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> The feast originated in the east; in the west, its general observance > goes back to 1457, when Callistus III ordered its universal celebration in > commemoration of the victory gained over the Turks at Belgrade on 22nd July > 1456, news of which reached Rome on 6th August. > The Transfiguration, which was observed in the East as early as the > sixth century but which was accepted only slowly in the West, is observed in > the Roman and Anglican communions on August 6. This was the date on which > in the year 1456 Pope Calixtus III announced the victory of Belgrade where > Hunyady's army overcame the forces of Islam. There are two mid-6th-century apse mosaics of the Transfiguration: one in the church of Emperor Justinian's new monastic foundation at Mt Sinai, and the other in the Church of S. Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna. Although the latter had close Byzantine connections, by any geographical reckoning, it certainly is in the west, but I've always been curious about its form: it is highly symbolic, with a cross in a mandorla instead of the transfigured Christ and three sheep on the ground below, instead of three Apostles. The two Prophets who appeared with Christ do, however, appear in half-length. I've always associated this highly symbolic representation with some aspect of the Christological controversies of the time (the Monophysites, for example, did not consider it appropriate to represent even the non-transfigured Christ in human form), but the tenor of this discussion suggests that the questionable status of the feast in the west may have had something to do with it. I take it, however, that the matter of acceptance involved only the feast, rather than the nature of the event. Can anyone comment further? Jim Bugslag %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%