Ostrog Bible
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The Ostroh Bible (Ukrainian: Острозька Біблія, romanized: Ostroz’ka Bibliia) was the first complete print of the Bible in a Slavic language,[1][2] and an "epochal event in the life of the whole Orthodox world."[3] It was a product of the Ostroh Academy, published in 1581 in Ostroh (modern-day Ukraine, then part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth) by the printer Ivan Fyodorov, under the patronage of Ruthenian magnate Konstantin Ostrovskyi.
Description
[edit]The Ostroh Bible was a monumental publication of 1,256 pages, lavishly decorated with headpieces and initials, which were prepared especially for it. From the typographical point of view, the Ostroh Bible is irreproachable.[citation needed] The first Bible printed in Cyrillic, it was translated from the Greek Septuagint by scholars from the Ostroh Academy. It comprised seventy-six books of the Old and New Testaments and a manuscript of the Codex Alexandrinus. Some parts were based on Francysk Skaryna's translations.[citation needed] An additional source was the 1499 Gennady's Bible (Novgorod, then part of the Grand Duchy of Moscow).[4]
It was printed on two dates: 12 July 1580, and 12 August 1581.[5] The second version differs from the 1580 original in composition, ornamentation, and correction of misprints. In the printing of the Bible, delays occurred, as it was necessary to remove mistakes, to search for correct textual resolutions of questions, and to produce a correct translation. The editing of the Bible detained printing. In the meantime, Fyodorov and his company printed other biblical books. The first were those that did not require correcting: the Psalter and the New Testament.[citation needed]
Significance
[edit]The importance of the first printed Cyrillic Bible can hardly be overestimated. It was a seminal event for Orthodoxy in Eastern Europe, as for centuries to come, copies of it circulated throughout not just the Ukrainian lands, but also the Belarusian and Russian (Muscovy) lands. Its publication was a response to the new demands of the Reformation, which made direct access to the Scriptures a hallmark of religious life.[6] Serhii Plokhy writes that its publication was "evidence of Ostrozky’s efforts to turn a reformed Orthodoxy into the political equivalent of the Calvinism professed by his Polish and Lithuanian colleagues."[2]
Further impetuses for the Bible's publication were the Czech "preformation" movement of John Hus which regarded the Scriptures as their sole rule of faith, and resistance to the Polish Counter-Reformation, whose Jesuit schools preached the necessity of undoing the "Greek Schism" of 1054. The Polish administrators at the time were engaged in a "multifaceted and all-encompassing" policy of Polonization and conversion to Catholicism.[7]
Prince Ostrovskyi sent copies to Pope Gregory XIII and the Muscovite Tsar Ivan the Terrible - the latter presented a copy to the English ambassador.[citation needed] When leaving Ostroh, Fyodorov took 400 copies with him.[citation needed] Only 300 copies of the Ostroh Bible are extant today.[citation needed] It is registered in the library of Oxford, and copies were owned by King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, Cardinal Barberini, and many contemporary scholars and public figures. The Bible later served as the primary source for the Moscow Bible published in 1663 under Alexis of Russia, and both were later used for the Elizabeth Bible of 1751.[1]
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ a b Oegema, Gerbern S. (2021). The Oxford Handbook of the Apocrypha. Oxford University Press. p. 46. ISBN 978-0-19-068964-3.
- ^ a b Subtelny, Orest (2009). Ukraine: A History. United Kingdom: University of Toronto Press. p. 96.
- ^ Plokhy, Serhii (2001). The Cossacks and Religion in Early Modern Ukraine. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press. p. 71.
- ^ Riches, John (2015). The New Cambridge History of the Bible: Volume 4, From 1750 to the Present. Cambridge University Press. p. 529. ISBN 978-1-316-19411-9.
- ^ "Магдебурзьке право в Острозі: європейські традиції в українському контексті". day.kyiv.ua (in Ukrainian). Retrieved 2023-02-17.
- ^ Plokhy, Serhii (2001). The Cossacks and Religion in Early Modern Ukraine. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press. p. 71.
- ^ Chopyk, Dan. ""BACKGROUND AND MOTIVATIONS WHICH LED TO THE PUBLICATION OF THE 'OSTROH BIBLE' IN 1581". Russian Language Journal. 37 (128): 41–46.
Sources
[edit]External links
[edit]
- The Ostrog Circle and Bible from Ways of Russian Theology, by Fr. George Florovsky
- Ostroh Bible at the Encyclopedia of Ukraine
- Ostrog Bible online at the Library of Congress
