Арабское книгописание в горах Самцхе: к истории антиохийско-грузинских связей второй половины XV в.

Abstract

The 15th century was a period of deep decline and isolation of the Rum Orthodox Church of Antioch. Nevertheless, exactly in this time contacts between the Arab Christians and Georgian lands became more intense. In 1460-s political disintegration of Georgia began. Rulers of western and southern Georgian lands strived for independence not only from political power of kings of Kartli but as well from ecclesiastical jurisdiction of Catholicos of Mtskheta and tried to find moral support from the Patriarchs of Antioch. About 1462–1464 Patriarch of Antioch Mikhail IV gave the autocephaly to the Catholicos of Abkhazia previously subordinate to Mtskheta. At the same period atabegs of south-Georgian principality of Samtskhe maintained close contacts with the Church of Antioch intending to receive ecclesiastical autocephaly of their lands from the Patriarch of Antioch. Among the evidences of these contacts there were two Arabic Christian manuscripts written in Georgian lands in 1478 and 1488 by order of Kaykhosro, the son of atabeg of Samtskhe Kvarkvare. Presumably from the very beginning these books were intended to be a donation to Sinai monastery of St. Catherine, the main spiritual center of the Christian East. Scribe who composed the first manuscript, deacon Ephrem, was prominent copyist and author of the earliest Arabic description of Mount Sinai. The second scribe Elias from Damascus was calligrapher and poet who undoubtedly belonged to elite of the Melkite intellectuals. Both scribes in one way or another were connected with Melkite community of Damascus which at that period dominated in ecclesiastical affairs of the Orthodox East.