Polish-Lithuanian Data of David Zamaray’s Azbukovnik and the Ukrainians in Patriarch Filaret’s Surroundings

Abstract

In this article, we take a new look at the initiator of the campaign to prohibit the so-called “Lithuanian” books in the Moscow Tsardom in the first third of the 17^th century on the basis of known sources. In addition to the extant documents and indisputable biographical facts, manuscript materials from the azbukovniks of Muscovite corrector David Zamaray are also involved to propose the hypothesis about the initiative in the prosecution of books from the neighboring state that came from Lithuanian emigrant Jozef Kurcewicz, who became archbishop of Suzdal and Tarusa in the Moscow Tsardom. The examination of vocabulary entries of these azbukovniks allows us to establish that some of them were borrowed from the “Lithuanian printing” books, coming to Moscow from the constant correspondent of Jozef Kurcewicz, Metropolitan of Kiev Job Boretsky (such as Homilies of John Chrysostom on the Acts of the Apostles (Kiev, 1624), John Chrysostom’s Homilies on 14 Epistles of Apostle Paul (Kiev, 1623)). We also show that the Kievan theologian Athanasius Kitaichich, who became the first among detractors of Didactic Gospel of Kyrylo Stavrovetsky-Tranquillion, was under the patronage of Jozef Kurcewicz and could reflect his point of view on this book.