Church Slavonic Research Articles

Духовное просвещение и благочестие в проповеди конца XVII века

<p>The crucial 17<sup>th</sup> century raises the question of the importance of systemic education — churches as a concentration of knowledge become centers of education. The sermon becomes a channel for broadcasting reflections. «Propoved’ v nedeluy 23 po soshestvii Svyatago Duha» [Sermon on Week 23 after the Descent of the Holy Spirit] from the anonymous handwritten collection of sermons «Statir» of the late 17<sup>th</sup> century is published according to all the rules for the transmission of the Church Slavonic text and identifying the sources of the intertext. By spiritual enlightenment the preacher understands attention to the sermons delivered, the study of patristic writings. Along the way, related topics are comprehended — book publishing, respect for people of intellectual labor (writers, preachers). The author deduces the idea of the need for spiritual enlightenment by comparing the Gadarians from the parable of the possessed Gadarin (Luke 8) and modern people who also reject the Word of God, which is embodied in sermons and interpretations, but they do it consciously, unlike the people from the parable. Comparing the flock with the early Christians, the author notes the decline in the ability to think, and in the second part of the sermon he shows the social and spiritual state of people who chose sin instead of diligence in faith. The sin of drunkenness, chosen for illustration, is considered by the author to be one of the most dangerous, because it is he who feels the source of other sins, and is also the most visible in public life. The main conclusion of the author's reflections is that spiritual enlightenment and the ability to reflect are necessary for priests and laity because unrighteous behavior in earthly life and the impossibility of future salvation are due to sins, the harm of which can only be understood if one follows authoritative sources of knowledge. In addition to the author's reflections, the literary talent of the author becomes the subject of research. The complex semantic structure of the sermon, the art of eloquence, the rhetorical strategy of exposing drunkenness associated with the creative processing of patristic and biblical quotations are noted.</p>

THE NAME SYSTEM IN TRANSLATION OF THE BLAU ATLAS AND THE RECOMMENDATIONS OF CHURCH SLAVONIC GRAMMARS

The article describes the declension of nouns in a translated work of the middle of the 17th century, known as the Blau Atlas. This text was translated from Latin in Moscow in the late 50s - early 60s of the 17th century by Kiev scribes led by Epiphanius Slavinetsky and rewritten by Moscow scribes. The translation was carried out after the publication of the Moscow edition of Smotrytsky’s grammar and was largely focused on it. The article shows that both the translators themselves and the scribes of the text knew the norms of grammar, used it when working on the text and in most cases sought to strictly observe the prescribed rules. The system of declension of nouns, presented in the Moscow edition of grammar, differs from the grammatical works published in Southwestern Russia, with which the Kiev scribes were familiar. In the translation carried out in Moscow, educated Kiev translators took into account the discrepancies between the works and were guided by Moscow norms; in addition, they introduced their ideas about grammatical variation, built their own declension system. The article will consider paradigms that reflect the orientation towards the Moscow grammar of 1648; further on, it will be demonstrated how the Kievan scribes build their own system of opposing one paradigm to another, striving to eliminate the variability inherent in the grammar. At the end, a significant discrepancy between drafts and final versions is considered, which also reflects a different degree of orientation towards Moscow grammar. The approach of translators to the text, in our opinion, can attribute the text created by them to the scientific register of the Church Slavonic language, formed just in the middle of the 17th century.

The translation of a biblical greeting formula into Romanian and Polish in a Romance and Slavic context

The purpose of this article is to compare the different variants of the translation of the verse from Luke, 1:28 (the angelic salutation) into Romanian and Polish, and the modern versions of the prayer based on this passage. The analysis reveals the innovative character of the newer biblical translations, especially in the case of the Protestant versions, while the text of the Hail Mary prayer and its Eastern counterpart used by the Catholic and Orthodox Churches respectively preserves the traditional formula. At the same time,this leads to semantic differences between the Romanian and Polish variants of this formula, due to the Greek and Church Slavonic model in the case of Romanian and the Latin model in the case of Polish. The linking element between the two languages is the formula used in the Polish Orthodox text, which follows the tradition of the Church Slavonic language and thus coincides with the Romanian version, having a literal meaning of ‘rejoice’, even though functionally it should be interpreted as a greeting.

Грифельная доска с надписью ребёнка из Владимира (конец XVIII— начало XIX вв.)

