medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (27. February) is the feast day of:
1) Besas, Eunus (Cronion), and Julian (d. 259). B., E., and J. are martyrs of the anti-Christian riots in Alexandria in the year preceding the Decian persecution. According to Eusebius (_H. E._, 6. 41) or, more precisely, to an account by Dionysius of Alexandria from which Eusebius quotes, E. and J. were bound to camels and whipped through the city, after which they were killed by having quicklime poured over them. B. was a soldier who tried to protect them; he was decapitated.
Günther Zuntz has a brief, lucid, and methodologically instructive article on the text of Eusebius' description of the manner of E.'s and J.'s death, "A Textual Note on Eusebius, _Hist. Eccl._ VI. 41.15", _Vigiliae Christianae_ 5 (1951), 50-54.
2) Honorina (??). H. is a poorly documented saint of the lower Seine, honored in the dioceses of Bayeux and Rouen. She has an undated legendary Passio (BHL 3981; not later than the twelfth century) modeled on that of St. Dorothea of Caesarea in Cappadocia as well as a twelfth-century translation account (BHL 3983) describing the ninth-century removal, under the threat of raids by Northmen, of her relics from a monastery at Gerardivilla to the _castrum_ at Confluentinum, today's Conflans-Sainte-Honorine at the confluence of the Seine and the Oise. In the 1080s a church dedicated to H. was erected at Conflans, where in 1250 her relics were the subject of a formal recognition.
H.'s relics survived the Revolution and in 1801 were deposited ceremoniously in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine's originally late eleventh-century church of Saint-Maclou. Views of this edifice are here:
http://www.romanes.com/Conflans/
and here:
http://www.peniche.com/2idf_conflans3.htm
The monastery whence these relics came will have been a predecessor of the twelfth-century and later Augustinian priory dedicated to H. at modern Graville, now part of Le Havre (Seine-Maritime), whose surviving church is said to be originally of the late eleventh or very early twelfth century. An English-language account of the latter is here:
http://tinyurl.com/2vlo5l
Distance view:
http://tinyurl.com/27qjwz
Nine expandable views:
http://tinyurl.com/2wp6pe
Some very good older photos are here (nos. B000378-B000385):
http://tinyurl.com/ywctn7
Visitors may see a sarcophagus said to have been H.'s (discovered at this church in 1867):
http://tinyurl.com/26454j
Another dedication to H. is the originally eleventh-century église Saint-Clair et Sainte-Honorine at Mutrécy (Calvados):
http://tinyurl.com/2kvsbc
Its fact sheet from Patrimoine de France:
http://tinyurl.com/339x6j
At Conflans-Sainte-Honorine H. is celebrated liturgically on the last Sunday in February. She is the patron saint of Conflans and a patron of boatmen.
3) Luke of Messina (d. 1149). Last year's post, with links to views of Messina's Punta San Ranieri (including the city's display of its benediction from the BVM), is here:
http://tinyurl.com/ypmarj
Best,
John Dillon
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