The Definitions (ὅροι) of the Council of Nicaea (CC 0556) in the Coptic Tradition: Textual Analysis, Edition, and Russian Translation

This article presents a study of the Coptic manuscript tradition of the “Definitions of the First Council of Nicaea”—also known in the scholarly literature as “Canons of the First Council of Nicaea”—based on two codices from the collection of the White Monastery: MONB.EF (CLM 359) and MONB.FT (CLM 393). The introductory section provides a general overview of the contents of the Coptic Nicene collections and their place within the broader Coptic canonical literature. Particular attention is given to the analysis of both manuscripts, including their palaeographical, lexical, and syntactic features, as well as their relationship to the Greek original. The article emphasizes the significant stylistic divergences between the two Coptic versions, reflecting the characteristic freedom in the transmission of canonical material within monastic environments. The study includes the first publication of the full text of MONB.FT along with a Russian translation, and a new edition of MONB.EF with reconstructions of damaged passages based on the Greek text and internal parallels within the Coptic tradition.

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