Archaeologists often find children’s things in the cultural layer of the cities in Vladimir-Suzdal land. They are usually represented by toys or everyday items. School supplies are more rare archaeological artifacts. The fragment of a writing slate discovered in Vladimir belongs to this group of artifacts. It preserves a segment of a written exercise on its surface. The child who wrote it was learning the Church Slavonic grammar. It belongs to the category of texts that are not intended to be saved. A combination of circumstances fixed it in time. The inscription consists of only two lines. However, it provides an interesting information about both the spelling of the texts and the educational technologies used in home primary schooling for children of the middle urban estates of Vladimir in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

ОТРАЖЕНИЕ АНТИКВАРНОГО МЕТОДА "ВЕТХОГО ЛЮБОПЫТНИКА" УИЛЬЯМА КЕМДЕНА В ЦЕРКОВНО-СЛАВЯНСКОМ ПЕРЕВОДЕ "БРИТАНИИ"

The article analyses the interpretation of particularities of the antiquarian method that was very popular among the European researchers of the 16th century in the Church Slavonic translation of W. Camden's "Britannia". Created by the English antiquary this treatise was included in the fourth volume of the most famous world geographical atlas - the "New Atlas" of Blaeu. This volume was translated very accurately into Church Slavonic by Isaiah, the Little Russian scribe of the Chudov Monastery in the 1650s-1661 upon the orders of Patriarch Nikon. The examples of archaeology, numismatics and epigraphies were examined. These auxiliary disciplines were just beginning to form in Europe in the late 16th - early 17th centuries. For the Russian state of the same period, it is not necessary to talk about a similar level of development of these areas of historical thought, so Isaiah acted as a pioneer, interpreting, for example, information about ancient coins, archaeological finds, that is, artefacts.

Новооткрит възрожденски писмен паметник с гръцко писмо от Централните Родопи

The article deals with the recently discovered Ustovski sbornik, a written monument from the Central Rhodope region. The collection was compiled and owned by Kiryak Byalkovski, a prominent figure in the Central Rhodopes. The texts included in the collection are written in the local Rhodope dialect using the Greek alphabet. In addition, they contain features of South-western Bulgarian dialects, as well as vocabulary distinctive of Church Slavonic. The collection comprises sections of Damaskin sermons and gospel texts, among others. The article presents a set of guidelines for exploring the graphical, grammatical and lexical characteristics of this manuscript as part of the Central Rhodope literary tradition of the Bulgarian National Revival period.

Translating the Slavonic Present Participles in the Early Romanian Psalters (16th Century)

It is often said that early Romanian biblical translations from Church Slavonic follow the source texts slavishly. This is believed to be especially true about the 16th century Romanian Psalters, a group of seven texts (both printed and hand-copied) descending from a single translation. Indeed, these texts stay close to their Church Slavonic originals in topic, lexical content, and orthographical rules. However, we aim to describe how the 16th century translators and redactors dealt with Church Slavonic structures that could not be easily adapted into Romanian by means of formal equivalence. The Slavonic present participle, which appears plenty in the Slavonic Psalter, was chosen as litmus test. While theoretically having a formal correspondent in Old Romanian (the gerund), the Slavonic present participle has a range of uses and meanings that the Old Romanian gerund lacks. Thus, Romanian scribes must depart from the comfort of formal equivalence that calques and loans provide and choose the translation that convey meaning. The dynamic equivalence is obtained by selecting different solutions: gerunds, adjectives, objects and, most often, clauses, especially relative ones. Rendering participles with clauses (i.e. adjectives with verbs) forces the translator to make decisions going beyond the Slavonic participle itself. The analysis shows a tension between betraying the Slavonic text as little as possible and rendering it to the best of the redactor’s ability.

