The Virgin’s miracles in literary discourse of Dymytriy Tuptalo and Ioan Maksymovych

Abstract

Relevance of the topic is to explore ways to preserve confessional identity in the texts of the ecclesiastical figures of the XVII-th century. This is important not only for investigation of Baroque culture, but also for understanding the contemporary church politics.The purpose of this work to study the function of sacred images in the literary discourse of the second half of the XVII- th century.In this article this icon is considered as a literary image in the books «Runo oroshennoye» of Dymytriy Tuptalo and «Bohorodytse Divo» of Ioann Maksymovych. The miracle- stories are analyzed as narrative texts, in which the miracles are the main events. In these books any trip to the icon associated with the theme of changing the physical state of a person following the confession, prayer, sincere repentance and the sacrament, that are a purely religious forms of communication with God. Dymytriy Tuptalo wrote his stories by narrative prose, Joann Maksymovyc wrote his teksts by verses, but the plots of these texts were very similar. These texts have standard building, called the hero of the story, which came to the monastery; at the margin or in the text the event calendar indicates (usually a year, month, day or holidays of the church calendar). Each of the authors puts in its own semantic accents.Virgin transmits and directs its power through the Icon for people who need her help. So the image of Virgin is studied across its functions (Helper, Protector, Presenter and others). Also the author came to the conclusion that icon of the Virgin from the monastery of st Illya serves as a means of sacralization of Chernigiv as a spiritual center. This icon performs the functions of preservation of Orthodox identity and protection from real enemies.Further study of literary texts, features of Ukrainian Marian icons will make it possible to determine the circle of shrines and their role in the early modern Ukraine.