The Litany of the Saints and Its Usage among Orthodox Slavs in the Middle Ages

Abstract

The article examines a prayer that is rare in Orthodox worship and is built on the principle of the Roman Catholic litany, where numerous names of saints, divided into ranks, are called on for intercession. The origin of this prayer is very ancient and rooted in the Moravian worship of the 9th century, which combined Eastern and Western liturgical elements. Among the southern Slavs, this litany ceased to be used quite early, while in pre-Mongol Rus’ it became widespread, and three of its versions have survived to this day. In all of them, a significant number of Western saints are included among the names. During the reforms of Metropolitan Cyprian, the litany of the saints was not excluded, despite the fact that such prayers did not exist in the Byzantine worship of that time. It was substantially edited: the names of Western saints were removed and replaced by the current names of Byzantine, Bulgarian, and Serbian ascetics, Lithuanian new martyrs, as well as the main Russian saints of the fourteenth century—Metropolitans Peter and Alexis and St. Sergius of Radonezh. The new prayer-litany was added as the final part to the service to All Saints composed by Patriarch Philotheus Kokkinos. In this form, it was quite widespread both in the Kyiv lands and in the North-East of Rus’. In Muscovy, in the period of the late 15th—16th centuries, it underwent several more editorial changes, but was not included in printed publications.

DOI: 10.31168/2305-6754.2026.1.03