medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
A new notice, replacing older ones under 18. April.
15. December is also the feast day of:
Eleutherius of Illyricum and Anthia (d. ca. 125, supposedly). An Eleutherius commonly celebrated on this day in eastern-rite churches since at least the early Middle Ages has a legendary sixth- or seventh-century Passio in Greek (BHG 568-571b) that presents him as a native of Rome who was sent to Illyricum as a bishop but was then returned to the Eternal City for trial during a persecution under Hadrian. After a colloquy with that emperor and after an impressive series of failed execution attempts, Eleutherius was finally put to death by decapitation along with his mother, the highly born matron Anthia. Pious Christians from Illyricum gave them honorable burial at Rome, where they continue to serve as a remedy for diseases and evil spirits. Thus far the Passio in its tenth-century Metaphrastic version.
In the Latin west Eleutherius and his mother Anthia, martyrs of Rome, are entered in the (pseudo-)Hieronymian Martyrology under 18. April. Eleutherius alone (but perhaps signifying in short form a feast that also included Anthia) is entered under that day in the earlier ninth-century Marble Calendar of Naples and Eleutherius and Anthia are entered together under that day in Mozarabic calendars and in the ninth-century martyrologies of Florus of Lyon, St. Ado of Vienne, and Usuard of St. Germain. Several versions of their Passio exist in Latin. One of these (BHL 2450) omits Eleutherius' episcopate in Illyricum and has him claimed after death by the bishop and people of Reate (now Rieti in eastern Lazio). Another (BHL 2452) makes him instead a bishop of Aeca, the ancient predecessor of Troia in northwestern Apulia. There are corresponding translation narratives: BHL 2453 recounts the transfer of both saints' relics to Reate's cathedral in 1198, while the early twelfth-century BHL 2453b recounts the recent taking of Eleutherius' remains to Troia by _furtum sacrum_ along with the body of pope St. Pontianus.
By the end of the twelfth century Eleutherius was also being celebrated on 18. April at what is now Poreč on the Istrian pensinsula, where he shared a tomb with the local martyr-bishop St. Maurus (this is the same Maurus whose presumed remains had by this time lain in the Lateran Baptistery for centuries) and where of course he was remembered as a bishop of Illyricum. In 1354 this tomb and its contents became spoils of the Genoese sack of Poreč; they remained in Genoa until 1933 when they were returned to Poreč (or to Parenzo, as it was then, having been seized by Italy from the Austrian empire at the end of World War I).
A version of the Passio of Eleutherius and Anthia in which Eleutherius is bishop of Aeca seems to have been known to Florus of Lyon, who when entering Eleutherius in his martyrology substituted Messana for Aeca as the name of the saint's Apulian see. This odd error led both to later cults of Eleutherius and Anthia in Messina in Sicily and at Mesagne on the Salentine peninsula in southern Apulia and, through its copying by Usuard, to the Roman Martyrology's giving Messina as their place of martyrdom from its late sixteenth-century inception through to its revision of 2001, when these saints ceased to grace its pages. Apart from 18. April, Eleutherius and Anthia were celebrated in the later Middle Ages on 24. November in Rieti and on a variety of dates in towns of southern Italy. At Troia Eleutherius is now commemorated liturgically on 18. July along with the city's other patron saints.
A reduced, brown-tone image of the martyrdom of Eleutherius and Anthia as depicted in the late tenth- or very early eleventh-century so-called Menologium of Basil II (Città del Vaticano, BAV, Vat. gr. 1613):
http://tinyurl.com/799xs4n
Eleutherius (upper roundel) as depicted in the late tenth or earlier eleventh-century frescoes of the New Church in the Tokalı kilise (Buckle Church) at Göreme in Turkey's Nevşehir province:
http://tinyurl.com/76ec3dp
Eleutherius (at left) as depicted in the earlier eleventh-century mosaics (restored betw. 1953 and 1962) in the katholikon of the monastery of Hosios Loukas near Distomo in Phokis:
http://tinyurl.com/7g9yzzb
A smallish view of Eleutherius' and Anthia's eleventh-century sepulchral inscription from their now-vanished martyrial church in Rieti will be found on this page (the inscription is now in Rieti's diocesan museum):
http://tinyurl.com/3e2eay
A black-and white view of Eleutherius as depicted in a later twelfth-century fresco (ca. 1180) in the church of the Agioi Anargyroi in Kastoria:
http://tinyurl.com/7bxeckg
Detail view (in color):
http://tinyurl.com/7bgxds5
Two illustrated, English-language pages on the originally thirteenth-century church of Agios Eleftherios in Athens:
http://tinyurl.com/86ssrf8
http://tinyurl.com/6pqj2hp
Other views:
http://tinyurl.com/73fkz3m
http://tinyurl.com/759bm4u
http://tinyurl.com/82w4em6
Eleutherius as depicted in a later thirteenth-century fresco (either 1263-1270 or slightly later) in the nave of the church of the Holy Trinity in the Sopoćani monastery at Sopoćani (Raška dist.) in Serbia:
http://tinyurl.com/7j7f8ma
Detail view:
http://tinyurl.com/6ts2thy
Eleutherius (at right, preceded by Sts. Hypatius [prob. of Gangra] and Blasius / Blaise) as depicted in a damaged earlier fourteenth-century fresco (betw. ca. 1312 and 1321/1322) in the nave of the monastery church of the Theotokos at Gračanica in, depending upon one's view of the matter, either the Republic of Kosovo or Serbia's province of Kosovo and Metohija (the later placing of an iconostasis beam has deprived us of most of Eleutherius' facial features):
http://tinyurl.com/ycpmxx5
Eleutherius as depicted in a somewhat degraded earlier fourteenth-century fresco (betw. ca. 1313 and ca. 1320) on an arch in the King's Church (dedicated to Sts. Joachim and Anne) in the Studenica monastery near Kraljevo (Raška dist.) in Serbia:
http://tinyurl.com/6w5ct22
Eleutherius as depicted in an earlier sixteenth-century fresco (1545 or 1546) by Theofanis Strelitzas-Bathas (a.k.a. Theophanes the Cretan) in the katholikon of the Stavronikita monastery on Mt. Athos:
http://pravicon.com/images/sv/s0763/s0763001.jpg
Best,
John Dillon
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