Gabriel Proto translator

The article is devoted to two rare texts, one of which was known only in one list — in a handwritten convolute from the collection of F. F. Mazurin (RGADA). This is the Letter of the Nile Bishop of Tver to Prince Georgy Ivanovich Dmitrovsky. The second copy of the Letter was found in a manuscript book from the collection of N. V. Timofeev, kept in the department of manuscripts of the Library of the Academy of Sciences (BAN). The manuscript is an endowment of the Yaroslavl merchant Tretyak Lytkin to the Krasnogorsk Monastery. The manuscript contains rare extracts, in which “The Word about the narrow and wide path”, the preface to the Ostrog Bible in 1581, etc. The Letter from the Nile Bishop of Tver, which mentions the death of Athanasius of Athos, is a response to an not preserved letter from Prince Georgy Ivanovich. In both manuscripts, the Letter continues with “The Athonite legends” (“Patria” in the translation of Proto Gabriel). Until recently, the list of Legends from the Mazurin collection was considered the only East Slavic list. A comparison of the texts of both the Letter and the Legends showed their closeness, with the exception of minor discrepancies. The manuscript from the BAN collection and the small notebook in convolute from the RGADA collection are close in time of creation and undoubtedly existed in the same place. A codicological study of the manuscript from the Mazurin collection also showed its connection with other books from the endowment of the merchant Tretyak Lytkin to the Krasnogorsk Monastery, kept in the collections of the BAN. The discovery of new lists of rare and interesting texts in the BAN manuscript allows us to take a fresh look at the texts rewritten in the Collection from the collection of F. F. Mazurin.