BNT told about him in a documentary after making an expedition in the footsteps of the holy brothers
“In Search of” Polychron “- the documentary film by journalist Maria Cherneva, was broadcast on May 26 on BNT 1. To do so, she went to the towns on the southern coast of the Sea of Marmara, where she searched for the remains of the legendary monastery. In Polychronus, the holy brothers Cyril and Methodius reportedly created the Glagolitic alphabet in 862 and 863.
Here is Maria Cherneva’s story about her expedition especially for “24 hours”.
“Polychron” is my 8-year continuous feeling of not quite done work. We wanted to look for him while we were preparing the film for the Great Moravian Mission together with Petya Tetevenska. The Polychrono Monastery is still a very important stage in the history of Cyril and Methodius to be missed. But we did not have enough time and budget for such a trip. Even then, we had no idea how difficult this mission was. So when I was invited to a conference in Istanbul 3 years ago, I naively decided that I would finally feed this worm, which constantly bites me, and take pictures of the monastery. But … it turned out to be a very ambitious task.
It took me a month to get some information on where this monastery would be. It turned out that there was only one scientific publication about “perhaps” the place of “Polychron”. One of the most famous and authoritative Byzantine scholars of the last century – Cyril Mango and Igor Shevchenko, have interpreted all the medieval sources and even tried to look for it. But not as researchers of the work of the holy brethren. Their goal was to restore the entire history of Theophanes the Confessor as a monastery builder.
But on the way to “Polychron” I came across much more surprising stories for me, which became clearer after my great irritation subsided that I could not step on any certain fact in this story.
First of all, let me say that my colleagues from the ninth century were not very diligent. As absurd as it may seem from today’s point of view,
the Byzantine
chroniclers do not
and order for the works of
Cyril and Methodius
They do not seem to exist for them. How is that possible? Apparently the brothers were not “public figures.” It’s hard to swallow this idea, but in the end it’s a fact. Then? How did they even get any information about their lives? The words of praise and biographies are far from particularly detailed. So where do we get some information about their lives now? From the letters, from the correspondence of the emperor, to the patriarch with other high officials of the empire.
For example, we learn of a letter from Tsar Boris to Emperor Photius, in which he asked that Bulgarian monks be trained in true monasticism. Boris’s letter does not exist, but we understand about him from the letter of Photius to a monk Arseny, in which he ordered the Bulgarians to be trained in true monasticism. And most likely the first authors of the lives of the two brothers drew from such sources. Perhaps. They still need to know from somewhere what happened. But what did the next ones interpret, omit, write or make a mistake while copying … who can say? But definitely most mistakes in transcripts are made with names. When they encounter an unknown toponym that probably did not exist a century later, the copyists judged that the author was mistaken and corrected it with the most familiar sound of another toponym. An important clarification due to one of the problems with the name of the monastery “Polychron”. In any case, what historians are doing now is intercepting information from various biographies, hoping that this will bring them closer to the real, real facts and events.
And by getting used to this swaying in the uncertain waters of the springs, you already understand the whole chaos with the different interpretations of our historians as well. As many people as there are hypotheses. Obviously I will have to come to terms with that. And to rely on the one that seems most logical to me.
So, between the two theses: “The alphabet written in Constantinople” and “The alphabet written in” Polychron “, the arguments” Polychron “weigh more on me. I will not repeat them, they can be heard in the film “In Search of Polychron”, developed by Assoc. Prof. Georgi Nikolov and Prof. Dimo Chesmedjiev. However, in two words:
the alphabet as
graphic characters is
easy to make
But for a long time it has to adapt to the phonetic features of the Slavic language. And the alphabet itself, the Slavic script, is not the ultimate goal. Byzantium expanded its influence through the Christianization of peoples, ethnic groups. Here, too, translations of liturgical texts are more important than writing. And translation is a long, precise process. Moreover, the abstract speech of Christ’s sermons and the Old Testament do not have the corresponding vocabulary in the Slavic language. This difficult process has its logic that it happened in those 4-5 years when the two brothers were alone in the monastery “Polychron”.
