Vasiliy Vyacheslavovich Podoprigora,
Candidate of Philological Sciences, State Public Scientific Technological Library of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk, Russia, e‑mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Pomorian Book of One Hundred Chapters in Old Believer’s Manuscript Miscellanies of the 19th Century
DOI: 10.31518/2618-9100-2025-3-14
The article solves the problem of attribution of a literary work of the priestless Old Believers that is compiled in late 18th century miscellany of extracts from the Holy Scripture, works of Church Fathers, liturgical books, ecclesiastical law literature, historical and hagiographical compilations. A miscellany of such composition was already known to archaeographers, experts in Old Believer’s literature and modern researchers. At the same time, the issue of its authorship and versions remains unresolved, and there is not even a generally accepted name. The article analyzes references to its possible authors in Russian pre-revolutionary and modern historiography, which allows us to correlate a compilation of this type with the name Pomorian Book of One Hundred Chapters (book Stoglav) appearing in the works of archaeographers of the 19th century and found in its several manuscript copies. In a set of them, there is an indication of the authorship of the Leksinsky chairman Timofey Andreev Serebrennikov, which is also confirmed by the testimonies of Pavel O. Lyubopytnyi. The article clarifies relationship of Pomorian Book of One Hundred Chapters with other similar miscellanies and proves that its “first” version is an independent work by the Moscow Theodosian scribe Daniel Bityugovsky, also mentioned by Pavel Lyubopytnyi under the name Oplot Khristovoi Tserkvi (“Stronghold of the Church of Christ”). Bityugovsky used book Stoglav, borrowing from it several chapters concerning the celebrating of the sacraments, understanding the true faith and heresy, heretical and true priesthood, and the authority of sacred tradition. However, these two miscellanies cannot be considered as two versions of the same work: there are significant content and genre differences between them. Six copies of the book Stoglav from the libraries of Moscow, St. Petersburg and the Museum of the History of the Altai Spiritual Mission in Biysk, as well as three copies of Daniel Bityugovsky’s work from the Russian State Library, were attracted. The textual research establishes the special significance of the copy of book Stoglav from the manuscript collection of Metropolitan Philaret (Drozdov) of Moscow (RSL, f. 317, no. 52). In terms of the number of correct readings and the volume of extracts, this manuscript, copied in 1829−1830 by icon painter Zacharias F. Bronin from the Pomorian Monin congregation in Moscow, turns out to be the closest to Timofey Andreev’s autograph.
Publishing: 28/06/2025
The article has been received by the editor on 16/03/2025
How to cite: Podoprigora V.V. Pomorian Book of One Hundred Chapters in Old Believer’s Manuscript Miscellanies of the 19th Century // Historical Courier, 2025, No. 3 (41), pp. 204−218. [Available online: http://istkurier.ru/data/2025/ISTKURIER-2025-3-14.pdf]
The article was prepared according to the plan of research work of the State Public Technological Library, the project “The Depository of Book Monuments of Siberia and the Far East: Identification, Digital Storage System and Organization of Access for Research”, No. 122040600049-8.
Links: Issue 3 2025
Keywords: Old Believer’s manuscript miscellanies; archaeography; attribution; Timofey Andreev; Daniel Bityugovsky