medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture

There is, indeed, a St Pancras church near the station (well actually nearer to Euston I think). The present church (quite imposing in a neo-classical way - the only English church I know with an Erechtheion-like form) is only a couple of hundred years old but their web site tells you a little more of the earlier history:

http://www.stpancraschurch.org/index.php?id=12

Rosemary Hayes

----- Original Message ----- From: "Erica Obey" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, July 08, 2016 3:21 PM
Subject: Re: [M-R] FEAST - A Saint for the Day (July 8): St. Pancras of Taormina

medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture

Others can answer with far more erudition than I, but yes, Augustine of
Canterbury brought Pancras' relics to England, and dedicated a church to
him.

Erica

http://www.ericaobey.com
Coming in September, The Lazarus Vector

-----Original Message-----
From: medieval-religion - Scholarly discussions of medieval religious
culture [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Genevra
Kornbluth
Sent: Friday, July 8, 2016 9:28 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [M-R] FEAST - A Saint for the Day (July 8): St. Pancras of
Taormina

medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture

You didn't mention to most famous St. Pancras, in London!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Pancras_railway_station
I've wondered about this, but never gotten around to looking it up.
Was/is there a nearby church of St. Pancras? Is this the same Pancras?
Genevra

On 7/8/2016 12:21 AM, John Dillon wrote:

medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture

Pancras (Pancratius; d. ca. 107, supposedly) is the legendary protobishop

of the northeastern Sicilian port of Taormina.  His legendary Bios kai
Martyrion (BHG 1410-1410b; probably late seventh- or early eighth-century),
supposedly written by his disciple Evagrius, makes him a native of Antioch
whose father took him as an adolescent to Jerusalem, where he saw Jesus with
his own eyes.  Having returned to Antioch, Pancras was later converted to
Christianity by St. Peter.  Peter consecrated him bishop and sent him as a
missionary to Sicily along with St. Marcian of Syracuse.  When Pancras
arrived at Taormina a pagan temple collapsed at the very sight of him.  He
soon converted and baptized the Roman prefect and many others, destroyed
idols, built a church in what had been a temple of Isis, and established a
diocese united with that of Syracuse.  Pancras lived to a great age;
arrested during Trajan's persecution, he was tortured and then stoned to
death.  Thus far the legend.  St. Elias of Enna is said in his Bios to have
venerated Pancras' relics in Taormina at what will have been the end of the
ninth century or the very beginning of the tenth.  These are presumed to
have been lost between the Aghlabid capture of the city in 902 and
Taormina's return to permanent Christian rule in 1079.

Pancras' cult spread widely in the Byzantine commonwealth. He has an

early ninth-century encomium by Gregory the Pagurite (BHG 1411) and is the
subject of an homily by the earlier to mid-twelfth-century Siculo-Calabrian
preacher Philagathus "of Cerami" (BHG 1412).  In the originally
ninth-century Synaxary of Constantinople he has the first entry under 9.
July.  In the late tenth- or early eleventh-century so-called Menologion of
Basil II (actually a synaxary) he is celebrated on 9. February along with
St. Marcellus of Sicily (i.e. Marcian of Syracuse) and St. Philagrius of
Cyprus (another legendary protobishop sent out by St. Peter); modern
Orthodox churches commemorate him on both days.  The Italo-Albanian church
(a direct successor of the medieval Greek church in southern Italy and
Sicily) celebrates him on 9. July.  So do Roman-rite churches in the
ecclesiastical region of Sicily (the celebration is optional in most places
but obligatory in the diocese of Messina).  The earlier ninth-century Marble
Calendar of Naples enters Pancras under today (8. July); that is also his
day of commemoration in the Roman Martyrology.  Pancras is Taormina's patron
saint and the patron or protector of several other places in eastern Sicily.

Some period-pertinent images of St. Pancras (Pancratius) of Taormina:

a) as depicted (at center, betw. Sts. Marcellus of Sicily [i.e. Marcian of

Syracuse] and Philagrius of Cyprus) in the late tenth- or very early
eleventh-century so-called Menologion of Basil II (Città del Vaticano, BAV,
cod. Vat. gr. 1613, p. 388):

http://tinyurl.com/zze45k4

b) as probably depicted (at left) in a twelfth-century fresco in the

church of Sts. Jason and Sosipater in Anemomilos / Anemomylos, a suburb of
Corfu (city) on Corfu:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/7549203@N04/4632660373/

c) as depicted in the mid-twelfth-century mosaics of the chiesa di Santa

Maria dell'Ammiraglio (a.k.a. chiesa della Martorana) in Palermo:

http://tinyurl.com/2935d2e

d) as depicted (at center in the panel at lower right; martyrdom) in an

earlier fourteenth-century pictorial menologion from Thessaloniki (betw.
1322 and 1340; Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Gr. th. f. 1, fol. 46v):

http://image.ox.ac.uk/images/bodleian/msgrthf1/46v.jpg

Best,
John Dillon

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