The Byzantine chronicles of Symeon the Magister and the Logothete (10th cent.) and Joannes Zonaras (12th cent.). Lesser known sources of knowledge on the Balkan and Eastern Europe Slavs (review of research)

The article deals with two Byzantine chronicles that were translated into Old Church Slavic in the Middle Ages on the Balkan Peninsula and were subsequently adapted in Rus’, where they served as the base and source of inspiration for indigenous East Slavic historical studies in universal history. It is about the works of Symeon Magister and Logothete, who probably wrote between the reign of Romanus I Lecapenus and the beginning of the reign of Basil II, and the Epitome historiarum of John Zonaras, covering history from the creation of the world to 1118, which is the most comprehensive Byzantine historical work and which, possibly, was completed ca. 1145. The aim of the article is to establish the chronology of the creation of the Old Church Slavic translations of both chronicles and the history of their dissemination in the Slavia Orthodoxa area (with a review of the state of research). The editions of the translations and unpublished manuscript material were examined (its excerpt is presented in the appendix). We were able to establish that the complete translation of the work of Symeon Magister and Logothete is preserved only in the Moldavian historiographical compilation of 1637, while the text of John Zonaras was translated by the Slavs several times and functioned in their literatures in many versions, none of which, however, is complete.

St. Maximus the Greek (Mihail Trivolis, Arta, ca. 1470–Maksim Grek, Moscow, 1556): The Insight into His Personal Euchology

This text establishes a datum for claims that Maximus the Greek’s life-work was to protect and preserve ancient precepts for a personal devotional “space” against statist and imperial imprimatur. This task was accomplished through both his work as translator and as author of sacred devotional texts and hymns associated with Byzantine hymnography and the Eastern Orthodox Christian tradition. Notably, it is his inner veneration of the Holy Theotokos that marks the primary sensibility of the defence of this intense, inwardly-focused faith in direct communion with the Divine. Maxim’s defence of the Eastern Orthodox Christian tradition was accomplished by the special guidance of the Holy Spirit as his personal internal principle that he used not only in the prayer (hesychastic, ascetical) and in the theological works (hagiographical, liturgical), but also in the philological works (of editing, translating, redacting), and especially in the exegetical texts.
 Therefore, the strong Byzantine patristic and monastic thought as the basis of his contemplative practice, formed in the years spent at the Holy Mount Athos, were only one of the one of the important sources of his original Orthodox theology.
 Into detailed consideration are taken especially his prayers. Among them, the most important place is reserved for “The Kanon to the Holy and Divine Spirit Parakletos,” which reflects several possible influences, such as the Akathystos hymn, the Great Kanon, and the individual canon as was St. Constantin’s Kanon to St. Demetrius, all of which confirm the very archaic Byzantine and Slavonic sources that properly could serve Maxim for his Old Church Slavonic linguistic basis. Thus, his prayer is a highly original, monastic and deeply personal work that bears witness to his ascetic (hesychastic) practice. All of this tends to confirm that his grammatical and linguistic view of the Old Church Slavonic language was shaped well before his entrance to Muscovite Russia, and that not only was he unjustly accused of heretical mistakes, and thereby imprisoned, but he was, more importantly, completely misunderstood. Nevertheless, and despite his suffering, Maxim was, until the end of his life, arguing that his use of Slavonic language was guarded and, therefore, sacred.

NOMINA AGENTIS AND NOMINA ACTORIS IN THE ODESSA COPY OF THE “SMALL CATECHISM” BY THEODOR THE STUDITE FROM THE XVIII CENTURY

The purpose of this article is to determine the word-formation and lexico-semantic features of the designations nomina agentis and nomina actoris registered in Theodore Studite’s «Small Catechism» and to consider these linguistic units as a means of archaization or modernization (approximation to colloquial language) of the text. The subject of the study is the word-formation and lexico-semantic features of the nouns nomina agentis and nomina actoris. The Odesa copy of the «Small Catechism» is included in collection No. 1/154, kept in the Odesa National Scientific Library. All recorded nouns of nomina agentis and nomina actoris divide by origin into two groups: native Slavic language units and borrowed ones; indigenous Slavic lexemes in each nominative series distribute into groups according to word-formation types. Within word-formation types, lexico-semantic groups are distinguished. The separation of two lexico-semantic groups — names of individuals by type of activity, nature of occupation, profession, and names of individuals by their characteristic principles of behavior — is possible for each word-formation type. The separation of other lexico-semantic groups is optional. It has been established that for Slavic designations of nomina agentis, the most productive wordformation formants are -тел, -ник, -ец, unproductive ones are -ица, *-jь, and singular -ач; for the formation of designations of nomina actoris the affix -ник is most often used, very rarely -ар. The known stylistic differentiation between the literary affix -тел and the affixes -ник, -ец, which could participate in the creation of both literary and colloquial elements, does not implement in the «Small Catechism». The results of the study allow us to conclude about a number of factors that could cause this phenomenon. The main of them are features of the content of sermons, individual perception of the language norm by the scribe working on the text, his approach to the selection of vocabulary, and orientation to the specificity of the audience — well-prepared and educated church ministers, monks. Borrowings are represented only by Hellenisms, most of which were assimilated in ancient times. Prospects for further research we see in specifying the role of the Church Slavonic language of the Eastern edition in the productivity of these word-formation types.

