medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (15. September) is in Byzantine-rite churches the feast day of the megalomartyr Nicetas the Goth (d. in the 370s); in the Roman Martyrology it is his day of commemoration. Nicetas is first recorded in a seemingly late fifth-century Greek-language Passio (BHG 1339) written for his cult at the Cilician city of Mopsuestia (later Mamistra and now Yakapınar in Turkey's Adana province). According to this account, he was a member of the Christian minority among the still mostly pagan Goths settled in Dacia. Ordained priest while still young, he fell victim to anti-Christian persecution under king Athanaric and was executed by burning. Aided by a miracle, Nicetas' loving friend Marianus obtained his body, brought it to Mopsuestia, and on 15. September of an unspecified year laid it to rest in a martyrion there. In the early ninth century St. Theophanes Graptos wrote a kanon and stichera honoring this saint. A later tenth-century metaphrastic Passio (BHG 1340) provides historical context in a way facilitating the later general belief that Nicetas was a military martyr. In the Synaxary of Constantinople Nicetas the Goth comes first among the saints of 15. September.
Byzantine synaxary accounts attest to the existence of a church in Constantinople dedicated to Nicetas the Goth adjacent to the one dedicated to St. Romanus that held his relics (these are thought to have been translated from Mopsuestia in the tenth century). 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) has what is said to be his left hand:
http://www.kosovo.net/st013_y.jpg
Some period-pertinent images of Nicetas the Goth:
a) as depicted (grayscale; reduced image; martyrdom) in the late tenth- or very early eleventh-century so-called Menologion of Basil II (Città del Vaticano, BAV, cod. Vat. gr. 1613, p. 37):
http://tinyurl.com/p3kvgpp
b) as depicted in an illuminated eleventh-century copy of the September portion of the Metaphrastic Menologion (London, BL, MS Add 11870, fol. 117v):
http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/Viewer.aspx?ref=add_ms_11870_f117v
c) as depicted in a later thirteenth-century fresco (betw. 1260 and 1263) in the church of the Holy Apostles in the Patriarchate of Peć at Peć in, depending on one's view of the matter, either Serbia's province of Kosovo and Metohija or the Republic of Kosovo:
http://tinyurl.com/7ru43hz
d) as depicted in a later thirteenth-century fresco (betw. 1263 and 1270) in the nave of the monastery church of the Holy Trinity at Sopoćani in, depending on one's view of the matter, Serbia's province of Kosovo and Metohija or the Republic of Kosovo:
http://tinyurl.com/2ajcjoo
http://tinyurl.com/2b9qr2y
e) as depicted in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (betw. ca. 1308-ca. 1320) by Michael Astrapas and Eutychios in the church dedicated to him at Čučer in today's Čučer-Sandevo in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia:
http://users.stlcc.edu/mfuller/macedonia2006/StNikita22.JPG
f) as depicted in a September calendar portrait in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (betw. ca. 1308 and 1321/1322) in the nave of the monastery church of the Theotokos at Gračanica 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/yfc8t6x
http://tinyurl.com/nftkv8j
g) as depicted (martyrdom) in a September calendar scene in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (betw. ca. 1312 and 1321/1322) in the narthex of the aforesaid monastery church of the Theotokos at Gračanica:
http://tinyurl.com/5uwtvw9
h) as depicted (at center in panel at upper right; martyrdom) in an earlier fourteenth-century pictorial menologion from Thessaloniki (betw. 1322 and 1340; Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Gr. th. f. 1, fol. 9v):
http://image.ox.ac.uk/images/bodleian/msgrthf1/9v.jpg
i) as depicted (martyrdom) in a September calendar scene in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (betw. 1335 and 1350) of the narthex in the church of the Holy Ascension at the Visoki Dečani monastery near Peć in, depending on one's view of the matter, either Serbia's province of Kosovo and Metohija or the Republic of Kosovo:
http://tinyurl.com/yadduh6
j) as depicted (at right, after St. Arethas of Najran and St. Nestor) in an early fifteenth-century fresco (1407-1408) in the church of the Manasija (Resava) monastery near Despotovac (Pomoravlje dist.) in Serbia:
http://tinyurl.com/p7yvrrr
A closer view:
http://tinyurl.com/3box76o
k) as depicted (at center between two other military martyrs, St. Procopius and St. Eustachius / Eustathius Placidas) in a late fifteenth- or early sixteenth-century Novgorod School icon in the State Russian Gallery, St. Petersburg:
http://www.icon-art.info/masterpiece.php?lng=de&mst_id=814
l) as depicted in an early sixteenth-century fresco (1502) by Dionisy and sons in the Virgin Nativity cathedral of the St. Ferapont Belozero (Ferapontov Belozersky) monastery at Ferapontovo in Russia's Vologda oblast:
http://www.dionisy.com/eng/museum/112/294/index.shtml
Best,
John Dillon
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