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The article discusses current trends in the formation of the church space in post-Soviet Russia. The author focuses on religious practices that result in the presence of symbolically significant objects – relics, votive gifts, donators’ icons, notes, etc., – in churches. These objects build the space of the church as a space of communication with the saints; they form an environment in which parishioners and pilgrims clearly see the channels and means of this communication. Some practices are carried out primarily by the clergy – such as collections of relics and brandea or ordering various reliquaries for keeping sacred objects which the church is either already having or planning to obtain. Collecting relics allows clergy to build the “topography of holiness” in the church, to present the uniqueness of the church in the parish and on the church website. Other practices are carried out primarily by parishioners and pilgrims – this is the bringing of votive gifts, notes, and donators’ icons (sometimes with inscriptions). Various objects that appear in the temple space can serve as affordances for such actions. First, these are wooden icon-cases covered with glass – ‘niches’ in which it is convenient and safe to place gifts. Secondly, these are ‘regular’ gifts – decorations placed on icons by the clergy (as a rule, pectoral crosses and panagia). Finally, the same role is played by the notes, the gifts, and the curatorial icons themselves – the presence of the gift serves as an invitation to do a similar action and bring a note / a jewelry or to order a new icon related to personal or family story (request, need). As a result of such practices, the church space in Russia is actively developing. Reliquaries of various forms are being created; relics are integrated into icons and crosses, turning them into reliquaries; massive icon-cases are ordered for icons, convenient for placing a lot of votive gifts, etc. These processes are sometimes hardly noticeable, but their role in the current church tradition is undoubtedly significant. В статье рассмотрены актуальные тенденции в формировании храмового пространства в постсоветской России. В фокусе внимания – религиозные практики, которые оказывают влияние на наполнение церквей символически значимыми объектами – реликвиями, вотивными дарами, ктиторскими иконами, записками и т. п. Эти предметы выстраивают пространство храма как пространство коммуникации со святыми и формируют среду, в которой прихожане и паломники наглядно видят каналы и средства этой коммуникации. Некоторые практики осуществляются прежде всего духовенством – это собирание реликвий, святых мощей и брандеа, заказ различных реликвариев для хранения как уже приобретённых, так и (зачастую) ещё только запланированных к приобретению святынь. Собирание реликвий позволяет выстраивать свою «топографию святости» в каждой церкви, позиционировать уникальность своего храма в приходе и на церковном сайте. Другие практики осуществляют прежде всего прихожане и паломники – это принесение вотивных даров, записок, а также ктиторских икон, иногда с донаторскими надписями. Аффордансами для таких действий могут служить различные предметы, появляющиеся в храмовом пространстве. Прежде всего, это деревянные киоты, закрытые стеклами, – ниши, в которых удобно и безопасно размещать дары. Кроме того, это «регулярные» дары – украшения, размещаемые на иконах духовенством (как правило, наперсные кресты и панагии). Наконец, ту же роль играют сами записки, привесы и ктиторские иконы – наличие дара служит приглашением сделать аналогичное действие и принести записку / одарить икону драгоценностью / заказать новую икону, связанную с личной или семейной историей (просьбой, потребностью). В результате развития таких практик храмовое пространство в России активно развивается, трансформируется, формируется на новых основаниях. Для реликвий создают мощевики разных форм; частицы мощей интегрируют в иконы и кресты, превращая их в реликварии; для икон заказывают массивные киоты, в которых можно разместить множество вотивных привесов и т. п. Эти процессы порой мало заметны, но их роль в актуальной церковной традиции крайне велика.

