On a Rare Hagiographic Text – the Martyrdom of Trophimus and Thalus of Laodicea

Abstract

The object of this study is the Martyrdom of Trophimus and Thalus of Laodicea (commemorated on March 16), which is not very common in Slavonic translated hagiography. For now nine Old Russian copies of 15th–17th centuries are known. Of these, five are analyzed here: in three pre-Macarian menaion readers of the 15th–16th centuries, in the March Great Menaion reader from the Moscow Kremlin Cathedral of the Dormition and in the March Great Menaion reader of 1643. All analyzed copies contain the same translation from a still unknown Greek text and in all likelihood go back to the same photograph. The translation is ancient. It seems that the Martyrdom in the copy of the Moscow Kremlin Cathedral of the Dormition is not directly related to any of the copies from pre-Macarian menaion readers.