| Ohrid Epistolary | |
|---|---|
 Page of the manuscript | |
| Writing | Glagolitic |
| Created | Late 1100s |
| Discovered | 1845 Ohrid Cathedral Church of St. Clement , Ohrid, North Macedonia |
| Discovered by | Victor Grigorovich |
| Present location | Russian State Library |
| Identification | F. 87. No. 13 |
| Language | Middle Bulgarian, Old Church Slavonic |
The Ohrid epistolary is a Middle Bulgarian Glagolitic manuscript from the late 12th or early 13th century, from the Ohrid Literary School.
According to the majority of scholarly consensus, it was written sometime in the 12th century, but Russian historian Anatoly Turilov dates it between 1225 and 1227, during the reign of Archbishop Demetrios Chromatenos. [1] There are 112 leaves of parchment, and it was written in Cyrillic, with Glagolitic entries by a chief scholar and several assistant writers. [2]
In 1845, the manuscript was discovered by Victor Grigorovich in the Ohrid Cathedral Church of St. Clement in Macedonia, and was named the Ohrid Apostle. It is kept in the Russian State Library. [3]
It is a short elective Apostle with excerpts from apostolic acts and epistles intended for reading during services. At the end, there is a church calendar with Slavic month names.
The manuscript was most likely written in Western Macedonia, presumably in the vicinity of Ohrid, as it contains features characteristic of the local dialect, such as: vocalization of the hard yer in a strong position in o, such as vsĕmъ, zam. sъ vьsĕmъ, vo snĕ, zam. vъ sъnĕ, sobrany, and zam. sъbьrany. [4]
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The Glagolitic script is the oldest known Slavic alphabet. It is generally agreed that it was created in the 9th century for the purpose of translating liturgical texts into Old Church Slavonic 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 there. After the deaths of Cyril and Methodius, their disciples were expelled and they moved to the First Bulgarian Empire instead. The Early Cyrillic alphabet, which developed gradually in the Preslav Literary School by Greek alphabet scribes who incorporated some Glagolitic letters, gradually replaced Glagolitic in that region. Glagolitic remained in use alongside Latin in the Kingdom of Croatia and alongside Cyrillic until the 14th century in the Second Bulgarian Empire and the Serbian Empire, and later mainly for cryptographic purposes.
Old Church Slavonic or Old Slavonic is the first Slavic literary language and the oldest extant written Slavonic language attested in literary sources. It belongs to the South Slavic subgroup of the Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European language family and remains the liturgical language of many Christian Orthodox churches. Until the reforms of Patriarch Nikon of Moscow between 1652 and 1666, Church Slavonic was the mandatory language of the Russian Orthodox Church.
The Early Cyrillic alphabet, also called classical Cyrillic or paleo-Cyrillic, is an alphabetic writing system that was developed in Medieval Bulgaria in the Preslav Literary School during the late 9th century. It is used to write the Church Slavonic language, and was historically used for its ancestor, Old Church Slavonic. It was also used for other languages, but between the 18th and 20th centuries was mostly replaced by the modern Cyrillic script, which is used for some Slavic languages, and for East European and Asian languages that have experienced a great amount of Russian cultural influence.
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Prespa was a medieval town, situated in the homonymous area in south-western Macedonia. It was a residence and burial place of the Bulgarian emperor Samuel and according to some sources capital of the First Bulgarian Empire and seat of the Bulgarian Patriarchate in the last decades of the 10th century.
Kiril Živković also spelled Kiril Zhivkovich was a writer and Orthodox bishop.
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Angel Tanasov or Anđelko Tanasović was a rebel leader active in Ottoman Macedonia.
Cyrillo-Methodian studies is a branch of Slavic studies dealing with the life and works of Cyril and Methodius and their disciples.
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