The Stichera of the Saturday of Saint Theodore in the Oldest Russian Sticheraria: at the Crossroads of Traditions

This paper is a part of a post-doctoral project, dedicated to a study of the mechanisms of exchange among the multiple Byzantine traditions and its impact on the group of the oldest surviving Russian notated codices – the Sticheraria of the Triodion and Pentecostarion. There are seven surviving Old Russian Sticheraria of the Triodion cycle and a set of Triodion and Pentekostarion from the collection of the Historical Museum in Moscow (GIM, Sinod 319 and Voskr 27), which includes the notated part of the Sticherarion in its complete form. These manuscripts have a number of characteristics which distinguish them as a single group, against the background of known Byzantine traditions. At
the same time, none of the manuscripts are exactly the same, varying in their details. The variants could originate in Greek and Slavic traditions of divergent historical backgrounds or be related to the local Russian practice. Comparative study of the notated Lenten sequences in the Old Russian and Greek sources allows to understand the mechanisms of cultural, liturgical and musical exchange
between different branches of the Byzantine liturgical tradition and to trace connections between some codices.
The present research concerns the cycles of stichera of the Saturday of Saint Theodore. The commemoration of Saint warrior Theodore Tyrone, martyrised in the 4th century, is one of the oldest in the church calendar. In early tradition, the memory of St. Theodore was celebrated on February 17th. Then it was transferred to Triodion cycle, on the 1st Saturday of Great Lent, and the
Menaion commemoration began to appear less frequently in the Menaion manuscripts and to mix with another commemoration – that of Saint Theodore Stratelates and, occasionally, with other 13 saint warriors. The dates of these commemorations vary accordingly local traditions. Thus, the comparative study allows to involve Greek and Old Russian Sticheraria, of both the Triodion and of
the Menaion cycles. In these sources, some local groups of stichera apocrypha were found, connecting, by the one side, the Old Russian and Palestinian manuscripts, and by the other side the Old Russian and Constantinopolitan sources. Another group of rare crossing material was found in
the process of comparison of the cycles of the stichera prosomoia from the Old Russian Sticheraria, the GIM Triodion and South Slavic and Greek Triodia revealing strong connection between the Old Russian and Slavic traditions. As for the Menaion sources, the borrowing of the sticheron to St. George from Greek sources by the Old Russian Triodion Sticheraria was observed