The present text aims to reflect on the reliability of Constantine Porphyrogenitus’ account about the departure of Caslav, a Serbian prince, from Bulgaria at the beginning of the reign of Peter I, the successor of Symeon. The passage devoted to this event is located in the De administrando imperio (32, p. 159, 161) by the learned emperor. Constantine Porphyrogenitus’ relation about the “flight” of Caslav to Serbia should be treated as manipulated and approached with considerable caution.

The article analyzes certain early Byzantine hagiographic texts concerning various forms of brigandage (both maritime and land-based). Two such accounts are studied in detail, one by Gerontius of Jerusalem and another by Theodoret of Cyrus. The instances described unveil the weakness of Roman state structures at the borders of the state as well as in lands harassed by barbarian raids, including piracy. Despite certain flaws (mostly the lack of precision), the accounts under discussion constitute valuable and reliable sources of historical knowledge.

In his Ecclesiastical history, Socrates depicts Helena as a pious, strong and independent woman, the mother of the emperor, realizing her own ideas and acting as a tool in the hands of God – the ultimate inspiration of her actions. The emperor, her son, only supported her in her undertakings. According to Socrates, Helena travelled to Jerusalem to answer God’s call; there, she organized the search for the Sepulchre and the Holy Cross and found them. She was supported by Macarius, the bishop of Jerusalem, who, after God’s intervention, distinguished the True Cross from the crosses of the two villains. The empress divided the relics and sent some of them to her son to Constantinople; moreover, in the Holy Land, she built three basilicas connected with the life of Christ. Finally, Socrates mentions her piety and discusses the place of her burial. Conversely, in Sozomen’s account of the recovery of Christ’s Sepulchre and the relics, the main role is played by emperor Constantine, who wished to repay God for his blessings; he ordered the search and the construction of the basilica on Mount Golgotha. His mother only supported him in his plans, led by her devoutness, to which Sozomen pays more attention than his predecessor – he emphasizes Helena’s sensitivity to human poverty and suffering. The emperor was also involved in her generous deeds and gave her access to the imperial treasury. Thus, as indicated by Sozomen, Helena’s piety brought prosperity both to her family and to the whole Roman Empire.

The article surveys the available data on food of plant origin used in the period of the First Bulgarian Empire. The information is based on written sources and paleobotanical data, which show the presence of diverse plants used for food. It is also evident that these data are rather scarce compared to those from Byzantium. No food recipes have survived from this period, but there is some secondary evidence allowing the reconstruction of some foods. It suggests that grain porridges, rather than bread, were the main food.

The paper investigates the establishment of the office of the epi ton kriseon during the Reign of emperor Constantine IX Monomachos (1042–1055), analysing the reasons behind its creation and its initial character. In addition, a list of all holders of this office is provided, based on all available sources – sphragistic, epistolary, rhetorical, documentary, etc. The list is divided into two parts – before and after the sack of the Byzantine capital by the Crusaders in 1204. Certain conclusions are reached at the end of the paper based on the data from the first part of the list. Different aspects of the problem are examined, including the honorific titles of the epi ton kriseon, their other offices, activities and social bonds. Individuals who held this position include prominent figures such as Konstantinos, nephew of patriarch Michael I Keroularios (1043–1058) and the addressee of many letters from Michael Psellos, as well as the 12th–13th century historian Niketas Choniates. In the 11th–12th century, these officials were an indelible part of the Byzantine bureaucratic elite and the Constantinopolitan society; they exerted their power not only in the capital, but also in the provinces.

The linguistic situation in medieval Croatia was fairly dynamic. The present article discusses the stratification of linguistic culture in the Middle Ages as regards its division into the three registers (high, middle, low) inherited from ancient rhetoric and poetry and received in the Middle Ages. We conclude that there was no strict division among the three languages according to function in the Middle Ages, and that the languages themselves did not constitute styles or registers. The Old Croatian language possessed all three registers (high, middle, low) already in the Middle Ages. However, the hybrid Cakavian-Church Slavic variety as well as the Croatian redaction of Church Slavic were not used as everyday (in)formal business/colloquial codes, so that they did not develop a middle and low linguistic register.

