medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
On Wednesday, February 23, 2005, at 9:47 pm, Phyllis wrote:
> Today (24. February) is the feast day of:
> John Theristus (d. 1129) John's mother had been captured in a raid
> and enslaved in Sicily, where J. was born. He escaped at the age of
> 14 and went back to his mother's Calabrian homeland, where he became
> a monk. He got his nickname (Theristus = "harvester") because he
> miraculously brought in a large harvest before a storm broke.
John was an Italo-Greek; according to his Life, his parents' homeland
was Cursano, a town near Stilo in the Locride, the strip of territory
running along Calabria's southernmost Ionian coast. Muslim raiders
from Sicily attacked Cursano, killing many of its inhabitants
(including its head official, J.'s father), and brought J.'s mother --
already pregnant with J. -- back to Sicily as a slave. The Life, which
exists in two versions, one in rather basic Greek and the other a more
elegant re-writing, was written for the Greek monastery founded by J.
at today's Bivongi (RC), near Stilo, and it is from that monastery that
his cult has spread.
In Greek churches worldwide John's feast day occurs pretty uniformly on
23. February. But the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Italy, which has
overseen the monastery since 24. February 1995, has accepted the Latin-
rite practice of surrounding communities and also celebrates J. today.
J.'s nickname "Theristes" is Greek for "harvester". Latin "Theristus"
is merely a literal rendering of the name into Latin; it suggests
Greek "Theristos" and that, depending on the initial vowel, would mean
either "Harvest" (as opposed to "Harvester, Mower") or else -- not
particularly appropriate for a saint! -- "Very Beastly". Given its
Greek origin, the name is better latinized/anglicized either simply
as "Theristes" (as in _Samson Agonistes_, etc.) or, hewing more closely
to medieval and modern Greek pronunciations,
as "Therestis". "Therestes" (in Italian, "Tereste") and "Theristis"
also occur; the latter is the preferred form (both in Italian and in
English) of the Orthodox Archdiocese of Italy.
J.'s Life is thought to have been written in the 12th century and to
have been rewritten in the early 13th, probably to document some
possessions of his monastery near Stilo when the latter was re-
chartered under Frederick II. Two early modern Latin translations,
both rather free (but the one in the _Acta Sanctorum_ is considerably
more so), underlie many modern accounts of this saint. More
trustworthy is Silvano Borsari, ed. and tr., "Vita di San Giovanni
Terista" [note yet another form of this name!}, _Archivio storico per
la Calabria e la Lucania_ 22 (1953), 13-21 ("Introduzione"; the
argument for dating based on the word "basileus" is, however,
unconvincing) and 135-51 ("Testi"). Borsari (op. cit., p. 17) also
shows that J. was dead by August 1099, as his monastery was then
already named in his honor; later references (1100/01; 1101/02; 1105)
to the monastery so named make it even more difficult to accept the
older notion, repeated in Phyllis' source, that J. will have somehow
survived until 1129. A recent historical study by Paola Gaglioti, _Il
monastero calabro di San Giovanni Therestis. Documentazione e
tradizione fino all'eta' moderna_ (Universita' degli studi di Torino,
Facolta' di Scienze Politiche, tesi di laurea, anno accademico 2000-
2001), deals with the hagiography as well as with the monastery's more
mundane documentation and is available online at:
http://www.bivongi.com/elenco.php?categoria=258
(leave this page open; you'll need it for navigation from one page to
another!).
See also Francesco Russo, "Giovanni Theristi, santo," in the
_Bibliotheca Sanctorum_, vol. 6 (1965), cols. 911-13, S. G. Mercati, C.
Giannelli, and A. Guillou, edd., _Saint-Jean-Theristes (1054-1264)_
(Citta' del Vaticano: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1980; = Corpus
des actes grecs d'Italie du sud et de Sicile. Recherches d'histoire et
de geographie, vol. 5; has another ed. of the Life), and Augusta
Acconcia Longo, "S. Giovanni Terista nell'agiografia e
nell'innografia," in _Calabria bizantina. Civilta' bizantina nei
territori di Gerace e Stilo_ (Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino, 1998), pp.
137-54.
A distance view of the surviving monastery buildings is here:
http://www.magnagrecia.it/turismo/calabria/italiano/monument/bivongi/mon
aste1.jpg
TinyURL for this: http://tinyurl.com/3syfk
And a somewhat closer view of the monastery church (Greek: katholikon;
Italian: cattolica), begun in the late 11th century, is here:
http://www.bivongi.com/admin/foto/732_1.jpg
The more recent portions to the left are the remains of the cloister.
Two rear views of the church:
http://www.ortodossia.it/theris.jpg
http://tismappe.calabriaweb.it/MinoranzeLinguistiche/s_giovanni_theristi
s.jpg
TinyURL for this: http://tinyurl.com/6qlkq
Two views of the new iconostasis:
http://www.ortodossia.it/theri.jpg
http://www.sosed.it/Cdsole/Feb97/I11-0297.jpg
And an Italian-language description of the monastery's architecture
(particularly that of the church) is here:
http://www.sbvibonese.vv.it/sezionet/pag281_t.aspx
And here's the Ecumenical Patriarch, Bartholomew I, during his visit in
March 2001.
http://www.ortodossia.it/Patriarca.jpg
Finally, two views of the nearby 10th-century cattolica of Stilo:
http://tismappe.calabriaweb.it/MinoranzeLinguistiche/cattolica.jpg
http://www.arte-argomenti.org/storia/sud/cattolica.jpg
Best,
John Dillon
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