Enina Apostle

Enina Apostle

The Enina Apostle or Enina Apostolos (Bulgarian: Енински апостол, Eninski apostol) is a 10th or 11th-century Old Bulgarian Cyrillic manuscript. Discovered in bad condition in 1960 during restoration work in the central Bulgarian village of , the partially preserved parchment manuscript is housed in the SS. Cyril and Methodius National Library in Sofia. It is the oldest Cyrillic manuscript currently part of a Bulgarian collection.

History

The Enina Apostle was discovered in 1960 during the restoration of the old in the village of . The village lies in south central Bulgaria, north of Kazanlak, and is administratively part of Stara Zagora Province. The manuscript was initially in very bad condition, with only 39 sheets and sheet fragments extant, and practically not a single sheet preserved in its entirety.

From its discovery to 1964 the Enina Apostle was housed in the Kazanlak Museum. In 1964, the manuscrpipt was transferred to the SS. Cyril and Methodius National Library in the capital Sofia, where it has been housed ever since, catalogued under signature #1144. The Enina Apostle is part of the library's collection of 1,500 Slavic manuscripts. Among these, it is of utmost importance because of its antiquity, as well as its palaeographic and linguistic features. In December 2010, a commemorative plaque dedicated to the Enina Apostle was installed in the courtyard of the Church of Saint Paraskeva in honour of the 50th anniversary of the manuscript's discovery.

Description

The Enina Apostle was written on parchment in the 10th–11th century, which makes it the oldest Cyrillic manuscript currently part of a Bulgarian collection. The sheets are 19.5 by 15.5 centimetres (7.7 × 6.1 in) in size. The copy was done by a single person in cursive handwriting using dark brown ink. Sheets 6a and 38a feature decorative ornaments of geometric and floral design. Additional decoration includes 18 initials, which are mostly geometric, though sometimes floral or interlaced. An initial on sheet 3 depicts a bird's head, while sheets 28b and 36b employ Glagolitic characters for initial letters.

The Enina Apostle is thought to have originally consisted of circa 215–220 sheets, of which only 39 have been at least partially preserved. Both the beginning and the end of the manuscript are missing, and there are no preserved marginal notes. The text of the manuscript consists of apostolic readings from the 35th Sunday after Pentecost until Great Saturday and from 1 September until 3 October, the feast day of Dionysius the Areopagite. The language of the text is classified as either Old Church Slavonic or as belonging to a category that chronologically immediately follows Old Church Slavonic.

References

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