The messages as a literary genre contributed to the flourishing of Russian publicism in the
16th century. There are 45 epistolary texts of arch-flamen in the literary heritage of Moscow met67
ropolitan Daniel, which have almost never been studied and half of them was not published. The
study of the messages that refer to particular addressees allows us to define some orienting points
in the development of Daniel’s work. The subject of this paper is the history of messages sent to
the starets of Joseph-Volokolamsk Monastery, Dionysius of Zvenigorod, the icon-painter and
penman, who was in friendly relations with Daniel. The peculiarities of the manuscript and literary
tradition of the messages revealed during the study made it possible to determine the principles
of codification of the writer’s epistolary code. Three messages of Metropolitan Daniel to
Dionysius are known. They all represent Daniel’s answers to the letters written by starets that
contain claims and reproaches. The essays were included in the epistolary code that was preserved
in the manuscript collection of the National Library of Russia, Q.I.1439, the 60s of the 16th century.
The author’s code of Daniel begins with the Message to Dionysius of 1528 concerning the
enduring of sorrows. Having a strong position of the beginning of a collection, the essay played
a modeling role in the formation of the thematic cycle of texts, following the Message to Dionysius.
The pastoral homilies were the central part of the message saying that everyone who took the
vows should endure any sorrows, misadventures and afflictions, because that is the way one sanctifies.
The message is preserved in three notitiae. The paper presents the results of textological
analysis, providing a unique chance to present the history of the author’s text of Metropolitan for
the manuscript tradition of other messages and especially of «Sobornik» is rather poor. Two other
messages to Dionysius have survived to nowadays in the only notitia, in the collection of the National
Library of Russia, Q.I.1439. They were included by the author into the thematic set dedicated
to friendship and enmity. The answer-message («To the Starets Dionysius. The answer to
his message») has the following features: friendly tone, eloquence, emotional expressiveness
although the content is a reproach to the addressee for the improper actions and pastoral homilies
that implicitly reflect the unattractive image of everyday life in the monastery. The main advice of
the bishop is to love enemies and forgive those who do evil. The content of the third short message
«On the like-mindedness and consensus» was a justification of Daniel before Dionysius for
the letter that caused a quarrel between the starets and monastery fraternity. Daniel tries to resolve
the conflict by explaining his position that is based on the belief that everyone should live in
peace and harmony. The last two messages were probably written in the early period of Daniel’s
archpastoral. They can be qualified as amicable messages that reflect the life experience of a person
and represent the literary letters in the book culture of the Russian Middle Ages.
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