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This article offers a pedagogical approach to introducing undergraduate students to hagiology by comparing medieval sanctity to modern celebrity. The bodies of saints and celebrities are important loci for the transmission of sanctity or celebrity from a person to the public and for the continuity of identity. Examples include St. Faith, St. Cuthbert, Kim Kardashian, and Marilyn Monroe. Using a comparative method allows students who are non-religious to better apprehend the unfamiliar practices and beliefs around the cult of saints and relics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The dynamic relationship that exists between a religious rite and its territory is interpreted and analysed by religious anthropology as a form of protection, offered by the sacred to the place in which it resides. According to this interpretation, passage through the territory of what is reputed to be sacred or even its very presence as a sanctuary, drives evil away and is believed to perform a generally stable protective function. Within such a dynamic, the rite that actually creates this sacred passage, i.e., the procession of relics, lays the foundations for an analysis of the two specific variables that are, in actual fact, intwined: on the one side is the rite, and on the other, the territory. Such a relationship appears all the more problematic due to the progressive rationalisation of the religious dimension, extensively dealt with by Max Weber (Weber 1920) and accepted by contemporary sociology on religion, as it is now a supernatural phenomenon that is only considered to have a representational dimension. The internal secularization at the festival of Saint Rosalia happened in 2023, with the landing of the triumphal cart in New York. The rite moves to another new territory and transforms it. The cart of Saint Rosalia, preserved in the Columbus Citizens Foundation in New York, represents the identity of Sicilian immigrants but also a new form of ritualization on a new territory through an "ancient" ritual. When the sacred is located within the institutional dimension of a salvation religion presided over by an institution, it appears separate from any purely mechanical (and therefore magical) dimension, while the territory becomes a variable in which a multiplicity of factors are contained. These factors not only give importance to the very aspects of the ritual itself, boosting its civil and secular parts, but also to the religious programme, which undergoes unexpected transformations introduced by the presiding institution. The main object of this analysis is, therefore, to establish an interactive path whereby, on the one hand, the territory, through its various cultural components (both secular and religious), shapes the religious rite and how it places restrictions on those protective functions, while on the other, how the rite places its own constraints on the cultural transformations that take place in the fabric of society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the 11th–12th centuries, extreme ascetic practices reappeared in Western Europe, in particular, the wearing of hauberks and heavy iron chains, associated with penitence and eremitism. This article discusses the charisma of three ascetic saints of the 12th century: Bernard the Penitent (d. 1182), Wulfric of Haselbury (d. 1154/55), and Godric of Finchale (d. 1170). Their hagiographies were written shortly after their death. The authors emphasize that they were revered as holy men already in their lifetime. Their charismatic power was revealed by miracles of healing and prophecy, sometimes in visions. The manifestations of their charisma continued and even increased after their death and were transmitted and spread through their relics. Their mortifications and the signs of their holiness are comparable to those of the stylites and other hermits of Syria of late Antiquity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article scrutinizes the use of liminality as a term to understand medieval dance practices. With the case of the feast day of St. Eluned described in Gerald of Wales Itinerarium Cambriae, I first present common ways that historians and theologians have used the term liminality in order to describe historical depictions of feasts of saints where more unruly forms of movement and dancing have happened. I then analyze this specific depiction by Gerald of Wales through a combination of a kinesic approach and a hermeneutics of suspicion and charity. This approach shows that earlier understandings of dancing always being a problematic element in traditions of Christianity in the west needs to be nuanced. After this, I turn to the critique that Caroline Bynum Walker has brought up, concerning the use of the term liminality in the medieval context. Taking her critique seriously, I return to the story of St. Eluned by focusing on the lived religion from the perspective of the female characters in the setting. Finally, I also bring in Vincent Lloyd's distinction between rituals and liturgy, to further strengthen how theological discussions can bring in more nuanced and important additions in how we may understand chaotic forms of medieval dance in new ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2020, religious celebrations in Romania were greatly affected by restrictions meant to control the COVID-19 pandemic. Easter, the highlight of the Orthodox Christian ritual year, was celebrated in empty churches during the spring lockdown. Participation in religious activities was later progressively permitted. During autumn, pilgrimages were allowed, but only in compliance with strict regulations. This article focuses on the restrictions imposed by public authorities, the solutions found by church representatives, and the faithful’s reaction to the new situation. The Orthodox liturgical year begins in Romania on the 1st of September, marked by a series of pilgrimages, occasioned by feasts for several saints whose relics are venerated in local churches. Some of them, centuries old, attract thousands of people. The celebrations last several days, during which people wait patiently, for hours, to touch the holy relics. In 2020, governmental measures limited participation to local residents, without previous consultation with the church authorities. This caused great discontent. Still, the number of pilgrims was not substantially less than in previous years, in large part due to the direct negotiations between the faithful and the local law forces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Religion and spirituality are common motivations for travel, with many major tourist destinations having developed largely because of their connections to sacred people, places and events. Pilgrimages are one of the most important forms domestic tourism in Israel and the Palestinian Territories. On November 16 of every year, the church of St. George in Lod is filled with hundreds of worshippers who arrive for the Feast of St. George / Khidr, the day commemorating the translation of his relics to the church at the heart of Lod. Pilgrims travel from Nazareth and Bethlehem and as far away as Jordan to receive the blessing of the saint, who is the patron saint of Palestine. They light candles together in what is one of the last truly shared feasts between Muslims and Christians in the region. This feast, itself multifaceted and expressing the pluralism within the society, together with its readiness to develop inter~faith relations and embracing multiculturalism, is a truly heterogeneous activity which can surely merit being called a ‘post-modern’ pilgrimage. Driven by this circumstance, my main objective in this research is to present an in-depth analysis of the current state of the Saint George cult in Lod and pilgrimage dedicated to his shrine. In this paper, I will first give conceptual information about landscape of Lod in Israel and the sanctuary of St George and then try to depict the general panorama of rituals and interreligious coexistence (Christians, Muslims and lately secular Jewish tourists) in and around the shrine. Then I will sketch out the main characteristics and the drastic change in the pilgrimage during the modern period, by, taking into consideration the hagiography and the veneration of Saint George in Israel / Palestine, migration, festivalization of the pilgrimage and tourism, which have essential roles in understanding the feast day of Saint George. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Though relics have attracted immense interest from a variety of scholars, not much attention has been paid to the practical handling of the holy corporal remains. Here, with the aim of better understanding the treatment of the bodies and relics as physical objects in Sweden during the Middle Ages, osseous materials from three different contexts were osteologically analysed. The investigation offers detailed insight into the treatment of the bones and makes it possible to distinguish three physical phases of the cult of relics. The three phases demonstrate the utilitarian administration of the bones and the fortitude of belief. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hagiographic studies have turned their attention to a particular type of homo viator: saints. Either in vita or post mortem, saints helped in the configuration of cultural centers, pilgrimage itineraries and sacred spaces by means of their tangible presence, their capacity of producing miracles, through their representative or real/actual relics or through sacred bodily remains. This paper focuses on the analysis of those phenomena that adopted various dimensions and it also values the function and the meaning given by the medieval and modern society to the doctrinal and religious discourse of ecclesiastic people and to the practices of popular Christian religiosity of the Andalusian region among the 5th and 17th centuries.

