Апокрифните лечебни молитви
Apocryphal Curative Prayers

Summary/Abstract: The apocryphal prayers with a healing purpose, spread among the Southern Slavs in the 10th–12th c., are considered in the study. They were inserted in church books (prayerbooks, psalters, etc.) but also in medicine handbooks together with popular medical prescriptions. In the study are raised the following questions: againts which diseases were the prayers directed; how the ailments “came out” from man and where they went; what articles and actions should accompany the words: wine and bread, knife, water, binding, writing the text, the lead on which it was written, etc. All the articles in the ritual had a symbolic magical significance. In the study comparisons are made with folklore incantations, Coptic magical texts, etc. It has been established that despite the influence of the Christian religion, the curative prayers (translated, some probably created on the model of translated ones) as regards ideas, notions, ritual articles and actions retained a very close link with pagan antiquity: they manifested the longevity of the heathen elements and stability of the form. During the Middle Ages their vitality was maintained by the profound belief in their curative and protective action.

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