SYRIAC FRIENDS OF ST. THEODORET OF CYRRHUS IN THE UKRAINIAN SYNAXARION OF ST. DYMYTRIY TUPTALO

Composing the first Ukrainian Synaxarion (Chetii-Minei), the great Ukrainian theologian, scholar and hagiographer St. Dymytriy Tuptalo (1651–1709) relied on different sources, including Slavonic, Greek, Latin, and Polish. Thanks to an Antiochian Patericon by the Greek Syrian author Theodoret of Cyrrhus  – History of the Friends of God, Dymytriy could introduce Theodoret’s holy friends to a Ukrainian readership, creating a bridge between the School of Antioch and Kyivan theological tradition. Introducing the Vitae of Syriac Saints into the Ukrainian and Russian Church calendar, Dymytriy to a considerable extent adopted Theodoret’s views on asceticism, Christian anthropology, and Church history. Thus, he may be called an ally of the Antiochian school, which was to a great extent marginalized in Byzantium since the 5th century and later on. Moreover, St. Dymytriy venerated Theodoret himself as one of those Saints despite incessant debates around his name initiated by his opponents at the Second Council of Constantinople.

is entitled The History of the Friends of God 2 -and for a reason. The text is a memoir of the outstanding thinker of the Antiochian School about the Saints of Northern Syria -mainly about his own friends and teachers. It raises interest not only as a personal testimony but also as a Greek-speaking testimony on Syriac Saints and as an attempt to introduce the Syriac mode of holiness into the Hellenistic world. Thus, it may be considered as a certain globalization of that kind of holiness.
It is quite surprising that the leading student of this Antiochian Patericon, Pierre Canivet, having done extensive research on the subject, 3 believed that this text 'occupies a modest place in Theodoret's oeuvre' (p. 9). Meanwhile, Papadogiannakis 4 observed a close interconnection between this work and such famous texts by Theodoret as Healing of the Greek Diseases and the Homilies on Providence; he demonstrates their deep influence upon medieval Byzantine and Renaissance scholars (pp. 9-11). Theodoret's Patericon is thoroughly analyzed as an important paradigm showing how a Christian image of sanctity is constructed, 5 sometimes with an emphasis on the Syriac mode of holiness.  However, as far as I know, it was never specially studied as a source of influence on Slavonic -and especially Ukrainian -holiness. 7 This paper is devoted to Theodoret's account of his friendship with the holy men and to the paraphrase of these stories about holy friendship in the Synaxarion of St. Dymytriy Tuptalo (1651-1709). The Ukrainian 'retelling' of the Greek narrations about the Syrian bishop's friends is interesting as an attempt to introduce a number of Syriac saints into local Kyivan tradition. However, it is widely known throughout the world under the name Φιλόθεος Ιστορία, which is rather deliberately translated into Latin as Historia religiosa, and more exactly into Church-Slavonic as Исторія Боголюбцевъ. My personal favourite is the English translation of the title: History of the Friends of God. This variant stresses the special connotations of the root φῐλία, which does not mean any love, but a selective love towards a certain person, an 'affectionate regard', a love-respect, or a love-friendship. 8 This emphasis is surely intrinsic to the work of Theodoret, who does desire to depict his heroes as personal friends of God.

