ВОПРОСЫ ОНОМАСТИКИ | PROBLEMS OF ONOMASTICS

Olga V. Salomatova
Saint Tikhon’s Orthodox University of Humanities
Moscow, Russia

Anthroponyms of Non-Biblical Origin in Stefan Yavorsky’s Sermons

Voprosy onomastiki (Problems of Onomastics), 2014, Issue 1 (16), pp. 116–121 (in Russian)

Received 9 January 2014

Abstract: The article focuses on archbishop Stefan Yavorsky’s works which reflect the transitional character of late 17th — early 18th centuries Russian sermons. Before that time the genre had been loyal to the canonical principles of scholasticism, and beginning with Stefan Yavorsky the sermon was enriched with new ways of material presentation and new content. The use of numerous biblical personal names, names of saints, Fathers of the Church and theologians represents a trait inherent in the sermon as a genre, a wide use of non-biblical names being chiefly a distinctive feature of scholastic works. Among those names the author points out: 1) names of saints, Fathers of the Church, church hierarchs; 2) names of gods and heroes of Antiquity;   3) names of ancient philosophers, historians and rulers; 4) names of foreign rulers, historians and public figures of the modern period; 5) names of Russian rulers. Thereby, the anthroponyms of non-biblical origin could be attributes of both “informational” (names of ancient gods and historical figures) and “spiritual” (names of saints, Fathers of the Church, church hierarchs) parts of a sermon. The author distinguishes the following functions of the analyzed names: 1) indication of sources of information (most frequent); 2) naming of the characters of a story or parable cited for illustrative purposes; 3) naming of a described person.

Key words: Russian language, anthroponyms of non-biblical origin, Russian religious sermon, scholastic sermon, Stefan Yavorsky, reign of Peter the First

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