medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
In the first decades of the twelfth century the leading Greek monastery in the Siculo-Calabrian domains of count Roger II of Sicily was St. Bartholomew of Simeri's Nea Hodegetria outside of Rossano in southern Calabria. At some time before Bartholomew's death in 1130 (after which his monastery would become known in his honor as Agia Theotokos tou Patir (or, more simply, the Patirion), Roger asked him to direct the monastery he had been building since 1122 near the tip of the Lingua Phari ("Lighthouse Tongue"), the curving spit of land that forms one side of Messina's harbor and that suggested to ancient Greeks one of the city's earlier names, Zankle ("Sickle"). Bartholomew, who was getting on in years, declined but proposed instead another monk of his house, the Luke now known as St. Luke of Messina (d. 1149).
Roger seems to have accepted, for shortly before 1130 Luke crossed the Strait of Messina with a dozen other monks and the material items (liturgical vessels, service books, etc.) required for establishing a functioning monastery (and more: the foundation's high standards are reflected in Luke's list of the Cappadocian Fathers whose writings he brought with him). Finding no monks to greet them at the still unfinished complex, they settled in and began work at what under Luke's direction and Roger's command would be, from 1133 on, the mother house (_mandra_) of many Greek monasteries in Sicily and of several in Calabria as well. There was already a small church on the site, vowed by Roger I in gratitude for his conquest of Messina and dedicated to the Holy Savior. The monastery took the church's name. As San(tissimo) Salvatore in / de Lingua Phari_ (or, latinizing the latter's Greek equivalent, _in Acroterio_) and with Luke as its first archimandrite it became the island's leading exponent of Greek-language religious culture.
Luke's sarcophagus was kept for centuries in Messina's Benedictine church of San Giovanni di Malta. Since the latter's destruction in the earthquake of 1908 it has been housed in that city's Museo regionale. Luke's cult was immediate both in his own house and in the Patirion at Rossano, which latter had also become an archimandritate. From there it spread to the other houses under their control. Luke entered the Roman Martyrology in its revision of 2001. Here's a view both of his sarcophagus (originally sixth-century but reworked and bearing an epitaph for Luke in Greek verse) and of an inscribed holy water vessel from 1135 thought to be of Sicilian manufacture and found in 1876 in the monastery's ruins in the fort in Punta San Ranieri:
http://tinyurl.com/pdyuuzy
The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has a similar holy water vessel, also inscribed and dating from 1137, that was probably sent as a gift from San(tissimo) Salvatore to the Patirion in Rossano. See the illustrated account in Lisbeth Castelnuovo-Tedesco and Jack Soultanian, _Italian Medieval Sculpture in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Cloisters_ (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010), pp. 42-46 (but on p. 42 one should disregard both Castelnuovo-Tedesco's version of the foundation of SS. Salvatore in Lingua Phari and her statement that as archimandrite Luke was also responsible for the Patirion). For those with access to Google Books, a digital instance is available here: http://tinyurl.com/h4rtp5a
Luke's founder's typikon for the monasteries under his jurisdiction gives in its preface a brief but highly interesting account of the establishment of San(tissimo) Salvatore in Lingua Phari. Timothy Miller's annotated English-language translation of this document can be read here:
http://tinyurl.com/pzys99s
Luke's disciplinary typikon survives in a sixteenth-century Calabrian translation written in the Greek alphabet at the monastery of San Bartolomeo di Trigona outside of today's Sant'Eufemia d'Aspromonte (RC) in Calabria. See the edition by Katherine Douramani, _Il typikon del monastero di S. Bartolomeo di Trigona_ (Roma: Pontificio Istituto Orientale, 2003; Orientalia Christiana Analecta, no. 269), pp. 316-20. San(tissmo) Salvatore in Lingua Phari's liturgical typikon may be read in Miguel Arranz, ed., _Le typicon du monastère du Saint-Sauveur à Messine, Codex Messinensis GR 115, A. D. 1131_ (Roma: Pontificio Istituto Orientale, 1969; Orientalia Christiana Analecta, no. 185). Arranz's view that his base manuscript was in Luke's own hand is now thought questionable.
Luke's monastery on the Lingua Phari (now the Punta San Ranieri) was confiscated in 1546 by Charles V, who converted it into a fort. An explosion and fire in 1549 destroyed most of the monastic structures; what remained was removed or built over in what even today is a restricted-access military site. A distance view of the harbor, with the Punta San Ranieri to the right of center, is here:
http://tinyurl.com/ar3waa
Closer views of the site:
http://tinyurl.com/kkwgjgr
http://tinyurl.com/79uca2s
http://tinyurl.com/q7ycq95
http://www.hollandamericablog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/IMG_40281.jpg
The inscription visible in those last two views view reads in full: VOS ET IPSAM CIVITATEM / BENEDICIMUS
According to Messinese legend, this is how in the year 42 the BVM ended her letter to the faithful of the city, supposedly already largely converted by St. Paul. Not every port can display such august paleochristian recognition.
Best,
John Dillon
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