Gritsevskaya, I. M., Brovkina, T. V. “QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS OF PSEUDO-ATHANASIUS OF ALEXANDRIA TO PRINCE ANTIOCHUS” AS A SOURCE FOR AN OLD BELIEVER POLEMICAL WORK. Proceedings of Petrozavodsk State University. 2025;47(3):10. DOI: 10.15393/uchz.art.2025.1161


Russian literature and literature of the peoples of the Russian Federation

“QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS OF PSEUDO-ATHANASIUS OF ALEXANDRIA TO PRINCE ANTIOCHUS” AS A SOURCE FOR AN OLD BELIEVER POLEMICAL WORK

Gritsevskaya
I. M. 		Pitirim Sorokin Syktyvkar State University
Brovkina
T. V. 		Pitirim Sorokin Syktyvkar State University
Keywords:
Athanasius of Alexandria
Questions and Answers
Old Believer manuscripts
Old Believer polemical literature		 Summary: The article examines the use of a fragment from the oldest translated piece of Slavic writing, “Questions and Answers of Pseudo-Athanasius of Alexandria to Prince Antiochus”, in the Old Believer manuscript “From the Epistle to Prince Antiochus”. This piece of writing, which contains the polemic against the official church, has not been studied or published before; it is known from a single manuscript originating from the Vyg miscellanea at the Library of the Rus- sian Academy of Sciences (Druzhinin’s Collection, No 23, 1760s). The polemic criticizes the arguments from “Spiritual Instruction”, a 1682 anti-Old Believers publication of the Moscow Printing Yard. The research findings suggest that the manuscript “From the Epistle to Prince Antiochus” likely originated between 1682 and the first decade of the XVIII cen- tury. The analysis revealed that both the target of the polemic (“Spiritual Instruction”) and the Old Believer polemical text itself contain a quote from the Question-and-Answer No 41, which addresses the form of the Cross. The authors identified the edition and type of the cited source, suggesting that it may have originated from the Solovetsky Monastery, and concluded that the source text was treated with reverence and was considered highly authoritative.



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