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ArcheoBiblioBase: Archives in Russia: G-26

Last update of repository: 30 May 2019

Biblioteka Sankt-Peterburgskoi Pravoslavnoi Dukhovnoi Akademii i Seminarii (Biblioteka SPbPDAiS)


Holdings

Total: ca. 850 units, 16th–20th cc.
MS books and manuscripts—ca. 150 (16th–20th cc.); dissertations—ca. 700 units (1946–1994)

The library retains manuscript books and manuscripts, including illuminated ones, relating to theology and liturgy, as well as compositions on historical and other subjects.
        Lives of saints and educational literature dating from the sixteenth through the nineteenth centuries are represented by Russian, as well as translated lives, legends, and tales, as well as collections of essays, exhortations, and descriptions of religious ceremonies. Among these are the “Tale of Cyrill of Turov (Kirill Turovskii),” “Tale of Gregory of Sinai (Gregorius Sinaita),” “About the Pilgrimage of Antony-the-Roman to Tsar'grad (Constantinople),” a copy of the “Izmaragd” (a book of religious exaltations), Revelations with an exegesis by St. Andreas, Archbishop of Crete, and a collection of exhortations attributed to St. Cyprianus, bishop of Carthage. There are also apocryphal works dating from the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries, such as “The Passion of Christ,” “The Epistle of Apostle Varnavva,”and various biblical stories based on the New Testament, among others. There are Russian Orthodox iconographic materials dating from the nineteenth century, such as an iconographic original, an illuminated history of fine arts, and codices with textual copies of manuscripts. Among other texts of anhistorico-literary character are a description of Asia and China (1686), a chronicle (to 1630), stories about Patriarch Nikon (18th c.), and materials on the history of the town of Trubchevsk (19th c.).
        Liturgical literature is represented by materials dating from thesixteenth through the nineteenth centuries, including a prayer-book (molitvennik), Psalters, mineia (service book), along with services for Our Lady, saints, and martyrs; and services for the icons of Our Lady of Vladimir, Kazan, Kostroma, and Smolensk, as well as liturgical and other codices (sborniki).
        Old Believer literature from the eighteenth to the early twentieth centuries is represented by the rules of the Pomor'e Old Believer marriage ceremony (brachnyi chin pomorskogo soglasiia), the illuminated manuscript “About the Most Needed Events of the Very Last Century” (O samykh nuzhneishikh sluchaiakh poslednego veka sego) (18th c.), and the nineteenth-century manuscript “A Brief Analysis of the Church of Unitarian Belief” (edinovercheskaia tserkov'), among others.
        Manuscripts of sacred choral music from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries include oktoikh (book of eight tones), obikhody (rules of church singing), hirmologia (irmologii), triodions, liturgies, feast services, and other liturgical books.
        There is also a small collection of student compositions from the Academy and Seminary (18th–20th cc.), most of which relate to the history of the Russian Church, beginning with the Petrine period. Writings on other subjects include “Moral Ideals of Dostoevskii and their Christian Moral Evaluation” by V. Iartsev (1902) and “Religious and Philosophic Outlook of A.S. Khomiakov” by V. Novitskii (1916), among others. There is a collection of kandidat, master's, and doctoral dissertations defended at the Academy from the 1940s to the present.
        There are some manuscripts in Greek, including a nineteenth-century copy of the letter from the brothers of the Savva Osviashchennyi Monastery to Ivan IV and his son Fedor.
        Personal papers of scholars and administrators related to the Academy include those of the Byzantinist A.I. Ivanov and the Academy inspector L.N. Parieiskii, among others.


ABB ArcheoBiblioBase Archeo Biblio Base Patricia Kennedy Grimsted