The peculiarities of creating of two services honoring one saint on the example of Russian services to St. Nicholas and martyrs SS. Boris and Gleb

The paper analyses a mechanism of creation of a new service to a famous saint. The service in the Transfer of the Relics of St. Nicholas from Myra to Bari and the service in the Transfer of the Relics of St. Boris and Gleb are taken as examples. Church services were based on the existing models. This could be either a shared services to Reverend Hierarchs, Martyr etc., specific service to saints, often Byzantine. Normally, when creating a service, hymnographers used several models. In cases of creation a new service to an already known Saint, i.e. a service to the saint already existed, this service was taken as a model for the new one. The service could serve as a temporary substitute for a not yet created new one. Later, the service was supplemented by new hymns, and borrowed elements were displaced by original or reprocessed ones, but the process of formation of the service sometimes lasted for several centuries. The main method of correction of a new service to the same saint was a displacement of borrowed hymns by new ones. The service could be appended and processed continuously, resulting in almost complete absence of identical services. The status of a new service could from the beginning fit the status of the original service, and vary according to the local traditions and liturgical function required: so we can find a doxological and a vigil service in manuscripts of the same time.