In the contemporary manuscript collection of Chilandar monastery there are thirty seven manuscript service books. Out of these, three manuscripts are from XIII, five from XIV, four from XV, six from XVI, ten from XVII, two from XVIII and seven from XIX century. A part of these manuscripts cannot be understood to be liturgies in the fullest sense of the term, whether they are fragments of larger and lost wholes, or intentionally abridged liturgical text for use by deacons. The importance of the manuscript collection of Chilandar monastery for research of the liturgical life of the Orthodox Church cannot be denied. This does not apply only on the classical Byzantine liturgical formulae of Saint John Chrysostom and Basil the Great or the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts. Due to the famous Chil. 322 manuscript that contains the Liturgy of Saint James the Apostle and so-called Liturgy of Saint Peter the Apostle, we can follow the use of these formulae in Slavic surroundings. The manuscript collection of Chilandar monastery is used for research of wider thematic worship frameworks than the ones that deal exclusively with liturgical problematics. It allows the analysis of the development of sacramental and, taken extensively, prayer life of the Church, such as the consecration of sacral space. In the majority of manuscript service books of Chilandar there are variants of Philotheus’ liturgical formulae, among whom the manuscripts of Serbian-Athonite redaction are dominant, and based on whom the first Serbian and Slavic printed service books were prepared and printed. This collection was shown to be especially valuable in research of the appearance of the Troparion of the Third Hour in Slavic worship. The earliest appearance of this liturgical innovation in the Chilandar collection is in Chil. 323 manuscript from the third quarter of XV century, belonging to the Russian redaction of Philoteus’ Diataxis. With that in view, Chilandar’s collection was shown to be important for the research of the historic development of whole Slavic worship, i.e. worship in Slavic language of different redactions, not solely Serbian one, as it could be ascertained at first.
