medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
NB: I've been having trouble getting through to the list today; apologies if this re-posting turns out to be a duplicate!
Marjorie Greene sent (on behalf of Phyllis):
> Today (10. August) is the feast day of:
> Philomena (?) A set of bones of a young girl were found in the catacomb of Priscilla, with the inscription: "Peace be with you, Philomena." Clearly a saint. The relics were moved to the church of Mugnano del Cardinale near Nola in 1805 and miracles were soon reported. P's cult spread widely and was authorized in 1837. But she was removed from the calendar in 1961 because there's no evidence at all that she was a saint (posthumous miracles apparently not being enough in this case).
Philomena's removal from the calendar did not entail rescission of various papal decrees authorizing other aspects of her cult. The Universal Archconfraternity of St. Philomena continues to encourage devotion to P. at and through her shrine at Mugnano del Cardinale (AV), still a major site of pious pilgrimage. Its website is here (caution: the Flash application may cause trouble for some browsers):
http://www.philomena.it/
This has both Italian-language and English-language versions.
The image of the saint above the altar is a papier-mache reliquary containing P.'s bones.
Under "Acquisto Sante indulgenze" one find an announcement indicating that, at this sanctuary at least, P.'s liturgical feast is celebrated today (11. August). In the section "Facts of St. Philomena" / "Filomena La Santa delle Catacombe" one may also note an emphasis (fuller, BTW, in the English-language version) on P.'s miraculous "blood relic", a vial containing matter when chemically analyzed in the last century turned out to be perfume. The latter is said to have been commonly left in catacomb chambers -- not the most salubrious of venues at any time, I should imagine.
How to make this medieval? Well, Mugnano del Cardinale was once simply Mugnano, a property of the nearby abbey of Montevergine with its famous medieval (and modern) shrine of the Virgin Mary. In the early fifteenth century the abbey lost its right of self-government and was placed under the control of the first of a series of commendatory abbots, all of whom were cardinals from prominent noble families of the kingdom. One of these, Giovanni d'Aragona, built a villa there as his abbatial seat, and ever since Mugnano has been Mugnano del Cardinale, even though the line of cardinal-abbots ceased in the early sixteenth century when cardinal Ludovico d'Aragona transferred the abbey and its properties to the convent of the Annunziata in Naples (a major charitable institution from the Angevin period onward, much patronized by the nobility of Naples). So P.'s shrine has connections of a sort with two medievally noteworthy houses of religion.
And then there's the originally late eleventh- or twelfth-century church of Santa Filomena at Santa Severina (KR), shown here:
http://www.calabriatours.org/beni/crotone/santa_filomena.htm
No, this wasn't the church's original dedication. I have no idea when it acquired its present name or, for that matter, who the Filomena is who is honored in its crypt. There is a saint Filomena venerated at San Severino Marche (on the basis of a seemingly ancient burial discovered in the 1520s; clearly a predecessor of our P.): that's a long way off from southeastern Calabria but the onomastic similarity between the two towns _could_ have resulted in a modern extension of this other Filomena's cult.
Best,
John Dillon
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