The Sisinnios' Legend in Codex Sturdzanus: the Text and the Language

The article presents the results of a study of two South Slavic redactions of the St. Sisinnios’ legend (the Prayer of the Archangel Michael and the Prayer of St. Sisinnios) in the manuscript known as the Codex Sturdzanus (Library of the Romanian Academy, Ms. rom. 447). The Prayer of the Archangel Michael and the Prayer of St. Sisinnios are considered in the context of the South Slavic and Greek tradition of Sisinnios’ legend. The using of linguistic and textual methods of the investigation made it possible to describe the redactions as stylistic. The complex of orthographic, phonetic and morphological features of the Prayer of the Archangel Michael and the Prayer of St. Sisinnios in the Codex Sturdzanus (reflexes *ȩ, *ě, *dj, transition *y " [i], spelling of syllabic consonants, declension of nouns and adjectives) allows to describe the language of the texts as the Middle Bulgarian redaction of the Church Slavonic language, used as a written language in the principalities of Wallachia, Moldavia and Transylvania.

From the British Isles to Solovetsky Monastery: How an Irish Prayer Became Part of the Church Slavonic Tradition

From the British Isles to Solovetsky Monastery: How an Irish Prayer Became Part of the Church Slavonic Tradition

Historical and pedagogical aspects of foreign language education in Ukraine

The article is devoted to considering historical and pedagogical aspects of the development of foreign language education in Ukraine, starting from ancient times and up to our time. The definition and analysis of “foreign language education” as a multifaceted phenomenon, which includes several processes: cognition, development, education and training, is provided. Foreign language education is linguistic and cultural education, the result of which should be a plurilingual personality. It is noted that foreign languages were studied in our country even before the adoption of Christianity. For centuries, education and all other socio-political processes were taken care of by the church; therefore, Church Slavonic and Greek languages were studied in schools due to their confessional status. Various educational institutions (“fraternal schools”, “multilingual”, “German”, and “Latin” schools) were opened, in which teaching in foreign languages was widespread. Latin has always held a high status not only as a foreign language but also as a language of instruction in many disciplines. It turns out that domestic foreign language education has been implemented for many years depending on the language policy of the ruling power structures in one or another territory of our country. This affected the main trends and challenges that made it necessary to focus on preserving one’s language and culture. The development of new economic and social processes influenced the departure from “dead languages” to studying “living” ones, which had specific practical significance. It was revealed that the opening of three universities, Kharkiv, Kyiv and Novorossiysk, which taught both classical languages (Latin and ancient Greek) and new ones (French, German, Italian, Polish and English), was a breakthrough in the development of foreign language teaching in higher education. It has been established that after the declaration of independence of Ukraine in 1991, foreign language education developed under the influence of important state documents of Ukraine regarding the study of foreign languages by citizens and the All-European recommendations on language education: study, teaching, evaluation. Therefore, the changes that are taking place force us to rethink the previous experience and integrate new progressive ideas into the educational process in accordance with the strategy for the development of foreign language education in our country.

Некалькi слоў пра гiбрыдны характар тэксту Маўлюда XVIII ст.

