"In the name of God, this, too, has been finished, the book of three months, December, January, and February, by the command and with the support of the godly father and abbot George Prokhoré; May Christ glorify together with all these his saints their soul in the kingdom of heaven! Amen."

The mention of three months in this colophon (dedicatory inscription) indicates that this is one volume in a four-volume menaion, a compilation of hymns and prayers organized around the daily celebration of saints throughout the calendar year. The colophon also gives us the eleventh-century date for the manuscript by paying tribute to a specific abbot of the Georgian monastery of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem. The vast majority of saints named in this book are the same as those named in its medieval Greek counterpart, so the book gives evidence of the “byzaninization” of the liturgical calendar. Even so, the inclusion of Georgian national saints such as Saint Abo of Tblisi (January seventh) and Saint Nino (January fourteenth) testify to the resilience of national traditions, even this far from home.

Despite the finesse of the scribe’s Georgian miniscule hand, he is piously diffident:
"In your prayers, remember the sinful lowly scribbler John Dvali, O Holy fathers! For what I may have been lacking in, may God forgive me!"

- J. Hanson

O. Wardrop, "Professor Tsagareli's Catalogue of the Georgian manuscripts in the Monastery of the Holy Cross at Jerusalem, translated from the Russian," Journal of the Society of Biblical Literature and Exegesis 12.1 (1893): 168-79, esp. 172, no. 36.

R. P. Blake, "A Georgian Menaion from Palestine," Byzantinisch-neugriechische Jahrbücher 18 (1945-49): 97-104.

Parke-Bernet Galleries Inc., Rare and Important Books, Autographs and Manuscripts, Property of Jacob J. Podell (New York, January 29th and 30th, 1952), 125-126, no. 382, fig. p. 127.

K. S. Kekelidze, "Uc'nobi redakcia kartuli himnograpiuli tuenisa (An Unknown Recension of the Georgian Hymnographic Menaion)," in K?art?uli literaturis istoria 8 (Tbilisi, 1962), 5-55.

G. Garitte, "Bibliographie de K. Kekelidze," Le Muséon 76 (1963): 443-500, esp. 474, no. 147a.

G. Garitte, "Compléments à lédition de la vie Géorgienne de S. Syméon Stylite l'ancien," Le Muséon 76 (1963): 79-93, esp. 79 n.3.

G. Garitte, "Le Ménée Géorgien de Dumbarton Oaks," Le Muséon 77.1-2 (1964): 29-64.

J. Gippert, Z. Sarjvelaze, and L. K'ajaia, The Old Georgian Palimpsest: Codex Vindobonensis Georgicus 2, Monumenta Palaeographica Medii Aevi. Series Ibero-Caucasica (Turnhout, 2007), xii, xvi-xvii, xx.

Georgian Monastery of the Holy Cross, Jerusalem;

Collection of Dr. G. Eric Matson, Glendale, California;

Purchased from Parke-Bernet Galleries, Inc., New York, by Mildred and Robert Woods Bliss, January 29-30, 1952;

Gift of Mildred and Robert Woods Bliss to Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Washington, D.C., February, 1952;

Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Byzantine Collection, Washington D.C.