This article explores the political and cultural context of the riots provoked by changes in the Trisagion (512). Along with the advancing integration of the Byzantine Empire with Christianity, the state’s interest in theological problems increased; these problems were also reflected in the liturgy. Worship was used as a tool of imperial policy. This mutual interaction between politics and liturgy can be observed particularly clearly in the history of the Trisagion. This hymn, in its primitive form appearing in the book of Isaiah (as the familiar Sanctus Sanctus Sanctus), had two interpretations from the first centuries. According to the first one, the hymn referred to God, or – with the development of theology – to the whole Holy Trinity. According to the second interpretation (probably originating from Antioch), it referred to Christ. Already in the 4th century, the Trisagion entered the liturgy. In the middle of the 5th century, we encounter a new version of the Trisagion (known as SanctusDeus, Sanctus Fortis), which was an elaboration of the above-mentioned hymn. It also found use in the liturgy and originally had a Trinitarian sense. The Monophysites, in order to give the hymn an anti-Chalcedonian sense, added to it the expression who was crucified for us; this makes the hymn unambiguously Christological, but it may also suggest theopaschism (all of the Trinity was crucified). In Antioch, where the Trisagion first appeared in that form (and where the hymn had always been interpreted as referring to Christ), this addition did not provoke protests from the Chalcedonians. However, when the Monophysite emperor Anastasius decided to introduce this version to the liturgy in Constantinople, the inhabitants of the capital – accustomed to understanding the Trisagion in the Trinitarian sense – interpreted the change as an offence against the Trinity. This caused the outbreak of the Trisagion riots (512). Not long afterwards, restoring the anthem in the version without the addition became one of the postulates of military commander Vitalian’s rebellion against Anastasius. Thus, in the case under analysis, we see theology and liturgy blending with current politics; one and the same hymn could be understood as heretical in one city and as completely orthodox in another.

Leguminous plants were a crucially important element in the Mediterranean diet, and, as such, these plants were second only to cereals. It is also important to note that according to medical writings preserved from antiquity and the early Byzantine period they were considered to be an accessible source of substances which could be applied in therapeutics. One of the most commonly mentioned legumes was the chickpea. The source material demonstrates that the medicinal properties of the chickpea and its therapeutic use were discussed by Greek physicians as early as in the fourth century BC. It seems that the plant was a readily accessible medicament and thus used in therapy also by those who could not afford costly medicines. The authors argue, however, that the medical theory concerning its role in therapeutics evolved into a fully developed form only in the first century AD (thanks to Dioscorides) and was not modified by Galen. The doctrine of these two physicians became part of the medical encyclopaedias of the early Byzantine period. The presented material also illustrates the fact that a significant number of medicinal Recipes which involved using the chickpea were formulated between the second century BC and the second century AD. Byzantine physicians avidly used these formulas in their practice, but failed to develop them in a significantly innovative way. The surviving medical writings make it possible to conclude that the chickpea was believed to be a highly effective medicine and as such worthy of cultivation, which only testifies to the general popularity of the plant. Medical writings may serve as a proof that the chickpea remained a key element in the Mediterranean diet throughout the period from the fourth century BC to the seventh century AD. The analysed material demonstrates the use of the same basic varieties of the erebinthos throughout the period, even though some local variants were also identified. The consistency of the data also suggests that the scale and methods of cultivation of this plant remained unchanged. The culinary uses of the chickpea must also have been the same throughout the period, given that the writers discussed similar uses of the plant as a foodstuff.

The Synodikon of Orthodoxy, in its earliest version (Synodikon of Alexius Studites), has at least five different layers of composition. Beside the original one of 843/844, there is one after 845, another after 870, a fourth after 925 and finally one between 1034–1043. Since each date represents a post quem, they could be grouped together. However, the layers of composition represent different interests and objectives and therefore are difficult to conflate. On the contrary, each stratum reveals that by the 11th century the characteristic of the Synodikon was to unify different objectives and strategies into one text. It is also for this reason that the text continued to expand after Alexius Studites’ version of 1034–1043.

