The Great Menaion Reader is a collection of biblical books with interpretations of exordium

Exordium

Exordium may refer to:* Exordium , the introductory section of a discourse in Western classical rhetoric; e.g., the 1st 4 verses of Hebrews in the Bible* Exordium , by Dutch symphonic metal band After Forever....

s, patericon

Patericon

Patericon or paterikon , a short form for πατερικόν βιβλίον , is a genre of Byzantine literature of religious character, which were collections of sayings of saints, martyrs and hierarchs, and tales about them.Among the earliest collections of this kind are the Αποφθέγματα των άγίων γερόντων...

s, translated or original hagiographies of Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

n saints, works of church fathers, and Russian ecclesiastical writers. Also, the Great Menaion Reader includes the so called kormchiye knigi (books of guidelines, a.k.a. books of the helmsman), monastic charters, acts, and missives. All of this material is sorted by months. Each of the twelve volumes corresponds to a certain month (hence, the name chet’yi-minei or monthly readings, from the Greek

Greek language

Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

 word menaion

Menaion

The Menaion refers to the annual fixed cycle of services in the Eastern Orthodox and Greek-Catholic Churches. Commemorations in the Menaion are tied to the day of the calendar year.-Service books:...

) and broke into days. The Great Menaion Reader was compiled in the 1530s-1540s under the supervision of Metropolitan Macarius of Moscow

Macarius, Metropolitan of Moscow

Macarius was a notable Russian cleric, writer, and iconographer who served as the Metropolitan of Moscow and all Russia from 1542 until 1563.-Early life and work on the Menaion:...

. The Great Menaion Reader contains over 27,000 large-size pages copied by hand and artistically decorated. Metropolitan Macarius decided to compile the Great Menaion Reader for the purpose of centralizing the cult of the Russian saints and consolidation of ecclesiastic ideology, so no Russian secular literature was included.

The first manuscript, known as the "Sophia" version, was given to the Saint Sophia Cathedral in Novgorod

Saint Sophia Cathedral in Novgorod

The Cathedral of St. Sophia in the Kremlin in Veliky Novgorod is the cathedral church of the Archbishop of Novgorod and the mother church of the Novgorodian Eparchy.-History:...

 in 1541. While Metropolitan of Moscow from 1542 - 1563, Macarius commissioned additional lives of saints who had been recognized as national patrons at the Church Councils of 1547 and 1549, for a second expanded manuscript of the anthology, which he gave to the Moscow Kremlin

Moscow Kremlin

The Moscow Kremlin , sometimes referred to as simply The Kremlin, is a historic fortified complex at the heart of Moscow, overlooking the Moskva River , Saint Basil's Cathedral and Red Square and the Alexander Garden...

 Cathedral of the Dormition

Cathedral of the Dormition

The Cathedral of the Dormition is a Russian Orthodox church dedicated to the Dormition of the Theotokos. It is located on the north side of Cathedral Square of the Moscow Kremlin in Russia, where a narrow alley separates the north from the Patriarch's Palace with the Twelve Apostles Church....

 in 1552. A third manuscript was prepared between 1550 and 1554 for presentation to Tsar Ivan the Terrible.