Византийские печати и святыни Камулианы

Аннотация

Article is devoted to two unique Byzantine seals of the 8th century from the State Hermitage museum. The legend of one of them is read as follows: «Sacred forces of Kamoulianoi, help Kosmas, hypatos and spatharokiandidatos». Probably, «Sacred forces of Kamoulianoi» refers to acheiropaeic image of Christ («image not made by the hand of man») from Kamoulianoi, the city in Cappadocia the First. This icon is mentioned only in three sources of the second half of the 6th – 8th centuries. Only George Kedrinos (9th / 12th centuries) writes about its transportation to Constantinople in 574 where it was esteemed some decades as palladium of the Empire and the leader of Christian troops in campaigns against unorthodoxes. In the 8th century traces of this holy relic are lost. John, anagnostos, doulos the Mother of God of Kamoulianoi was the owner of another molybdoboullos. Anagnostos is the reader, originally secular one, then the clergyman of a low rank, whose main service includes the reading of texts of apostolic constitutions from an ambon. The phrase «the doulos of the Mother of God» can indicate that John belonged to a diakonia, informal community of clergymen and laymen, established with the pious purposes (for example, for joint worship to some holy icon) and for mutual aid for its members. John was associate at the church of the Mother of God of Kamoulianoi in which the icon of the Mother of God of Kamoulianoi or its copy was stored. This icon is celebrated on May 28 on Gregorian Style or on May 15 on Old Style. It is interesting to note that some important data on this icon coincide with the legend of the acheiropaeic image of Christ from Kamoulianoi. Possibly, already in ancient sources there was an ambiguity con-cerning division of these two wonder-working images. In a number of manuscripts it is spoken about not made by hand icon of the Mother of God from Kamoulianoi instead of the image of Christ. The scholars propose even that there were two different images of Christ and the Mother of God which came from Kamoulianoi and had been equally revered in Constantinople. The future researches will probably answer this question and the seals of Kosmas and John will take there an important place, as the authentic evidences of worship of the image of Kamoulianoi (one or probably two) in the early Byzantine times.