Дослідження християнського Сходу в науковій спадщині єпископа Порфирія (Успенського)

Abstract

The study is devoted to the scientific heritage of Bishop Porphyry (Uspensky) (1804–1885), who found a significant number of written and material sources on church history in the Christian East. The bishop made three trips to the East during 1843–1846, 1848–1854 and 1865–1877. The main sources for this article were published documents, primarily the epistolary heritage of Porphyry, his publications in periodicals and in separate editions. Based on them, it was found that the bishop’s scientific activity in the East can be divided into three interrelated areas. The first was the description of ancient church buildings and monasteries, the second was the study of manuscripts found in monastery libraries, and the third was the study of early Christian painting. Porphyry visited a large number of monasteries, churches and other religious places in Constantinople, Jerusalem and around it, in Palestine, Athos and Sinai. For most of them, he compiled descriptions, drawings, revealed architectural features. As a result of his work in the libraries of the Sinai Monastery, the Holy Sepulcher Monastery in Jerusalem and the Jerusalem Patriarchate, the bishop found more than a thousand different church documents and manuscripts. Among them, the most controversial was the Sinai Code of Scripture. In studying ancient manuscripts and historical events, Porphyry was an uncompromising critic of the unverified facts that took place in the Christian history of the East. The manuscripts of the conversations of Patriarch Photius of Constantinople, edited by Porphyry, contain important information about the campaigns of Prince Askold of Kyiv, which is rather fragmentary in sources of domestic origin. Exploring ancient paintings, Porphyry noted that there were few such monuments in the East, and those that have survived have been carefully copied and described. In addition, the bishop made a comparative analysis of the pictorial style of the most important ancient icons. The scientific heritage of Porphyry (Uspensky) was a significant contribution to the study of the history of the Christian East.