The present article focuses on the text created by Belarusian–Polish–Lithuanian Tatars that admires the birth of the Prophet Muhammad with the ap- propriate title “Mawlid” (Birth). The time of text creation is unknown. Although, the last rewriting of the manuscript is most likely to have taken place no earlier than the second half of the 18th century, that is, according to some researchers, when the Polish language prevailed in texts written by the Tatars who lived on the territory of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The language of the text under consideration can be described as hybrid. Hybrid texts were based on a native speaker’s linguistic capabilities with an orientation to some book that served an example. On the one hand, the linguistic structure of such a text reflected the idiolect of its creator, and, on the other hand, it included the elements of the book example the creator was guided by. The objective of the article is to study the lexi- cal structure of the text in question which is a mixture of lexemes belonging to different languages. There are a number of Arabic and Turkish words in the text. Regarding Slavonic words, it is difficult to determine their origin accurately due to genetic links of the languages. Definitely, there have been attested lexemes be- longing to Common Slavic, along with Church Slavonic and East Slavonic words of Polish origin. In conclusion, it is assumed that norms pertaining to the Polish language became weaker gradually. This statement can be supported by the fact that “Mawlid” (Birth) was created no earlier than the 18th century, when the ter- ritories bordering the Russian Empire alongside the territories which had entered the Russian Empire after partitioning the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth were greatly influenced by the East Slavonic dialects as well as standards in writing. The fact that there is a mixture of not only phonetic and morphological but also lexical elements in the text does not seem to suggest that such a process took place only as a result of repeated text rewriting. There also may be a case typical of undifferentiated multilingualism when a speaker does not separate the system of languages and uses the first option that comes to mind without thinking about its linguistic affiliation.

Te Deum в кириллической транскрипции с подстрочным церковнославянским переводом

The Latin Psalter from the Chudov monastery, written in Cyrillic letters around the end of the 15th century, is a document of paramount importance for the study of the Latin cultural tradition in Muscovy. This unique manuscript seems to be linked to the fervent translation activity directed by the archbishop of Novgorod Gennadii (1484–1504). The wide space left between the lines of the main Latin text was without doubt supposed to be filled with the Church Slavic corresponding text. A Slavic “translation” was indeed inserted into the biblical cantica and other texts, among which the hymn Te Deum, traditionally (and wrongly) considered to be a joint composition by Saint Ambrose and Saint Augustine, which was very widespread in the Western Church.
 The article features the first diplomatic interlinear edition of the Slavic-Latin Te Deum, which is preceded by a short description and analysis of the Slavic text and its main linguistic peculiarities in comparison with another translation of the same work, made some decades later by Dmitry Gerasimov. Here all relevant differences between the two Slavic versions, both at the lexical and grammatical levels, are presented and shortly discussed. Further, some evident errors in the Slavic text of the Chudov Psalter cast some doubts on the possibility to consider it a real translation in the strict sense of the term; it seems rather to function as a lexico-grammatical interlinear gloss, to be read vertically as an auxiliary tool for a proper understanding of the Latin original.

Словарь речений из богослужебных книг прот. А. И. Невоструева (плинѳа — повѣдатель)

The “Dictionary of Locutions from Liturgical Books” by Protopriest A. Nevostruev, completed in the middle of the 19th century and never published, can be regarded both as a significant achievement of Church Slavonic studies and as a valuable lexicographic source. The manuscript is kept in the Russian State Library. The decrepit state of the manuscript has determined the necessity of its urgent study and edition. The significance of this project is primarily due to the fact that the text of the dictionary is being made accessible to linguists for the first time. The orthography and grammar of the dictionary reflect the linguistic views of the time of its creation and can be of interest for those who study the history of Russian linguistics. This paper contains the second part of dictionary entries beginning in letter P. The characteristic features of the publication of this Dictionary, the lists of sources, abbreviations and symbols were described in detail in the previous issues of St. Tikhon’s University Review. All previously published parts of the Dictionary together with the critical apparatus can be found at the website of St. Tikhon’s University for the Humanities

Церковнославянский язык в школьной программе как инструмент трансляции духовно-нравственных ценностей

Цель настоящей работы – продемонстрировать пути актуализации в школьной программе церковнославянского языка как инструмента трансляции духовно-нравственных ценностей. Автор решает следующие задачи: анализ ценностных оснований современного образования; обоснование необходимости включения церковнославянского языка в школьную программу по праву исторической преемственности и ради его значимости с точки зрения трансляции традиционной духовности; определение направления педагогических усилий по формированию личности – носителя церковнославянского языка; анализ понятия «прецедентного текста» применительно к текстам, изучаемым на уроке церковнославянского языка. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the ways of actualization of the Church Slavonic language in the school curriculum as a tool for the transmission of spiritual and moral values. The author analyzes the value bases of modern education, and justifies the need for including the Church Slavonic language in the school curriculum by the right of historical continuity and for the sake of its importance from the point of view of the transmission of traditional spirituality. She sets the direction of pedagogical efforts to form a personality of a Church Slavonic language speaker, and analyzes the concept of “precedent text” in relation to the texts studied at the lesson of the Church Slavonic language.

