"I am working on research into three previously unknown copies of the Ostroh Bible that were discovered in closed monastic book repositories on Mount Athos in Greece," he wrote. “Around 350 copies of the Ostroh Bible are known to survive worldwide today. Thanks to this find in a monastic library on Athos, three previously unknown copies have now been added to that list.”
One of the copies discovered, Shumylo suggested, may have belonged to Ukrainian polemicist writer Ivan Vyshenskyi or may have been brought to Athos by him in the late 16th or early 17th century.
According to the researcher, this is suggested by marginalia found on other Ostroh editions from the same Athos collection. In particular, a 1595 edition bears a dedicatory inscription from Vasyl Surazkyi, a member of the Ostroh literary circle, addressed to Ivan Vyshenskyi.
Another copy of the Ostroh Bible belonged to the disciples of Ukrainian spiritual and cultural figure and ascetic Paisius Velichkovsky (1722-1794). It was kept at the Neamț Monastery in Romania, which Velichkovsky headed, and was later transferred from there to Athos.
A third copy, the historian believes, belonged to Hieromonk Kallistos of Mena vicar of the Chernihiv Archdiocese. In 1754, it was transferred by Vasyl Luhovyi from the Poltava Regiment to the Ukrainian Cossack skete of Chornyi Vyr on Athos. Shumylo said he determined this from marginalia found on the copy.
During his expedition, Shumylo counted 32 Cyrillic early printed books published in the Kyiv Metropolitanate in the 16th and 17th centuries, as well as 143 Ukrainian early printed books from the 18th century, in the Athos monastery's collection. The vast majority of these editions come from the library of the Chornyi Vyr skete.
The researcher estimates that roughly 200 Ukrainian early printed books from this collection survive on Athos in total.
Some of the editions were sent to Athos directly from the town of Ostroh by the great Ukrainian patron Prince Vasyl-Kostiantyn Ostrozkyi, who held the monastic community of Mount Athos in deep reverence, Shumylo added.
This year also marks the 500th anniversary of Ostrozkyi's birth and the 450th anniversary of his founding of the Ostroh Academy.
The Ostroh Bible is the first complete printed edition of all the books of Scripture (the Old and New Testaments) in Church Slavonic. It was printed in the city of Ostroh in Volhynia by the renowned pioneering printer Ivan Fedorov in 1580-1581, organized and funded by Prince Vasyl-Kostiantyn Ostrozkyi.