Orthodox Book Day

On March 14, Orthodox Christians have a wonderful opportunity to become familiar with spiritual literature, because it is Orthodox Book Day. The purpose of the holiday is to popularize Orthodox literature, which teaches tolerance and love for one's neighbor. How often do we turn to such books in difficult situations? But for our ancestors, Christian literature was a source of knowledge; they used it to raise their children and learn to read and write. On this day, thematic lectures with the participation of clergy and presentations of new printed publications are held en masse in educational institutions and libraries throughout the country. Every year more and more people join this useful educational holiday, because such events are truly interesting and educational. The holiday was initiated by Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Rus'. It was December 25, 2009; the first celebration took place already in 2010, and the date was not chosen by the Holy Synod by chance. March 14 (old calendar - March 1) is considered the beginning of book printing in Rus' after the state printing house, which was built over 10 years, published the very first book. It took a whole year, but this book subsequently became a classic of Russian publishing. This was the famous "Apostle", published at the behest of Ivan the Terrible. Previously, the same printing house had published single copies of the Psalms, Gospels and Triodion. However, it is “The Apostle” that is considered to be the first official publication, because the printer Ivan Fedorov and his faithful assistant Pyotr Mstislavets indicated in the afterword the publication date of March 1, 1564. According to our usual Gregorian calendar, this falls on March 14th. By the way, from the first circulation of almost two thousand, only 67 copies of “The Apostle” have survived to date, one of them is in the famous Moscow museum “Kolomenskoye-Izmailovo-Lefortovo-Lublino”.