Gagauz religious manuscript tradition in the context of Moldavian ethnic and cultural influence (on the example of the origin of the Gagauz version of the Epistle on Sunday)

• Main Author: Elizaveta Kvilinkova
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Inst. Patrimoniului Cultural (IPC) 2017-12-01
• Series: Revista de Etnologie şi Culturologie
• Subjects: Christian written culture; apocryphal texts; Epistle
• Online Access: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_MPkqI9kqE1VFNXSExuM1QxVlE/view
• ISSN: 1857-2049; 2537-6152

The religious handwritten tradition of the Gagauzians is investigated in this article. One of the most widespread among Gagauz people is the apocryphal tale of the New Testament – The Epistle About Lord’s Day (“The Epistle of Our Lord Jesus Christ, Sent From Heaven by God”). The research is based on materials collected during the indi- vidual ethnographical research of the author (2008–2012 years) in the Gagauzian villages in the south of Moldova. The apocryphal prayers are studied in comparison with similar texts popular among Bulgarians, Moldovans and Romanians. We can conclude that Gagauzian apocryphal prayers represent some archaic medieval texts preserved in the religions tradition of Gagauzians until today. A pe- culiar feature of these texts is the pagan-Christian syncre- tism with the predominance of the pagan component and a distinct function of the talisman. We can conclude that on the territory of Bessarabia, Gagauz people substituted the lack of religious knowledge and literature with the help of books and handwritten religious texts primarily written in the Moldavian/Romanian language. The Epistles, apoc- ryphal prayers and others were seen and perceived by the Gagauz as a kind of a prayer. It is noted that this tradition continues to operate among the Gagauzian population of Moldova even in the present.