{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/214/2140010.htm","path":"chr/ecf/214/2140010.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/214/2140010.htm","text":"A Bibliographical Index of the Printed Editions of the Canons of the Apostles and of the Councils in the Slavonic and Russian Languages.\n(Prepared by Nicolas Glubokoffski, Professor of the Chair of the Holy Scriptures of the New Testament in the Ecclesiastical Academy of St. Petersburgh.) 21\nIn the orthodox Russian Church, editions of the Conciliar Canons and Decrees have only been issued under the immediate disposition and sanction of the supreme ecclesiastical authority, and, in fact, are amongst those things which it is not within the competence of private scholars to undertake. Such editions therefore have been published in Russia only in accordance with practical requirements.\n1. The earliest printed edition of the afore-mentioned canons appeared in the Slavonic \u201cKormchaja Kniga\u201d 22 (=Gk. \u03c0\u03b7\u03b4\u03ac\u03bb\u03b9\u03bf\u03bd), the printing of which was commenced at Moscow, on October 7th, 1649, under the Patriarch Joseph of Moscow, and was finished on July 1, 1650; but the Patriarch Nicon caused it to be submitted to a Council for revision, in consequence of which certain pages were reprinted and inserted afresh into it. 23 Thereupon copies of this \u201cKormchaja\u201d were distributed for use amongst the p. xxvi churches, and came into general circulation not earlier than the year 1653. The second edition of the \u201cKormchaja\u201d appeared in 1787, after a revision under the Metropolitan Gabriel of Novgorod and St. Petersburgh, 24 and was followed by others (e.g., those of 1804, 1816, and 1823) without any alterations of importance. The latest editions differ from that of Nicon in certain particulars, but these particulars do not concern the ecclesiastical Canons, which are placed in the first part of the \u201cKormchaja\u201d and include the 85 Apostolic Canons, the decrees of the sixteen councils (of Nic\u00e6a, Ancyra, Neoc\u00e6sarea, Gangra, Antioch, Laodicea, the 2d, 3d, and 4th Ecumenical, Sardica, Carthage, Constantinople under Nectarius, in Trullo, a.d. 692, the 7th Ecumenical, the First-and-Second [council of Constantinople] and that in the church of St. Sophia) and the Canons of the 13 Holy Fathers.\n2. In the printed \u201cKormchaja\u201d the canons are set forth, not in their full text, but in a shortened form which sometimes gives but a very insufficient representation of the contents of the original. On this account attempts at full translations were made many years back, but these never appeared in print. It was not until 1839 that such an edition as this was put forth by the Holy Synod at St. Petersburgh, under the title: \u201cThe Book of the Canons of the Holy Apostles, of the Holy Ecumenical and local Councils, and of the Holy Fathers,\u201d printed in large folio in \u201cthe Imperial city of St. Peter, the first impression in the 7347th year from the creation of the world, and the 1839th from the Birth in the flesh of God the Word, indict. 12.\u201d In this edition there are 4 unnumbered leaves and 455 numbered pages. On each page there are two columns, for the original text and the new translation of the whole text into the Slavonic respectively, but without the commentaries of the Byzantine Canonists; occasionally, but rarely, notes based upon Zonaras or Balsamon are given, which are not always historically accurate (for instance, that to the 10th Canon of Ancyra, the 3d of Sardica, the 4th of Carthage, and the one which deals with the First-and-Second Council of a.d. 861) while in some places the text itself is not correct (for instance, in the 13th Canon of the 1st Ecumenical Council). This \u201cBook of the Canons\u201d subsequently went through the following editions: the 2d, printed in Moscow at the Synodal Press in 1862, in folio 8 leaves + 672 + 74 numbered pages, with Greek and Slavonic texts; the 3d ibid. in 1866, in quarto, 3 leaves + 373 pages + 1 leaf + 59 pages, with the Slavonic text only; the 4th, ibid. in 1874, in octavo, 4 leaves 4 + 455 pages + 2 leaves + 104 + 4 pages, also with the Slavonic text only; the 5th, ibid. in 1886, in folio, 3 leaves + 395 + 42 pages + 1 leaf, again with Slavonic text only.