Hieromonk Pahomije

Hieromonk Pahomije (Serbian Cyrillic: Пахомије; fl. 1496–1544) was a Serbian Orthodox hieromonk^[1] and one of the first printers of books in the Serbian language. He learned his printing skills from Hieromonk Makarije at the Crnojević printing house in the period of 1494–96. In 1518 he accepted the invitation of Božidar Vuković and went to Venice where he organized printing at the Vuković printing house in the period of 1519/1520–21.

Zeta

The first printing house Pahomije worked at was the Crnojević printing house in Obod, Rijeka Crnojevića, in the period of 1494–96.^[2] There he learned printing skills from hieromonk Makarije and practicised it until Đurađ Crnojević fled Zeta and went to Venice in 1496. Pahomije was one of eight printers who worked at the Crnojević printing house.^[3]

Venice

In 1518 Božidar Vuković invited Pahomije to come to Venice and organize^[4] the printing at the printing press of Vuković.^[5] Pahomije accepted this invitation and went to Venice. Pahomije was head of the organization of work at the printing house,^[6] and also worked as an editor and corrector there.^[7] The printing house was operational in two periods, 1519/1520–21 and 1536–40. During the first period Pahomije printed three books, a book of hours (Časlovac, or Psaltir) in 1519,^[8] Liturgijar and Molitvenik.^[2]

In March 1520 he wrote on the cover of one of the books he printed that he was "from the islands of the Diocletian Lake" Serbian: от остров Диоклитијског језера.^[9] In a 1544 document he wrote reka instead of rijeka (Rijeka Crnojevića), concluding that he hailed from a Ekavian accent region (somewhere in modern Serbia),^[10] however, in some later works this assumption was rejected.^[11]

References

Sources

Further reading

• Б. Сп. Радојичић, Пахомије „от Црније Гори от Реке", Историски записи, књ. X, Цетиње, год. VII, 1954, св. 1, 225—227