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medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture Today (17. February) is the feast day of: 1) Theodore of Amasea (d. 306, supposedly). The megalomartyr T., today's best known saint of the Regno, is a martyr of today's Amasya in north central Turkey, formerly Amaseia in Pontus (often latinized as 'Amasea'), where by the 380s he had an active cult at a martyrion described by St. Gregory of Nyssa in his panegyric on T. (BHG 386). An English-language translation of this text is here: http://www.sage.edu/faculty/salomd/nyssa/theodore.html The location of the early martyrion is disputed. Since at least the time of the emperor Anastasius (491-518) it was in the outlying community of Euchaita (today's Avkat), a former estate or village raised to urban and to episcopal status precisely because of the cult. "Eastern" churches have traditionally considered today to be T.'s _dies natalis_. From Bede through the Roman Martyrology of 1956, "western" martyrologies listed him on 9. November. Said to have been a soldier slain while still a young man, T. was from at least the later fifth century onward widely known as a great military saint. Shortly after the ninth century T.'s legend bifurcated: in both "east" and "west" he was treated both as Theodore the General (T. Stratelates or Stratilates) and as Theodore the Recruit (T. Tiro), as the young Theodore's appellation was now interpreted. In the Byzantine world, at least, the two Theodores were venerated by different classes: the general by officers and the recruit by other ranks. T. the General (a.k.a. T. of Heraclea) came to have a different _dies natalis_, 7. February (in Byzantine synaxaries, 8. February), and was listed as a saint of that day in the RM though its version of 1956. The new (2001) version of the RM returned the Roman Rite to the early practice of considering T. as a single saint, martyred on 17. February. Among the many noteworthy "eastern" churches associated with T. are: his church (Mar Thedros) in Bahdidat, Lebanon, with its impressive twelfth(?)-century mural paintings: http://tinyurl.com/bqs88r his eleventh-century church at Athens (restored, 1840; note that the caption in Greek, following the early modern and modern practice of joint veneration of the Recruit and the General, calls it that of the Holy Theodores [plural]): http://www.caed.kent.edu//History/Byzantine/stheodore1.jpg http://tinyurl.com/2cwct4 http://www.artandarchitecture.org.uk/images/conway/cbbad8b0.html His late thirteenth-century church at Mistra (or Mystra; in Greek, Mystras): http://www.mistraestates.gr/images2/Mistras4big.jpg http://odysseus.culture.gr/java/image?foto_id=10101&size=l1 http://www.viaggiaresempre.it/01GreciaMistraSanTeodoro.jpg The later fourteenth-century church of T. (Fyodor) Stratilates at Veliky Novgorod (1360-1361, with later additions): http://www.adm.nov.ru/cdrom/images/Churches/24.jpg Portraits of the two T.'s (early fourteenth-century) by Manuel Panselinos in the frescoes of the Protaton Church on Mt. Athos (first Tiro, then Stratilates): http://www.eikastikon.gr/xristianika/panselinos/57.jpg http://www.eikastikon.gr/xristianika/panselinos/59.jpg A late fifteenth-century icon of T. Stratilates in the Museum of History and Architecture, Novgorod: http://tinyurl.com/dbzgoq More images of T.: http://www.ucc.ie/milmart/imgthd.html An early testimony to T.'s cult in the "west" is his perhaps sixth-century church at Rome. An English-language account of it is here: http://romanchurches.wikia.com/wiki/San_Teodoro Some views: http://philrome1997.free.fr/htm500/det/002_0102.htm http://p.vtourist.com/1302809-San_Teodoro_Rome-Rome.jpg http://tinyurl.com/33c8ej T. was the early patron saint of Venice. Here he is on his column there (perhaps wondering how he's going to get back at the winged lion on the next column who replaced him in that role): http://relay.arglist.com/photos/20050527-005.jpg In the early thirteenth century remains said to be T.'s were brought from Euchaita to Brindisi (BR) in Puglia, where they were placed in the partly silver container shown here: http://www.brindisiweb.com/storia/foto/arca1.jpg This panel illustrates the translation by which T. became Brindisi's patron saint: http://www.brindisiweb.com/arcidiocesi/foto/arca_part.jpg Note the two columns in the representation of Brindisi: unlike those at Venice (largely a medieval foundation), these were holdovers from the Roman city. They have since suffered earthquake damage and one is now at Lecce (LE) on the Salentine peninsula, where it supports that city's statue of Sant'Oronzo in the piazza of the same name. For a fuller description (Italian-language) of this container, go here: http://www.brindisiweb.com/arcidiocesi/santi/santeodoro.htm Whereas that _objet d'art_ is now in the archdiocesan museum at Brindisi, T.'s putative remains are kept in a chapel dedicated to him in that city's cathedral: http://tinyurl.com/2wml68 Two unorthodox interpretations of "Tiro": http://tinyurl.com/2mrwrd and here: http://www.saintbarbara.org/about/icons/theodore.cfm 2) Flavian, bishop of Constantinople (d. 449 or 450). Prior to his elevation in 446 he had been scevophylax of that city's Great Church (Hagia Sophia). In 448 he presided over a synod that condemned the monophysite theologian Eutyches. The latter, influential at court, was soon rehabilitated by the so-called Robber Council of Ephesus (449). That body deposed F., who died shortly afterward (his supporters said that this was from