Is φῐλία a friendship?
However, Theodoret' usage of φῐλία is not so unambiguous. Often it seems to be quite far from what we mean by the notion of friendship today. The two main meanings of φῐλία in his text refer 1) to aspiration towards God, and 2) to the mutual sympathy of physical elements. He rarely applies this term concerning the relations between people. So, 7 Although Glubokovsky touches on an attitude of Slavonic believers towards Theodoret himself, and Sidorov cites the short history of Russian translation of Historia religiosa in his Introduction to his edition of this book (Moscow: Pravoslavnyi palomnik, 1996, 133-134).
the terminology is not very helpful in investigating the latter topic in his works. However, before turning to our main subject, let us review the above-mentioned types of Theodoret's usage of φῐλία, which are also quite interesting. Both of them are rather ambiguous and contradictory, wavering between the Platonic mysticism and the Antiochian sociological approach. The first mode describes man's love for God. On the one hand, φῐλία here seems to function as a synonym of Platonic ἔρως. In such an Origenist text as Theodoret's On Divine love 9 (which is usually combined with Historia religiosa in the manuscripts), this feeling is graphically associated with the mystic eros of Scriptural tradition. Christ appears here as the Bridegroom of the Song of songs. The captivating fragrancy and splendour of His 'flowering youthfulness' urge the 'young souls' to 'submit to divine love' (19). Indeed, the notion of 'submitting oneself' plays a central role in Theodoret's view of such kind of friendship. Its law (ὅρος φιλίας) demands to 'love the same things and to hate the same things (ταὐτὰ φιλεῖν, καὶ ταὐτὰ μισεῖν)' as the Friend does 'Hostility' and 'friendship' -this pair clearly refers to Empedocles' cosmogonic theory of the four elements (στοιχεῖον), which are either united by Love (φιλότης) or divided by Strife (νεῖκος). Theodoret clearly shows his acquaintance with this tradition 12 and develops this antique teaching. So, the second modus of his use of φιλία is in line with natural philosophy. He speaks of 'friendship' among inanimate creatures (ἄψυχα) -for instance, the fiery skies and the waters above the firmament (PG 83, 564), the steady earth and the sea, the coldness of winter and the heat of summer (PG 83, 572). Yet, in spite of the antique materialists, the bishop of Cyrrhus presents overcoming the strife (πολέμια) between the opposite elements (ἐναντίας φύσεις) not in relation to the impersonal laws of nature, but to the personal Creator, the Governor of every human life.
Simultaneously, Theodoret easily switches from physics to sociological, political, and ethical reflections, the traditional domain of the Antiochian theologians. For instance, the fact that the sea connects the distant lands and brings them to friendship (εἰς φιλίαν συναγομένας), is a physical observation. However, this helps people to travel to the faraway countries, developing exchange of the goods, skills, and wealth (an economical observation). And the necessity to exchange with the others, sharing one's wealth, prompts people -and peoples -to have friendly relations (a political and ethical idea). Thus, the Creator dispensed His gifts among all the lands not to let 'abundance damage friendship (φιλίᾳ). For glut amounts to arrogance (Ὑβριστὴς) and is the parent of mess' (PG 83, 584-5). This way, Theodoret easily proceeds from the antique materialistic theory of friendship of the four elements -to the Christian, and specifically Antiochian, vision of society.
So, only in rare cases does Theodoret apply φιλίᾳ to 'friendship' as we understand it now (both friendship with God and friendship with fellow humans). In order to further research his vision of friendship, we need to leave the domain of linguistics, proceeding to a more integral approach to Theodoret's text, where the Holy men figure as good friends of God (φιλόθεοι).

Heroes
Depicting his heroes as personal friends of God, Theodoret, simultaneously, is proud and delighted to stress that many -though not all -of them are friends of his own. The testimony of Φιλόθεος Ἱστορία is extremely personal, which all scholars working on this text have noticed. Surely, it is not completely bereft of rhetorical figures since Theodoret was one the greatest orators of the famous rhetorical School of Antioch. Nor is it devoid of certain legendary details that entered his Patericon from the previous tradition, written and oral, for the saints of the previous generation, like St. Jacob of Nisibin, had already begun to turn into legends. However, what absolutely prevails in the Φιλόθεος Ἱστορία is the atmosphere of vivid memoirs and testimony of an eye-witness. Actually, Theodoret recommends his book as a kind of medicine for sclerosis, prepared to save good deeds from oblivion. 13 As a bishop of Cyrrhus and an informal leader of the School of Antioch of his age, Theodoret travelled a lot and frequently encountered many of the Northern-Syrian ascetics, observing their life for many years. In sixteen cases 14 out of thirty-six, he was writing about living Saints, his contemporaries, often his own teachers or friends. This conditioned an interesting feature of his hagiographies: many chapters lack the traditional ending like, 'the Saint rested in peace with God in a certain year.' 15 So his editors -St. Dymytriy among them -had to introduce such endings by themselves. 16  rules of pilgrimage and once even had to receive a reprimand for her impious outlook, IX.6). She had fertility problems, so Theodoret was actually born due to the prayers of St. Macedonius, whom he viewed as his spiritual father. Besides these two Saints, his mother acquainted him with Symeon the Elder and Afrahat.
Theodoret often emphasizes his own participation in the described events. His personal testimonies are introduced with formulae like: 'I learned this not only through the gossip but also through my own experience' (IV.10), 'In my own eyes I saw and heard' (XXVI. 14). For instance, the bishop testifies that for St. Eusebe he was the only interlocutor, so the Saint often did not let him go away, continuing to talk to him on Heavenly matters (XVIII.2). Similarly, he describes his own impression of the eternally calm face of another St. Eusebe, who, during the whole week of their communication, never abandoned his 'internal harmony' despite offences by his enemies (IV.10). One of his visits to St. Symeon's pillar endangered Theodoret's life because the Saint told his numerous Bedouin pupils that the bishop's blessing would bring them great spiritual profit, so they almost strangled him in their arms (XXVI. 14). As for St. Limnaios, the hagiographer witnessed that his cell had a door that was always daubed with dirt, and Theodoret was the only person for whom he would open it, which is why numerous local citizens usually tried to enter there together with the bishop (XXII. 3). And St. Domnina, kissing the bishop's hand, often made it wet with her tears (XXX.2).
The memories of their friendship were much more precious for Theodoret than observing the hagiographic canons. That is why his internal censor did not prevent him from writing down some quite shocking evidence concerning these saints. For instance, the holy anchorite (St. Macedonius), ordained a priest against his will, by deception, finds out what happened to him, becomes furious and he runs away, fearing that on the next liturgy he may be ordained once again! Theodoret acknowledged that he was telling something rather strange about the sacred priestly ministry ('I know that you will not admire my account,' he says), but he was moved by the desire to show the real character of St. Macedonius, whom he calls 'his divine teacher' (XIII. 4-5).
Thus, even without applying the term φῐλία itself, Theodoret expresses his vision of the holy friendship very clearly throughout his Patericon.

