El uso ideológico de citas y motivos bíblicos en el canon ruso sobre el traslado de las reliquias de San Clemente de Roma

Abstract

The hymn devoted to the finding and the subsequent translation of the relics of Saint Clement of Rome is interesting for two reasons: it is one of the earliest hymnographic compositions in Old Church Slavonic, and it contains clearly ideological elements. The relics of Saint Clement, third Pope after Saint Peter, played an essential role in two important periods of the Christianisation of the Slavs: the mission of the Byzantine brothers Constantine-Cyril and Methodius in Moravia (863-869), and the baptism of the Russian prince Vladimir in 988. Therefore, the study of the canon on the translation of the relics of Saint Clement can provide us with valuable evidence of the ideological use of biblical motifs and quotations. Several scholars considered a newly discovered Russian version of the hymn to be the work composed by Constantine the Philosopher on the occasion of his finding of the relics in 861. On the other hand, the Russian historian E. V. Uchanova, based on the ideological use of biblical quotations, concluded that the composition was Russian in origin, dating from the period of the Christianisation of the Kievan Rus¿. This paper shows that a careful re-reading of those biblical motifs and quotations does not give us reason to support either of the two hypotheses.