Among the numerous monasteries near Moscow there is a monastery, which is often compared with the Trinity-Sergius Lavra itself. This is the pearl of the ancient Zvenigorod - the Savvino-Storozhevsky monastery, founded at the end of the XIV century. The history of this men's monastery is inextricably linked with the fate of the monk, and later the elder, Alexander Mezenets.
Biography
Alexander Mezenets, in the world of Stremoukhov, is a rather mysterious person. Not a single image of his face has survived to this day. The biography of the monk is almost unknown. The origin of Mezenets can be found only from the manuscript, which he personally wrote and presented to one of his companions.
It is known that the elder lived in the 17th century. The exact date of birth is unknown. Historians have found genuine information about his father in the so-called "murals" - books of service people. Comparing the information, the researchers came to the conclusion that Mezenets came from the noble family of the Stremoukhovs. Father's name was John, he was born in the city of Novgorod-Seversky, near Chernigov. During his life, this city was Polish. It is likely that Mezenets himself was born there too. His father was in the military Cossack service, and especially distinguished himself during the battles with troops from the Commonwealth and Crimea in the first half of the 17th century.
Roughly in the 1640s, Mezenets studied at the Kiev-Mohyla Academy. After graduation, he moved to Moscow. Then he came to the Savvino-Storozhevskaya monastery. The exact date and place of Mezenz's monastic tonsure has not been established. Within the walls of the monastery, he was a kliroshanin (choir singer).
Mezenz had an elegant semi-official handwriting, therefore, along with singing, he was engaged in rewriting hook collections. So in those days they called singing books, in which the melodies of church chants were recorded not with the usual notes, but with hooks or banners - special signs. A similar recording of music existed in Ancient Russia, but by the end of the 17th century it was almost completely supplanted by the Western European method of writing. However, the Old Believers did not accept the new system and over the next three centuries they used hooks in their singing collections, passing on the traditions of Old Russian musical literacy from generation to generation.
In the library of the Savvino-Storozhevsky monastery, six manuscripts of singing books have been preserved, in the design of which Mezenets took part.
Presumably in 1668 Mezenets became the elder of the Savvino-Storozhevsk monastery. Only the Russian Orthodox Church did not canonize him, unlike the same Savva Storozhevsky or Seraphim Sarovsky.
Personal life
Alexander Mezenets was not married. He made a monastic vow, which implies a complete detachment from everything worldly, including from carnal pleasures. In those days in Russia the abandonment of monasticism was not provided for by the church. Those who fled without permission were detained and returned to the walls of the monastery, and in some cases were placed in the monastery prison. Mezenets kept a vow of celibacy until the end of his days.
Creation
Alexander Mezenets is known in narrow circles as a connoisseur of church hook (znamenny) singing. He is considered one of the didascals in this area.
From the mid-1660s, Mezenets began editing singing books for singing. In the Church Slavonic language, in which liturgical and doctrinal books were written at that time, there were super-short vowel phonemes. They were designated by the letters "b" and "b". Subsequently, the weakening of the sound of such main ones began. This phenomenon was called the fall of the reduced. Alexander Mezenets corrected the singing books "for speech", that is, he brought the singing in accordance with the reading, which just excluded the pronunciation of the half-vowels "b" and "b". The result of his colossal work was a manuscript collection with revised ancient Znamenny works. It was released in 1666.
Mezenets edited several dozen books with chants, including:
- "Irmology";
- "Oktoich";
- "Obikhod".
In 1669, Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich issued a decree on the convocation of the second Commission for the correction of singing books "for speech" and preparation for printing the znamenny chant. Alexander Mezenets joined it, becoming one of six experts. The Commission had at its disposal the best singing manuscripts in more than four centuries. A century later, the work of connoisseurs was transferred from the hook letter to Western European notation. Presumably, Mezenets also participated in the first such Commission, convened in 1652.
The apogee of his work is the "ABC of Znamenny Singing", written in 1668. She made a huge contribution to the theory of znamenny singing and became the only book on this topic. The work is of great interest for researchers of the znamenny chant.
The value of the Mezenz alphabet lies in the fact that it provided answers to many questions that remained unresolved for a long time. The work of the monk made a real revolution in znamenny chanting.
In his work, Mezenets for the first time:
- explained the principle of decoding the tunes;
- classified the main banners;
- introduced a system of subordination of banners;
- came up with options for a printed music font.
In the 1670s, Mezenets became a director (editor) of the Moscow Printing House. Historians agree that in this post he replaced the well-known reference director Alexander Pechersky.
Historians suggest that Mezenets moved from Zvenigorod to Moscow in 1670. He lived in the courtyard of the Savvino-Storozhevsky Monastery, which at that time was located in the area of modern Tverskaya Street. He also died there, approximately after 1672.