mistreatment). In 451 F. was rehabilitated by the Council of Chalcedon and declared a martyr. His name, at least, was known in the West from his being the addressee of pope St. Leo I's doctrinal letter known as the _Tome_ of Leo, adopted at Chalcedon. F. too is a saint of the Regno. In the central and southern Marche and in northern Abruzzo there has long been devotion to a saint named Flavianus, chiefly venerated on 24. November. Although that F. has been thought of as a local martyr bishop, from at least the later Middle Ages onward he has been identified at times as the bishop of Constantinople. In 1001, supposedly, remains believed to be those of F. of Constantinople arrived miraculously at today's Giulianova (TE) in Abruzzo, a place that in the early Middle Ages had been called Castrum Novum but prior to its refounding in 1470 by Giulio Antonio Acquaviva, duke of Atri and count of Teramo and of Conversano (d. 1481 fighting Turks from Otranto) was known as Castel San Flaviano. In 1478 these relics, which had been kept in the town's principal church, were brought to the crypt of its as yet unfinished successor, now Giulianova's chiesa di San Flaviano, initially built as a free-standing octagon (1472-ca. 1530), rebuilt and given its dome after the Spanish sack of 1596, and restored in 1926 and in 1948ff. Herewith two illustrated, Italian-language accounts of this church: http://www.giulianovaweb.it/guida/21.htm http://tinyurl.com/c4f84y Other views: http://www.darnick.com/scoala/date/italia/turnx.jpg http://tinyurl.com/c2wkxa http://www.lattanzivini.it/San%20Flaviano.jpg F.'s aforementioned relics are kept here: http://tinyurl.com/bjs693 http://tinyurl.com/aukksw In addition to Giulianova, F. is the patron saint of another former Acquaviva possession, the town of Conversano (BA) in southern Apulia, where though his feast is kept on 24. November he is identified as F. of Constantinople. And just to make things even more confusing, at Recanati (MC) in the Marche, which has purported relics of an F. and whose originally medieval cathedral is so dedicated, that F. is celebrated on 22. December (the feast day of the legendary martyr F. of Rome) but is identified as F. of Constantinople: http://tinyurl.com/27ugs8 3) Benedict of Dolia (d. 1120?). Peter the Deacon's early twelfth-century (ca. 1136) catalogue of holy people associated with the abbey of Montecassino, the _Ortus et vita iustorum cenobii Casinensis_, relates in chapter 46 that Constantine, a king (we would say, judge) of the Sardinians, asked abbot Oderisius (i.e. Oderisius I; 1087-1105) to select a bishop for him from one of the brothers. O. selected Benedict, a man venerable in all things. While in office B. was noted -- so Peter tells us -- for the following miracles: a) A great crowd of sparrows was in the habit of defecating all over his cathedral, not even exempting the altar vessels. When B. adjured them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit to depart and make a mess no more, they did so -- and none has dared to return. b) Saracen raiders in Sardinia reached B.'s cathedral and asked for the bishop. B. was standing before the altar, offering prayers, but they could not see him. Everyone they found they led off into captivity. But they did not find B., who was right in front of them. B. has been identified as the bishop of Dolia who in 1112 confirmed a donation made by his predecessor Virgilius (still in office in 1089). Though Dolia (accented on the first syllable) was incorporated into the diocese of Cagliari (also accented on the first syllable -- but you knew that!) early in the sixteenth century, its medieval cathedral of San Pantaleo remains as a parish church in today's Dolianova (CA). Said to have been begun in the latter half of the twelfth century and to have been consecrated in 1289, it was preceded by an early medieval church traces of which have been found during restoration of the present structure. Here's an illustrated, Italian-language account of this monument: http://web.tiscali.it/itgnervi/pantaleo.htm Expandable versions of the views in the previous account are here: http://www.stilepisano.it/immagini4/index12.htm 4) Constabilis (d. 1124). This less well known saint of the Regno (in Italian, Costabile) was a child oblate at the then Cluniac monastery of the Most Holy Trinity at today's Cava dei Tirreni (SA). Late in life he became its fourth abbot. C. is the founder (in 1123) and patron of today's Castellabate (SA), a former possession of the abbey on the coast of his native Cilento in what is now southernmost Campania. He is the Cilento's only saint. His cult was confirmed in 1893. C. was at the head of a major and very wealthy regional institution. Whereas subsequent expansion and rebuilding has vastly altered the abbey's appearance, in the parts closest to the mountain against one of whose flanks it is built (Monte Finestre, a.k.a. Monte Pertuso) there are notable medieval survivals. Though perhaps slightly later, the east side of the cloister may be from C.'s tenure as abbot: Plan: http://tinyurl.com/r3fbg Views: http://community.webshots.com/photo/87698289/1087699105036367367BEqzgg http://community.webshots.com/photo/87698289/1087699228036367367DUGmCv http://community.webshots.com/photo/87698289/1087699168036367367PWsYPj http://community.webshots.com/photo/87698289/1087699330036367367jslREb Best, John Dillon (last year's post lightly revised) ********************************************************************** 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