medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (12. May) is also the feast day of:
Philip of Agira (7th cent.?). Philip (also sometimes known -- though not
in recent scholarship -- as Philip the Syrian, Philip of Thrace, and Philip
of Constantinople) was a Greek monk who settled in Argyrium (Greek
Argyrion) near the headwaters of the Salso in east-central Sicily in
today's Enna province. There he became the eponymous founder of one of the
principal monasteries of Byzantine Sicily prior to the Muslim conquest, St.
Philip of Agira or, in Italian, San Filippo d'Agira. He has a probably
later ninth-century Life attributed to one Eusebius, supposedly P.'s
companion on his first century CE trip from the East to Rome and thence as
an evangelist to Sicily but in reality the work of an unknown monk of San
Filippo d'Agira who, perhaps drawing on already existing tradition,
composed this legend. The latter makes P. both an evangelist and a
thaumaturge: his compelling the demons of Etna to roll in flight down the
mountain as so many rocks is a particularly nice touch. The Eusebian Life
gave rise to a closely contemporary canon (long hymn) in P.'s honor and
from this or from the Eusebian Life (or from both) in turn comes the late
medieval but also Greek pseudo-Athanasian Life of P., seemingly written at
and for the Basilian house of San Filippo Grande near Messina. There are
also a number of smaller liturgical compositions, also medieval, in P.'s honor.
P. was once thought to have actually lived in the fifth century. This view
is discounted by scholars who prefer a dating during the late sixth- and
seventh-century partial rehellenization of Sicily but is still quite
prevalent in popular accounts. P.'s cult is widespread in central and
northeastern Sicily and has been transported elsewhere around the world by
emigrants from these places. There is a major celebration at Limina (ME),
described in English here:
http://sicilia.indettaglio.it/eng/comuni/me/limina/turismo/turismo.html
The monastery of San Filippo d'Agira appears to have been abandoned during
the period of Muslim rule; in the later eleventh century, after the
Norman-led conquest, we hear only of a Benedictine monastery here (and not
of any ouster of Greek monks, as happened at this time in, e.g., Nardo' on
the Salentine peninsula). But toponym remained San Filippo d'Agira (and
did so until 1862, when with the demise of the Sicilian kingdom the
surrounding town ceased to be abbatial property and was renamed simply
Agira). Enlargeable photos of the abbey (whose present facade is a
twentieth-century post-earthquake creation) and its church, parts of which
go back to the Norman period, are here:
http://www.siciliano.it/citta.cfm?citta=Agira&StartRow=11
(last three on this page)
and here:
http://www.siciliano.it/citta.cfm?citta=Agira&StartRow=21
(third and sixth photos on this page).
Virtual tours of the abbey church and of other churches in Agira are here:
http://www.agiraweb.it/Conoscere_Agira/Chiese/Default.asp
See Cesare Pasini, ed., _Vita di s. Filippo d'Agira attribuita al monaco
Eusebio_ (Roma: Pont. Institutum Studiorum Orientalium, 1981; Orientalia
Christiana Analecta, no. 214) and idem, ed., "Edizione della Vita
pseudoatanasiana di san Filippo d'Agira vergata da Georgios Basilikos [yes,
"Royal George" --JD] nel codice Athen. Gennad. 39," _Rivista di studi
bizantini e neoellenici_, n.s. 36 (1999), 177-222.
Best,
John Dillon
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