SERBIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Prayers and Other Texts Based on the Oktoechos. An early collection of prayers in Serbian and Church Slavonic - a fine 16th-century monastic production. Such early Serbian manuscripts, as well as early fine bindings produced in the Balkan regions, are rare on the market. The slightly cursive hand points to a 16th-century production, and the absence of conspicuous decoration suggests the manuscript was prepared for a monastery's internal use. "In the 16th and 17th century most liturgical books were copied", and "copying was directed only towards preserving from ruin the heritage of the past, by multiplying copies and supplying the necessary books to monasteries" (Svet, p. 87). The elegant binding appears to have been produced a bit later than the manuscript, probably in the late 17th or early 18th century. The typically monastic style is reminiscent of the Vojvodina region in Serbia, bordering with present-day Romania. In particular, it resembles a binding produced in 1713 at Antim Monastery. In fact, by repute, this manuscript is said to have been preserved (and possibly rebound) in the 18th century at St George's Monastery in Mânăstire, near Timisoara - in particular, it is said to have sometime been in the library of the Serbian historian, naturalist, and Archimandrite Pavao Kengelac (1763-1834).Provenance: Dr. Dorde Kostic, Novi Sad, Serbia (1920-) - Dr. Kostic's descendants (-1994) - Jeremy Griffiths, Oxford (July 1994) - Martin Schøyen.

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