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MEDIEVAL-RELIGION  December 2014

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Subject:

FEAST - A Pair of Saints for the Day (December 27): Theodore and Theophanes, the bothers Graptoi

From:

John Dillon <[log in to unmask]>

Reply-To:

medieval-religion - Scholarly discussions of medieval religious culture <[log in to unmask]>

Date:

Sat, 27 Dec 2014 17:17:57 -0600

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text/plain

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medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture

An older post lightly revised:

Theodore Graptos (d. ca. 841) and Theophanes Graptos (d. 845). We know about these Palestinian brothers, victims of Byzantine second iconoclasm, chiefly from Theodore's immediately posthumous Encomium by Theophanes of Caesarea in Cappadocia (BHG 1745z), from the Bios of St. Michael the Syncellus by a monk of the Chora monastery at Constantinople (BHG 1296), and from St. Symeon Metaphrastes' tenth-century Bios of Theodore (BHG 1746). Monks of the monastery of St. Sabas near Jerusalem, they traveled with Michael to Constantinople in around 813. Emperor Leo V (813-820) tried unsuccessfully to use them as envoys to the patriarch of Jerusalem on behalf of Leo's iconoclast policies; when they refused he had them imprisoned. Freed in the wake of Leo's assassination, they remained in Constantinople.

During the renewal of anti-iconophile policies under emperor Theophilus (829-842) the brothers were confined on the island of Aphousia in the Sea of Marmara. They are said to have been brought back to Constantinople and there (_aliter_: in Jerusalem) to have suffered punishment by having their faces tattooed with the identical twelve-line iambic verse inscription: hence their by-name Graptos, literally 'the Written' but in this instance frequently rendered as 'the Branded'. Tattooing letters on the face was a traditional punishment in the empire. Recent scholarly opinion is divided on whether Theodore and Theophanes actually underwent such disfigurement (the sources have a very pronounced iconophile bias) and, if so, whether our text of the twelve lines is authentic. After this, the brothers are said to have been banished to Apamea in Bithynia.

Theodore died during Theophilus' reign. Theophanes, who was both a priest and an accomplished and liturgically influential hymnographer (whence he is sometimes called Theophanes the Hymnographer, Theophanes the Poet, or Theophanes the Melode), survived and in 843 was made metropolitan of Nicaea by the iconophile patriarch St. Methodius I (whence he is also known as Theophanes of Nicaea).

A modern translation into English of Theophanes' kanon on Mary Magdalen:
http://www.anastasis.org.uk/22julcan.htm

In the Synaxary of Constantinople the brothers Graptoi are commemorated under 28. December. In other medieval calendars they occur on 26. December or on 27. December. The latter day is the one under which they appear in the Metaphrastic Menologion, a circumstance that probably had a lot to do with 27. December also being their day of commemoration in the Roman Martyrology. In the Synaxary of Constantinople Theophanes has a separate commemoration under 11. October. Today's Byzantine-rite churches keep his feast on that day and commemorate Theodore by himself on 27. December. 


Some medieval images of the brothers Graptoi:

a) Theophanes (at left) and Theodore (second from left) engaging in public debate with Theophilus as depicted in the mid- or later twelfth-century Madrid Skylitzes, a richly illuminated copy, made in Norman-ruled Sicily, of John Skylitzes' later eleventh-century chronicle _Synopsis historiōn_ (Madrid, BN, Vitr. 26–2, fol. 50v, ill. b):
http://tinyurl.com/ot7tshx 

b) Theophanes (second from left) as depicted in the later twelfth-century (ca. 1164) frescoes of the church of St. Panteleimon (Pantaleon) at Gorno Nerezi (Skopje municipality) in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia:
http://tinyurl.com/o3na3x7
Detail view:
http://tinyurl.com/29pjby2

c) Theophanes as depicted in the late twelfth-century frescoes (1192; cleaned and restored, late 1960s and early 1970s) in the church of the Panagia tou Arakou at Lagoudera (Nicosia prefecture) in the Republic of Cyprus:
http://tinyurl.com/d6kl79n

d) Theodore as depicted in the originally early thirteenth-century frescoes (1208 or 1209; carefully repainted in 1569) in the nave of the church of the Theotokos in the Studenica monastery near Kraljevo (Raška dist.) in Serbia:
http://tinyurl.com/23jnzh5

e) Theophanes as depicted in the originally early thirteenth-century frescoes (1208 or 1209; carefully repainted in 1569) in the nave of the church of the Theotokos in the Studenica monastery near Kraljevo ( Raška dist.) in Serbia:
http://tinyurl.com/26r9s2s
http://tinyurl.com/d7ea5tq

f) Theophanes as depicted in an earlier fourteenth-century fresco (betw. 1315 and 1321) on a pendentive of the dome in the parecclesion of the Chora church (Kariye Camii) in Istanbul, starting with a relatively clear, black-and-white view:
http://a33.idata.over-blog.com/2/09/57/05/Icones-1/2942490775_1_3.jpg
A rather less clear view in color:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/razlan79/3175406867/lightbox/

g) Theodore (at right) as depicted in a damaged earlier fourteenth-century fresco (ca. 1314 or betw. 1328 and 1334) in the church of the Holy Apostles in Thessaloniki:
http://tinyurl.com/l7jxzdo
Detail view:
http://tinyurl.com/2aecajk

h) Theophanes (at right; at left, St. Philip the Deacon) as depicted in an earlier fourteenth-century fresco (betw. 1335 and 1350) in the narthex of the church of the Holy Ascension at the Visoki Dečani monastery near Peć in, depending upon one's view of the matter, either the Republic of Kosovo or Serbia's province of Kosovo and Metohija:
http://www.srpskoblago.org/Archives/Decani/exhibits/Menologion/October/CX4K3356_l.html

i) Theophanes as depicted by Theofanis Strelitzas-Bathas (Theophanes the Cretan) in an earlier sixteenth-century fresco (1527) in the katholikon of the monastery of St. Nicholas Anapafsas in the Meteora district of Greece's Trikala prefecture:
http://tinyurl.com/k9tb6o3

Best,
John Dillon

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