4to, [170] ff, Horologion (Chasovnik). Entirely in Cyrillic script. Like several of the horologia, this book opens with a treatise on teaching children to read and write. Rubricated in red. Several parts of pages cut, fragments of printed text have been replaced by manuscript sections. Dark brown leather binding, with blind tooling on wooden boards, original clasps. Lower end of spine repaired
Provenance: modern bookplate Clovis Piérard. This kind of book tended to be printed by 'Old Believers' - those who had split from the official Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate in the mid-17th century, in disputes mainly about liturgical and ritual practices. This is why the colophon states that the text is derived from a Horologion printed in Moscow under Patriarch Joseph (d. 1652) - the last of the 'pre-schism' patriarchs, whose liturgical books were therefore still authoritative for the 'Old Believers'. Horologion is an Orthodox 'book of hours'
