Byzantine News

The UK based project, Cult of Saints from its origins to circa AD 700, across the entire Christian world, has recently published a list of great resources for the students of medieval cults of saints in a variety of languages. Click here to access the list and the project's website. The aims of the project: The project, which launched in January 2014, will map the cult of saints as a system of beliefs and practices in its earliest and most fluid form, from its origins until around AD 700 (by which date most cult practices were firmly established): the evolution from honouring the memory of martyrs, to their veneration as intercessors and miracle-workers; the different ways that saints were honoured and their help solicited; the devotion for relics, sacred sites and images; the miracles expected from the saints.

KU Leuven announces a new conference on literary culture in early Chrisitanity: The intellectual landscape of the Classical world was radically altered by the rise and spread of Christianity, which brought about a transformation of moral and cultural values, beliefs and attitudes. Profound changes also occurred in the practical and theoretical approaches to languages as cognitive, ethnic and cultural phenomena. The linguistic horizon of Western scholars was considerably widened through direct acquaintance with the Old Testament languages (Hebrew and Aramaic); at the same time Early Christian authors became increasingly aware of the startling linguistic diversity within the Roman world and outside of it. Read more

The Canons of Our Fathers. Monastic Rules of Shenoute by Bentley Layton From the presentation of the book: This book is the first publication of a very early collection of Christian monastic rules from Roman Egypt. Designed for the so-called White Monastery Federation, a community of monks and nuns who banded together about 360 CE, the rules are quoted by the great monastic leader Shenoute of Atripe in his writings of the fourth and fifth century. These rules provide new and intimate access to the earliest phases of Christian communal (cenobitic) monasticism. The Table of Contents : Preface I: The Nature of the Rules Introduction 1: The Historical Context of the Rules 2: The Corpus of Monastic Rules 3: Monastic Life as seen in the Rules 4: Monastic Experience and Monastic Rules Subject Index to Part I Index of Rule Numbers cited in Part III I: Corpus of Monastic Rules Abbreviations for Libraries and Museums Holding the Coptic Manuscripts Editorial SignsThe Rules, ...

A conference at the University of Cyprus, 16-18 October 2014. Tales of miracle and wonder decorate both ancient and Byzantine literature and seem to have had a great impact upon ancient and Byzantine thought. A strong interest in the wondrous is already apparent in the works of Homer and Hesiod. However, a more organized recording of marvels is detected much later, in Herodotus’s time, when marvelous stories and travel accounts of exotic places and peoples are increasingly produced. From the era of Alexander and onwards such stories are recruited by historians and rhetors in an attempt to apotheose the ideal ruler. Between the third century BC and the third century AD, the genre of paradoxography, collections of stories relating strange events and phenomena, achieves great popularity, and influences another new genre, the Hellenistic novel. At about the same time, a number of stories circulate that relate the miraculous healings of suffering people who practice incubation in Asclepi...

Byzantine Religion and Culture: A conference in Moscow on Byzantine Hagiography From 12–14 November 2012 a conference will be held at St Tikhon`s Orthodox University of the Humanities: «Byzantine hagiography: themes, texts and projects». This conference will be the fifth in the context of the joint project «Byzantine theology», carried out by St Tikhon’s theological faculty and the humanities research center of the Ca `Foscari University of Venice. This year the conference is being held under the auspices of the National Byzantine Committees of Russia, Italy and France, and with the financial support of the Centre of Byzantine Civilization of the University of Paris College de France. The conference is being organised by A. Rigo, D. Afinogenov and Deacon P. Ermilov. Among the participants are the leading domestic and foreign experts in the field of study of the Byzantine hagiographic tradition.For all inquiries please contact the organising committee: conference@pstgu.r...

Neil MacGregor's world history as told through objects is describing how people expressed devotion and connection with the divine in the 14th and 15th centuries. Today he is with an icon from Constantinople that looks back in history to celebrate the overthrow of iconoclasm and the restoration of holy images in AD 843 - a moment of triumph for the Orthodox branch of the Christian Church. This icon shows the annual festival of orthodoxy celebrated on the first Sunday of Lent, with historical figures of that time and a famous depiction of the Virgin Mary. The American artist Bill Viola responds to the icon and describes the special characteristics of religious painting. And the historian Diarmaid MacCulloch describes the often troubled relationship between the Church and the images it has produced. Listen here for the programme from the BBC 4.