Catalogue of the Georgian Manuscripts

Παρουσίαση

We enjoy the special blessing of living in a holy Monastery with a centuries-long history and contribution to the devout Greek nation, but also to the Orthodox peoples more generally. We have received from our predecessors a great inheritance, not only with regard to the monastic way of life and liturgical order, but in the wealth of holy artefacts, among which are many manuscript books. All of these testify to, and transmit, the knowledge, as well as the spiritual wisdom and experience, of those who came before us, sending forth "scent of spiritual fragrance."

These books include 95 Georgian manuscripts, the great majority of which were written here or transferred here from elsewhere during the period from the end of the tenth to the middle of the twelfth century, the era, that is, of the sainted founders of our Monastery and their near successors. As is clear from the colophons of some of the manuscripts of our collection, the "ascetic-philological school" of our Monastery was founded by St. John, the first abbot of the renovated Clementos Monastery. He took care that many sacred patristic and hagiographical works be translated from Greek into Georgian and be copied. He sent his son and successor St. Euthymios to Constantinople while still a child to learn Greek. The latter, with the translations over which he laboured and the model he shaped for the work of translation, distinguished himself as the most important Georgian scholar and was justly surnamed "New Chrysostom". St. John founded here an important scriptorium, inviting trained and learned scribes from the Greek-speaking lands as well as Georgia. Some of them copied out the Greek originals, so that our Monastery would have them in its possession, while others copied the translations into Georgian that were done here, so that they could be distributed to the Georgian monks and faithful throughout the world.

This work of theirs was continued by their successors too, especially by St. George the Hagiorite, the author of the Life of his predecessors Ss. John and Euthymios. He, apart from revising the translation of the New Testament, translated many works of the Church Fathers and almost all of the texts of the cycle of the liturgical year; most of the latter are preserved in our collection, in codices written by his own hand. A good number of other learned and pious translators continued this work, and many of their translations remain unpublished until today.

The Georgian codices of our Monastery have not been described fully until now, and many of the treasures they contain have remained unknown to the worldwide scholarly community as well as to the Orthodox Georgians. Hence we felt it to be our duty to make them known to the broader public. [...] (From the publisher)

Περιεχόμενα

• Prologue
• Contents
• Introduction
• I. The collection of Georgian manuscripts in the Iviron Monastery
• II. Stocktaling the collection
• III. The structure of the catalogue
• IV. Acknowledgements
• Description of the Manuscripts
• Indexes
• I. Scribes, commissioners, binders etc
• II. Authors
• III. Biblical figures
• IV. Saints, martyrs, anchorites
• V. Other persons mentioned
• VI. Place names
• VII. Manuscripts referred to
• VIII. Reference works
• IX. Liturgical terms
• X. Bibliography

Appendix A: Ruling schemes

Appendix B: Plates

Jost Gippert, Bernard Outtier, Sergey Kim in cooperation with Ketevan Asatiani, Manana Dolakidze, Lali Jghamaia,

Maia Karanadze, Mikheil Kavtaria, Lili Khevsuriani, Lia Kiknadze, Tinatin Tseradze, Tsitsino Guledani, Tinatin Jikurashvili, Eka Kvirkvelia, Giorgi Lomsadze, Sopio Sarjveladze, Mzekala Shanidze, Darejan Tvaltvadze, and Georgios Boudalis