On the First Publisher and the First Publication of Dimitry of Rostov’s Sermons

Abstract

The article identifies the first editions of works by Metropolitan Dimitry of  Rostov, published both in his lifetime and immediately after his death and canonization. The author of the article has shown that the Metropolitan’s sermons were not published in his lifetime for a number of reasons. The first publication of Dimitry’s oratorical works was made upon an initiative of a private person – Y. A. Tatishchev (1729–1806), who approached the Most Holy Governing Synod in 1782 with a request to publish these sermons at his own expense. A publication called Collection of Various Instructive Tales and Other Works by Saint Metropolitan Dimitry, the Thaumaturge of Rostov appeared in 1786.

The present article also contains biographical details on Tatishchev, which the author has managed to collect from manuscript and printed sources; it also analyses the archival documents kept in the Russian State Historical Archive,St. Petersburg, where Tatishchev’s correspondence with the Synod pertaining to the publication of Dimitry’s sermons can be found. As it follows from the documents, the sermons in the publication were edited, with the majority of the corrections being due to the normalization of the Church Slavonic orthography. However, the first editors and censors also recognized the authorship of all the sermons and works that Tatishchev had sent to the Synod. At the same time, in modern “Dimitry studies” the problem of the attribution of Dimitry’s works is one of the most topical issues. The article gives a critical analysis of the first publication of the sermons and shows that among the publication’s 94 sermons attributed to Dimitry of Rostov two sermons belong to Stefan Yavorsky, five sermons are written by Symeon of Polotsk, and the attribution of another nine sermons needs further study.