The article analyzes three fragments from the travel notes of Vasily Grigorovich-Barsky about pilgrimage sites identified as the house of the Virgin Mary in Mariazell, Loreto and Nazareth. This traveler, who lived in the 18th century, was an Orthodox Christian and his education was very close to European University tradition, was interested not only in the appearance and history of these complexes, but also in the authenticity of the objects of worship. The texts about Mariazell and Loreto are non-critical descriptions, although about the shrine in Nazareth in his description Barsky is doubting about the authenticity of what he had seen earlier. Bringing scientific arguments, he is convinced of the falsity of the Catholic shrine in Loreto and the falsity of the legend about moving the house to another location. His reasoning, at first glance, is a natural part of interfaith polemics, but when referring to the tradition of Loretan criticism, it turns out that the author is included in the polemic that began in European religious and scientific circles long before him. His arguments are of interest from the point of view of the history of the Church, since he refutes Catholic practice, relying on arguments of a scientific nature, and not on theology. В статье анализируются три фрагмента из путевых заметок Василия Григоровича-Барского о паломнических объектах, отождествляемых с домом Девы Марии, в Марияцелле, Лорето и Назарете. Путешественника, жившего в XVIII столетии, исповедующего православие и получившего образование, близкое к университетскому, интересовал не только облик и история этих комплексов, но и подлинность объектов поклонения. Тексты о Марияцелле и Лорето имеют характер некритических описаний, тогда как при обращении к святыне в Назарете Барский задаётся вопросом о подлинности увиденного им ранее. Приводя аргументы научного характера, он убеждается в поддельности католической святыни в Лорето и неистинности легенды о переносе домика Девы Марии. Его рассуждения, на первый взгляд, являются естественной частью межконфессиональной полемики, но при обращении к традиции лоретанской критики выясняется, что автор включается в полемику, начавшуюся в европейских религиозных и научных кругах задолго до него. Его рассуждения представляют интерес с точки зрения истории Церкви, поскольку он опровергает католическую практику, опираясь на аргументы научного характера, а не на богословие.

The introduction of the angel and later the Tudor sovereign gold coins in the late 1400s became part of a political rhetoric aimed at mediating the king’s image, power, and wealth. However, it also played a part in the legitimation of the Tudor dynasty during the later stages of the Wars of the Roses, a time of Yorkist pretenders and foreign opposition to Henry VII’s reign. As only the rightful king was believed to have the gift of healing, Henry VII appropriated both coins and ritual from the Plantagenet dynasty associated with the sanctity of kingship. Ordinary objects bearing the King’s image were imbued by the people with supernatural and political powers. How could the religious function of contact relics also facilitate the use of the non-religious Tudor gold sovereign and other denominations by mimicking the iconography and ritual use of the angel? And how were these coins used as part of political rhetoric to legitimate the claim for the throne to support a myth of royal succession and prove Tudor right by appealing to the public? This article argues that the coins created and empowered the King with saintly abilities, granting the object carrying the King’s image a reliclike power, further fusing the image with people’s belief in the legitimate King’s God-given power of healing. The visual migration or transfer of an image’s symbolic properties, in this case the transference of its sacred properties to secular objects, mediated both the literal and conceptual image of the King as part of political legitimation against the Yorkist pretenders and foreign powers

From 1309 to 1523, Rhodes was ruled by the Order of the Knights of St. John. The relics of John the Baptist, their patron saint, held a prominent place in the Hospitallers’ devotion. Among the relics, his arm became a significant focus of attention and pilgrimage for the Christian world. After a brief review of the earliest references to the arm, its travels about the eastern Mediterranean, as well as some of the testimonies related to it, the representations of the saint’s arm in medieval painting are briefly examined. After 1204, the Knights appear to have had a direct or indirect connection with the proliferation and dispersal of the relics of the saint, aiming at political and economic benefits. The “miraculous replication” of the arm opened new perspectives for power and influence.

