“Завещание” митрополита Константина I Киевского и канон “на исход души”

The article puts forward the suggestion that the mysterious last will of Metropolitan Constantine I of Kiev, in which he ordered that after his death his body should be torn to pieces by dogs instead of receiving a proper burial, was inspired by a very specific literary text. This text is still used in the Orthodox Christian tradition; it is known as the hymnographical kanon “At the Parting of the Soul from the Body.” While nowadays this kanon is used in the course of an ordinary liturgical rite, in the 12th century, when it first appeared, it was used among some Byzantine intellectual and ascetic circles as a particular element of personal piety. The 12th century is exactly the epoch of Constantine's activities, and the description of а funeral procedure given by this kanon is very close to the last will of Constantine. The kanon “At the Parting of the Soul from the Body” has close ties to another hymn of roughly the same epoch—the “Penitential” kanon written after the 5th chapter of the “Ladder” of John Climacus. Both kanons conceal a didactic story under the structure of a hymnographic pattern. What is more important, both are from the very beginning intertwined with a distinct illustrative program: each monostrophe is accompanied by a specific picture, which discloses the contents of the text. These “comics-like” stories have no parallel among other Byzantine kanons. Finally, both kanons witness the growth of the influence of Palestinian and, more generally, Eastern ascetic traditions on the monastic practices of Constantinople and its surrounding regions. This influence was associated, most of all, with the Evergetian movement, with its strict disciplinary and fasting rules, etc. Metropolitan Constantine, who was an outstanding representative of the Byzantine intellectual elite of those times, should have been acquainted—at the very least!—with this movement. Moreover, the conflicts of the bishops in his circle with the Russian princes concerning the fasting discipline suggest that Constantine was trying to introduce the new Evergetian ascetic standards among the Russians. Thus, the literal adherence to the provisions of the kanon “At the Parting of the Soul from the Body” at the funeral of Metropolitan Constantine Ι should be interpreted as a sign of his full confidence in his ideals.В статье выдвигается предположение о том, что в основе загадочного предсмертного “завещания” митрополита Киевского Констатина Ι, в котором он распорядился не погребать его тело в земле, а отдать на растерзание псам, лежит вполне конкретный текст — а именно, гимнографический канон “на исход души”, который тесно связан еще с одним произведением примерно того же времени — “покаянным” каноном по мотивам 5-й главы “Лествицы” Иоанна Лествичника. Оба канона представляют собой не столько гимн, сколько дидактическую поэму. Что еще более важно, оба они изначально сопровождаются специфическим иллюстративным рядом: каждому монострофу соответствует определенное изображение, раскрывающее содержание текста, что не имеет аналогов среди других византийских канонов. Кроме того, содержание обоих канонов свидетельствует об усилении роли “Лествицы” и, шире, аскетических традиций палестинского и вообще восточного происхождения в жизни константинопольских монахов. Это связано прежде всего со столичным Евергетидским монастырем, чей устав оказал влияние на уставы других византийских монастырей XII–XIII вв., в т. ч. на правила монастырской жизни, более строгую регламентацию постов и т. д. Митрополит Константин, будучи ярким представителем византийской интеллектуальной элиты, не мог не знать об этой тенденции, а конфликты приближенных к нему епископов с русскими князьями по вопросам дисциплины поста позволяют предполагать, что и его собственная деятельность на Руси протекала в рамках указанной тенденции. Таким образом, буквальное следование предписаниям канона “на исход души” при погребении митрополита Константина Ι следует рассматривать как знак его полной уверенности в истинности избранного им направления

“Апокрифическая” надпись с Мангупа и обряды “изобличения вора”: магия и право между Античностью и Средневековьем

The discovery of a Byzantine bread stamp inscribed with the text of Ps 29:8 in the ruins of Mangup Basilica in Crimea allows the authors of this article to revise the entire tradition of the Byzantine magical and folk “recipes” for revealing a thief; it is this context in which this verse is used in combination with a special bread. Prototypes of these recipes and procedures are attested in the late antique syncretic (pagan-Judeo-Christian) magical papyri, in which private persons are advised to detect thieves by means of special spells, used either on their own or in combination with bread and cheese, an image of an eye, birds, bowls of water, and laurel leaves. In middle- and late-Byzantine manuscripts, these procedures are still present but in “Christianized” forms, even to the extent that a bread-and-cheese (or just bread) procedure is sometimes described as a regular liturgical rite, performed in a church. In the meantime, there is evidence indicating that the Byzantine hierarchy had been struggling with this and other instances of using magical procedures under the cloak of the Christian liturgy, and, in particular, bishops had been expelling priests who used bread sortilege to determine guilt. However, in Western Europe, especially in Germany and England, where spells against thieves had also been known since antiquity, the bread ordeal (English: Corsnaed, German: Bissprobe) became an accepted judicial practice, and even found its way into the official law codes of 11th-century England. Quite surprisingly, a similar phenomenon is attested in Russia (Novgorod) in the early 15th century. Taking into account the Crimean bread stamp studied in this article, one can conclude that bread ordeals, prohibited in Constantinople, could have been tolerated in the Byzantine periphery, including Crimea, and that it is from these areas that this practice could have come to some Russian regions as well.Находка византийского хлебного штампа с текстом Пс 29:8 в развалинах Мангупской базилики стала поводом для пересмотра всей традиции византийского обряда изобличения вора при помощи специального хлеба, поскольку в составе именно этого обряда встречается данный стих. Прототипы этого обряда засвидетельствованы в позднеантичных синкретических (языческо-иудео-христианских) магических папирусах, где частным лицам предлагается несколько способов обнаружения вора, сопровождаемых специальными заклинаниями: при помощи хлеба и сыра, особого изображения глаза, птицы, чаши с водой, лавра. В последующие века эти способы фиксируются уже в “христианизированных” формах, а некоторые из них даже имеют облик квазилитургических действий. Впрочем, византийская иерархия вела борьбу с изучаемым в статье обрядом хлебного испытания для изобличения вора — точнее, с прецедентами его совершения священниками. Напротив, в Западной Европе, в Германии и Англии, где заклинания против воров также были известны с античности, хлебное испытание сделалось общепринятой судебной практикой, включенной даже в законодательные акты. Аналогичное явление отмечено и на Руси (в Новгороде) начала XV века, куда оно попало из Византии, возможно, как раз через Крым

