The Enina Apostle or Enina Apostolos (scholarly abbreviation Enin) is an 11th-century Old Church Slavonic Cyrillic manuscript. Discovered in a poor condition in 1960 during restoration work in the central Bulgarian village of Enina, the partially preserved parchment manuscript is housed in the SS. Cyril and Methodius National Library in Sofia. It is the oldest Cyrillic manuscript currently held by any Bulgarian collection.
The Enina Apostle was discovered in 1960 during the restoration of the old Church of Saint Paraskeva in the village of Enina. [1] The village lies in south central Bulgaria, north of Kazanlăk, and is administratively part of Stara Zagora Province. The manuscript was initially in a very poor condition, with only 39 leaves and parts of leaves extant, and hardly a single leaf preserved in its entirety. [1]
From its discovery to 1964 the Enina Apostle was housed in the Kazanlăk Museum. In 1964, the manuscript was transferred to the SS. Cyril and Methodius National Library in the capital Sofia, where it has been housed ever since as MS №1144. [1] The Enina Apostle is part of the library′s collection of 1,500 Slavic manuscripts. [2] Among these, it is of utmost importance because of its antiquity, as well as its palaeographic and linguistic features. [3] In December 2010, a commemorative plaque dedicated to the Enina Apostle was installed in the courtyard of the Church of Saint Paraskeva in honour of the 50th anniversary of the manuscript′s discovery. [4]
The Enina Apostle is a short Apostolos lectionary, written on parchment in the second half of the 11th century, [5] which makes it the oldest Cyrillic manuscript currently part of a Bulgarian collection. [6] The leaves are 19.5 by 15.5 centimetres (7.7 in × 6.1 in) in size, and the written area 13.5 by 10.5 centimetres (5.3 in × 4.1 in). It was written by a single scribe in a sloping uncial using dark brown ink. Ff.6r and 38r feature decorative headpieces of geometric and floral design. Additional decoration includes 18 initials, which are mostly geometric, though sometimes floral or interlaced. An initial on f.3 depicts a bird′s head, while ff.28v and 36v both have a Glagolitic letter Ⰱ as the initial letter of a reading.
The Enina Apostle is thought to have originally consisted of circa 215–220 leaves, of which only 39 have been at least partially preserved. Both the beginning and the end of the manuscript are missing, and there are no surviving marginal notes. The surviving text of the manuscript consists of readings from the Acts and Epistles for Saturdays and Sundays from the 35th Sunday after Pentecost until Great Saturday and for selected feasts from 1 September until 3 October, the feast day of Dionysius the Areopagite. [1] [3] The language of the text is classified as either Old Church Slavonic or as belonging to a category that chronologically immediately follows Old Church Slavonic. [7]
The Cyrillic script, Slavonic script or the Slavic script, is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic, Turkic, Mongolic, Uralic, Caucasian and Iranic-speaking countries in Southeastern Europe, Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, Central Asia, North Asia, and East Asia, and used by many other minority languages.
The Glagolitic script is the oldest known Slavic alphabet. It is generally agreed to have been created in the 9th century by Saint Cyril, a monk from Thessalonica. He and his brother Saint Methodius were sent by the Byzantine Emperor Michael III in 863 to Great Moravia to spread Christianity among the West Slavs in the area. The brothers decided to translate liturgical books into the contemporary Slavic language understandable to the general population. As the words of that language could not be easily written by using either the Greek or Latin alphabets, Cyril decided to invent a new script, Glagolitic, which he based on the local dialect of the Slavic tribes from the Byzantine theme of Thessalonica.
Cyril and Methodius (815–885) were two brothers and Byzantine Christian theologians and missionaries. For their work evangelizing the Slavs, they are known as the "Apostles to the Slavs".
Old Church Slavonic or Old Slavonic was the first Slavic literary language.
