To a person far from the church, in the phrase "the hell of a mine", neither the first nor the second word is clear. Since the noun is a "mine", one has to start an explanation with it. The church and liturgical book, which includes all the services of the annual circle, is called "menaia". Months in the year 12, and it consists of 12 books (complete). The name is borrowed from the Greek language, and in translation means "monthly" - mhnaion (mhn - month). In each book there are texts for a month in the order corresponding to the services of the day's circle: the evening (according to Moses, the day begins with the evening) - the ninth hour, vespers, suites, etc., before the Liturgy.
The difference from mines
"Chetya Mineya", existing along with the above liturgical book, refers not to this kind of books, but rather to church books, and contains the lives of saints, located also by months, and in the month by days. These texts are intended for reading during extracurricular time. And the title is translated "the fours of the Menaion", consisting of Old Slavonic and Greek words, as "monthly reading", which contains immense information for hagiography - a science that studies the lives of saints. Here is also the church and teaching material, which was the main reading in Ancient Rus. The Great Fourth Metropolitanate of Makariya was a kind of a collection of Rusich literature, as evidenced by himself: "I collected all the books of the Russian lands."
Wrote and read in ancient times
The first books in Russia date back to the 10th century. This period is called "pre-Mongolian". In the 12th century manuscript, known as the Assumption Compendium, there is The Life of Theodosius of the Caves and The Legends of Boris and Gleb. They are so formed that they could well be perceived as the month of May for May. But these narratives are not included in the church collections, completely consisting of translated material. Some attempts at reprocessing these books for reading have been made at different times, for example, in the 15th century, but there are few concrete examples.
Literary feat Makariya
But already in the XVI century the above-mentioned Great Fourth Menaion Makarii appeared. In addition to translated texts, there are some accompanying materials - patristic teachings and apocrypha, sometimes very voluminous. They, as a rule, were timed to the days of memory of one or another saint. The Chetya Minei of the Moscow Assumption Cathedral, one of four known to date, is the only one that has been preserved completely. It is kept in the synodal library of the cathedral. The other three Mineas of Chetya are incomplete lists. For Ivan the Terrible was written Mineya, which is missing in March and April. The other two are lists of the Chudova Monastery and the Sofia Library. These are the only 4 lists representing the Great Fourth Menaions of the Archbishop of Novgorod Makarii, later Metropolitan of Moscow, surviving to the present day.
Other ascetics in this field
Later, in the 17th century, attempts continued to write church books for extra-biblical reading. Thus, M. Milyutin in the spiritual literary magazine "Readings in the Society of Lovers of Spiritual Enlightenment", which went out until 1871, scrupulously describes the Minei of the priest of the Nativity Church of St. John Milutin, which he wrote together with his three sons from 1646 to 1654. They are kept in the Moscow Synodal Library. Milyutin and Chetya consider the mines of the hieronym of the Trinity-Sergius Monastery, the professional scribe and scribe Herman Tulupov, written by him in 1627-1632 and kept in the library of St. Sergius Lavra.
A famous spiritual writer
Particular attention should be paid to Midsummer Dmitry Rostovsky, which is a multi-volume work "The Book of the Lives of the Saints", which was published in fragments, quarters from 1689 to 1705. The original sources for the book of St. Dimitry were, of course, the Four Minas Macarius and the "Acts of the Saints", published by the Catholic congregation of Bollandists, which consisted mainly of Jesuit monks. The organization was named after its founder Jean Bolland. That is, the works that formed the basis of the "Book of the Lives of the Saints" were the most serious, and Metropolitan Dmitriy of Rostov's Midsummer Games turned out to be remarkable. For this spiritual writer and preacher, bishop of the Russian Church, in the world Danilo Savich Tuptalo, in 1757 was glorified in the face of the saints of the Russian Orthodox Church. And after his death, the main work of the whole life of St. Dmitry Rostovsky was supplemented by a description of his own life. The feast day of the saint is September 21. The book was reprinted repeatedly and was always in great demand among believers. The popularity of the author is such that a legend has developed: if a believer asks for protection from Dmitry Rostovsky, all the saints will be protecting him, to the biography of which he gave his strength and knowledge.