SOME MORPHOLOGICAL FEATURES OF THE SYSTEM OF NOUNS IN THE ODESSA COPY OF THE NEW BULGARIAN TRANSLATION OF THE “SMALL CATECHISMOS” BY THEODOR THE STUDITE

The purpose of the article is to consider the morphological peculiarities of the system of the nouns in New Bulgarian translation of the “Catechismos” written by Theodore the Studite, which is a part of the manuscripts no. 1/154 kept in Odessa National Scientific Library. The subject of the research is the morphological specifics of nouns in Odessa copy of the “Catechismos” dating from the 18th. The morphological peculiarities of nouns is considered in the context of the formation of a linguistic norm, which allowed the combination with different intensity of linguistic means of several language systems functioning at the time (traditional Middle Bulgarian written language, Church Slavonic Eastern recensions, and vernacular language form). The analysis proposed in this paper presents the extensive system of cases, which does not reflect the real vernacular Bulgarian speech in the 18th; the specifics of the functioning of the gramemes of the case paradigm of masculine, feminine and neuter nouns in the singular and plural forms is analyzed. Usage case endings mistakes, which indicates their artificial nature, are considered. The lack of article of nominal parts of speech is noted; the predominance of compound declension form of the adjectives and participles over short forms is revealed; the relatively high frequency of use of active present participles is registered. The results of the study make it possible to outline some probable factors that determine the writer’s preference for using the linguistic tools of the so-called “bookish”, “traditional”, “archaic” writing systems. An another reason which to some extent explains he usage of case inflections in the text of this relatively late stage of the historical development of the Bulgarian language might be the use of East Slavic copies of the Studite’s sermons by the scriber. Еhe comparison of “Catechismos” copies of South and East Slavic origin is necessary for verification of this assumption, in which we see prospects for further research.

Eastern Christian and Islamic Manuscripts in Minnesota: Handwritten, Microfilm, and Digital

Abstract: This article is a brief overview of Eastern Christian and Islamic collections in Minnesota, with a focus on the holdings of the largest such collection, located at the Hill Museum and Manuscript Library (HMML) in Collegeville. Minnesota's manuscripts are largely defined by their digital presence and physical absence, as HMML has amassed the world's largest collection of digital manuscript images while the digitized manuscripts remain in libraries around the world. However, HMML holds a (relatively) small collection of physical manuscripts as well, which is the focus of this survey. The collection includes Islamic manuscripts in Arabic, Persian, and Turkish, along with Christian manuscripts in Amharic, Arabic, Armenian, Church Slavonic, Coptic, Geʻez, Georgian, Greek, Russian, and Syriac. Highlights include twenty-one Geʻez magic scrolls, three copies of Muḥammad al-Jazūlī's Arabic prayer book Dalāʼil al-khayrāt , late antique Coptic and Greek texts on papyrus and wood, and a Georgian palimpsest fragment with two Syriac undertexts. The article describes the history of the institution and its manuscript holdings and gives an outline of the collection's contents.

Апостроф как средство устранения числовой омонимии по принципу антистиха

The author of the article considers the development of the differentiating function of the apostrof (apostrophe), which is realized in the contemporary Church Slavonic language in the pronominal paradigm. The comparison of facts in grammars and old-printed editions shows that the application of apostrophe-dissimilator was not presupposed by the Grammar of 1648, and appeared in the course of the work of the Moscow Print Yard correctors (from the Service Book of 1655). It first appeared in the forms yazhe, izhe with the support of productive forms (ya, i), then it spread to the forms im, imzhe (by external analogy with other forms of DatPl) and further to the rest of the pronominal homoforms (by internal analogy). The development of this spelling innovation was consistently reflected in the Moscow editions of the second half of the 17 th century up to its stage-by-stage codification in grammars of 1721, 1723, 1725 and 1733. The pronominal nature of the apostrophe-dissimilator predetermined the limitations in its functioning; however, the acquisition of a differentiating function became a necessary stage in the formation of the system of antistih (anti-verse) in its modern form. The expansion of apostrophe functioning, which has a precedent in the Grammar by F. Maximov (1723), may contribute to the logical completion of this formation. Also, the obtained data on the development of the apostrof (apostrophe) differentiating function can be used to identify Moscow editions along with other innovations, introduced in the period of the Nikon's correctors work.