The standard etymological explanation of the Proto-Slavic adjective *svet? ‘holy, saint’ – a word of extreme literary, cultural and religious importance in the Slavic world – concentrates on the formal match with Lithuanian s?ventas ‘id.’ and Avestan sp??ta- ‘life-giving, holy’ (PIE *?wen-to-, from the root *?wen-). This article highlights the verbal formation seen in Latvian svinêtsvin svin?jo ‘celebrate, venerate’, generally recognized as another reflex of the root *?wen- in Balto-Slavic, but without due attention to the formal implications. It is argued that both in Av. and in BSl. the adjective sp??ta-/*svet? behaves as an item participating in the so-called ‘Caland System’ (a set of arbitrary morphological alternations reconstructible for Proto-Indo-European).

The paper compares how Paulicians were described in different types of medieval Slavonic sources by using the approach of the linguistic and culturological conceptualization of the alterity. By means of linguistic analysis, it tries to reach some essential dogmatic issues in the Paulician doctrine, and to focalize on the perception models towards Paulicians with their tangible semantic codes according to the specificities of the medieval world view. The two chosen texts the analysis is based on, are the legendary Bulgarian narrative Sermon about how the Paulicians have been conceived, and the Slavonic translation of 24th title of Panoplia Dogmatica by Euthymius Zigabenus. The analysis is followed by an English translation of the Sermon (insofar known in 8 copies), and a partial edition of the Slavonic translation of Zigabenus’s work upon the unique copy from the manuscript BAR 296, Library of the Romanian Academy of Sciences in Bucharest, dated between 1410–1420. The text account from the Slavonic manuscript is published for the first time, giving supplementary details about the overall Slavonic translation.

The paper compares the content and the structure of the three extant South Slavonic Synodika: Boril’s Synodikon as preserved in the so-called Palauzov copy of the 14th century (???? ? 289); Drinov’s Synodikon (???? ? 432), previously considered to be a 16th century copy of Boril’s Synodikon, and the recently published South Slavonic Synodikon from the 16th century, kept in the library of the Romanian Academy of Sciences (BAR MS. SL. 307). The comparison is supported by a table showing the rubrics and their order in the three Synodika. It demonstrates that while Boril’s Synodikon is based on a translation of Comnenian version of the Synodikon of Orthodoxy, and while the South Slavonic Synodikon from Romania must be unequivocally attributed to the later Palaeologan version of the Greek text, the so-called Drinov copy represents a compilation of Boril’s Synodikon in its 14th version and the Palaeologan Synodikon. In fact, Drinov’s Synodikon contains all of the important interpolations and insertions of Boril’s Synodikon related to specifically Bulgarian circumstances and history, ranging from anti-Bogomilist anathemas to a list of Bulgarian rulers (comprising two historical accounts as well). Its initial part, however, follows the Palaelogan text preserved in BAR MS. SL. The unknown compiler obviously targeted a Bulgarian audience; in all likelihood, he was Bulgarian himself. Some textological features common to both Drinov’s and Palaelogan Synodikon suggest that the translated part of Drinov’s Synodikon and the Romanian Synodikon must have had a common antigraph. The latter fact allows us to conclude that the translation of the Palaeologan version of the Synodikon of Orthodoxy is an integral part of the tradition of the Bulgarian Synodikon; the presumed common antigraph was written in Bulgarian Tarnovo orthography, traces of which are found in Drinov’s text. As to the location of this translation, we can only speculate that it might have been completed in a monastic centre different than Tarnovo by the end of the 14th century.

The paper aims at examining the first Slavic collection of homilies of John Chrysostom, called Zlatostruy (i.e. Chrysorrhoas or Golden Stream). The peculiarities of its content, compilation strategy and impact on the medieval Bulgarian literature, revealed in previous studies, allow us to extract features that are related to the flourishing of the 10th century Bulgarian literary tradition and the successful adoption of Byzantine models.