LUTSK– It was there, in the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana library in Florence, that the Volyn Eparchy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC)’s clerics discovered this unique piece of the 14th century book art among other ancient books in December 2011. They came to Italy then to show another book, a facsimile copy of another rare manuscript, the 14th century Lutsk Gospel, which is even older than the Peresopnytsia Gospel. The clerics came to Italy on the invitation of the numerous Orthodox community of Milan. At the same time, the book aroused interest in Italian scholars, too, because there are only a very few liturgical books of that distant epoch left.
Head of the Volyn Eparchy’s information and education department Archpriest Valentyn Marchuk said that both books, the Gospel as well as the Psalter, contained evidence of being copied not just in Volyn, but by native Volynians, too, because the local dialect is seen in some fragments. While publication of the Lutsk Gospel’s facsimile copy was funded by public subscription, involving two hundred sponsors, from invalids and pensioners to the local prominent ‘oligarchs,’ the Lutsk Psalter’s publication came with the assistance of Borys Klimchuk’s Charity Foundation “Volyn the Motherland.”
The original Lutsk Gospel is housed in a library in Moscow, while the Lutsk Psalter is in a Florentine library. Although the latter library’s director Vera Valitutto sees them as a part of Ukrainian cultural heritage, a book of such importance may not be surrendered by any institution in Italy. Therefore, the facsimile edition is an attempt by the UOC to bring the book’s contents to the widest possible range of people, both its faithful and those who are interested in cultural heritage and appreciate it. According to the Archbishop of Pereiaslav-Khmelnytsky and Vyshneve, Secretary to the UOC’s Primate Alexander, who also took part in the event, such publications are evidence that the word of Christ is eternal. The more such events, the better world will know Ukraine, its history, culture, and sacred objects. After all, the Volyn Eparchy itself, as the Metropolitan of Volyn and Lutsk Nifont pointed out at the time, took to publishing facsimile copies of ancient liturgical books just because they were proofs of the Ukrainians’ position as a highly cultured nation with a rich history.
