Kodeks supraski wśród zbiorów biblioteki monasteru supraskiego. Kilka hipotez w sprawie czasu przybycia Minieji Czetnej z XI wieku do Supraśla

In 1498 some monks from the Kiev Pechersk Lavra came to Grodek to found a monastery, which was later transferred to Suprasl. The co-founders of this initiative were Alexander Khodkevich and the bishop of Smolensk, Joseph Soltan. At the beginning of the XVI century there were 40 monks. In 1505 the patriarch of Constantinople, Joachim confirmed the foundation of the monastery and of its church in a special tomos. Gradually the monastery was granted with lands and villages, acquired an important role among the monasteries of the country, maintained contacts with Mount Athos and other centres of religious life. It became itself a centre of theological thought. The monastery was famous also for its library and scriptorium. The founders of the monastery believed that copying, ornamentation and biding the books should be one of the principle works of the monks. With the time the library of the monastery acquired more and more books, among others also very rare manuscripts and parchment codices. It contained religious books (liturgical books, lives of the saints) as well as historical and chronicle materials. In 1823 Michael Bobrovsky, while making research on the collection of the library, found among the ancient books an XI century Cyrillic manuscript in Old Church Slavonic – the Chetnaya Menea for March.The volume was afterwards called Codex Suprasliensis after the place were it was found. The codex consists of 285 pages and contains 24 lives of the saints, 20 homilies of St. John Chrysostom as well as those of St Basil the Great, Photius and Epiphanius of Cyprus. There is no precise information concerning the place, time and author of the manuscript. Several theories though exist concerning when and how the codex arrived in the Suprasl monastery: it was a gift from the founder of the monastery, Alexander Khodkevich; it was brought from Mount Athos, Kiev Pechersk Lavra or a Bulgarian monastery; it was brought to the monastery at the time of its foundation; came in 1505 together with the tomos of the patriarch of Constantinople, Joachim; was given by the metropolitan Joseph Soltan during the consecration of the Annunciation church in 1511; arrived before 1532; was brought by Kievan ob Bulgarian monks before 1557; was offered in 1582 by the Serbian and Bulgarian patriarch Gabriel; was given by the patriarch of Constantinople Jeremiah II in 1589; was brought to the monastery after 1557, before 1645 and remained there in 1668. The analysis of its copies and the notes written on it allows to follow the journey of the Codex Suprasliensis. Some of the theories are more probable than others, still the scientists cannot come up with one definite version of how and when the Chetnaya Menea came to the Suprasl monastery.