« 2020. № 3 (153)

The Ethnology Notebooks. 2020. № 3 (153), 614—621

UDK 27+398(477)”7.046″

DOI https://doi.org/10.15407/nz2020.03.614

HOLY SPYRIDON THE TRIMYPHUS : THE CYPRUS SAINT IN UKRAINIAN SPIRITUAL CULTURE

KULISH Oksana

ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9625-0690

Candidate of Sciences in Art Studies (Ph. D),

Lecturer of Cherkasy Professional College

of Food Technology and Business,

84, Smilyanska st., 18008, Cherkasy, Ukraine,

Contacts: e-mail: kulish_oxana_andre@ukr.net

Abstract. St. Spyridon the Trimyphus — a prominent figure in the history of the Church of the early Christian period. The object of the research is Ukrainian spiritual culture, the value of which is enhanced by the fact that the figure of St. Spyridon (the subject of research) has a prominent place in Ukrainian folklore, sacred art and architecture. The topicality of the coverage of the significance of the Ukrainian spiritual culture in the world complex of Christian culture relates to the essence of the problem of research — the Russian imperial narrative which even today, in the information space, in particular, on the Internet continues the tendency of assigning prominent representatives of Ukrainian culture as Orthodox Russian pilgrims to the place of worship of this Cypriot saint. The purpose of the research is establishing of the fact of the presence of St. Spyridon in the Ukrainian spiritual culture in the dimension of the present post-industrial society and previous industrial, traditional societies based on examples of Ukrainian folklore and Christian culture, such as: temple building, monumental art, pilgrimage, veneration of the icons and relics of St. Spyridon the Trimyphus. The methodological basis of the work is the historical, descriptive and artistic aspects applied in ethnographic and religious-cultural contexts, as well as the original postulate of this article on the expediency of a divine narrative in the Christian faith.

As a result, the spiritual connection of Cypriot the Wonderworker Spyridon, a world-class saint, with the Ukrainian people, as a baptized community by the Byzantine rite, began with oral folk art. In our post-industrial era, with the cultural heritage of the industrial and traditional societies, the primacy of oral memorials in folklore before pictorial monuments in Ukrainian sacred art is indicated by:

the characteristic name of the day dedicated to St. Spyridon in the folk’s calendar on December 12/25, which fragmentary reflects the pre-Christian ideas — Spyrydon Sontsevorot (Spyridon who overthrows the Sun);

the concept of the holiness of «a nice man Spyridon» in the folk legend, which refers to sacredness as the original syncretic significance of his person, essentially different from the chronologically later Christian concept of holiness.

It is proved that in the modern post-industrial society St. Spyridon the Trimyphus is revered by the orthodox and the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Churches.

Keywords: St. Spyridon the Trimyphus, Christian culture, miracle, images, pilgrims, Ukrainian culture, Vasyl Hryhorovych-Barskyi, Mykola Hohol.

Received 13.04.2020

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