medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
What is known about the life of Athanasius the Athonite (d. ca. 1001), the founder of the Great Lavra (despite its name, a cenobitic monastery) on Mt. Athos, comes mostly from two early Bioi (A: BHG 187; B: BHG 188) that may both derive from an even earlier Bios, now lost. He was a native of Trebizond and his baptismal name was Abraamios ("Abraham"). Orphaned at an early age, he moved to Constantinople after the deaths of his adoptive parents. There he studied rhetoric and began a teaching career. Always very ascetic, he soon moved to a monastery in Bithynia where he lived for several years under the direction of St. Michael Maleinos and became good friends with the latter's nephew, the future emperor Nicephoras Phocas (r. 963-969). In 962/63 with Nicephoras' help Athanasius founded the monastery for which he is known; in the years that followed he enriched it through grants from members of other great families and wrote for it a typikon (Rule) that was to be greatly influential. A scholarly, English-language translation of Athanasius' typikon for the Great Lavra is here:
http://tinyurl.com/hcwqteh
Athanasius died along with several other monks when the upper part of a roof they were building for a church fell in on them. His cult was immediate and miracles were associated with what came to be viewed as his incorrupt body. Here's a view of his tomb in the Great Lavra:
http://tinyurl.com/op52sa
Today is Athanasius' feast day in Byzantine-rite churches; some of these include in this celebration the monks who died with him. It is also his day of commemoration in the Roman Martyrology.
Some period-pertinent images of St. Athanasius the Athonite:
a) as depicted (grayscale view) in the late thirteenth- or very early fourteenth-century frescoes attributed to Manuel Panselinos in the Protaton church on Mt. Athos:
http://tinyurl.com/guf7hge
Detail views (color):
http://www.myriobiblos.gr/museum/gallery/panselinos/41.jpg
http://www.myriobiblos.gr/museum/gallery/panselinos/42.jpg
b) as depicted in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (betw. ca. 1312 and 1321/1322) in the chapel of the Most Holy Theotokos in the monastery church of the Theotokos at Gračanica in, depending on one's view of the matter, either the Republic of Kosovo or Serbia's province of Kosovo and Metohija:
http://tinyurl.com/6o7sx9u
c) as depicted by Michael Astrapas and Eutychios in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (ca. 1314-ca. 1320) in the church of St. Nikita at Čučer in today's Čučer-Sandevo in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia:
http://tinyurl.com/gl2ul4l
Detail view (image reversed):
http://tinyurl.com/h4gymh6
d) as depicted in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (betw. 1335 and 1350) of the nave in the church of the Holy Ascension at the Visoki Dečani monastery near Peć in, depending on one's view of the matter, either the Republic of Kosovo or Serbia's province of Kosovo and Metohija:
http://tinyurl.com/hgu24th
Detail view:
http://tinyurl.com/jhk86uf
e) as depicted in a full-page illumination in a fourteenth- or fifteenth-century copy of the Athanasian Rule (Mt. Athos, Megiste Lavra, cod. E 194, fol. 1v):
http://tinyurl.com/jguf66n
http://ikonostasis.blogspot.com/2009/07/saints-alpha.html
f) as depicted in a later fourteenth-century icon (ca. 1360-1380) in the Pantokrator monastery on Mt. Athos:
http://tinyurl.com/257dvao
g) as depicted (at right; at left, St. Gerasimus of Palestine) in the late fourteenth-century frescoes (1389; restored in 1971 and 1972) of the monastery church of St. Andrew at Matka (near Skopje) in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia:
http://tinyurl.com/jobt6xq
h) as depicted (at left, with Sts. Barlaam, center, and Joasaph, right) in a late fifteenth- or early sixteenth-century Novgorod School icon in the Museum of History and Architecture, Novgorod:
http://tinyurl.com/2wexexu
Best,
John Dillon
**********************************************************************
To join the list, send the message: subscribe 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: unsubscribe 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/medieval-religion
|