HARVARD UKRAINIAN STUDIES - See also - Harvard University

THEOLOGY IN KIEVAN RUS 285the cloister. 64 Avraamii of Smolensk, when he began his life as a monk,oriented his thinking toward the holy sites in Palestine and living in harmonywith the life of Christ; 65 a canon refers to his literal imitatio of theWay of the Cross dressed in the guise of both shepherd and lamb. 66 Asidefrom the already mentioned Zhitie by Feodosii there are only two otheroccurrences of this motif in the Kievan Paterik: one is in the motto for thespiritual striving of the monk-father Antonii (slovo 2), and the other is thequasi-parodistic description of the Way of the Cross that the imprisonedmonk Evstratii (slovo 16) has to suffer at the hands of a Jew.Apart from these instances we find the monk Iakov recommending, inhis ascetic monitory letter, Christ's Passion as the best model for patience inbearing suffering. 67 An anonymous slovo from the end of the thirteenth centuryto a newly ordained priest calls him and his fellow priests purely andsimply "imitators of the Lord," but the reference is to the theological heartof their calling. 68What is the meaning of all these illustrations, interpretations, admonitions,and references with regard to the imitatio Christil Can they becharacterized as being "non multa (tantum), sed multum?" If we keep inmind that not a single text belonging to Kievan literature can be categorizedby a single theme, or by a single genre—and that therefore we cannotexpect to find a theological treatise that might either exclude all other motifsor systematize a single one—then the many and in part very impressive lociadd up to a substantial center of interest. Since they are for the most partclothed in narrative garb, they will perhaps be fully revealed only afterrepeated spiritual readings.One could certainly point to still other major aspects, for example, thetheology of images. By this I mean not only the glorification of certainicons—many theologians believed the sole permanent contribution ofKievan Rus' to be in fine arts 69 —but also the conviction expressed in apassage from the Kievan Chronicle, where meditating on beautiful decorations(i.e., icon paintings) in the Rus' churches is declared to be the decisive64Podskateky, Christentum, pp. 123f. (on the edition, pp. 122ff.).65Podskalsky, Christentum, p. 140 (on the edition, p. 139).66Podskalsky, Christentum, pp. 239f.67Makarii, lstoriia, 2:325f.68Podskalsky, Christentum, pp. 267f.69For instance, G. V. Florovsky, "The Problem of Old Russian Culture," Slavic Review 21(1962): 1 - 15; W. Vodoff, "La theologie dans la Russie de Kiev? Notes critiques," Revue deVhistoire des religions 203, no. 3 (1986): 281-94; here 294.