, to proclaim the truth "from house-tops" [Mt. 10:27; Luc. 12:3] and from the chancels, I have decided to offer a brief answer since the problems [i. e., questions] themselves were delicate [κομψά: perhaps read ἀκομψα or κοντά?] and brief. I bitterly regret that I do not know your Russian dialect, so as to be able to explain <things> according to my wish. For translators, whenever they do not comprehend <something>, pretend not to be interested in it (literally, ‘make it into vegetables hanging from the ceiling, to be kept for the winter’: τὰ κάμνουσι κρεμστάρια); or they translate it according to their own opinion and will, concealing their innermost ignorance. I request therefore that care be taken that <my answers> be first translated into the Russian language and then into Latin as well, so that I, too, may see and understand the translation of your translators, how they carry out their job [ἐξορθώνουν]. Because the powerful and great Emperor needs to have such people who would transpose the meaning of foreign dialects correctly and precisely, so that <he be able> to make reliable decisions concerning things said and written.
So much for the nonce. May Lord God <give> your illustriousness long life for many and prosperous years;
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may your salutary and good requests be satisfied. May you live in health, О the best of men and most noble among Boyars. From the birth of the Lord 1662, August 15. Of your most illustrious and most magnificent Self, yours in all and through all, Ligarides.
Interrogation of Metropolitan of Gaza Paisios About the Quires Which He Composed Concerning Patriarch Nikon - Why Have They Become Known to Him, <That Is,> Nikon? [27]
Year 171 [= 7171, i. e., 1663], 9th day of March. By decree of the Great Sovereign Tsar and Grand Prince Aleksej Mixajlovič, Autocrat of all the Great and Little and White Rosia, Boyar Petr Mixajlovič Saltykov and courtier member of the Council Prokofej Kuzmič Elizarov interrogated Metropolitan of Gaza Paisios in the Cross-Vaulted Patriarchal <Chambers>: The quires that he, the metropolitan, submitted concerning his Holiness, Patriarch Nikon, <arranged> by question and answer - their script is by whose hand?
And Metropolitan Paisios said that he, the metropolitan, put these quires together and wrote <them> by his own hand.
And the metropolitan was interrogated: When he was putting together and writing these quires, did anyone see these quires in his possession at that time? Did anyone read them? Did he tell anyone about these quires by word of mouth?
And the metropolitan said: When, he said, he had put together these quires and was writing them, and had submitted them, at that time no one saw these quires in his possession or read them; and he had not told anyone about what was written in these quires until this very day; and he, he said, did not make a fair copy of these quires because he was ordered to write these quires without delay; and those people, he said, who are dwelling in his cell - not a single one among them knows Latin.
The metropolitan was interrogated to the effect that - Okol’ničij Osip Ivanovič Sukin was sent by decree of the Great Sovereign to Patriarch Nikon on account of some matters, and at the time when Okol’ničij Osip Ivanovič was, he said, with the patriarch, and the patriarch, he said, told him: "In his own Tsar’s Chambers and in the presence of his Chamber Boyars the Great Sovereign spoke about me and deigned to ask questions of the metropolitan of Gaza;
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and what kind of questions the Sovereign asked of the metropolitan and <the fact that> the metropolitan gave answers to the Great Sovereign and submitted them in writing in quires - all that," he said, "I have in written form" and, <Sukin> said, <Nikon> showed him writings that he was holding in his hand.
And the metropolitan said: "Whether," he said, "someone related to the patriarch the questions and answers by word of mouth - I wonder about that; and," he said, "as for the quires which I put together and wrote, there was no place where he <the patriarch> could have seen them, because I did not copy these quires and until now these quires have not been translated; and may," he said, "the Great Sovereign deign to send <someone> to interrogate the patriarch in this matter; and," he said, "should the Patriarch send in writing even a single question and answer matching these quires, <then>," he said, "you, the Sovereign, do command that my head be cut off; I did not," he said, "tell anybody by word of mouth about what is written in these quires; unless God, or an angel, or the Devil told that person about that."