Naum, also known as Naum of Ohrid or Naum of Preslav was a medieval Bulgarian writer, enlightener, one of the Seven Apostles of the First Bulgarian Empire and missionary among the Slavs. He was among the disciples of Cyril and Methodius and is associated with the creation of the Glagolitic and Cyrillic script. Naum was among the founders of the Pliska Literary School. Afterwards Naum worked at the Ohrid Literary School. He was among the first saints declared by the Bulgarian Orthodox Church after its foundation in the 9th century. The mission of Naum played significant role by transformation of the local Slavs into Bulgarians.
The SS. Cyril and Methodius National Library is the national library of Bulgaria, situated in the capital city of Sofia. Founded on 4 April 1878, the library received the status of Bulgarian National Library three years later and the Bulgarian National Revival Archive was merged into it in 1924.
Iotated E or Iotated Ukrainian Ye is a letter of the Cyrillic script. It is only used in the Church Slavonic language.
The Codex Zographensis is an illuminated Old Church Slavonic canon manuscript. It is composed of 304 parchment folios; the first 288 are written in Glagolitic containing Gospels and organised as Tetraevangelium, and the rest written in Cyrillic containing a 13th-century synaxarium. It is dated back to the end of the 10th or beginning of the 11th century.
The Codex Marianus is an Old Church Slavonic fourfold Gospel Book written in Glagolitic script, dated to the beginning of the 11th century, which is, one of the oldest manuscript witnesses to the Old Church Slavonic language, one of the two fourfold gospels being part of the Old Church Slavonic canon.
SS. Cyril and Methodius in Lemont - historic church of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago, located in Lemont, Illinois.
Medieval Bulgarian literature is Bulgarian literature in the Middle Ages.
Saint Clement or Kliment of Ohrid was one of the first medieval Bulgarian saints, scholar, writer, and apostle to the Slavs. He was one of the most prominent disciples of Cyril and Methodius and is often associated with the creation of the Glagolitic and Cyrillic scripts, especially their popularisation among Christianised Slavs. He was the founder of the Ohrid Literary School and is regarded as a patron of education and language by some Slavic people. He is considered to be the first bishop of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, one of the Seven Apostles of Bulgarian Orthodox Church since the 10th century, and one of the premier saints of modern Bulgaria. The mission of Clement was the crucial factor which transformed the Slavs in then Kutmichevitsa into Bulgarians. Clement is also the patron saint of North Macedonia, the city of Ohrid and the Macedonian Orthodox Church.
Dobreyshovo gospel is a Bulgarian monument of the early 13th century.
The Pirdop Apostle is a Bulgarian script book in Bulgarian language from Elena Basilica scriptorium near Pirdop, now kept in the SS. Cyril and Methodius National Library. It consists of the Acts of the Apostles with 130 surviving parchment leaves, the beginning and end parts being lost. It initially contained all the texts of the Acts and the Letters of the Apostles, but now only the Letters are preserved. It dates from the 13th century. In the 19th century the book was discovered immured in a niche of the church known as the "Elena Basilica" of "St. Elijah" monastery near to the small Bulgarian town of Pirdop. The Monastery and church was looted and completely destroyed by the Ottoman Army in 1700. According to a palaeographic analysis of the preserved transcript, this is a late counterfeit, probably from the first half of the 19th century.
Cyrillo-Methodian studies is a branch of Slavic studies dealing with the life and works of Cyril and Methodius and their disciples.
The Rila fragments are a Glagolitic manuscript consisting of eight fragmentary parchment leaves and three fragments of a 10th-century Glagolitic Old Church Slavonic book.
The Bojana Palimpsest or Bojana Gospel is an 11th-century Old Church Slavonic manuscript, originally written in a Glagolitic manuscript. In the 13th century, the Glagolitic text was removed, and the parchment was reused to write a Cyrillic gospel.
The Ohrid epistolary is a Middle Bulgarian Glagolitic manuscript from the late 12th or early 13th century, from the Ohrid Literary School.
The Bitola Triodion is a Middle Bulgarian Glagolitic manuscript that contains a triodion from the late 12th century.