 |
 |
* Spiridion, confessor (350) - a Cypriot shepherd, he became bishop; famed for his knowledge of the Bible despite his lack of education, at the Council of Nicaea he supposedly converted a philosopher There is a 13th-century wall-painting of Spiridion in, of all places, the church of St Mary, Upchurch, Kent. He wasn't a saint who, to my knowledge, appeared extensively in western iconography, though there are of course mosaic cycles depicting him in Cyprus. One speculation as to the source of transmission of the legend is that a Kentish crusader came across him in Cyprus; another link may be the Carmelites, who founded a convent at Aylesford, in Kent, in 1242, only four years after their first settlement in Cyprus and who seem to have had a devotion to Spiridion at any rate by the 15th century and possibly earlier. What seems most odd about the Upchurch cycle is that the iconography does not relate to the best-known traditions about Spiridion as told by Sozomen and Socrates, but rather to the 10th century compilation of Simeon Metaphrastes. One would have expected the Historia Tripartita, the Latin translation of Eusebius and his continuators, to have been better known in 13th cent. England than Simeon Metaphrastes. The paintings themselves are much mutilated, but drawings were made in 1875 when they were uncovered. Andrew Jotischky %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%