LE SYMPOSIUM INTERNATIONAL LE LIVRE. LA ROUMANIE. L ...

472 cOnSTAnTIn PAncHEnKO
well as Macarius al-za’im is known by his journey to the eastern europe
in 1580-s.
the colophon contained the following text:
It is written by the hand of humble Dorotheus, named metropolitan, the
servant of the see of the city tarabulus al-Sham in the monastery of St.
Archangel Mikhail in Jerusalem at tuesday 20th of January of the year
7087 from our farther Adam. It was in presence of the brother bishop
kir Semion, the servant of the see of the our lady, Mother of God, in
the village Saidanaya. And he was naib (exarkh, representative – C.P.)
of our holy farther patriarch kir Mikhail of Antioch. It was during the
reign of our farther patriarch kir Germanus of Jerusalem and the reign
of patriarch kir Silvestrus, the pope of Alexandria… And the humble
one, who wrote this text, was naib of the holy patriarch kir Jeremia, the
ruler of the apostolic see of the capital city Constantinople… And the
reason of our coming to Jerusalem was a conflict between the farther
patriarch kir Germanus of Jerusalem and between monks of St. Saba’s
monastery and its metokh Mar Mikhail in Jerusalem and between the
brother kir uwakim, metropolitan of Bethlehem, when the brother kir
Athanasius was the abbot of the abovementioned monastery. And thanks
to the favour of Christ, our lord, who is eulogized by all languages, the
difficulty was relieved and our problems were solved, through the help of
our lady, Mother of God, and St. John the Baptist and all saints, amen. 7
this text was published by Joseph nasrallah with a summary in French
in Chronologue des patriarches melchites d’Antioche de 1500 à 1634. 8
however the scholar in the publication of the colophon missed conjunction
“between” (bayna) before the phrase “monks of St. Saba’s monastery”.
this word changes the whole meaning of the sentence. J. nasrallah treated
the situation in Jerusalem as a conflict between patriarch Germanus, monks
of St. Saba’s convent (Mar Saba in the local tradition) on the one side and
the metropolitan uwakim of Bethlehem on the other side. Fortunately I
had a chance to copy myself this colophon from the original manuscript
of Dorotheus Daw (the text is keeping now in the Institute of oriental
manuscripts in St.-petersburg). So, I can say that the Sabaite monastic
community was not on the side of Germanus but positioned itself as an
independent participant of the struggle. It seems logically that the Sabaite
7 Manuscript collection of the institute of oriental Manuscripts (st.-Petersburg). С
869. p. 134 b. – 135.
8 nASrAllAh J., Chronologie des patriarches Melchites d’Antioche de 1500 à
1634. Jerusalem. 1959. p. 40.