The Quarterly Journal of St. Philaret’s Institute

The article examines 26 East Slavic liturgical collections of the XIII — early XV centuries and describes the canons contained in them, as well as the accompanying psalms, troparia, stichera and prayers. The most typical canons and services are the canons before the Holy Communion, for the dead, to the guardian angel and to the Mother of God (found in 13–16 manuscripts). Quite often (in 5–8 manuscripts) there are canon for the benefactors, the penance canon and the common canon to the Trinity, the Theotokos, Archangel Michael and St. Nicholas. The rest of the canons are rare (2–3 manuscripts) or unique. Only small part of such canons are now in liturgical use; some of them have not yet been published. The most interesting are the canon of the “East Slavic Chrysostom” — St. Kirill of Turov and the penitential daily canon. Both canons are surrounded by stichera, which are related in content to the troparia of the canon and are not inferior to them in literary merit; both complexes of stichera were used in the horologions of Ancient Russia to include in the services of matins and vespers. An analysis of the arrangement of the stichera associated with the canons, as well as a comparative assessment of the language and content, made it possible to indicate that St. Kirill of Turov is the author of the evening stichera (“House of virtues…” and others), which are found in several East Slavic manuscripts and have been unfairly forgotten. The first publications started with the liturgical works of St. Kirill in the XIX century. Unknown Communion prayers and stichera by Kirill of Turov are published in the appendix to this article.