medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
The well educated and talented Germanus has a legendary, probably eleventh-century Bios (BHG 697) that underlies many accounts of him. He was metropolitan of Cyzicus before becoming patriarch of Constantinople in 715. On 17. January 730 he either resigned his see or was ejected, in either case because his opposition to the emperor Leo III's policy of iconoclasm had made his continued tenure a practical impossibility. The date and circumstances of his death are uncertain. He was rehabilitated by the Second Council of Nicaea (787) which listed him among the great defenders of holy images.
Germanus' surviving sermons show considerable literary artistry. Additionally, he is usually considered the author of the medievally popular _Historia mystica ecclesiae catholicae_, a commentary on the liturgy and on the design of churches in which the liturgy ordinarily unfolds. Germanus is also sometimes considered -- rather less securely -- to have written the hymns attributed to him in the Jerusalem Tropologion. His bodily relics, which were entombed at the monastery of the Savior at Chora, are said to have been removed to France when Constantinople was under Latin rule in the thirteenth century. But in 1348 or, more probably, 1349 the traveler to Constantinople Stephen of Novgorod was shown Germanus' hand (presumably a reliquary said to contain such an object), which latter he says was used to consecrate the city's patriarchs.
Germanus was the first patriarch of Constantinople to bear this name. Neither of his medieval homonyms to have ruled that see (Germanus II, 1223-1240; Germanus III, 1265-1266) has been glorified. Today is Germanus' feast day in the originally tenth-century Synaxary of Constantinople and in its descendants in modern Byzantine-rite churches. It is also his day of commemoration in the Roman Martyrology.
Some period-pertinent images of St. Germanus of Constantinople:
a) as depicted in the late thirteenth-century frescoes (ca. 1295) by Eutychios and Michael Astrapas in the church of the Peribleptos (now Sv. Kliment Ohridski) in Ohrid:
http://tinyurl.com/7r848us
http://tinyurl.com/zzfus8e
b) as depicted in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (betw. ca. 1312 and ca. 1321 / 1322) in the chapel of the Most Holy Theotokos in the monastery church of the Theotokos at Gračanica in, depending on one's view of the matter, either the Republic of Kosovo or Serbia's province of Kosovo and Metohija:
http://tinyurl.com/7yc4jl8
c) as depicted (third from left, betw. Sts. Eustathius of Thessaloniki and Andrew of Crete) by Michael Astrapas and Eutychios in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (betw. 1313 and ca. 1320) in the King's Church (dedicated to Sts. Joachim and Anne) in the Studenica monastery near Kraljevo (Raška dist.) in Serbia:
http://tinyurl.com/2a7ksqu
d) as depicted (roundel with red background) in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (1330s) in the church of the Hodegetria in the Patriarchate of Peć at Peć in, depending on one's view of the matter, either the Republic of Kosovo or Serbia's province of Kosovo and Metohija:
http://tinyurl.com/23b9gdq
Best,
John Dillon
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