medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture

1) Further visuals for the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste:

a) Their suffering as depicted in the remains of the eighth-century apse fresco of the originally late antique oratorio dei Santi Quaranta Martiri Sebasteni adjacent to Santa Maria Antiqua in the Roman Forum:
http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/srkD9JC6z1n3JvkcublQPw

b) The suffering of the Forty as depicted (above the portraits) in an eighth- or perhaps earlier ninth-century fresco in the oratorio dei Quaranta Martiri in the Catacombe di Santa Lucia in Syracuse:
http://tinyurl.com/ydu7t5z
Before restoration:
http://tinyurl.com/yczl6uf

c) The suffering of the Forty as depicted on a tenth-century ivory panel from Constantinople now in the Bode-Museum in Berlin:
http://tinyurl.com/yamt28v

d) A set of expandable views of eleventh-century mosaic portraits of individual Sebastean martyrs in the cathedral of St. Sophia in Kyiv/Kiev starts at the bottom right of this page and continues through the next page into the start of the one that follows it:
http://tinyurl.com/28wg4r7

e) The suffering of the Forty as depicted in a twelfth-century fresco in the church of Agios Nikolaos tis Stegis at Kakopetria (Limassol prefecture) in the foothills of the Troodos Mountains on Cyprus:
http://tinyurl.com/397nlgh

f) A surviving fragment of the martyrs' suffering as depicted in the earlier thirteenth-century (1230s) frescoes of the church of the Ascension of Our Lord in the Mileševa monastery near Prijepolje (Zlatibor dist.) in southern Serbia:
http://tinyurl.com/y9s5qge

g) The suffering of the Forty as depicted in a damaged later thirteenth-century fresco (ca. 1263-1270 or 1270-1272) in the northern choir of the monastery church of the Holy Trinity at Sopoćani (Raška dist.) in Serbia:
http://tinyurl.com/2fpwzct

h) A brief video of details of a thirteenth-century Georgian icon of the suffering of the Forty:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ewg5x-72zfw

i) The suffering of the Forty as depicted on a fifteenth-century Novgorod School icon now in the Timken Museum of Art, San Diego, CA:
http://tinyurl.com/6cwakme

j) The suffering of the Forty as depicted in a later fifteenth-century copy (1463) of the _Speculum historiale_ of Vincent de Beauvais in its French-language version by Jean de Vignay (Paris, BnF, ms. Français 51, fol. 114):
http://tinyurl.com/4qsg4r3

k) The suffering of the Forty as depicted on a late fifteenth- or early sixteenth-century Novgorod School icon tablet now in the State Tretyakov Museum in Moscow:
http://www.icon-art.info/masterpiece.php?lng=en&mst_id=1600


2) Some visuals for Gregory of Nyssa.

a) A view of what is said to be G.'s jawbone, preserved at the Visoki Dečani monastery near Peć in, depending on one's view of recent events, the Republic of Kosovo or Serbia's province of Kosovo and Metohija:
http://www.orthodoxphotos.com/Holy_Relics/Various/6.shtml

b) G. as depicted in the eleventh-century mosaics of the cathedral of St. Sophia in Kyiv/Kiev (the actual portrait is full-length):
http://www.svetigora.com/files/images/23_7.jpg

c) G. as depicted in an unsourced mosaic (eleventh[?]-century; can anyone identify it by location?):
http://www.gregor-von-nyssa.de/gregor1.htm

d) G. (at left; St. Gregory of Nazianzus at right) as depicted in an eleventh- or twelfth-century copy of the _Orationes_ of St. Gregory of Nazianzus (Paris, BnF, ms. Coislin 239, fol. 158v):
http://tinyurl.com/y93gd7l

e) A black-and-white image of G. as depicted in the later twelfth-century mosaics of the Capella Palatina in Palermo:
http://cache.eb.com/eb/image?id=45898&rendTypeId=4
For an idea of the colors of the original, herewith the Capella Palatina's corresponding images of Sts. Basil the Great and John Chrysostom:
http://tinyurl.com/4va3lx7

f) G. as depicted in an earlier fourteenth-century mosaic (ca. 1312) in the parecclesion (now a museum) of the former church of the Pammakaristos (Fethiye camii) in Istanbul:
http://tinyurl.com/4wbqvco

