The Spiritual Alphabet: St. Dymytrii, Metropolitan of Rostov's Rhetorical Program for lnward

320 Pages·1999·22.22 MB·English

University of Alberta
The Spiritual Alphabet : St. Dymytrii, Metropolitan of Rostov's
Rhetorical Program for lnward Knowledge
O
Dushan Bednarsky
A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial
fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
in
Uk rainian Literature
Department of Slavic and East European Studies
Edmonton, Alberta
Fall 1998
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Abstract
This thesis analyzes of the works of St. Dymytrii, Metropoiitan of Rostov
(1651-1709) within the context of late seventeenth and early eighteenth-
century Orthodox Slavic religious philosophy, Christian post-Renaissance
religious thought and Early Modem rhetoric. The primary text is the author's
Spiritual Alphabet; secondary texts include his sermons, saints' lives and
dramatic works. The methodology employed is a synthesis of these texts that
dernonstrates the author's application of the five principles of rhetoric-
invention, disposition, elocution, memory and pronunciation4 0a sequential
and orderly program for the acquisition of spiritual knowledge. Chapter one
discusses the souk inventivenesç. Dymytrii's concept of spiritual inventiveness
is deeply rooted in Christian ethics, neo-Platonic philosophy and a
Renaissance humanist emphasis on philology and rhetoric. Chapter two
discusses the soul's disposition. The human being's happiness depends upon
the harrnonious agreement of al1 his component parts: the body, the interior
soul, the exterior soul. Chapter three discusses the souk elocution. Spiritual
elocution is the task of giving force to spiritual understanding through good
deeds and acts of charity. Good works constitute the power and eioquence that
accompany spiritual inventiveness and harmonious disposition. Chapter four
discusses the souk memory. Spiritual rnernory entails sensibility and good
perception in the work of spiritual living. The senses may easily lead the
Christian astray if he does not possess the requisite mindfulness that tempers
his perceptions and allows him to discern between truth and falsehood. Chapter
five discusses the soul's pronunciation. Spiritual pronunciation consists of the
human being's dialogue with God through prayer. It is a voluntary and
individual devotion that takes place in the interior chamber of the human heart.
This thesis proposes that neo-Platonic philosophy, rather than
Aristotelian, was dominant in Dymy trii's writing . In this respect it constitutes a
new interpretation of Dymytrii's theological thought and literary work, since
Aristotelianisrn is generally considered the dominant philosophical ground of
early eighteenth-century Russian and Ukrainian culture. The thesis
demonstrates that Dymytrii's rhetorical and neo-Platonic approach for the
acquisition of spiritual wisdom originated in his desire to conciliate Western
humanist intellectual tradition with the patristic sources of his Orthodox faith.
For my maternai grandmather.
Anne (née Bednarska) Zowtuk
Preface
Style
The style used is that of the M U Handbook for Writers of Research Papers,
fourth edition (New York: MLA, 1995).
Transliterat ion
My principle of transiteration from Cyrillic is to render the transliterated text as
readable as possible, while at the same tirne allowing the reader to reconstruct
the original text with reasonable proximity:
1. Simplified Library of Congress in chapter text: no soft and hard signs;
surname ending -sfkyi is simplifed as -sky (e.g. Stefan lavorsky). No ligatures
are used.
2. Modified Library of Congres in footnote citations and bibliography: soft and
hard signs represented by (') and (") (e.g. Stefan lavors'kyi). Also used for
linguistic material in text. Nineteenth-century Russian titles are modernized: i.e.,
hard signs at the end of words are removed. No ligatures are used.
According to Makhnovets (Makhnovets' 1: 374) . . .
3. Church Slavonic alphabet is transliterated using a modified civil Cyrillic
alphabet. The jus characters A. x are replaced with a and m. The theta e, psi Y?
and izhitsa v characters are retained (e.g., Iiaverm, n ~ n a n % ) .
Use of brackets and parentheses:
1. brackets are used as parentheses within parentheses;
2. brackets are used for my editorial insertions, explanations into quoted text;
3. parentheses are the authorts own (i.e. my own, or the source cited)
parenthetical insertions.
Roman numerals and classical citations:
Roman numerals are everywhere transliterated as Arabic, except when they are
used in titles.
Hence:
Cicero, De Oratore, Vans. H. Rackam (London: Cambridge UP, 1942)
Ill . xx.76.
is given as:
Cicero, De Oratore; tram H. Rackam (London: Cambridge UP, 1942)
3.20-76.
But:
John Donne, "Holy Sonnet V," The Divine Poems, ed. Helen Gardner
(Oxford: Oxford UP, 1952) 13.