Hellenization of Syriac Saints
Scholars have pointed at the apparent Hellenization of Syrian sanctity in Theodoret's accounts. That was necessary for, so to say, globalization of the local saints, because Syriac asceticism used to have a rather ambiguous reputation. It was known for its extreme practices like living on a pillar, living out-of-doors or wearing chains, and, what is worse, for its weird ideas like condemnation of marriage and other Gnostic influences. 18 All of that was probably not more acceptable for the late-antique Greeks than for us today. The bishop of Cyrrhus, an ethnic Syrian as he was, 19 culturally belonged to the same Hellenized milieu and seems to have regarded these extremities in the same way. So, being proud of his holy friends, he, however, tried sometimes to soften and retouch in his account some rather weird features of their asceticism. With this purpose Theodoret, as Canivet observed, 'attributes to his heroes of endurance' features characteristic of the Greek philosophers, like 'moderation, common sense, equilibrium and serenity'. 20 And, what is of great importance, Theodoret, as Canivet notes, proceeds from the unconditional and categorical metaphor of the invisible struggle between the divine and demonic powers to the Hellenic metaphors of sports competitions, philosophical training, 21 and spiritual medicine (we may add).
Moreover, not only did Theodoret describe his ascetical friends in the 'proper', Hellenized, terms post factum. He also tried to influence their ambiguous practices as a bishop and as a friend. Sometimes he insisted that the sick monk should moderate his diet (XXI.11), sometimes he prevented them from superfluous mortification of the flesh -even using cunning tricks. Once he even fulfilled the cherished dream of an anchorite -St. Maris the Chanter -who desired to take part in a Eucharist, but did not allow himself come out of his cell: the bishop held a liturgy inside his small shelter, using the hands of his deacons instead of the altar. episode is but one testimony of how Theodoret's Antiochian piety, Eucharistic and Christocentric, influenced the Syriac holiness by means of friendship.

Influence
History of the Friends of God is just one document which testifies to the nature of Theodoret's life-long mission, which was to introduce Syriac spirituality into the framework of the universal Church. One has to admit that this mission did not fail. Theodoret's book was warmly accepted in most parts of the Christian world. The Patericon was very popular in the Byzantine milieu, it spread in numerous copies, and was cited by some Byzantine intellectuals (Theodore Anagnost, 22 St. John Damascene, 23 and Nicephore Kallistos, among others). The Greek hagiographers included some parts of it in their Synaxaria: for instance, Symeon Metaphrastes borrowed from this text the Life of St. Symeon the Stylite. Theodoret's Lives were included in the Synaxarion of Basil the Second (end of the 10th century): thus, despite certain suspicion towards Syriac Christianity, widespread in Byzantium, all the heroes of the treatise entered the calendar of the Orthodox Church. 24 Simultaneously, Theodoret's Hellenistic adaptation of Syriac holiness was not rejected by Eastern Christians themselves, who knew his book in early Syriac translation. 25 However, despite a rather high reputation of Theodoret in the Western Church, his Patericon was not translated into Latin until the 16th century when it was published by Joachim Camerarius (1539) and Gentian Hervetus (1556). And the first publication of the Greek original of Historia religiosa was also made in the West, by Jacques Sirmond (1642). Now let us see, how, in one and a half millennia, those universalized Syriac portraits entered another local tradition -the tradition of the Kyivan Church. 22 Theodori Lect. Hist. eccl. I. 10-11 (PG 86a,172). 23 Damascene. Or. III adversas eos, qui sacras imagines abjiciunt, 42 (PG 94, 1365B). cf.

