The study of Mount Athos manuscripts: problems and suggestions

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The world of Byzantine manuscripts is fascinating but also confusing. Although they play an important part in modern studies on the history of Christian liturgy and on the textual history of the Bible, a clear overview of the vast amount of these manuscripts in their many different forms is lacking. A new approach in their cataloguing is called for. The present volume brings together a number of specialists in the field of Byzantine, liturgical and Biblical studies with the aim to develop a new methodology for codicological research of the Byzantine manuscripts, taking seriously the original environment of the integral codices in the monasteries and the churches in which they were manufactured and functioned.

Prof. dr. Klaas Spronk is Head of the Research Department Sources of the Protestant Theological University (PThU), location Amsterdam, and chairman of the CBM Academic Board.

Prof. dr. Gerard Rouwhorst is Professor of Liturgical History at the Tilburg School of Catholic Theology and member of the Department of Biblical Sciences and Church History of that institution. He is member of the CBM Academic Board.

Dr. Stefan Royé is member of the Research Department Sources of the Protestant Theological University (PThU), location Amsterdam, and CBM programme coordinator and secretary of the Academic Board.

This article is an effort to provide today’s scholars with a better sense of context as they undertake research related to Athonite manuscripts. It works out the following questions: how many manuscripts exist on Mount Athos and how can we know; what is the current state of cataloging of Athonite manuscripts; how should we use the numbers previously given to Athonite manuscripts; and how can our methods of cataloging these manuscripts better address the real state of affairs as well as the evolving needs of contemporary scholarship.