Cheti Minei, Velikie

(Great Monthly Readings), a collection of biblical books with commentaries on prologues, paterikons, translated and original Russian lives of saints, and works by “church fathers” and Russian ecclesiastical writers. Velikie Chet’ i Minei also includes nomocanons, monastic regulations, acts, and charters. All the material is arranged according to months. Each of the 12 volumes corresponds to a specific month, which is broken down into days. This collection was compiled during the 1530’s and 1540’s under the direction of Metropolitan Makarii. The Velikie Chet’ i Minei contains more than 27, 000 large-size pages, which were copied by hand and artistically decorated. Makarii undertook the compilation of the Velikie Chef i Minei in order to centralize the cult of Russian saints and strengthen church ideology. In accordance with this goal there was also a selection of materials; not included were the outstanding works of Old Russian literature that were secular in character.