Dymytriy's Chetii-Mineyi in Ukrainian culture
Slavonic readers could acquaint themselves with the holy friends of Theodoret thanks to the Synaxarion (Chetii-Minei) composed by the great Ukrainian theologian, scholar and hagiographer St. Dymytriy Tuptalo (1651-1709) at the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries (1689-1705). As metropolitan Hilarion Ogienko notes, Dymytriy's Lives 'were the favourite reading for the whole Ukraine, up until the modern times, so that generations of readers were brought up upon them'. 26 This work, whose first three volumes were composed in Ukraine (and only the last one in Russia), was the last Kyivan edition printed without the permission of the Moscow patriarch. 27 Certainly, in Moscow, it was at first approached with suspicion due to supposed Western influences. The Patriarch even ordered to take out certain pages from the already printed edition. 28 Nevertheless, these Chetii-Minei became a real bestseller throughout the whole Russian empire: only during the 18th century, they were reissued ten times. As the Ukrainian chronographer of that time noted, the issue of this 'God-inspired' work 'filled the hearts of the curious educated readers with spiritual joy'. 29 Indeed, St. Dymytriy completed an astonishing task, for which he had to accumulate one of the largest libraries in the Eastern Europe of his time. 30 Defining his method, Yakov Krotov states that Dymytriy was 'a missing link between the uncritical naïveté and the injudicious skepticism'.

Authorship, genre, and style
The questions of genre, rhetorical style and the authorship of Dymytriy's Chetii-Mineyi have been widely discussed by scholars 31 26 36 Caesar Baronius, 37 Laurence Surius, 38 Piotr Skarga, 39 etc. As. Fr. Antoine Lambrechts has shown, through those sources Dymytriy also acquainted himself with the Lives of the Catholic Saints, whom he sometimes cited (surely without any precise references), as was the case with the 13th-century Flemish Cistercian nun St. Lutgardis. 40 It is noteworthy that the Greek sources are also cited by Dymytriy through the Latin translations -although Dymytriy knew Greek and admired this language above others 41 . Such, in particular, was the way of his acquaintance with Theodoret's History of the Friends of God. St.
in view of a monk (I.4). Dymytriy adds another detail to the image of the girls: they are curiously gazing at 'anchorite wearing the strange clothes' 48 -although the 4th-century monks did not have any special habit.

Attitude
Dymytriy introduced into the Ukrainian and Russian Church calendar the Vitae of the Syriac Saints, adopting Theodoret's views on asceticism, Christian anthropology, and history of the Church. In the preface to his Synaxarion, a contemporary hagiographer (Fr. Macarius of Simonopetra) stresses that through this book the reader may get acquainted with different Saints, some of whom may become his or her real friends. This means that St. Dymytriy provided Ukrainian readers with the possibility to make friends with the Syriac Saints.
Moreover, St. Dymytriy venerated Theodoret himself as one of these Saints -and even reckoned him among the Holy Fathers, together with St. Gregory of Nyssa 49 -despite the incessant debates around his name caused by his opponents at the Second Council of Constantinople. That is why he may be called an ally of the Antiochian School, which was to a great extent marginalized in Byzantium since the 5th century and later on.

Conclusion
Although St. Theodoret's usage of the term φῐλία is quite contradictory, and often far from the modern idea of friendship, his accounts of the Syriac monks, his friends and teachers (or teachers of his friends), create a vivid portrait of friendship. Friendship figures here as a mutual affection of people, united by the same longing for God. This bond lets them fully trust each other, sharing with friends the most concealed spiritual experience. The confidence in a friend sometime provides a person with more freedom, allowing us to change habitual stereotypes and creating space for a new experience. 48 'Смотряху нань яко на странна, и необычное одѣянїе носяща' (f. 418v). In this case Rosweyde does not change the original: 'impudentibus oculis divinum hominem aspiciebant' (PL 74, 16A); so, the addition belongs to St. Dymytriy. 49 'With the holy Fathers -Gregory of Nyssa, Theodoret and others we argue' that the tree, which sweetened the waters of Marah, was a prototype of the cross. Cited by: Glubokovsky, Historical meaning, I, 349, #197.
The new experience of holiness, captured in Theodoret's Patericon, reached Slavonic readership through the Synaxarion of St. Dymytriy Tuptalo. Introducing to the Ukrainian and Russian Church calendar the Vitae of Syriac Saints, Dymytriy considerably adopted Theodoret's views on asceticism, Christian anthropology, and history of the Church. So he may be called an ally of the Antiochian school, which was to a great extent marginalized in Byzantium since the 5th century and later on. He even venerated Theodoret himself as one of those saints, despite the incessant debates around his name caused by his opponents at the Second Council of Constantinople. Introducing his readers with Theodoret's accounts of his holy friendship, Dymytriy gave Ukrainians a chance to make friends with the Syriac saints.