Patron Saints in the times of Christianization. Some reflections about Great Moravian dedications

Abstract

The study sums up previous research of Great Moravian dedications. The research of this issue is rather challenging – mainly because a lot of then churches existed only for a short period of time. Many of Great Moravian churches were built during the 9th century and perished around 900 AD which means that they were in existence only for several decades and only few of them “managed“ to leave some traces in historical sources during such short time. Nevertheless, the presented data proves that to a certain extent, reconstruction of Great Moravian dedications is possible. Obviously, this is a difficult task. Without a doubt, dedications of some sacral objects will never be found out. The text focuses mainly on 22 sacral objects, which have – surely or very likely – Great Moravian origin. Dedications of 12 objects are unknown (it concerns mainly the churches of destroyed hillforts in Mikulčice and Pohansko). Dedications of remaining 10 sacral objects are either known or we can reconstruct them with some degree of probability. Thus, in Great Moravia existed cults of most common Christian saints there – Mary, John (probably the Baptist), perhaps also Peter, George and Michael, but also cults connected with some specific missions – that from Diocese of Passau (Hippolytus, probably connected with missionaries from Austrian Benedictine abbey in Sankt Pölten ) and that of Cyril and Methodius (Clement). Dedications to Hippolytus and Clement are particularly interesting, also because in Moravia there are some later medieval churches dedicated to those saints. The possible connection between Great Moravian and post-Great-Moravian cults of those saints is one of the most interesting tasks for future research in this respect.