The Horologion of 1423 and Its Church of the Holy Apostles Miniature
On folio 1v, the Horologion of 1423 opens with an architecture charged throughout with symbolic meaning. The parchment manuscript, produced at the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery under the authority of its founder and hegumen, Saint Cyril of Beloozero, is now preserved in Moscow at the Russian State Library, f. 304/I, no. 16. Executed principally in cinnabar, yellow and brown, the drawing bears the title “Cathedral Church of the Holy Apostles.”
The miniature contains no human figures. Its subject emerges through the many-domed church, the prepared throne, the instruments of the Passion (John 19:29, 34) and the twice-repeated victorious formula IC XC NIKA. Exterior elevation, sanctuary interior, eschatological emblem: all have been compressed into a single field. The image belongs to symbolic illumination, presenting the Church as a sacred structure centred upon the Cross and awaiting the return of Christ (Matthew 24:30).
The Horologion of 1423 as a Monastic Liturgical Book
The Horologion of 1423 consists of 398 folios measuring approximately 21.8 × 14.7 cm. Most are parchment; folios 155 and 166 are sixteenth-century paper replacements. Its substantial binding, formed of wooden boards covered with blind-tooled leather, also dates from the sixteenth century. The main text is written in a large, regular ustav script, with titles, initials and selected letters in cinnabar. On folio 2 appears a painted headpiece of neo-Byzantine character, introducing the text.
The book contains the fixed prayers of the night and daytime offices according to the usage associated with the Lavra of Saint Sabbas near Jerusalem. The surviving contents include a joyful canon to the Theotokos, the Paraklesis, resurrectional troparia and hypakoai in the eight modes, the Akathist service, prayers before Holy Communion and the Paschal Hours. The Creed appears in full on three occasions. A detailed manuscript record also notes the absence of Great Compline and the Inter-Hours.
Within this liturgical setting, the introductory image has a precise function. Through the painted church the reader enters the ordered succession of offices. Daily prayer is placed within a larger ecclesial and eschatological structure already present before the first written service begins.
The Five-Domed Church and Byzantine Architectural Memory
Five principal domes rise above the upper part of the composition, the taller central dome carrying an elaborate cross. Smaller cupolas and tower-like structures accumulate around them, producing an elevation of unusual density for so modest a manuscript. Windows are reduced to narrow, dark openings; roofs, drums and crosses are outlined rapidly, their irregular repetitions giving the building a living, almost expandable form.
The upper inscription reads, in abbreviated Church Slavonic, “ЦРКВЬ СЪБОРНАЯ СТЫХ АПЛЪ,” expanded as “Церковь соборная святых апостолъ”: “Cathedral Church of the Holy Apostles.” The designation and the five-domed arrangement have encouraged comparison with the celebrated Church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople, whose Justinianic building combined a cruciform plan with five domes. As a documentary reconstruction of that lost monument, the Horologion of 1423 cannot be used securely. Several viewpoints have instead been folded into one another, the church’s façade opening to reveal a symbolic sanctuary while domes and subsidiary structures remain visible behind it.
The Byzantine association remains pertinent. The Apostoleion possessed immense prestige throughout the Eastern Christian world, and its architectural memory survived in descriptions, ecclesiastical tradition and pictorial convention. Raisa Suslova’s dedicated study has examined the miniature’s architectonics, geometry and artistic parallels within Byzantine art. On this small folio imperial architectural memory has passed through a northern Russian monastic hand, with exact proportion giving way to emphatic contour and symbolic hierarchy.
The Hetoimasia at the Centre of the Miniature
Beneath the domes, a broad ornamental arch exposes the heart of the composition. Here the Horologion of 1423 presents the Hetoimasia, the “Preparation of the Throne,” an established emblem of the throne prepared for Christ at the Last Judgement (Matthew 25:31–46). The empty seat belongs to the meaning of the type, anticipating the Judge through the throne and the signs of his Passion (John 19:29, 34).