+ Ego Paisius Gazensis
metropolita subscripsi
manu propria
Paisios Ligarides’s Epigram on Carevič Aleksej Alekseevič
The hitherto unpublished Epigram by Paisios Ligarides is remarkable on several counts. It points to the author’s contacts with the Tsar’s family; it is close in date to Ligarides’s Sixty-One Answers; it is the second witness attesting to the production of elegiac distichs in Moscow - true, by a foreigner - in the third quarter of the 17th century [28]; and it contains a seeming ideological first - a Greek prophecy of world rule for the monarchs of Moscow.
Ostensibly, the epigram is addressed to Tsar Aleksej Mixajloviè’s son, Aleksej, but the author must have wished to draw the father’s attention to himself as well, perhaps to obtain the position of preceptor (in Greek?) to the carevič. It is as well that he did not succeed; true, the epigram contains a number of epic forms, but Ligarides commits one serious blooper in it that puts in doubt his control over classical Greek grammar.
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He is better in terms of mythological and historical erudition, even if it is not clear whether his sources were Greek or Latin. As was the case with some allusions in the Sixty-One Questions and Answers, the erudition displayed in the epigram was probably too arcane to have been grasped, let alone appreciated, by the epigram’s recipients.
Our poem must have been composed between 1662, the date of Ligarides’s arrival in Moscow, and 1670, the date of Aleksej Alekseevifi’s death at the age of sixteen. The appellation κοϋρε (lad), suggests that the addressee was a teenager; and the wishes of longevity (contained in lines six and seven) directed at a young boy are compatible with the idea that Aleksej was ill when the epigram was being written. Alternatively, the piece may have been composed in 1667, when Aleksej was declared heir apparent at the age of thirteen. On both counts, the epigram’s date seems to be closer to 1670 than to 1662.
The Greek text was provided with an interlinear Latin translation. It is most likely that the translation goes back to Ligarides himself, since it is in parts smoother and more explicit than its Greek original. The presence of the translation suggests once more that Latin was a preferred vehicle of communication between Ligarides and the Muscovite milieu; and that by the time of the epigram’s composition the young Aleksej Alekseevič may have been more familiar with that language than with Greek. It remains that in 1667 Aleksej delivered a speech in Latin before the Polish ambassadors. Our epigram is a priori a good candidate for a specimen of Ligarides hand. This is especially likely for its Latin part. As for the Greek lines of the epigram, the question remains moot; in any case, a comparison of these lines with the Parisinus Suppl. gr. 286, fols. 454v-477r, surely written by Ligarides, shows that they are by a scribe different from the one who wrote the folia of the Parisinus [29]. The sheet (dimensions: 20x29.5 cm) on which the epigram was written is now kept in RGADA [30] and was on exhibit in the Rublev Museum (Andronikov Monastery) during the international Conference "Crete, Eastern Mediterranean and Russia in the 17th Century," held in Moscow on October 3-7, 1995, where I saw and copied it [31].
Ad filium Imperatoris, Dominu(m), Dominum,
1 Εἰς τὸν βασιλόπαιδα, κύριον, κύριον,
Alexium Alexiovitium
Ἀλέξιον ἀλεξιοβίτξην:
Epigramma
3 Επίγραμμα·
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Ave Alexi Alexii maxime fili
Χαῖρε ἀλεξιάδαο Ἀλέξιε πάμμεγα κοῦρε
quippe qui nutriris aurea, maiorique spe.
θρεπτόμενε χρυσαῖς ἐλπίσι χρηστοτέραις·
vive saecula Tithonii, et, Arganthonios annos transilias,
6 Ζήθι Τιθωνοῦ, Ἀργανθώνια Κύκλα βιῴης,
Nestoris superans mensuratas Olympiadas.
Νέστορος ἐκμετρῶν μέτρα, ὀλυμπιάδας·
ut nempe adimpleas desideria peroptimi Parentis,
Ὄφρα κεν ἐκπληροῖς καταθύμια πατρὸς ἀρίστου,
et consilia perficias matura, et nutus eximios.
9 Καί βουλὰς τελέσῃς, νεύματα, καὶ πραπίδας.
futura praevideo, atque velut propheta pronuncio
Ἐσσόμενα προβλέπω, καὶ οἷα πρόφημι προφήτης,
Ambo vos reges, pater, ac filius, terra(m) dividetis universa(m).