And this was before the Great Moravian Mission, after Rostislav asked the emperor to send him people who could worship in the Slavic language.
That is why it makes sense to look for the monastery. Moreover, there is already a ready interpretation of his place, which no one has disputed since 1970. Cyril Mango and Igor Shevchenko trace the lives of the holy brothers from the end of the ninth century with those of Theophanes the Confessor – the earliest, with the “freshest” data from the eighth century, written by Patriarch Methodius. The instructions for the monastery are briefly the following – probably “Polychron” and “Polychnion” are variations of the name of a monastery, it was
very rich, big,
with over 70 monks
and is located 6 miles, or 10 kilometers, from Megas Agros, the last monastery of Theophanes the Confessor. But both monasteries are on the south coast of the Sea of Marmara, from one to the other can be reached by boat. In the life of Theophanes the Confessor there are enough stories that tend to this thesis. On the spot, the two scientists have even confirmed with great certainty the location of the Megas Agros Monastery in the present-day village of Kurshunlu. But the traces of Polychron are not so clear. Remains of churches have been discovered both east and west of Megas Agros, but Byzantine scholars believe the western destination is the most likely.
We have started with these instructions. Kurshunlu is a villa zone rather than a settlement, and due to severe anti-epidemic measures it seems deserted. But we still find a local man who leads us to the remains of the monastery. Apparently the retaining wall on the shore is a Byzantine construction. Her mortar of broken bricks betrays him. Above it we find traces of the monastery everywhere.
The columns,
marble
ornaments,
processed stones
from its foundations they can be clearly seen embedded in the walls of abandoned buildings or scattered on the ground.
The remains of a monastery found east of Cyril Mango and Igor Shevchenko do not match the evidence for Polychron. They are high and inland and there is no way to get there by boat. And we do not find a way there, everything in the area of Malkara Justu is overgrown with dense forest. So we concentrate on the western point, also mentioned by Mango and Shevchenko as the most probable. According to their map, the area is called Timanio, but today such a place is not marked. Our local guide Ismail also does not know a place with a similar name, but he has an idea where it should be. Timanio also means a landed property, a farm. On the narrow road and the steep slopes on the shore we should distinguish the “farm” immediately. That’s exactly what happens. After one of the bends in front of us stretches a wonderful bay with a flat place where two monasteries can fit. Moreover, the place is cut by a small river, you can see under the water and piles of stones with the outlines of a pier. Already stepped on the beach, the remains of the foundations of a large building are immediately imposed, a very long wall is outlined almost along the entire line. Scattered stones stand on the shore, some of them marble with ornaments. Certainly from a church. This is what the remains of all the monasteries studied by archaeologists say. The greatest effort is required by the magnificence of the church, the residential buildings are difficult to read. They are not massive, the stones from the foundations are not processed and easily lose their shape. So that
in the bay
it certainly is
there was a church,
there is room for everything else needed for a large monastery.
But unfortunately, we also see a very fresh intervention of treasure hunters. Ismail claims that they looted everything a long time ago, he saw more remains in his childhood.
Whether what we found are the remains of “Polychron”, whether this is the monastery inhabited by Cyril and Methodius – only archaeologists can confirm or supplement this story. And it is not at all impossible to recognize the scriptorium or the “workshop” where the books were copied. Assoc. Prof. Rosina Kostova, a specialist in medieval Byzantine and Bulgarian archeology, believes that there are traces by which she can be identified. There is already a recognized medieval scriptorium certainly here in our country and it is in the monastery from the second half of the IX century in the village of Ravna, Provadia region. Without any architectural features, scholars recognize it as a scriptorium thanks to open drawings such as “replicas” of miniature manuscripts or inscriptions in Cyrillic and Glagolitic written on the walls as a textbook for monks who must learn the art of transcription.
So the story of “Polychron” can gain more density. Look for your researchers.
You can see the movie here.
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