The Edificatory Prose of Kievan Rusʹ

This volume consists of two of the oldest texts of Kievan Rusʹ: the Izbornik of 1076 and Grigorij the Philosopher’s Homilies on All the Days of the Week. The Izbornik is the earliest extant witness to the reception and subsequent transformation of Eastern Orthodox moral instruction that resulted from the transmission to Rusʹ of Bulgarian Slavic translations from the Greek. The Homilies of Grigorij the Philosopher, translated for the first time into any modern language, is the earliest dated and localized Slavic text (Kiev, ca. 1062).

These rhetorically artistic and sophisticated homilies provide a unique picture of an early Kievan preacher and of the moral needs of his Rusʹ audience. The Edificatory Prose of Kievan Rusʹ is an indispensable volume for all students of Slavia Orthodoxa in the eleventh century.