medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (11. November) is the feast day of:
4) Theodore the Stoudite (d. 826). A nephew of St. Plato of Sakkoudion, T. entered religion along with his uncle and other members of his prominent and well-to-do family. In the closing years of the eighth century the empress Irene made him abbot of Constantinople's Stoudios monastery, which latter he then renewed and also made into the center of a network of monastic houses. A prolific and influential writer, T. was exiled along with other members of his family under Nicephorus I. Recalled after the latter's death in 811, he led monastic resistance to the iconoclast policies of Leo V (813-21). For this he was flogged and sent into a second exile. After Leo's death T. accepted a compromise allowing veneration of icons outside of Constantinople and spent the brief remainder of his life as an itinerant leader of his party. Today is his _dies natalis_.
T. as depicted in the earlier eleventh-century mosaics (restored between 1953 and 1962) in the katholikon of the monastery of Hosios Loukas near Distomo in Phokis:
http://tinyurl.com/2bkx8nd
T. as depicted in the mid-eleventh-century mosaics in the katholikon of the Nea Moni on Chios:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/96/Studite.jpg
T. (at left) as depicted in the very late thirteenth- or early fourteenth-century frescoes in the church of the Peribleptos (now Sv. Kliment Novi) in Ohrid:
http://tinyurl.com/ykt8uv3
T. as depicted in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (ca. 1313-1320) of the King's Church (dedicated to Sts. Joachim and Anne) in the Studenica monastery near Kraljevo (Raška dist.) in southern Serbia:
http://tinyurl.com/yfvtcte
T. as depicted in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (ca. 1314-ca. 1320) of the originally early fourteenth-century monastery church dedicated to him at Čučer in today's Čučer-Sandevo in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia:
http://tinyurl.com/y8kt7nb
T. (at left; at right, St. Stephen the Younger) as depicted in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (betw. ca. 1312 and 1321/1322) of the parecclesion of St. Nicholas in the monastery church of the Theotokos at Gračanica in, depending on one's view of the matter, Serbia's province of Kosovo and Metohija or the Republic of Kosovo:
http://tinyurl.com/yh8jumw
Detail (T.):
http://tinyurl.com/yft5toq
T. as depicted in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (1330s) in the nave of the church of the Hodegetria in the Patriarchate of Peć at Peć in, depending on one's view of the matter, either the Republic of Kosovo or Serbia's province of Kosovo and Metohija:
http://tinyurl.com/yklemtf
http://tinyurl.com/27888eh
T. (at right; at left, St. Paul the Simple) as depicted in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (betw. 1335 and 1350) in the narthex of the church of the Holy Ascension at the Visoki Dečani monastery near Peć in, depending on one's view of the matter, either the Republic of Kosovo or Serbia's province of Kosovo and Metohija:
http://tinyurl.com/yzgnrt2
T. as depicted in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (betw. 1335 and 1350) in the nave of the church of the Holy Ascension at the Visoki Dečani monastery near Peć in, depending on one's view of the matter, either the Republic of Kosovo or Serbia's province of Kosovo and Metohija:
http://tinyurl.com/2f3a3z7
http://tinyurl.com/25sjj4d
T. as depicted in the mid-fourteenth-century frescoes of the monastery church of St. Michael the Archangel at Lesnovo in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia:
http://tinyurl.com/2636cky
5) Bartholomew of Grottaferrata (d. 1055). This less well known saint of the Regno (also B. of Rossano; B. the Younger) was a member of St. Nilus of Rossano's community both at Sèrapo near Gaeta and at the new foundation near Rome that became the famous Greek abbey of Grottaferrata. He was the abbey's fourth abbot and the first of its series of important eleventh- and early twelfth-century hymnographers. One of B.'s hymns is for the dedication in 1024 of the abbey church erected under his leadership. He has also been credited -- not very convincingly -- with the Bios of Nilus of Rossano (BHG 1370), a truly great saint's life written in a period of major Lives. His own Bios is BHG 233.
An Italian-language history of the abbey of Grottaferrata is here:
http://www.hurricane.it/castelliromani/grottaferrata/snilo.html
together with pages on the abbey's museum:
http://www.hurricane.it/castelliromani/grottaferrata/museo.html
and on its architecture:
http://www.hurricane.it/castelliromani/grottaferrata/snilo_archi.html
and on its decor:
http://www.hurricane.it/castelliromani/grottaferrata/snilo_decos.html
The abbey's church has recently been restored on the outside to an approximation of its original appearance; so too its late twelfth-century belltower. A recent publication dealing with this work is Luigi Devoti, _L'Abbazia di Santa Maria di Grottaferrata nel millenario della fondazione_ (Frascati: Il Minotauro, 2004). Three exterior views of the church:
http://www.949.it/foto/grottaferrata/5.jpg
http://www.949.it/foto/grottaferrata/6.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/yblopdl
The wooden panels of this portal are said to be of the eleventh century:
http://www.949.it/foto/grottaferrata/4.jpg
Grottaferrata was built in and over what had originally been the cryptoporticus of a Roman villa. Two views showing this adaptation are here:
http://www.abbaziagreca.it/images/arte/crypta/crypta.jpg
and here:
http://www.arbitalia.it/speciali/san_nilo_millenario/0407j11a.jpg
Best,
John Dillon
(matter from last year's post revised)
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