Constructing of the Image of Saint Julian Holshanska in the “Kyiv’s Text” of the Baroque Period

The aim of the present research was to examine the depicting of Saint Julian Holshanska in the Ukrainian baroque literature. A young princess dyed at the age of 16 and was buried in Kyiv-Pechersk monastery about 1540 year. Some time latter her incorruptible relics were found accidentally, which itself should have led to canonization, but did not. The vita of Saint Julian Holshanska appeared after one century, in 1705 year. In this investigation, the aim was to assess the mechanism how a new plot with its own artistic originality emerges from established hagiographic clichés and fits into the hagiographic canon. Such dominants as the incorruptibility of relics: the miraculous salvation of the shrine and the punishment for insulting it: the improper and dignified veneration; the visions seen by leading religious figures are considered in the article. This study has clarified the canonizational politics of Metropolitan Petro Mohyla led in 1640s.The careful analysis of various editions of the Kiev-Pechersk printing house helps to identify the reason for the compositional asynchrony in the vita of Saint Julian. One more research question was to figure out the parallelism between the image of the Saint Julian with the great martyr Barbara and other women venerated in the Kyiv metropolitanate during the early modern period.One of the more significant findings to emerge from this study is that saint Julian may be implicitly present in such text as The Diary of Dymytriy Tuptalo. The results of this investigation show that the vita of Saint Julian, which starts with the events after her death, contains more information about the religious views cultural attitudes of the 17th century society rather than about the life of the saint virgin herself, whose image is constructed on the basis of visions of the time.