The Publishing Policy of the Moscow Print Yard: From the Book on Faith to Anthologion
Authors: Savelyeva Natalya 
Published: November 2022

This article analyses the work of the Moscow Print Yard in the last years of the patriarchate of Joseph and during the tenure of Patriarch Nikon. The traditional idea that the reform of Patriarch Nikon radically changed the publishing programme of the Print Yard is based primarily on innovations made to liturgical books, but the same changes may also be observed in the repertoire of publications not related to public or private worship. The purpose of this study is to conduct a comparative analysis of the reader miscellanies printed in the years immediately before the reform and after it in order to show the continuity of the publishing programme of the Print Yard during this decade. The material for this study consists, on the one hand, of the works of the Ruthenian author Hieromonk Gideon, which were being prepared for publication: the Book on Faith, printed in 1648, and the Alpha and Omega – a work that remained unpublished in the seventeenth century but was subsequently printed by Old Believer publishing houses. On the other hand, the analysis also involves the Skrizhal (1655–1656) and the Anthologion (1660), a miscellany that, even though printed after Nikon left the patriarchal throne, represents the goals and principles of editing texts followed by the Nikonian scribes. The latter two miscellanies consisted mainly of new translations of unknown versions of hagiographical works and Byzantine patristic heritage; these new translations have been usually attributed to Arsenius the Greek. The new materials presented in the article testify to the fact that in the preparation of these books, earlier translations from European modern Greek editions were used, including those that existed in manuscripts that circulated at the Print Yard during its last years before the Nikonian reform. These texts include the treatise of Gabriel of Philadelphia On the Seven Mysteries of the Church published in the Skrizhal, as well as the gnomology Chapters… from the Book Named Paradeisos by Nilus (John Geometres) and Tetrastichae sententiae of Gregory the Theologian, whose translation was until recently known only in the form that was printed as part of the Anthologion. Based on the analysis of the themes, composition, and sources of these miscellanies, it is concluded that the general aims manifested by the printing programme of the Print Yard in the 1640s – catechesis and the theological and moral education of Muscovite society – were consistently followed in the first years of the post-reform programme, though with a natural reorientation toward new sources. This set of aims of the publishing programme of the sovereign’s Print Yard is associated with the work of the circle of zealots of ancient piety, in which the future Patriarch Nikon was an active participant. Work on the publication of books was carried out with the direct participation of the royal confessor Stefan Vonifantiev and with the support of Tsar Alexei. The interest of the representatives of the Muscovite enlightened elite close to the court in the works of the Ruthenian book and manuscript tradition contributed to the appearance in Moscow, already in the pre-reform years, of new sources of Byzantine patristic heritage and examples of European theology.