STRATEGIES FOR TRANSFORMING THE GOSPEL TEXT IN KYRYLO TRANQUILION STAVROVETSKYI’S "DIDACTIC GOSPEL"
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.28925/2311-259x.2026.3.1Keywords:
Kyrylo Tranquilion Stavrovetskyi, sermon, pericope, amplification, exegesis, Baroque, "Didactic Gospel"Abstract
The article examines strategies for transforming the Gospel text in Kyrylo Tranquilion Stavrovetskyi’s "Didactic Gospel" (1619). The relevance of the study lies in the need to specify the mechanisms by which an early modern preacher turns a Gospel pericope into an expanded didactic utterance addressed to a contemporary audience. The material comprises three sermons: on the Pharisee and the tax collector, the prodigal son, and the Samaritan woman. The methodology combines structural-semantic and comparative textual analysis with hermeneutic and rhetorical approaches. The results of the study demonstrate that Stavrovetskyi’s interaction with the biblical prototext is based on three interrelated strategies: amplification, exegetical recoding, and actualization. In the sermon on the Pharisee and the tax collector, the initial moral opposition is expanded through biblical exempla, psychological motivation of gestures, and the construction of the character’s inner speech. In the parable of the prodigal son, the concrete elements of the plot systematically acquire spiritual referents and form a second, exegetical level of narration. In the sermon on the Samaritan woman, metaphorical amplification of the image of living water is combined with an expanded dialogue and the social actualization of the biblical situation. A special role belongs to deictic formulas containing the equivalent of “now”, which overcome the temporal distance between the Gospel event and the preacher’s audience. The novelty of the article consists in describing these mechanisms systematically as a single model of rhetorical-exegetical reactualization: the pericope retains its sacred authority while its narrative form remains open to expansion, semantic recoding, and transfer into the communicative present. Further research may apply this model to a broader corpus of the "Didactic Gospel" and compare it with other early modern homiletic practices.
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