Textus reconstructus, normalization: Anathema for the Philology of Slavia Orthodoxa?

Slavonic philology, working with texts of the Slavia orthodoxa, differs considerably from other philologies, especially as far as the edition of texts is concerned. The tradition of scholarly editions started out with (semi-)diplomatic publications of manuscripts, eventually adding variant readings from other manuscripts. This has led to a tradition of not normalising the language and of refraining from conjectures and the reconstruction of the original text. A particular problem is the choice of the alphabet: today Glagolitic texts are generally published in Cyrillic transliteration. The paper presents a short history of the editorial traditions, describes the specific problems of normalisation, and discusses possibilities of remedying the present situation by using the advantages of digital or hybrid editions.