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HARVARD UKRAINIAN STUDIES - See also - Harvard University

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THEOLOGY IN KIEV AN RUS 281nearly been suppressed in the Eastern church since the time of Eusebius ofCaesarea, as it was from the writings (genuine and spurious) of Hippolytusof Rome. 49I note, finally, one writer whose predominantly Eastern style of imagery(in the homilies) would scarcely lead one to suspect him of making statementsabout eschatology: Bishop Kirill of Turov. His first monk's sermonwas subtitled "On the Future Judgment and On Torment." 50 The combinedparables of the wicked workers in the vineyard (Matt. 21:33-41) and ofthe halt and the blind were followed by a description of the judgment thatwould befall the two central figures (intended to symbolize the fusion andthe separation of body and soul): on the day of resurrection they wouldcome before the face of God together with their interceding angel. In hisprayers of the hours, Kirill again expressed the familiar idea about the"toll-gates" (mytar'stva) that the soul must pass through after death, aswell as the idea of intercession by angels and saints (Mary, John the Baptist,Nicholas) and of the joys of the heavenly Jerusalem (in the company of theRus' saints Antonii, Feodosii, Varlaam Khutynskii, Efrosiniia of POlatsk). 51The aim of this reforming monk was always to make all Christians changetheir ways. In the Kievan Paterik, too, there is no dearth of eschatologicalthinking. One instance is the story of Pimin the Sufferer (slovo 35), who,applying the example of three deceased monks, illustrates for his comradeshow different the significance of the "Grand or Angelic Scheme" can befor each individual. God gives this monastic vestment to the first,posthumously, for his long suffering and his good works; it is taken fromthe second monk after his death because he did not wish to receive it untilthe hour of his death and therefore could not show evidence of any goodworks; finally, it serves as evidence against the third monk at the Last Judgment,due to his sloth and sinfulness.Even this cursory survey shows us that the theology of Kievan Rus',with regard above all to personal eschatology, yet <strong>also</strong> to its cosmologicaldimension and concern with the eschatology of empire, repeatedly reflectedon and proclaimed the connection between this world and the next, between49For the Slavic translation, see G. Podskalsky, Byzantinische Reichseschatologie. DiePeriodisierung der Weltgeschichte in den vier Grofireichen (Daniel 2 und 7) und demtausendjdhrigen Friedensreiche (Apok. 20). Eine motivgeschichtliche Untersuchung (Munich,1972), p. 66, fns. 395-97; see <strong>also</strong>: 1.1. Sreznevskii, Skazanie ob Antichriste s zamechaniami oslav. perevodakh tvorenii sv. Ippolita (Moscow, 1874); V. Sakharov, Eskhatologicheskiiasochineniia i skazaniia v drevne-russkoi pis'mennosti (Tula, 1879); P. J. Alexander, TheByzantine Apocalyptic Tradition (Berkeley, 1985), pp. 193-225.50Eremin, "Literaturnoe nasledie," pp. 340-47.51On editions and bibliography, see Podskalsky, Christentum, pp. 241-44.

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