Ἀμφότεροι βασιλεῖς γῆν διχάσουσιν ὄλην:
canebat Ligaridius
12 ἐμουσούργει, ὁ σὸς λιγαρείδης.
Epigram
On the Tsar’s son, Lord, Lord Alexios, son of Alexios.
Hail, Alexios son of Alexios, outstanding lad,
Being nourished [or: raised] in golden and most auspicious hopes;
Mayest Thou live the years of Tithonos and last those of Arganthonios,
Measuring out the measures of Nestor, cnamely, by?> the Olympiads,
Until Thou fulfillest the wishes of < Thy> excellent father
And bringest to fruition his counsels, commands, and thoughts.
I foresee the future and predict <it> as <if I were> a prophet:
The two Tsars shall divide the whole earth in two <between themselves>.
The poem was wrought by Thy Ligareides.
2. Ἀλέξιον ἀλεξιοβίτξην: 1654-1670, son of Aleksej Mixajlovič and Maria Miloslavskaja. He was declared heir apparent in 1667 and our epigram may be connected with that event. His death was a pretext for Stepan Razin’s uprising.
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4. ἀλεξιάδαο, κοῦρε: epic forms; cf. also below 8 ὄφρα κεν and 10 ἐσσόμενα.
5. θρεπτόμενε (nourished, raised): a vox nullius, since a θρέπτομαι does not exist. The form was created by Ligarides after the attested θρεψάμενος, past passive participle of τρέφω (the pattern being, e. g., κλεψάμενος : κλεπτόμένος = θρεψάμενος : *θρεπτόμενος), and by analogy of such words as θρέπτος, θρεπτικός. The meaning of "nourished" is assured by the Latin supralinear translation nutriris.
6. Τιθωνοῦ: in many sources, starting with Homer, Tithonos appears as the husband of Eos (Aurora) for whom his wife obtained immortality from Zeus; she forgot, however, to ask for eternal youth for Tithonos who in time lost his spouse’s favors, shriveled up and in later versions of the saga was transformed into a cicada. Cf., e. g., G. Wissowa - W. Kroll - К. Mittelhaus, edd., Paulys Real-Encyclopädie .... Zweite Reihe, Sechster Band (1937), 1512-1519. In spite of Tithonos’s unfortunate transformation, his name became proverbial for longevity, cf. Leutsch-Schneidewin, Corpus Paroemiographorum Graecorum, I (1839), 312 (= Diogen. VIII:37): Τιθωνοῦ γῆρας: ἐπὶ τῶν πολυχρονίων. Tithonos appeared in an imperial context in two tenth-century texts whose authors wished long life for Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus, cf. my: "Перечитывая Константина Багрянородного", Vizantijskij Vremennik, 54 (1993), 30-31 and n. 52. Ligarides must have obtained his information either from a dictionary, such as Suda s.v. Τιθωνοῦ γῆρας, or the Etymologicum Magnum, s.v. Τιθωνός; an alternative source would have been various collections of proverbs, s.v. Τιθωνοῦ γῆρας.
6. Ἀργανθώνια κύκλα: Arganthonios was the seventh-sixth century В. C. king of Tartessus in Southern Spain, reputed to have lived for hundred and twenty (so Herodotus, 1:163) or hundred and fifty years (so Anacreon, fragm. 4 [8] ed. Gentili, from Strabo, III: 151 [no mention of Arganthonios’s name] and Lucian in Macrobii, 10). Arganthonios, too, became proverbial for longevity (so in Themistios, Or. II, 38 a: μακροβιώτερος Ἀργανθωνίου). Cf. G. Wissowa, ed., Paulys Real-Encyclopa/die .... Dritter Halfband (1895), 686 and ibid., Zweite Reihe, Achter Band (1932), s.v. Tartessos, esp. col. 2448.
