Богослужбени карактер дела последовања српског Минхенског псалтира

Abstract

Corpus of preserved medieval psalteries with following is of rich and diversed nature. Among large number of handwritten monuments of that type, because of its peculiar nature, stands out Serbian Munich Psalter from fourteenth-century (Cod. Slav. 4). Considering the structure of the following of the Munich Psalter, a certain liturgical and symbolic connection of the first three, seemingly independent units can be observed. These are Parable of the Merciful Samaritan (fol. 203v – 205), Akathist of the Virgin (fol. 205v – 226) and Damascus Dogmatik of the fifth voice from the Octoech - In the Red Sea… (fol. 227). The unusual place of the Parable of the Merciful Samaritan in Munich Psalter, between the Biblical Odes and Akathist of the Virgin, was caused by the structure of the Fasting Triode and the older Jerusalem liturgical customs. The theme of the Merciful Samaritan, which was an elaboration of the verses of sticheron As from Jerusalem (sung on the Friday evening service of the fifth week of the Great Lent) should be analised in the context of the main themes of Great Lent (Death and the Resurrection of Christ) and associated with the centuries old historical development of the worship of the fifth week of the Great Lent. The older Jerusalem liturgical layer, bound to the Gospel pericopes, remained preserved in traces in the sticheron itself, while the newer layer of the Constantinople liturgical office stayed embodied in the service of the Akathist (sung on the Saturday morning service of the fifth week of the Great Lent). Therefore, the illustration of the sticheron As from Jerusalem was formulated as an introductory picture in the cycle of Akathist, which is followed by the illustration of one of the songs from Octoech (sung on the Saturday evening service of the fifth week of the Great Lent). Confirmation of the semantic connection between the first two parts of the following of Munich Psalter also can be found in the iconographically and temporally most related handwritten monument, Tomić Psalter. There, after a full-length illustration of the parable of the Merciful Samaritan, developed in three registers, at the very beginning of the Akathist, the verses of sticheron As from Jerusalem are perserved. Behind the phenomenon of autonomous image, wich functions independent of the text it ilustrates, lies the real liturgical richness of the following of Munich Psalter, made exclusively out of church poetry. By repeating and modifying a model embodied in an unknown prototype, one can bring to light the liturgical character of the Serbian manuscript monument, even if it had never functioned in the official liturgical sphere.