First Edition. Octavo. 147 pp. Period presentation inscription on the first free endpaper “Zum <?> von Parthenie Tomaszczuk im Chernowitz, 1863”. Period owner’s inscription on the title page “Dr. Kratsky” (?). Original yellow publisher’s printed papered boards with printed ornamental frames. Beautiful near fine copy.

Very rare provincial edition, Worldcat finds only two other issues of the same directory: a copy for 1860 (Berlin State Library) and for 1865 (National Library of France).

Comprehensive directory of all ecclesiastics of the Orthodox Christian Diocese of Bukovina, located in the Austro-Hungarian Empire and subdued to the Serbian Orthodox patriarch. Bukovina embraced Eastern Orthodox Christianity at the end of the first millennium A.D. And was traditionally close to the Moldovan Orthodox Church. But when the Austro-Hungarian Empire annexed Bukovina after the Russo-Turkish War of 1768-1774, the new Bukovina diocese was formed with its centre at Chernivtsi (1781). Initially it was independent, but in 1783 it went under jurisdiction of the Karlovy Vary metropolitan (since 1848 – the Patriarch of Serbia) who was the leader of all Orthodox Christians in the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

The directory contains a list of all heads of the Bukovina diocese since its foundation, starting with metropolitan Dosithei Chereskul; a special page is dedicated to the current head of the diocese – metropolitan Eugen Hackmann (1793-1873) who would become the first Orthodox archbishop of Bukovina and Dalmatia shortly before his death in 1873. Then follows a list of the members of the Bukovina Consistory, with Parthenie Tomaszczuk who made the inscription on the front endpaper of the book, named as the secretary (“Actuar”, p. 9); and members of the “Armen-Instituts-Commission zu Chernowitz”.

The directory lists all clergy of the three renowned monasteries of Bukovina – in Putna, Suszewitza (Sucevița) and Dragomirna; and of all parishes of the region (altogether over 280 parishes with 229 clergy members). The last part of the book is dedicated to the Orthodox educational institutions, including Bukovina seminary, gymnasium in Suczawa (Suceava), network of schools under the supervision of Bukovina Consistory (over 90), et al. Each part is concluded with overview tables giving a great view of statistics in each category. The directory is supplemented with alphabetical indexes of names and places.

The Bukovina diocese had to go under the jurisdiction of the Romanian Orthodox Church after the disintegration of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire in 1918. In 1944-45 it joined the Russian Orthodox Church. Since 1990 the diocese belongs to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, in 2012 it was renamed to Chernovitsko-Bukovinskaya Diocese. The southern part of old Bukovina diocese with all three monasteries is now a part of Romania.