g) G. as depicted in an earlier fourteenth-century fresco (betw. ca. 1312 and 1321) in the altar area of the monastery church of the Theotokos at Gračanica in, depending on one's view of the matter, either Serbia's province of Kosovo and Metohija or the Republic of Kosovo:
http://tinyurl.com/4pye2n7

h) G. (at right) in an earlier fourteenth-century fresco (betw. ca. 1313 and ca. 1320) in the King's Church (dedicated to Sts. Joachim and Anne) in the Studenica monastery near Kraljevo (Raška dist.) in southern Serbia:
http://tinyurl.com/yb6efda

i) G. (at right; St. Athanasius at left) as depicted in an earlier fourteenth-century fresco (betw. 1335 and 1350) in the altar area of the church of the Holy Ascension at the aforementioned Visoki Dečani monastery:
http://tinyurl.com/yhgjkja
Detail:
http://tinyurl.com/yjpc2ud

j) G. as depicted by Theofanis Strelitzas-Bathas (Theophanes the Cretan) in an earlier sixteenth-century fresco (1546 or 1546) in the katholikon of the Stavronikita monastery on Mt. Athos:
http://giornoxgiorno.myblog.it/media/00/00/1826258885.jpg


3) TAN (mostly post-medieval): on Tuesday, March 8, 2011, at 11:09 pm, Terri Morgan sent:

> Forty Martyrs of Sebaste (d. 320) The cult of these inspirational and
> popular (in the east) saints was suppressed in the great calendar
> purge of
> 1969 (celebrated in the west on March 10, this is the Eastern Feast day).

Prior to its final parenthesis this sentence comes from Phyllis Jestice's notice of these saints in 2004: <http://tinyurl.com/4qjlo86>. Its statement that their cult was suppressed in 1969 perpetuates a vulgar confusion between removal from the general Roman Calendar on the one hand and, on the other, the Roman Catholic church's formal suppression of a cult. I can find no evidence that said church (or any other, for that matter) has ever suppressed this cult.

The sentence's final parenthesis is a re-wording of matter from Phyllis' notice of these saints in 2003: <http://tinyurl.com/4llg96v>
Some "in the west" do still celebrate these saints on 10. March. But in that same area most celebrate them today (9. March), just as they already did in 2003 and 2004. Indeed, Phyllis' dropping of this matter from her notice of 2004 could suggest that by then she had already discovered that her comment of the previous year in this particular was misleading. In the medieval west too these saints seem to have been celebrated chiefly on 9. March. Some specifics follow:

Orthodox and other Eastern-rite churches, regardless of where their congregations are situated, ordinarily celebrate the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste on 9. March. The tiny interdenominational Monastic Community of Bose, whose members are located chiefly in Italy, likewise commemorates the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste on 9. March <http://tinyurl.com/5u782z6>.

Within the Roman Catholic church, churches using its Byzantine rite celebrate the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste on 9. March. In the same church's Roman rite, the Martyrs of Sebaste are entered under 9. March in the revised Roman Martyrology of 2001 <http://tinyurl.com/4bswfxz>, <http://tinyurl.com/33klxt> and are listed among the "santi del giorno" for 9 Marzo on the site of the Conferenze episcopale italiana <http://tinyurl.com/2vstp3o>. Still within the Roman Catholic church, the Ambrosian rite appears to commemorate the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste on 10. March: <http://tinyurl.com/6ele786>. "Traditional Catholics" tend to commemorate the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste on 10. March.

In the Roman Martyrology prior to its revision of 2001 the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste were principally commemorated under 9. March with a second mention under 10. March, their former feast day in the general Roman Calendar. In the earlier ninth-century Marble Calendar of Naples the Forty Martyrs are entered under 9. March. In the later fifteenth- and sixteenth-century calendars used by Grotefend for the "Heiligenverzeichnis" of his _Zeitrechnung des Deutschen Mittelalters und der Neuzeit_ the overwhelming majority of commemorations of the Forty Martyrs occur under 9. March; 10. March occurs only once: <http://tinyurl.com/4bugrg4>.

Best,
John Dillon

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