Acad. Pop Gjorgji Atanasov was born on 8th of November 1940 in the village of Eleshnica near Razlog, Pirin part of Macedonia. He finished elementary school in his native village, and high school in the town of Razlog. Higher education acquired at the Faculty of Theology in Sofia, where he graduated in 1967. Since 1972 he lives in the Republic of Macedonia. Acad. Pop Atanasov completed postgraduate studies at the Faculty of Philology “Blaze Koneski” in Skopje, where he defended his masters thesis on the topic of “Kičevo octoechos from XIII Century” and PhD thesis on the topic “Octoechos in the Macedonian written tradition”. He worked in the Macedonian Archbishopric, the National Institute for Protection of Monuments of Culture, manuscript department at the National and University Library in Skopje and the Institute of Macedonian literature, where he was scientific adviser and head of the Department of Medieval Macedonian Literature. Since 1990 at the Faculty of Theology he was teaching in the area of the Old Testament: Old Hebrew language introduction to the Scriptures of the Old Testament, Old Testament history with biblical archeology and Old Testament exegesis with biblical hermeneutics.
In his scientific work, Acad. Pop-Atanasov is oriented in more scientific theological disciplines such as Macedonian church literature, history of Macedonian orthodox Christian liturgy, Hagiography, Biblistics, Church Hymnology and others. He examines Macedonian church literature from several aspects, ranging from the writings of the holy brothers Ss. Cyril and Methodius and their closest disciples and collaborators St. Clement and Naum, individual spiritual schools and monastic literary centers up to certain hierarchs – monks and priests who through church literature spread the spiritual education among Macedonian Orthodox Christian population. Special attention is given to literary artists of a later period, especially those who worked in the circle of Slepche and Kratovo ecclesiastical literary center. In the area of the church hymnology and heortology are the scientific contributions of Acad. Pop-Atanasov dedicated to Slavic translation of oxtoechos and its spread in the Macedonian literary tradition.
Scientific interest of Acad. Pop-Atanasov is addressed on the links of the Macedonian Orthodox Church and its representatives with the Athos monastic community of Mount Athos monasteries. An important element of the scientific work of Acad. Pop-Atanasov is his research on Cyrill- Methodian Bible translation and distribution of individual books of the Bible written in the Macedonian tradition. He has studied the relationship of the Slavic Bible translation with the glagolitic written tradition in Macedonia and also lingers on certain periods of the Macedonian Middle Ages, in which the biblical tradition was very productive and so on. More terms in the field of biblical theology and liturgical Macedonian literature he makes clear in his work “Dictionary of the old Macedonian literature” in “Macedonian Historical Dictionary”, “Literary-theoretical vocabulary” and “Macedonian Encyclopedia”.
Acad. Gjorgji Pop Atanasov manages or participates with his articles in numerous research projects of the Macedonian Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Institute of Macedonian Literature, Macedonian Language Institute, Faculty of Philology “Blaze Koneski”, Faculty of Theology “St. Clement of Ohrid”, Institute for the Study of Slavic culture and more. He also participates in conferences in Macedonia and abroad, edits or is a member of the editorial board of periodicals, in which are tackled topics of church literature, biblistics, biblical theology and hermeneutics (“Spectrum”, “Cyril and Methodius”, “Yearbook of PBF” and others.).
Acad. Pop Gjorgji Atanasov has published over 20 books and over 150 articles which clearly shows his creative activity in the field of scientific research. Most significant of his published works are: “Handwritten texts in Macedonian vernacular,” Misla, Skopje 1985; “Dictionary of the old Macedonian literature” Makedonska Kniga, Skopje 1989; “Kičevo octoechos, Macedonian literary monument of the XIII century”, Menora, Skopje 2000, “Medieval Macedonian hymnography” (IX-XIII century), Institute of Macedonian literature, Skopje, 2007; “Macedonian Glagolitic” MANU Skopje 2015 and others. He has edited the selected works of Acad. Vladimir Mosin in 10 volumes (Menorah, 2002-2013) and the Church poetry of St. Clement (Menora, Skopje 2008).
As a full member of the Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts he was elected on 4th of June 2012.
