«The Life and Praise of Nicetas the Stylite»:
hagiographic Canon and especially its implementation

The paper deals with the hagiographic work of the 16th century – Life and Praise of Reverend
Nikita Stylites, Pereslavl Wonderworker. The list is stored in the Department of Manuscripts
of the Russian State Library (F. 7. No. 16. Collection of Words and Lives, 16th century Life
and Praise of Nikita Stolpnik, 236–252). The purpose of this work is to acquaint the scientific
community with one more handwritten hagiographic material and to carry out its textual
analysis.
The genre-compositional structure of the life of Reverend Nikita Stylite is considered.
We study not only the structural scheme of the construction of the Life but also verify its correspondence
to the hagiographic canon. The composition structure of the Life is not three-part, but
two-part, and consists of the main part of the narrative, presented in the form of thematic blocks,
and the conclusion in which there is no preface. The text omits such canonical motives of the life
of the reverend ranks as the birth of pious parents, a pious childhood and the hero’s desire to go
to the monastery from childhood. Nikita appears from the very beginning of his biography as
an adult married man, who collects taxes in Pereslavl, oppressing the inhabitants of the city. In the
Life there are motives uncharacteristic for the hagiographic canon of the reverend’s rank, such
as the repentance and confession of the hero, showing the beginning of his spiritual transformation.
The motive of pillar-dwelling, consecrated in the Life, is rare not only for Russian hagiography
but also for the very reverend rite of holiness. The violent death of St. Nikita does not fit
into the canonical scheme of the natural death of the reverend, which makes it possible to refer
Nikita to another rank of holiness – martyrs.
The research of the handwritten hagiographic source, which has not been put into scientific
circulation, expands our possibilities in studying of the Life of St. Nikita Stylites. The revealed
textual and hagiographical features of the Life of the Reverend Nikita Stylites, the Pereslavl
Wonderworker, allow attributing it not only to the rare example of an original Russian hagiography
but also to distinguish its originality among the hagiography texts of a rank of Reverends
and Stylites.