ABSTRACT
The word synaxarion, which comes from the Greek word σύναξις, in its specifically Christian sense of an ‘ecclesiastical celebration’, 1 is related to the liturgicalhagiographical sphere of the Orthodox Church. It can refer equally to the list of feasts that were periodically included in Tetravangelia, Praxapostoloi and Biblical lectionaries, or to individual hagiographical notices in prose. Whether relatively lengthy or concise, 2 the latter involved commemorations of various kinds in the liturgical calendar. Eventually, the term came to refer to the liturgical book (or to a section of it) that contains the collection of these hagiographical notices, arranged in accordance with the Byzantine civil calendar, which runs from September to August. In an attempt to avoid (at least in part) the ambiguity inherent in the polysemy of this term, certain locutions were introduced in usage: 3 e.g. synaxaria minora, which indicates the simple lists of feasts and saints commemorated in the moveable cycle of the liturgical year, and menologia minora, which refers to similar catalogues of the fixed feasts. The denomination ‘synaxarion’ (with a small s) pertains to individual hagiographical notices whereas the ‘Synaxarion’ is the liturgical book in which they appear. 4
