medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (19. June) is the feast day of:
1) Epaphras (d. 1st cent.). A not-so-familiar saint of the New Testament, E. is considered the likely founder of the church of Colossae in Phrygia and probably of those of nearby Laodicea and Hierapolis (Col. 1:7; 4:12-13). At Philemon 1:23 he is named as St. Paul's "fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus". Ado's elogium of E. has Paul make him bishop of Colossae and adds that E. was martyred for his flock and buried in the same city.
Colossae has yet to be excavated. Laodicea has visible remains and is currently being excavated in part. Here are some views:
http://www.bibleplaces.com/laodicea.htm
And here's how it is imagined in the Bamberg Apocalypse:
http://tinyurl.com/2dakxd
An illustrated page (images expand) on Hierapolis is here:
http://tinyurl.com/yo67um
Other expandable views of Laodicea and of Hierapolis occur towards the bottom of this page:
http://brokenministries.org/picsp4.htm
2) Arsenius of Scetis (d. earlier 5th cent.). The well educated Desert Father A. (also A. the Great, A. of Turah), who seems to have come from a Roman senatorial family, had been an official at the court of Theodosius the Great before becoming a hermit in Egypt, where he was a disciple of St. John Colobus. His sayings in the _Apophthegmata Patrum_ and his early medieval biographies present him as both humble and very austere. After raiders had devastated Scetis A. moved to a monastery at Troa (modern Turah, south of Cairo) where he is said to have died at fourscore years and ten.
A. is the author of a brief guide to monastic life and of a commentary on Luke. A misinterpretation of one of his sayings seems to have given rise to the legend that he had been tutor to Arcadius and Honorius. Here's a reproduction of A.'s portrait (ca. 1319) in the Chilandar monastery at Mt. Athos:
http://santiebeati.it/immagini/Original/63500/63500A.JPG
And here he is (at right) in a late fifteenth-/early sixteenth-century tablet from Novgorod:
http://tinyurl.com/3274gq
3) Symmachus, pope (d. 514). The Sardinian S. was archdeacon of the Roman church under pope Anastasius II, whom he succeeded in November 498. His reign is remembered chiefly for the Laurentian schism, named for his rival Lawrence, archpriest of Santa Prassede, elected pope by _his_ supporters and an off-and-on claimant of the see of Rome for close to ten years (for some of which he occupied the Lateran palace while S. operated from an episcopal residence on the Vatican). During his papacy S. erected the round chapel dedicated to St. Andrew next to old St. Peter's as well as a martyrial basilica over the grave of St. Pancras of Rome in the cemetery of Octavilla.
S. is the figure on the right in the apse mosaic of Sant'Agnese fuori le Mura:
http://www.romecity.it/Santagnesefuorilemura02.htm
Here's a detail showing S. alone (but the color is awful):
http://tinyurl.com/32c8p8
4) Bernulf of Utrecht (d. 1054). B. (also Bernold) succeeded Adalbold II as bishop of Utrecht in 1027/28. Close to the emperor Conrad II, who appointed him, and to Henry III, he was rewarded with lands and with a comital title and is considered the founder of the temporal lordship of the bishops of Utrecht. Like his friend St. Poppo of Stablo/Stavelot, S. promoted monastic reform in his diocese.
B. inherited from Adalbold a new cathedral (the predecessor of the present one) and in 1040 decreed that new churches should be built in Utrecht to the north, east, south, and west of the cross formed by it. Three of these were built in his lifetime: the abbey church of St. Paul and the collegiate churches of St. Peter and St. John. Though much rebuilt, the latter two still show elements surviving from B.'s day. English-language accounts and galleries of views for each are here:
Pieterskerk:
http://www.kerkenkijken.nl/church.aspx?ID=11
http://utrechtchurches.tripod.com/utrechtpieter.html
http://tinyurl.com/2p49nr
Janskerk:
http://www.kerkenkijken.nl/church.aspx?ID=8
http://utrechtchurches.tripod.com/utrechtjan.html
5) Peter Crisci (d. 1323). According to his Vita by the Dominican Giovanni Gorini (BHL 6709; dated 1364), at the age of thirty the well-to-do Umbrian P. sold off his paternal inheritance and became a day laborer for poor households in Foligno, dressing as a penitent and living eremitically in the belltower of that town's cathedral. Bl. Angela of Foligno (d. 1309) is said to have regarded P. with amusement until she recognized that she was sharing her town with a genuine holy fool. P. lived to the age of eighty, performing small works of charity and making the occasional pilgrimage to Rome or to Assisi. His cult was immediate.
At some point during the fourteenth century P. was made a civic patron, commemorated on this day (the date of an already existing town fair). In 1385 he was translated to the chapel dedicated to him in Foligno's cathedral of San Feliciano. That building is shown here with its two facades and with palaces concealing most of the belltower:
http://www.itcgantinori.sinp.net/icone/foligno.gif
http://www.greengrape.net/mori/foligno/foligno_04.jpg
Best,
John Dillon
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