7. Νέστορος .... ὀλυμπιάδας: Ligarides repeats himself in this line: in a pentameter of 1640, when he was still in Rome and his name was Pantoleon, he wished that another ruler, Pope Urban VIII, would be δηρὸν ὑπερβαίνων Νέστορ’ ὀλυμπιάσιν. Cf. Legrand, Bibliographie (as in n. 3 of the article above), nr. 289, p. 407. Nestor is another name standing proverbially for "old man". - Tithonos, Arganthonios and Nestor were used as examples of longevity by Latin authors as well, and Ligarides may have been familiar with them since the days of his studies in Rome.
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Cf. Cicero, De senectute, XIX:69: Arganthonius quidam .... qui .... annos .... centum uiginti vixerit (cf. also the commentary in the ed. by J. G. F. Powell [1988] ad locum); Propertius, 2:25:9-10: ... me ab amore tuo deducet nulla senectus, sive ego Tithonus sive ego Nestor ero; Valerius Maximus, Fact. et diet. memor., Book VIII: 13. ext. 4 (Arganthonius lived for hundred twenty or hundred thirty years).
8. ὄφρα κεν: the same words stand at the beginning of line 3 in Ligarides’s epigram (dating from about 1670?) on Patriarch Photios, cf. Paris. Suppl. gr. 286, fol. 454v.
9. πραίδας·: cf. πραπίδεσσι in line 1 of Ligarides’s epigram on Photios.
10-11: In the last two lines of the epigram Ligarides foresees the rule over the whole world for the two Aleksejs. Unless I am mistaken, this prophecy of the years 1662-1670 was a first in the game of Greek flattery and political advocacy in Moscow. Other addresses, earlier and later in date, that Greek prelates directed to the Tsars, envisaged a more modeet expansion by Moscow: while bemoaning the plight of Greek populations under the Ottoman yoke, they merely appealed to the Tsar to set free the Greeks (including those of Crete), or the Christians, subjugated by the Turk, and to occupy the throne of Constantine the Great.
12. ἐμουσούργει: a rare and "dictionary" verb (a total of 13 occurrences in the database of the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae); cf. Pollux, Onomasticon IV:57 = I, 218 ed. Bethe; Suda, s.v. μουσουργῶ = 1302 = III, 415 ed. Adler. The verb occurs mostly in patristic and Byzantine texts: Gregory of Nazianzus, Gregory of Nyssa, John Chrysostom, Theophylact Simocatta, Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus (9 such occurrences out of the total of 13 in the database of the TGL).
NOTES
1. For access to the large bibliography on the Nikon affair, cf. now the entry “Никон" // Словарь кинжников и книжности Древней Руси. Вып. 3 (XVII в.). Часть 2. СПб., 1993, с. 400-404.
2. For a recent introduction to the vast literature on Paisios Ligarides, cf. Фонкич Б. Л. Греческое книгописание в России в XVII в. // Книжные центры Древней Руси. XVII век, разные аспекты исследования. М., 1994, с. 34, п. 55; to which should be added: Mango C. A. The Homilies of Photius, Patriarch of Constantinople. Cambridge, Massachusettes, 1958, p. 12-17, 28 (masterly); and the book by Hionides Η. T. Paisios Ligarides. New York, 1973, bibliography on p. 159-161.
3. Epigram on the death of Peter Arcudius, in: Legrand E. Bibliographie hellénique... des ouvrages publiés... au XVIIe siècle... Paris, 1894—1896, nr. 254, p. 346; text also in Ch. A Papadopoulos, see: Néa Σιών, 3, 6 (June, 1906), s. 594.
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4. For Ligarides’s History, cf. the translation by Palmer W. The Patriarch and the Tsar. T. III. London, 1873; on the codex unicus of the History, cf., in addition to Palmer, e. g., Фонкич Б. Л. Греческое книгописание..., с. 44.
5. The Greek text of Strešnev’s questions has been preserved in two or three manuscripts. For two of them (one last seen in the State Archive of St.-Petersburg at the beginning of this century; another still extant in Bucharest), cf. Фонкич Б. Л. Греческое книгописание..., с. 34, n. 58; То these should be added the third: Jerusalem, Greek Patriarchate 204, cf. Papadopoulos-Kerameus A. Ἱεροσολυμιτικὴ Βιβλιοθήκη, T. I. St.-Petersburg, 1891, s. 283-285, who reproduces the text of Ligarides’s covering letter from it; For the Slavic translation I used: Гиббенет H. Историческое исследование дела патриарха Никона. T. II. СПб., 1884, с. 518-550, esp. с. 518-519.
