International congress of byzantine studies belgrade, 22 27 august 2016

Diego Rodrigo Fittipaldi
Universität zu Köln, Cologne, Germany; 
[e-mail]
Non-Biblical Readings in the Typicon of Mâr Saba: 
The Case of 
Haab Q 740
from Weimar
Within the basic constituent elements of the byzantine Divine Office´s celebrations are to be 
counted the readings, patristical and of other kinds, which will be the subject of my presentation. 
I will talk about the non-biblical readings in the byzantine monastic liturgical tradition, as it is 
present in the text of the Typicon of the Mâr Saba Monastery in Codex Q 740 of the Duchess Anna 
Amalia Library, in Weimar. Its edition is the subject of my PhD project, under the direction of Prof. 
Dr. Claudia Sode (Cologne). This specific topic was already analysed by Prof. André Lossky in a 
conference during the renowned Semaine d´études liturgiques of the Saint Serge Institute, Paris, 
but presented more as a comparative analyse of the relationship between the old sabaitical and 

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the studite traditions. Following his method, I will focus just on the historical development of the 
sabaitical tradition until the end of the 13
th
c. and beginning of the 14
th
.
This presentation will consist of five parts: The first being a brief description of the source, 
i.e. the text as it is present in the Codex Q 740, and an explanation about its place in the historical 
evolution of the byzantine liturgical typica; the second describing the terminology used by the 
typica to talk about these readings; what follows is the distribution system of the readings along the 
liturgical year; then the practical development and its relationship with the readings carried out in 
the refectory, i.e. during the monastic common meals; and lastly the different kind of readings: an 
enumeration, a description of the content and an analysis of some samples.
With all this, I will try to present another step in the evolution of the tradition inaugurated 
when Saint Sabas founded the monastery in the VI C. that after his death was named in his honor. 
The structure of the Divine Office there carried out and there at some point transmitted as a text, the 
origins of which must be searched, among other places, in the old liturgical tradition of Jerusalem, 
became highly renowned. Abbreviating a long history of crossed influences, it was adopted from the 
10
th
c. on as the basic norm for the liturgical life of monastic as well as of parish communities all along 
the Orthodox world. The text that I research is a version adapted to the use somewhere in the late 
Greek-speaking byzantine world, between the end of the 12
th
c. and beginning of the 14
th
c., being 
witness of the so-called “Constantinopolitan recension” of the typicon, which until now has not been 
thoroughly researched. Based on the previous and foundational studies of Aleksej Dmitrievskij, at 
the beginning of the 20
th
c., and the before-mentioned research of Lossky, I will try to present the 
continuities and discontinuities, innovations and variations in the evolution of this text.