Unknown autograph of Vasyl Surazhsky to John Vyshensky on Ostroh edition of 1595 from library of Zohraf Monastery on Mount Athos

Abstract

The purpose of the publication is to study and introduce into scientific circulation an unknown autograph of Vasyl Surazhsky, a member of the Ostroh intellectual circle, Ukrainian theologian and polemicist of the late 16th and early 17th centuries, left by him on the 1595 Ostroh edition of “Margarit” from the library of the Zohraf Monastery on Mount Athos and addressed to another well-known church and cultural figure, polemicist writer and Athos monk, John Vyshensky. The methodological foundations of the study are based on the principles of historicism, scientific objectivity, systematicity, and a dialectical approach to historical phenomena. In accordance with the goal and objectives, a combination of general scientific, interdisciplinary, and special research methods was used. The scientific novelty is that for the first time the previously unknown autograph of Vasyl Surazhsky was introduced into scientific circulation. A palaeographic analysis of the record was carried out, the connections between Vasyl Surazhsky and John Vyshensky were investigated, and it was established through whom the book was transferred to Athos. It was found that at the time of the books publication in 1595, John Vyshensky was already on Athos and that the messenger who handed the book to Vyshensky was most likely Father Isaac Boryskovych. It was also discovered that at the same time as Ivan Vyshenskyi and Isaac Boryskovych, the abbot of the Peresopnytsia Monastery and the founder of the Polonsky Monastery in Volyn, Archimandrite Leontii (Prylepsky), lived and worked in the monastery library. It is emphasized that the discovered marginalia of Vasyl Surazhsky is unique and expands the knowledge about the author and his relations with another famous Ukrainian church and cultural figure and polemicist, St. John Vyshensky, and is also valuable in the study of the history, activities and heritage of the Ukrainian church and cultural movement of the late 16th and early 17th centuries. In addition, a large number of Ukrainian old printed books of the 16th and 17th centuries, which are kept in the Zograf Monastery on Mount Athos, testify to the close contacts of this monastery with the clergy and monks of the Kyiv Metropolis of this period. These Ukrainian-Athonite and, in particular, Ukrainian-Bulgarian ties on Mount Athos, contributed to mutual spiritual and cultural exchanges, influences and borrowings on both sides.