The Last Will of Metropolitan Constantine I of Kiev and the Kanon “At the Parting of the Soul from the Body”

The article puts forward the suggestion that the mysterious last will of Metropolitan Constantine I of Kiev, in which he ordered that after his death his body should be torn to pieces by dogs instead of receiving a proper burial, was inspired by a very specific literary text. This text is still used in the Orthodox Christian tradition; it is known as the hymnographical kanon “At the Parting of the Soul from the Body.” While nowadays this kanon is used in the course of an ordinary liturgical rite, in the 12th century, when it first appeared, it was used among some Byzantine intellectual and ascetic circles as a particular element of personal piety. The 12th century is exactly the epoch of Constantine's activities, and the description of а funeral procedure given by this kanon is very close to the last will of Constantine. The kanon “At the Parting of the Soul from the Body” has close ties to another hymn of roughly the same epoch—the “Penitential” kanon written after the 5th chapter of the “Ladder” of John Climacus. Both kanons conceal a didactic story under the structure of a hymnographic pattern. What is more important, both are from the very beginning intertwined with a distinct illustrative program: each monostrophe is accompanied by a specific picture, which discloses the contents of the text. These “comics-like” stories have no parallel among other Byzantine kanons. Finally, both kanons witness the growth of the influence of Palestinian and, more generally, Eastern ascetic traditions on the monastic practices of Constantinople and its surrounding regions. This influence was associated, most of all, with the Evergetian movement, with its strict disciplinary and fasting rules, etc. Metropolitan Constantine, who was an outstanding representative of the Byzantine intellectual elite of those times, should have been acquainted—at the very least!—with this movement. Moreover, the conflicts of the bishops in his circle with the Russian princes concerning the fasting discipline suggest that Constantine was trying to introduce the new Evergetian ascetic standards among the Russians. Thus, the literal adherence to the provisions of the kanon “At the Parting of the Soul from the Body” at the funeral of Metropolitan Constantine Ι should be interpreted as a sign of his full confidence in his ideals

The “Apocryphal” Inscription from Mangup, Crimea, and Rituals of “Exposing the Thief”: Magic and Law from Antiquity to the Middle Ages

The discovery of a Byzantine bread stamp inscribed with the text of Ps 29:8 in the ruins of Mangup Basilica in Crimea allows the authors of this article to revise the entire tradition of the Byzantine magical and folk “recipes” for revealing a thief; it is this context in which this verse is used in combination with a special bread. Prototypes of these recipes and procedures are attested in the late antique syncretic (pagan-Judeo-Christian) magical papyri, in which private persons are advised to detect thieves by means of special spells, used either on their own or in combination with bread and cheese, an image of an eye, birds, bowls of water, and laurel leaves. In middle- and late-Byzantine manuscripts, these procedures are still present but in “Christianized” forms, even to the extent that a bread-and-cheese (or just bread) procedure is sometimes described as a regular liturgical rite, performed in a church. In the meantime, there is evidence indicating that the Byzantine hierarchy had been struggling with this and other instances of using magical procedures under the cloak of the Christian liturgy, and, in particular, bishops had been expelling priests who used bread sortilege to determine guilt. However, in Western Europe, especially in Germany and England, where spells against thieves had also been known since antiquity, the bread ordeal (English: Corsnaed, German: Bissprobe) became an accepted judicial practice, and even found its way into the official law codes of 11th-century England. Quite surprisingly, a similar phenomenon is attested in Russia (Novgorod) in the early 15th century. Taking into account the Crimean bread stamp studied in this article, one can conclude that bread ordeals, prohibited in Constantinople, could have been tolerated in the Byzantine periphery, including Crimea, and that it is from these areas that this practice could have come to some Russian regions as well

Shape-Based Image Matching Using Heat Kernels and Diffusion Maps

2D image matching problem is often stated as an image-to-shape or shape-to-shape matching problem. Such shape-based matching techniques should provide the matching of scene image fragments registered in various lighting, weather and season conditions or in different spectral bands. Most popular shape-to-shape matching technique is based on mutual information approach. Another wellknown approach is a morphological image-to-shape matching proposed by Pytiev. In this paper we propose the new image-to-shape matching technique based on heat kernels and diffusion maps. The corresponding Diffusion Morphology is proposed as a new generalization of Pytiev morphological scheme. The fast implementation of morphological diffusion filtering is described. Experimental comparison of new and aforementioned shape-based matching techniques is reported applying to the TV and IR image matching problem

Face Pose Recognition Based on Monocular Digital Imagery and Stereo-Based Estimation of its Precision

A technique for automated face detection and its pose estimation using single image is developed. The algorithm includes: face detection, facial features localization, face/background segmentation, face pose estimation, image transformation to frontal view. Automatic face/background segmentation is performed by original graph-cut technique based on detected feature points. The precision of face orientation estimation based on monocular digital imagery is addressed. The approach for precision estimation is developed based on comparison of synthesized facial 2D images and scanned face 3D model. The software for modelling and measurement is developed. The special system for non-contact measurements is created. Required set of 3D real face models and colour facial textures is obtained using this system. The precision estimation results demonstrate the precision of face pose estimation enough for further successful face recognition