ON HOLINESS, CORRECTNESS AND THE HORIZONTS OF SCHOLARSHIP NOTES ABOUT THE COLLECTION OF PAPERS "EUROPE OF THE SAINTS: SOCIAL, POLITICAL AND CULTURAL ASPECTS OF HOLINESS IN THE MIDDLE AGES" / Ed. by S.A. Yatzik. Saint-Petersburg: Aleteia, 2018. 323 p
This text is a critical analysis of the «Europe of saints», a collection of papers on the history of holiness in Europe from the V to the XVIII centuries. The contents of the edition only in part correspond to its title and the plan of the editor reflected in the introductory essay. Nearly a half of the articles are not concerned with the problem of holiness, some of them even with the more general problem of the cult of saints. The distribution of articles among thematic blocks is rather arbitrary and the division of the book into these blocks is questionable. Some articles are poorly edited. The initial aim of the book was to acquaint the Russian reader with the most important works of foreign scholars in this field, to suggest the most perspective directions of research and to demonstrate the achievements of domestic specialists working on this problem. The reviewer states fair knowledge of Western literature by the authors but also inaccuracies in the exposition of the foreign scholars’ views and the excessive attention paid to the studies of the canonization files to the detriment of research on other types of hagiographical sources. The survey of Russian publications is selective and contains numerous lacunae. The articles differ considerably in quality and scale of conducted research, yet all of them are written on a good scientific level and without doubt will find their readers. Unfortunately, most of the articles are rather special and lack evident connection to large socio-cultural problems or to the complex problems inherent to the study of the cult of saints, hagiography and liturgy. Nonetheless, all articles contain interesting factual material.