Citations from classical authors will contain the customary book, section, and
line numbers. Corresponding volume and page numbers from the edition cited
will be given in parentheses.
Thus:
Cicero, De Oratore, trans. H. Rackam (London: Cambridge UP, 1942)
3.20.76 (2:7 6).
Acknowledgement
I thank my supewisor Dr. Peter Rolland for his patience, hard work and moral
support throughout my doctoral program. The writing of this thesis would not
have been possible without his strong encouragement and direction. I thank the
other two mernbers of my supervisary committee, Drs. Milan Dirnic and Edward
Mozejko. for their sound advice and critical evaluation of rny work. I al- thank
Drs. Larry McKiII and Bohdan Medwidsky for serving on my final examining
committee. I give special thanks to Dr. Giovanna Brogi Bercoff for serving as my
external examiner. I thank Dr. Tom Priestly for chairing rny final examination. I
thank the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research, especially Dr. Linda
McDonald for her support and sound professional advice. I thank the Social
Sciences and Hurnanities Research Council of Canada for awarding me a
doctoral fellowship during the years 1992 to 1995. 1 thank the Department of
Slavic and East European Studies staff, namely Janet Ould, Jean Wilman and
Doreen Hawryshko. I thank the Department of Modern Languages and Cultural
Studies staff, particularly Jane Wilson. I thank the Canadian lnstitute of
Ukrainian Studies, especially Drs. Zenon Kohut, Frank Sysyn, Frances Swyripa
and Serhii Plokhy for their support and encouragement. I thank Dr. Andrij
HornjatkevyC.f or his assistance with my Slavonie-English translations. I than k
the Graduate Students' Association, especially our capable ombudsmen 8arry
Posner and Saloni Negi. I thank the graduate students of the department,
particularly Natalia Burianyk and Oksana Krys. I thank my family and friends.
especially rny mother Mary Goshko, my grandmother Anne Zowtuk, and my
good friends Peter Zalucky and Barbara Mazur. Finaily, I thank Father Stephan
Jarmus for introducing me to St. Dymytrii, Metropolitan of Rostov, when I was a
seventeen-year-old student of theology at St. Andrew's College in Winnipeg.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Chapter One: lnventio Spiritualis
Chapter Two: Dispositio Spiritualis
Ch apter Thr ee: Elocutio Spiritualis
Chapter Four: Memoria Spiritualis
Ch apter Five : Pronuncia tio Spiritualis
Conclusion
Bi bliograph y
Appendix
Introduction
The Iife of St. Dymytrii, Metropolitan of Rostov (Danylo Savych Tuptalo,
1651-1709) begins and ends with two profound changes in the course of
Ukrainian history: the period of the internai strife and warfare known as the
"Ruin" (1650-1670) and the movement of Ukrainian intellectual life to the
territory of Muscovy during the reign of Peter the Great.' These two events frame
the course of his development as a cleric and pastor and as a thinker. As a child
he witnessed the waste and destruction of his homeland at the hands of
foreigners and of his own people. As an adult he occupied himself in the task of
rebuilding his society from the "Ruin's" twenty-year legacy of physical and
spiritual destruction. As a man in his fifties he emigrated from Ukraine to
participate in Peter the Great's dramatic transformation of Russia from a
medieval society into a modern Western state. The paradoxes of human
nature-Îts self-destructiveness and evil on the one hand, and its spiritual and
intellectual nobility on the other-are always present in his thoughts and
writings. The restoration of the past and the exploration of the new are themes
that hold a special resonance for a man who was deeply involved in tasks of
cultural and spiritual renovation and innovation.
Dymytrii was born in 1651 in the village of Makariv, near Kyiv. His father
was Sava Hryhorovych Tuptalo, Cossack captain (sotnyk) of the Kyiv regiment.
His mother, Maria Mykhailivna, was also from a Cossack family. Dymytrii was
baptized with the name Danylo. Later, at the age of seventeen, he chose his
monastic name in memory of St. Demetrius of Thessalonica, on whose day he
-
By far the definitive biography of Dymytrii remains lllia Shliapkin's extraordinary book Sviatyi
Dimitni Rostovskii i ego mmia (St. Petersburg, 1891 ). Also useful are: Aleksandr Pypin, lstoriia
russkoi lileratury (St. Petersburg, 1898) 2: 400-1 6; Ivan Ohienko (Metropolitan Ilarion), Sviatyi
Dymytrii Tuptalo (Winnipeg: Vira i KulYura, 1960); Vildor Askochenskii's ffiev s drevneishim ego
udiilishchem akademieiu (Kyiv, 1 856) 1: 2 1 9-28,