THE GENRE FEATURES OF UKRAINIAN BAROQUE SERMON

Abstract

This paper is an attempt to comprehend the theoretical preconditions of the genre structure of the Ukrainian baroque sermon in the process of its formation and development starting from “Teaching Gospel” of the early baroque period written by Kyrylo Trankvilion Stavrovetskyi till the homiletic treatise “The Art or the Method of Composing the Sermon” by Ioanykii Galiatovskyi. The forms and principles of coexistence of two homiletical patterns, Greco-Slavic and Latin-Polish, are considered as a channel of rhetorical and stylistic changes that determine genre modifications and varieties. Viewed in this way, the author’s introductions, topics of sermons, and their consistency with different composite parts of the text give grounds to observe the consecutive actualization of the whole conception within the ambit of the whole book and individual sermon samples.
 One of the key issues is the interaction of oral and written (book) forms of a sermon, which reveals a double level of communication with the recipient: listening and reading. This is demonstrated by the oral practices of preaching by Kyrylo Trankvilion Stavrovetskyi, Ioanykii Galiatovskyi, Antonii Radyvylovskyi, and Lazar Baranovych, on the one hand. On the other hand, in their collections of sermons named “Key of Understanding”, “Virgin Mary’s Garden”, “Spiritual Sword”, “Trumpets of Sermon Words”, the authors, in addition to the practical part, give some theoretical comments and reflections on their creative process, endowed with divine power.
 The development of the theory of Ukrainian baroque preaching was greatly influenced by the homiletic treatise by Ioanykii Galiatovskyi “The Art or the Method of Composing the Sermon”, in which the author consistently elaborates the main issues concerning the theme, composition, examples, and amplification.