A Bibliographical Index of
the Printed Editions of the Canons of the Apostles and of the Councils
in the Slavonic and Russian Languages.
(Prepared by , Professor of the Chair of the Holy Scriptures of
the New Testament in the Ecclesiastical Academy of St. Petersburgh.)
the orthodox Russian Church, editions of the Conciliar Canons and Decrees have only been issued under the immediate disposition and sanction of the supreme ecclesiastical authority, and, in fact, are amongst those things which it is not within the competence of private scholars to undertake. Such editions therefore have been published in Russia only in accordance with practical requirements.
1. The earliest printed edition of the
afore-mentioned canons appeared in the Slavonic “Kormchaja
Kniga” (=Gk. πηδάλιον), the
printing of which was commenced at Moscow, on October 7th, 1649, under
the Patriarch Joseph of Moscow, and was finished on July 1, 1650; but
the Patriarch Nicon caused it to be submitted to a Council for
revision, in consequence of which certain pages were reprinted and
inserted afresh into it. Thereupon
copies of this “Kormchaja” were distributed for use amongst
the churches, and came into general
circulation not earlier than the year 1653. The second edition of
the “Kormchaja” appeared in 1787, after a revision under
the Metropolitan Gabriel of Novgorod and St. Petersburgh, and was followed by others (e.g., those of 1804, 1816, and 1823) without any alterations of importance. The latest editions differ from that of Nicon in certain particulars, but these particulars do not concern the ecclesiastical Canons, which are placed in the first part of the “Kormchaja” and include the 85 Apostolic Canons, the decrees of the sixteen councils (of Nicæa, Ancyra, Neocæsarea, Gangra, Antioch, Laodicea, the 2d, 3d, and 4th Ecumenical, Sardica, Carthage, Constantinople under Nectarius, in Trullo, 692, the 7th Ecumenical, the First-and-Second [council of Constantinople] and that in the church of St. Sophia) and the Canons of the 13 Holy Fathers.
2. In the printed “Kormchaja” the
canons are set forth, not in their full text, but in a shortened form
which sometimes gives but a very insufficient representation of the
contents of the original. On this account attempts at full
translations were made many years back, but these never appeared in
print. It was not until 1839 that such an edition as this was put
forth by the Holy Synod at St. Petersburgh, under the title: “The Book of the Canons of the Holy Apostles, of the Holy Ecumenical and local Councils, and of the Holy Fathers,” printed in large folio in “the Imperial city of St. Peter, the first impression in the 7347th year from the creation of the world, and the 1839th from the Birth in the flesh of God the Word, indict. 12.” In this edition there are 4 unnumbered leaves and 455 numbered pages. On each page there are two columns, for the original text and the new translation of the whole text into the Slavonic respectively, but without the commentaries of the Byzantine Canonists; occasionally, but rarely, notes based upon Zonaras or Balsamon are given, which are not always historically accurate (for instance, that to the 10th Canon of Ancyra, the 3d of Sardica, the 4th of Carthage, and the one which deals with the First-and-Second Council of 861) while in some places the text itself is not correct (for instance, in the 13th Canon of the 1st Ecumenical Council). This “Book of the Canons” subsequently went through the following editions: the 2d, printed in Moscow at the Synodal Press in 1862, in folio 8 leaves + 672 + 74 numbered pages, with Greek and Slavonic texts; the 3d ibid. in 1866, in quarto, 3 leaves + 373 pages + 1 leaf + 59 pages, with the Slavonic text only; the 4th, ibid. in 1874, in octavo, 4 leaves 4 + 455 pages + 2 leaves + 104 + 4 pages, also with the Slavonic text only; the 5th, ibid. in 1886, in folio, 3 leaves + 395 + 42 pages + 1 leaf, again with Slavonic text only.