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medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture Today (12. December) is the feast day of: Spyridon the Wonderworker (4th century). S. was bishop of Trimithous on Cyprus. He is reported as having signed, perhaps three years after its conclusion, the acts of the Council of Serdica (342/43). Late in the same century it was already believed that he had been a shepherd and that he continued in that role even after assuming his episcopate. He seems to have fathered a daughter before entering religion. Rufinus of Aquileia (d. 410) records two miracles attributed to him (one involving sheep of the actual rather than the metaphorical kind). S. has two seventh-century Bioi, one by Theodore of Paphos (BHG 1647; completed by 665) and the other possibly by Leontios of Neapolis (BHG 1648a). Both are said to draw on a lost poem by his pupil Triphyllios. Known for his miracles, S. is a patron of shepherds and of seafarers. By the ninth century S.'s cult had reached the West, where he is listed for 14. December in the Marble Calendar of Naples and in the martyrologies of Florus of Lyon, Ado, and Usuard. In BHG 1647 S.'s remains are said to be still on Cyprus. But an incorrupt body believed to be his is said to have been removed to Constantinople at some point in the seventh century and to have been taken to Corfu in the later fifteenth century. Corfu's late sixteenth-century cathedral is dedicated to S., who as that island's patron saint has in the early modern period saved his people from pestilence, famine, and Turkish conquest. A seventeenth-century icon showing S. in his display coffin on Corfu is here: http://www.templegallery.com/getfullpage.php?stockno=45 and here's a view of S. being carried in a recent procession: http://www.greatlie.com/images/articles/AgSpyridon_sml2.jpg Best, John Dillon ********************************************************************** To join the list, send the message: join medieval-religion YOUR NAME to: [log in to unmask] To send a message to the list, address it to: [log in to unmask] To leave the list, send the message: leave medieval-religion to: [log in to unmask] In order to report problems or to contact the list's owners, write to: [log in to unmask] For further information, visit our web site: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/medieval-religion.html