Sunday, June 29, 2014 in the afternoon in the Ružica Church in the Kalemegdan Fortress in Beograd, there will be a book launch of two new titles:
Starac Nikanor Hilendarac by Protojerej stavrofor Srboljub Miletić, and
Zapovedni crkveni praznici kod Srba by Protojerej stavrofor Dušan Kolundžić.
Elder Nikanor was at Hilandar Monastery when the Very Rev. Dr. Mateja Matejic, Walt Craig, and later Predrag Matejic were filming the manuscripts in Hilandar Monastery’s library. There are photos of Father Nikanor among the Hilandar Research Library’s slide collection, some of which were incorporated into the video interview of Predrag Matejic’s visits to Mount Athos that formed a part of the Thompson Library exhibit (Summer 2013) at The Ohio State University: “Travelers to and from Mount Athos: The Translation of Culture, Knowledge, and Spirituality.” The Very Rev. Miroljub Ružić also mentions Father Nikanor in the interview he gave for the same exhibit.
We are saddened to learn of the death of Hrizostom, Bishop of Žiča, Serbia, on Monday, December 17, 2012.
At the time of the Hilandar Research Project photographic expeditions to Mount Athos in the early 1970s, Bishop Hrizostom was the librarian of Hilandar Monastery.
Bishop Hrizostom (Stolić) was born in Ruma, Yugoslavia, in 1939. From Visoki Dečani Monastery (Kosovo), where he had become a monk, he went to Jordanville, New York, where he graduated from St. Sergius Holy Trinity Orthodox Seminary. Afterwards he spent 19 years in Hilandar Monastery. He became Bishop for Western America in 1988, serving in that capacity until 1992, when he was elected Bishop of Banat. In 2003, he became Bishop of Žiča. He is the author of several interesting books on Orthodoxy, Svetačnik ili Pravoslavni mesecoslov, Služba Sv. Savi Trećem, and the editor of Liturgija Sv. Apostola Jakova, Liturgija Apostola Marka and Liturgija Apostolskih ustanova (Joković 2007: 47, n31).
Source: Joković, Miroljub. An Archival History of the Hilandar Research Project at The Ohio State University. Translation from the Serbian by Nataša Kaurin-Karača. Belgrade: Рашка школа, 2007.
Bishop Hrizostom’s death was reported in the online issue of Глас Јавности.
May his memory be eternal!
Today is the 60th birthday of Predrag Matejic, Curator of the Hilandar Research Library and the Director of the Resource Center for Medieval Slavic Studies at The Ohio State University.
It was on this date in 1971, to the best of his recollection, that Predrag and his father, the Very Rev. Dr. Mateja Matejic, left Greece with over 3,400 rolls of film used to photograph and microfilm the manuscripts of Hilandar Monastery. They flew together to Germany; Father Matejic continued on to Columbus, Ohio, with the films, while Predrag flew on alone to Yugoslavia, thus spending his 19th birthday in three different countries. He had birthday cake in both Munich and Beograd.
Happy Birthday, Predrag!
Image Source: The photo above was taken by a monk of Hilandar, 1971; the photo at right was taken by Pasha in 2002.
The First – and what turned out to be the only – Annual Hilandar Research Project Conference was held May 3-4, 1984. The major goals of the conference were to provide an update of the Hilandar Research Project’s activities and financial status, and to offer concrete proposals for the expansion and development of the Hilandar Research Project. Among the future goals enumerated by the Very Rev. Dr. Mateja Matejic were: “(1) the continuing acquisition and development of the collection of microform and reference materials; (2) the publication of a Supplemental and Cumulative Checklist of the holdings of the Hilandar Room (now over 2,000 items); (3) the publication of a detailed description of the Slavic codices of the Great Lavra Monastery on Mount Athos…” (Polata knigopisnaia 13: 71).
Among the ten presentations given, Robert Mathiesen (Brown University) reported on “The Present Status of Medieval Slavic Studies in the USA and Canada,” and concluded, among other things, that “North American scholars should concentrate on the treatment of problems less actively treated elsewhere in the world, such as Biblical textology” (Polata knigopisnaia 13: 27).
The report on the conference ends with the announcement that “On 5 May 1984, following the conclusion of the Conference, a new and completely furnished and reequipped Hilandar Room was dedicated by Robert Rade Stone, President of the Serb National Federation, and presented with the first original manuscript, a late XVIIIth century copy of Paisij Hilandarskij’s Istoria slavjanobǎlgarskaja by Mrs Esther N. Clarke” (Polata knigopisnaia 13: 74).
Image source: Cover of the book, M. Matejic and D. Bogdanovic, Slavic Codices of the Great Lavra Monastery: A Description (Sofia: CIBAL, 1989).
A working conference devoted to “Hilandar Monastery and Other Repositories of Medieval Slavic Manuscripts: Research Needs and Opportunities” was held April 11-13, 1981 at Ohio State University [sic], Columbus, Ohio. The Very Rev. Dr. Mateja Matejic presented an update on the Hilandar Research Project, representatives from various countries reported on the status of Slavic and medieval studies, and recommendations regarding the future work and development of the Hilandar Research Project were made by working groups composed from 45 scholars of 31 institutions of higher education in North America and Europe.
Reports were presented on collections in Belgium (Francis Thomson), Bulgaria (Petŭr Dinekov), Canada (Richard Pope), repositories holding Croatian Glagolitic manuscripts (Anica Nazor), Italy (Mario Capaldo), Macedonia (Lidija Slaveva), the Netherlands (Anton Van den Baar), Serbia (Dimitrije Bogdanović), and the United States (Riccardo Picchio).
Other participants from Europe included: Matej Cazacu and Paul-Hubert Poirier (France); Aksiniia Džhurova, Ivan Dujčev, Stefan Kožuharov, Kujo Kuev, Krumka Sharova, and Borjana Velcheva (Bulgaria); David Huntley (Canada); Vera Mutafčieva (Austria); Aleksander Naumow and Jerzy Rusek (Poland); Andrei Robinson (USSR); Antoine-Emile Tachiaos (Greece); and William Veder (the Netherlands).
Attendees from the US were: Julia Allisandratos (MIT); John Fine, Ladislav Matejka, and Benjamin Stolz (University of Michigan); Priest-monk Ioannikios (Holy Trinity Monastery, Jordanville, NY); Edward Kasinec (University of California, Berkeley); Maxine Lebo (Reston, Virginia); Horace Lunt and Hugh Olmsted (Harvard University); Robert Mathiesen (Brown University); Gordon McDaniel (Seattle, WA); Olivera Nedić (Chicago); Philip Shashko (University of Wisconsin); Daniel Waugh (University of Washington); and Dean Worth (UCLA).
Participants from OSU were: Bert Beynen, Sharon Fullerton, Charles Gribble, Predrag Matejic, David Robinson, and Leon Twarog.