A large red cross, with a slanting lower crossbar, rises above the prepared seat. The lance and the reed with the sponge stand on either side. Part of the throne is covered by a latticed textile or cushion, while steps lead towards it from the lower edge of the painted field. Suspended lamps occupy the surrounding architectural bays, integrating the apocalyptic emblem into the visual language of the sanctuary. From the steps to the throne, along the Cross, through the hanging lamp and towards the cross above the principal dome, the central axis can be followed almost continuously.
Around the Cross, the letters IC XC NIKA are distributed in four groups: “Jesus Christ conquers.” The formula also appears above, divided between two circular fields. Its duplication binds the Hetoimasia to the whole edifice. Christ’s victory is declared at the outer level of the church and again beside the prepared throne, where the instruments associated with the Passion (John 19:29, 34) appear within the imagery of judgement and triumph.
For the reader of the Horologion of 1423, the association carried a liturgical immediacy. The recurring hours of prayer unfolded under the image of a throne already prepared. Time measured through the offices acquired an eschatological direction, passing through remembrance of the Passion (John 18:1–19:42) towards the expected manifestation of Christ (Matthew 24:30).
Inscriptions, Restricted Colour and Page Architecture
The painted field is enclosed by a broad cinnabar frame, with the titular inscription occupying a separate band across its upper edge. Inside, yellow fills the domes and several liturgical objects, while brown and dark outlines define openings, masonry and ornament. Much of the background is supplied by the parchment itself, its warm, uneven surface entering the chromatic structure of the image where pigment has thinned or disappeared.
Highly linear, the drawing builds domes and arches through repeated curves; the verticals bend as the architecture grows upwards. Several ornaments terminate in curling vegetal forms, loosening the strict symmetry of the principal axes. Such irregularities disclose the movement of the hand and the economical conditions of monastic book production. With few colours and limited modelling, the illuminator obtained density through superimposed contours.
Wear is concentrated along the outer margins and lower portion of the folio. Abrasion, staining and scattered pigment losses have softened several smaller details, although the red frame, the central Cross and much of the inscription remain clear. Along the lower edge especially, the physical history of the Horologion of 1423 remains visible in the parchment surface itself.
The Colophon and the Question of the Scribe
The colophon on folio 398v dates the manuscript to 16 June 1423 and records that it was produced at the command of the elder Cyril, hegumen of the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery. Its modest judgement upon the script belongs to a familiar tradition of scribal humility. The name of Saint Tikhon is written incorrectly in the original; the date identifies the commemoration as that of Tikhon of Amathus.
Free Translation
We have reached the end, strengthened by the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, of this divine book called the little Horologion, written in rough and unadorned letters. In the year 6931 [1423], in the month of June, on the sixteenth day, on the commemoration of our venerable father Tikhon the Wonderworker, by command of the lord elder Cyril, the hegumen.
The scribe does not give his name in this text. Older cataloguing associated the Horologion of 1423 with Christopher, a disciple of Saint Cyril who later succeeded him as hegumen. More recent scholarship has also considered another of Cyril’s disciples, Saint Martinian of Beloozero, as a possible copyist. Who executed the folio 1v miniature remains less secure, since neither proposal establishes its illuminator and scribal authorship need not have belonged to the same hand.
The self-description “rough and unadorned letters” sits curiously beside the care invested in the manuscript. Large and controlled is the script, with rubrication ordering the text; the opening miniature, meanwhile, brings together architecture, liturgical furnishing, inscriptions and an intricate eschatological programme.
From Kirillo-Belozersky to the Russian State Library
The circumstances in which the Horologion of 1423 left the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery and entered the library of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra remain unknown. By 1920 it was kept in the Sergiev branch of the State Rumyantsev Museum Library. In February 1930, with other manuscripts from the Lavra, it was transferred to the Lenin State Library, the institution now known as the Russian State Library.
Its older shelfmark, GBL, f. 304, no. 16, consequently survives throughout the earlier literature. The current form is RSL, f. 304/I, no. 16.
(The translation was edited by K. Pappas.)
