Гимнология 4 (2003) 52-68 (original) (raw)

On the Chanting System of the Weekly Octoechos Canons in the Early Liturgical Tradition. Nine types of the early Russian Parakletike represented in 18 manuscripts are introduced into the context of the early Byzantine liturgical tradition. They all belong to three local varieties of Parakletike, these of Constantinople, old- Bulgarian and early Russian. The fourth, Palestine variety of Parakletike exhisting in the unique oldest copy Sinait. gr. 776 which includes along with the Sunday and partly formed weekly canon cycles, the earliest form of Octoechos / Parakletike. In this proto-Octoechos all weekly echos canons of different dedications, having rather archaic literary text, are sung following the model of one heirmoi akolouthia, marked in the manuscript as «common». In Heirmologia the majority of «common» heirmoi are part of the akolouthiai of Germanos, Patriarch of Constantinople.