\n3. The \u201cBook of Canons\u201d by no means represents an authorized textus receptus, and after its publication, the Holy Synod itself not unfrequently introduced the Canons as given in the Slavonic edition of the \u201cKormchaja Kniga\u201d into its edicts, and moreover recommended the Athenian Edition of the \u201cSyntagma\u201d for all the ecclesiastico-educational establishments. This opened the way for a new work, which, with the permission of the supreme ecclesiastical authority, was undertaken by the Moscow \u201cSociety of Amateurs of Spiritual Enlightenment.\u201d The announcement of this was made in No. 3 of the \u201cMoscow Diocesan Church Gazette\u201d of the year 1875, whilst in the same year in the January number of the Moscow Journal, \u201cLectures delivered in the Society of Amateurs of Spiritual Enlightenment,\u201d the \u201cprograme\u201d of the edition itself was printed (pages 79\u201390 in the section devoted to bibliography). In criticism of it the Professor of Canonical Law in the University of Novorossiisk, Alexis Stepanovich Pavloff (who died on August 16, 1898, as Professor of the University of Moscow) wrote \u201cNotes on the programme of an edition, in a Russian translation of the Canons of the Church with Commentaries\u201d in the sixteenth volume of \u201cMemoirs of the Imperial University of Novorossiisk\u201d (Odessa, 1875), pages 1\u201317 of the Appendix (and in a separate pamphlet), which was afterwards reprinted with certain additions in the Moscow Journal, \u201cOrthodox Review,\u201d of April, 1876 (pages 730\u2013746), under the title: \u201cA new translation of the Commentaries upon the canons of the church.\u201d To these criticisms the Professor of p. xxvii Ecclesiastical Law in the Moscow Ecclesiastical Academy, Alexander Theodorovich Lavroff, wrote a reply in \u201cLectures delivered in the Society of Amateurs of Spiritual Enlightenment\u201d (for the year 1877, part 2, pages 158\u2013194), entitled \u201cA printed letter to Alexis Stepanovich Pavloff.\u201d Thus the plan of the edition gradually took shape. It was first printed in the Appendices to the Journal \u201cLectures in the Society, etc.,\u201d and subsequently was published separately in octavo in the following parts (A) I. \u201cThe Canons of the Holy Apostles with Commentaries\u201d in two editions\u2014Moscow, 1876, (from \u201cLectures,\u201d 1875, pages 1\u2013163) 4 + 12 + 175 pages, and ibid., 1887, 5\u201312 + 163 pages; II. \u201cCanons of the Holy Ecumenical Councils with Commentaries\u201d (from \u201cLectures\u201d 1875, pages 165\u2013325; 1876, pages 329\u2013680; 1877, pages 891\u2013900), in two parts: 1st \u201cThe Canons of the Councils I.\u2013IV.,\u201d Moscow, 1877, 260 pages; 2d. \u201cThe Canons of Councils V.\u2013VII.,\u201d ibid., 736 pages; (B) \u201cThe Canons of the Holy Local Councils with Commentaries,\u201d also in two parts (from \u201cLectures\u201d 1877, pages 900\u20131066; 1878, pages 1067\u20131306; 1879, pages 1307\u20131410): the 1st (The Canons of the Councils of Ancyra, Neoc\u00e6sarea, Gangra, Antioch, Laodicea, and Sardica) Moscow, 1880, 359 pages; the 2d (The Canons of the Councils of Carthage [with the letters to Pope Boniface and to Pope Celestine], Constantinople, the First-and-Second, and that in the Temple of the Wisdom of the Word of God) ibid., 1881, 876 pages; (C) \u201cThe Canons of the Holy Fathers with Commentaries,\u201d ibid., 1884, 626 pages. Together with these is a separate \u201cIndex of subjects contained in the edition of the Canons of the Apostles, Councils and Holy Fathers with Commentaries,\u201d Moscow, 1888, 58 pages in octavo. The Greek text of the canons follows the edition \u03a3\u03cd\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03b3\u03bc\u03b1 \u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u03b8\u03b5\u03af\u03c9\u03bd \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u1f76\u03b5\u03c1\u1ff6\u03bd \u03ba\u03b1\u03bd\u03cc\u03bd\u03c9\u03bd\u2026\u1f51\u03c0\u1f78 \u0393. \u0391. \u03a1\u03ac\u03bb\u03bb\u03b7 \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u039c. \u03a0\u03cc\u03c4\u03bb\u03b7, \u0391\u03b8\u03ae\u03bd\u03b7\u03c3\u03b9\u03bd 1852\u20131854, and alongside of it is placed a literal Slavonic translation, after which follows a Russian translation of the Commentaries of the Byzantine Canonists (Zonaras, Aristenus, Balsamon), and the text and commentaries of the Slavonic \u201cKormchaja;\u201d all this is accompanied by introductions and explanations of all sorts (historical, philological, etc.). This edition is rightly considered by specialists to be of very great value from a scientific point of view. Professor A. Th. Lavroff (who became a monk under the name Alexis, and died Archbishop of Lithuania and Vilna) was its chief editor and had most to do with it, but many others took part in the work, and amongst these Professor A. S. Pavloff.\n4. The only Russian translation of the canons which exists is contained in the publications of the Ecclesiastical Academy of Kazan: (a) \u201cThe Acts of the Ecumenical Councils translated into Russian,\u201d 7 volumes. Kazan, 1859\u20131878 (some of these volumes have run into a second edition) and (b) \u201cActs of the nine local councils translated into Russian,\u201d 1 volume, Kazan, 1878. This translation was made under the direction of the Holy Synod, and the Canons are reproduced in it according to the text of the Acts of the Councils.\nFrom the outline here presented of the printed editions of the Canons of the Councils, it will be seen that, within the limits of their practical applicability, they are reverenced as the source of the operative law in the Russian orthodox church, and therefore for her it is only the authoritative Byzantine commentaries which have any particular importance. There are works upon these by V. Demidoff, \u201cThe character and significance of the commentaries upon the Canonical Codex of the Greek Church\u2014of Aristenus, Zonaras, and Balsamon,\u201d in the \u201cOrthodox Review,\u201d vol. ii. of 1888, and of Professor V. A. Narbekoff, of Kazan, \u201cThe commentaries of Balsamon upon the Nomocanon of Photius,\u201d Kazan, 1889, and of Professor M. E. Krasnozhen, of Jurieff (Dorpat) \u201cThe Commentators of the Canonical Codex of the Eastern Church: Aristenus, Zonaras, and Balsamon.\u201d Moscow, 1892.\nNo separate scientific commentaries upon all the canons of the councils exist in Russian literature, but they are described, and explained in courses of Ecclesiastical law (of the Archimandrite John [who, when he died, was Bishop of Smolensk] of Professors N. S. Suvoroff, T. S. Berdnikoff, N. A. Lashkareff, M. A. Ostro\u00fcmoff) p. xxviii in our works upon the history of the Ecumenical Councils (by Bishop John, and Professor Alexis Petrovich Lebedeff), and in monographs dealing with Canon Law and Church History. As far as a critical edition of the original text of the canons is concerned, there is a learned and useful article (upon a book by Fr. Lauchert, Die Kanones usw., Freiberg i. Br. und Leipsig, 1896), by Vasili Vasilievich Bolotoff, Professor of Ecclesiastical History in the St. Petersburgh Ecclesiastical Academy in the \u201cChristian Reading,\u201d vol. iv. for 1896, pp. 178\u2013195.\nTranslated into English by W. J. Birkbeck, Esq., F.S.A.\nxxv:22 xxv:23\nAccordingly some bibliographers correctly reckon this as two editions, of which that of 1653 in folio consists of 37 + 1 + 60 + 1 + 16 + 679 pages, and was reprinted by the \u201cOld Ritualists\u201d (Rascolniki*), in 1785 at Warsaw.\n*Rascolniki, lit. Schismatics; i.e., the Russian Dissenting sects which in the 17th century left the Church rather than accept the service-books as corrected by the Patriarch Nicon.\u2014W.J.B.\nxxvi:24\nThis edition was published at Moscow in folio in two parts and volumes, in the 1st there are 2 unnumbered + 38 + 5 \u2013 60 + 300 + 39 numbered pages; in the 2d 1 + 2 + 235 + 16 + 37 pages.","title":"Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Ser. II, Vol. XIV: Appended Note on the Eastern Editions of Synodical Literature.: A Bibliographical Index of the Printed Editions of the Canons of the Apostles and of the Councils in the Slavonic and Russian Languages.","type":"page"}