The paper discusses the relic of the head of the Serbian patriarch Pajsije, recently discovered in the Patriarchate of Peć monastery. Besides a painted cryptogram, the head also includes an extensive inscription with information about Pajsije’s title, time of reign, date of death and place of burial. Taking into account the historical and ideological context, the paper argues that the impetus for establishing Pajsije’s cult came from Patriarch Maksim, his follower and admirer. An analysis of archaeological documentation has shown that Pajsije’s tomb was located at the same spot as Patriarch Maksim’s grave later on. An icon of Patriarch Pajsije now kept in Ravenna made up a unified cultic ensemble with the coffin-reliquary.

AThe essence of puppet performance is its balance between animacy and inanimacy,the artificial and the natural. This article proposes the framework of puppetry as a means of understanding the transcendent potential of a group of medieval reliquary busts from Cologne. In both appearance and manipulation, these sculpted busts blurred the boundaries between life and death, much like puppets. I argue that the dual mimesis of these busts, both visual and kinetic, enhanced their theological purpose as vessels for the bones of saints, and points to a medieval interest in the productive paradoxes of representation. Through their puppet-like hybridity, these sculptures bridged the distance between humans and the divine for medieval viewers. The article concludes by proposing a parallel between the temporary lives of puppets and the hybrid nature of artificial intelligence, suggesting that medieval conceptions of mimesis can provide a means of thinking through twenty-first century technology.

Scholars have traditionally dated the Royal Chapel at Pyrga, Cyprus to the year 1421 and attributed it to the patronage of the island’s Latin ruler Janus de Lusignan (r. 1398-1432). However, more recent stylistic, iconographic, and epigraphic analyses present a convincing argument for dating the chapel to the mid-fourteenth century. Ironically, though the chapel is most frequently associated with the death of Janus’s wife Queen Charlotte, the portraits of a Latin king and queen both appear as living, albeit anachronistic, attendants at Christ’s death in the chapel’s decoration. Their prayerful attitude at the base of the Cross on Golgotha, in conjunction with programmatic emphasis on sickness/death, salvation, and intercession, implies that the foundation was intended to be something other than a memorial funerary chapel for a specific royal person. This article, which supports a mid-fourteenth-century date, will argue that the chapel instead functioned as an ex-voto or visual prayer for the salvation of the Cypriot people from an outbreak of plague on the island. Evidence points to King Peter I de Lusignan (r. 1358-1369) and Queen Eleanora as likely patrons of the chapel and the role of St. Peter Thomas—monk, papal procurator, and bishop—as instigator of royal penitential display as a means of countering the spread of plague. Important to this revised date and context is the clear invocation of the True Cross—relic and palladium par excellence of the Crusades—that held special importance in the religious culture of Cyprus and for its royal dynasty.

The paper presents the results of analysis of typological, stylistic- technical, epigraphic and iconographic features of the luxurious panagiarion, part of a complex reliquary, in the treasury of the Tersatto Monastery near Rijeka. The size and content of the panagiarion, made of jewels, pearls and relics in silver gilded revetments, provide basis to classify it within the group of Late Byzantine pectoral panagiaria-reliquaries and enkolpia of diverse forms. The dedicatory inscription on its reverse refers to despotissa Barbara Frankopan, the wife of the Serbian despot Vuk Grgurević, as its patron. The inscription on its rim and capsule with a miniature relief of the Virgin with Christ place it within the field of Orthodox personal devotion. [Project of the Serbian Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development, Grant no. 177003: Srednjovekovno nasleđe Balkana: institucije i kultura]

This article discusses the ways in which the physical presence of consecrated virgins was perceived, described, and subsequently altered in Late Antiquity. In the course of the fourth and fifth centuries CE, through codes that regulated their behaviour and outward appearance, and through the assignment of specific ritual functions and spaces, bishops constructed a new and long-lasting image of consecrated virgins. The resulting model, the authors argue, was shaped by notions regarding female anatomy as well as by their association with the Virgin Mary; it was similar to a precious reliquary: a container whose aesthetic indicated the consecrated nature of its interior.

