Mária A. Strýčková: Tolkovanije (Explicatio) as a part of education

Mária Antónia Strýčková
Bratislava, Slovak Academy of Sciences
Basilovich´s Tolkovanije / Explicatio as part of education
In the eastern part of the Hungary Kingdom, namely in the historical Mukachevo Eparchy, cultural, national and religious pluralism is characteristic. It is a space between the Latin West and the Byzantine East. The binder in this diversity is language: Church Slavonic was not only the liturgical language of the Eastern byzntine Church, but it has united the various ethnic Slavic nationalities. Likewise, Latin also cemented the multi-ethnic Hungary and integrated it with the European cultural world. This relationship can be well observed in writings that originated in one of these languages, or that originated as translations or directly as parallel bilingual Latin-Church-Slavonic texts.
An exemplary work of such a linguistic symbiosis is the first known liturgical commentary from the center of the Greek Catholics, entitled Tolkovanije Sviaščennyja Liturgii Novago Zakona istinnyja Bezkrovnyja Žertvy / Explicatio Sacrae Liturgiae Novae Legis veri Incruenti Sacrificii (1815). Since the students of the Eastern Byzantine Slavic Rite at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries still had a better command of the Latin language due to their previous studies at grammar schools, this work was intended to deepen not only the study of the Eastern liturgy, but also of the Church Slavonic language. The author of the work is George Joannikij Basilovich, a Basilian monk, professor of theology and philosophy, and also a spiritual formator in the seminary.
By the example of liturgical terminology it can be observed that the parallel text was not only informative, but also didactic.