Женская теонимия в древнеруском толковании XXXIX "Слова" Григория Назианзина

Abstract

Peculiarities of Old Russian editing of one of the original Byzantine literary monuments, Oration on Gregory Nazianzene’s Epiphany, is considered in the article. Old Russian editing was created to expose Hellenistic cults of giving birth goddesses in counterbalance to the Christian image of the pure Virgin. Goddess Mokosh qualified in Old Russian text by the epithet “virgin” after the pattern of the Byzantine monument turns out to by the Slavonic analogue of Hellenistic goddesses.