The author presents the findings of his own studies on the presence of relics and dedications in the churches of Canons Regular of the Holy Sepulchre in medieval Polonia Minor (covering the former Krakow and Sandomierz voivideships). The article reveals important accounts in Samuel Nakielski’s chronicle. The first account relates bringing the soil from Jerusalem by Jaksa and is known in literature. The second account concerns the possession of the relics of the Holy Cross by the monastery of Canons Regular of the Holy Sepulchre, hitherto unknown in literature. The author formulates a thesis on the existence of important relics of the Passion in the Miechów monastery. Key source accounts on dedications were analysed. It was indicated that the primary dedication of the Miechów church towards the end of the 18th century was a combined invocation of the Holy Sepulchre, the Holy Spirit and Blessed Virgin Mary. The author also extensively analyses the dedication of the church in Żarnowiec, with dedications to both feasts related to the Holy Cross, to the Holy Spirit, the Holy Sepulchre and Blessed Virgin Mary. The dedications of 10 other churches administered by Canons Regular of the Holy Sepulchre are also discussed. In addition, the author presents a substantial collection of data on the dedications of surviving altars and chapels in relation to the Miechów church and St Jadwiga’s Church in Stradom. In conjunction with the information on numerous relics of saints, the findings should become a departure point for further studies.

In this paper the different processes of medieval memory construction of Saints Adrian and Natalia are studied through the presence of their relics in the altars of some churches in Rome, León and Lisbon. Following the martyrdom of Saint Adrian in the East and the transference of his mortal remains by his wife to Byzantium, it was between the 7th and the 13rd centuries that their worship was developed in the Iberian Peninsula therefore creating significant worship strategies. This had consequences in written sources, architecture and epigraphy, points of investigation of this article.

The present contribution discusses only a part of the results obtained by the team of archaeologists from “ Vasile Pârvan” Institute of Archaeology in the area of the Basilica with a Crypt during the period of 2002– 2013. We took into consideration the architectural features of the Christian edifice, the pre-existing architectural structures (both of Greek and Roman ages), the place of the Christian monument in the urbanism of Late Roman age at Histria, the archaeologically noticeable modifications that occurred in the configuration of this intra muros area of the Late Roman city at various chronological moments

The surviving sources suggest that St Sava of Serbia was, as part of the programme of securing sacral legitimacy for the state and dynasty, setting the scene for the inclusion of his brother Stefan, the first-crowned Serbian king, among the saints. This part of the programme was not fully realized, but the focus of the cult was on the incorrupt relics. The cult of Stefan the First-Crowned was not rounded off until the seventeenth century, when the Patriarch Paisios wrote a vita and a service. The development of the cult over the centuries (from the 13th to the 20th century) was a direct reflection of changing historical circumstances and the prevailing ideology of rulership. [Projekat Ministarstva nauke Republike Srbije, br. 177003 (Srednjovekovno nasleđe Balkana - institucije i kultura]

On the basis of ethnographic fieldwork which was conducted among some Carmelite and Augustinian monastic groups (in France and in Italy), the aim of the present paper is to investigate the nature of relic-objects from an anthropological perspective. These are probably one of the most significant reified examples of the so-called ‘sacred’ as tangible evidence in contemporary western societies. Considering the case of the remains of Breton Blessed Françoise d’Amboise (1427-1485), the analysis will be focused on the transformation process human remains undergo to be turned into relics, this process being implemented by specialised secluded nuns. A number of issues will be addressed, such as the types of relational processes and strategies (including protagonists, situations, material and ideological systems) that are most relevant for these objects to be assigned and preserve their sacred power.

The episodes surrounding the death of a saint are described that mark stages in recognizing sainthood and establishing a place of worship and pilgrimage. Hagiographic accounts are the main sources of information for the medieval and modern periods about the stakes in each of the episodes described; they also establish de facto a model for the making of a saint. In the effort to describe this model and understand deviations from it, we notice an evolution in saint worship between ancient times and the contemporary period.