6. On the Twenty-Five Questions, cf. Paisios’s History, Palmer, The Patriarch (as in n. 4 above), 74—75; for the English translation of these questions, cf. ibidem, pp. 317-349.
7. In subsequent notes, Sinaiticus gr. 1915 will be referred to as S. - I am indebted to Dr. B. L. Fonkič for identifying the Sinaiticus’s hand with that of John Sakoulēs. On John Sakoulēs, cf. the three items by B. L. Fonkič: a) "Иоанн Сакулис, страничка из истории участия греков в деле патриарха Никона" in Festschrift für Fairy von Lilienfeld (Erlangen, 1982), 165-181; b) "Греческое книгописание..." (as in n. 2 above), 42-43; c) The International Conference "Crete, Eastern Mediterranean and Russia in the 17th c.," Greek Documents and Manuscripts .... from Moscow Depositories (Moscow, 1995), 66, 71, and figure on p. 70, being a specimen of Sakoulēs’s hand. Cf. also Olga Alexandropoulou, Ο Διονύσιος Ιβηρίτης και το έργο του .... (Herakleion, 1994), 125, 292, 336. - Sakoulēs’s copy is not without errors, cf. fol. 38v, last line, ἐνδελυμένους for the needed ἐνδεδυμένοθς; fol. 42v, last line, φωτίζουν for the needed φωτίζουνται.
8. V. Beneševič, Catalogus codicum manuscriptorum graecorum qui in monasterio Sanctae Caterinae in Monte Sina asservantur, III, 1 (St.-Petersburg, 1917), 269.
9. My notes, hastily jotted down on October 3, 1963, record the size of the written page of the paper manuscript (in the part containing Ligarides’s text) as being 154x115 mm, and the whole manuscript as measuring 192x151 mm; the watermark with Dieu et mon droit is on flyleaf VIII, and may not be organically related to fols. 29v-60r. - According to the kind information of J. S. G. Simmons (Oxford University) it is safe to say on the basis of the watermark evidence that the part of the manuscript with the Dieu et mon droit paper was not produced before 1685 and is likely to have been produced in the last decade of the seventeenth century. - For a brief reference to the contents of our text, cf. my "Byzantium and the Eastern Slavs after 1453," Harvard Ukrainian Studies, 2 (1978), 15, reprinted as item X in my Ideology, Letters and Culture in the Byzantine World (Variorum, London, 1982). In that article, I wrongly stated that the Sinaiticus was ‘perhaps the autograph of Paisios.’
10. On Saltykov’s career, cf, e.g., Palmer, The Patriarch (as in n. 4 above), 169, 522, 535-536.
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11. S, fols. 29r-29v:
??
12. Μνήμη θανάτου χρησιμεύει τῷ βίῳ. The inscription, forming a regular Byzantine dodecasyllable, was reported by sixteenth-century visitors to Constantinople as having existed on the Unkapan Gate of the Golden Horn, cf. A. Van Millingen, Byzantine Constantinople: the Walls of the City .... (London, 1899), 215. - Ligarides said (fol. 45v) that these words "appear written in the frightful place of condemnations, somewhere in famous Byzantium." Thus he placed the inscription at the other shore of the Golden Horn.
13. For "relinguishing" Ligarides uses ἀπάριασις [sic accent?]. The term may be a λέξις ἀθησαύριστος, for it is absent from E. Kriaras’s Λεξικό who, however, registers the verb ἀπαριάζω, "to abandon." Ligarides himself uses that verb in the present answer and in his address to the Tsar on fol. 29v.
14. S, fols. 58v-59v:
??
15. S, fols. 55r-55v:
??
262
??
- Ligarides’s Sermon on St. Nicholas seems not to have been preserved; at least, it is not quoted among his known works.
16. S, fols. 53r-53v:
??