The article presents information on the Roman Catholic process of declaring saints that is known as Canonization. It discusses a historical chronicle that describes the development and evolution of Canonization process in order to reveal the apparent mystery. It also focuses on the mystery of Sainthood and the canonic process, with all its spiritual dimensions of divine intercession, relics and miracles that is the Church's greatest enigma for outside people.

This article explores the Counter-Reformation medievalization of Polish–Lithuanian St. Kazimierz Jagiellończyk (1458–1484)—whose canonization was only finalized in the seventeenth century—as a case study, taking up questions of the reception of cults of medieval saints in post-medieval societies, or in this case, the retroactive refashioning into a venerable medieval saint. The article investigates these questions across a transcultural Italo–Baltic context through the activities of principal agents of the saint's re-fashioning as a venerable saint during the late seventeenth century: the Pacowie from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Medici from the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, during a watershed period of Tuscan–Lithuanian bidirectional interest. During this period, the two dynasties were entangled not only by means of the shared division of Jagiellończyk's bodily remains through translatio—the ritual relocation of relics of saints and holy persons—but also self-representational strategies that furthered their religio-political agendas and retroactively constructed their houses' venerable medieval roots back through antiquity. Drawing on distinct genres of textual, visual, and material sources, the article analyzes the Tuscan–Lithuanian refashioning of Kazimierz against a series of precious reliquaries made to translate holy remains between Vilnius to Florence to offer a contribution to the entangled histories of sanctity, art and material culture, and conceptual geography within the transtemporal and transcultural neocolonial context interconnecting the Middle Ages, Age of Reformations, and the Counter-Reformation between Italy and Baltic Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents information on the imitation of architecture by art through the Saint Philip reliquary in renaissance Florence, Italy. Translation of a relic of Saint Philip's arm to Florence; Sources of the Saint Philip reliquary; Architectural imitation of the Saint Philip reliquary.

Presents the modern research on the hagiography of Stephen, the first Christian martyr as recorded in the book of Acts of the New Testament. Exploration on the ancient material on Stephen; Contention that an alleged dossier on Stephen does not exist; Emergence of the cult of Saint Stephen and the healing power of his relics.

Focuses on Breton saints, miracles, and relics during the period 850 to 1250. Hagiographical output of the abbeys of Saint-Meen and Landevennec and the cathedral communities of Saint-Pol-de-Leon, Quimper, and Alet; Important churches in medieval Brittany; Guibert of Nogent's inquiry into the value of saints' relics in Brittany; Guibert's criticism of the cults of Breton saints; Distinction between official, liturgical cult with written texts and popular, oral veneration of saints; Written culture of the Middle Ages.