Sbornice

Sbornic, a Slavonic word, literally means collection; in this particular case, it denotes the collections of religious texts, either in manuscript or in print, that are the joint effort of a variety of authors from different ages and which have a varied content: hagiographic writings, miraculous stories from the life of hermits, commentaries on the gospels, polemics against heresies, hexaimeroane, that is writings about the making of the world in six days, homilies of the saints John Chrysostom, Basil the Great, Gregory of Nazianz, Atanasie of Alexandria; words of wisdom of Efrem Sirul, John Damaschin, Teodor Studite, Gregory Sinaite; collections of sayings from the biblical texts or from the works of ancient philosophers, usually commented on from a moral and didactic standpoint.

Out of the eight such collections that are part of the heritage of Putna monastery, three are surely from the age of Stephen the Great, two are probably from that same age, while three are from later epochs. The first three were written at Putna monastery, and are actually the most sumptuous of all, out of which two were commissioned by the great voivode himself, for this monastery.


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