- On ambiguous attitudes towards Easter eggs in seventeenth-century Muscovy, cf. Успенский Б. А. Филологические разыскания в области славянских древностей... (Moscow, 1982), с. 156-158.
17. Cf. F. С. Belfour, transl., The Travels of Macarius, Patriarch of Antioch: Wtitten by his Attendant Archdeacon, Paul of Aleppo, in Arabic, II (London, 1836), 106-107 = Part VI, Book XI, Section 1.
18. According to Ligarides (Palmer, The Patriarch [as in n. 4 above], 74), the translator of the Thirty Questions (and therefore of the covering letter as well) into Slavic was working for the Tsar; his name was Stephen.
19. Гиббенет H. Исторические исследования (as in n. 5 above), 519 has na strehax ‘in encounters,’ that makes some sense. The emendation to strexax is indispensable in view of ἐπὶ ... δωμάτων of the scriptural model.
20. Such a hypothesis would explain some parts of the Sixty-One Answers that could imply a state of affairs later than 1662. - If the original language of Sixty-One Aswers was Latin, this would settle the question of what text was the subject of Ligarides’s interrogation on March 9, 1663 (see below); surely not the Thirty Questions by Strešnev, for the answers to them had been written in Greek.
21. Combine Palmer, The Patriarch (as in n. 4 above), 74 with ibid., p. 349.
22. Cf. Palmer, The Patriarch (as in n. 4 above), 74-75.
23. These sentences reproduce the passages in my "Byzantium and Eastern Slavs" (see n. 9 above), 15.
24. S, fol. 60r:
??
25. Cf. Ligarides’s Epigram on Aleksej Alekseevič in Appendix IV below.
26. For the Greek text from Jerusalem, Greek Patriarchate 204, cf. A. Papadopoulos-Kerameus, Ἱεροσολυμιτικὴ Βιβλιοθήκη, I (1891), p. 284-85.
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27. Original in Гиббенет H. Историческое исследование дела Патриарха Никона, II. 1884, с. 596-597.
28. In my: У истоков русского византиноведения: переводы стихотворений Мануила Фила И Славяноведение, 5. 1995, с. 1-17, esp. с. 16-17, while looking for local parallels to the Greek epitaph for Jepifanij Slavyneckyj, written in Moscow in elegiac distichs and dating from 1675, I mentioned Ligarides, but could only quote his four epigrams from the sixteen-thirties, that is, from his youthful catholic period. Now it appears that Ligarides wrote elegiac distichs in Moscow - those published here, possibly, an epigram on Fedor Alekseevič, and the Epigram on Photios in Paris. Suppl. gr. 286, fol. 454v (reproduced in V. К. Jernštedt. Mémoires de l’Akadémie Impériale des Sciences de St. Petersburg, VIII Série, vol. VII, no 8, p. 2) - only a few years before 1675 and in theory could have influenced native bookmen of that time. - In the bibliographic note 1 of my article, one should insert F. B. Poljakov, "Evfimij Čudovskoj und die Moskauer Barockdichtung seiner Zeit," in Karl Gudschmid et al., edd., Slavistische Studien zum XI. Internationalen Slavisten-Kongress in Pressburg/Bratislava (Cologne, 1993), p. 337-349.
29. On Parisinus Suppl. gr. 286, fols. 454-477, Excerpts from Photios’s Homilies made in 1670 by Ligarides, cf., e. g., Mango, The Homilies (as in n. 2 above), 15 and 28. For the proof that the Parisinus Suppl. gr. 286 is by Ligarides, cf. Jernštedt, Mémoires (as in n. 28 above p. 03 and figs. 1-2 after p. 45. - Warning: Hionides, Paisius (as in n. 2 above), 92, states that the Atheniensis gr. 1327 (Ligarides’s own Homilies) is the author’s autograph. In fact, it is an 18th century manuscript.
30. In all probability, as RGADA, f. 27, nr. 552, for Fonkič, "Греческое книгописание..." (as in n. 2 above), 37, n. 68 gives this signature to "Paisios’s epigrams in honor of the careviči Fedor and Aleksej." I have not seen the epigram on Fedor.
31. I am also indebted to Dr. B. L. Fonkič for a small format photograph of the epigram.