Figures Of Saints Research Articles

The Tomb of Nabi Yusha’ in the Upper Galilee: The Evolution of a Sacred Place

Among the six sites regarded as the burial place of Joshua bin Nun, the one of Nabi Yusha’, located on the eastern slopes of the Upper Galilee highlands was regarded with great reverence by the "Matawila" or "Mutawalli" Shi'ites in Southern Lebanon and in the Galilee, including the inhabitants of the village Al-Nabi Yusha’. Jewish tradition tends to reject the identification of Joshua’s tomb at this site but rather identify it with a site in Samaria, and therefore this place did not become part of the traditional sanctified gravesites of saintly figures found throughout the Galilee. This article is related to the date and reason for the construction of the mausoleum in its present form, and of the two domes over it, as well as to the tradition of pilgrimage to the site and the cult of the local Shi’ite inhabitants. In its second part, the article refers to the cultic changes that occurred after the establishment of the State of Israel, and to the question of the location of the tomb today in the process of creating a sacred landscape in the Galilee. The main claim of the article is that tracing the changes in the cult of this site will show the geopolitical importance of this place on the one hand, and the changing social values of the surrounding inhabitants and of the sovereign authority on the other.

Теологическая основа программы визуального представления истории в манускриптах «Хроник в картинах» эпохи Ренессанса

This study examines theological aspects of a particular group of illuminated Renaissance manuscripts, known as “Chronicles in Pictures”. Miniatures in this codex group, stored in different museums, private collections and libraries date back to the lost “Uomini famosi” mural in Giordano Orsini’s palace in Rome (1432, attributed to Masolino da Panicale). Following the fresco cycle of Sala Theatri, the world history was represented through images of “famous people” from different times. This collection of figures formed a distinctive view of a “universal chronicle”. The article explores characteristic features of the Crespi Chronicle, the Cockerell Chronicle and their later copies, and focuses on the construction of the narra-tives and on the characterization of individual images. Particular attention is paid to textual sources of the tradition to present universal history as a realization of God’s plan of salva-tion. The visual narrative begins with a symbolic representation of the creation of the world through the symbols of four primary elements, then traces the periodization of history into Six Ages, widely used in the imagery of the manuscripts. The paper further discusses some peculiar interpretations of biblical imagery, including figures of saints and church fathers. A special place in the artistic language of “Chronicles in Pictures” was occupied by attributes and gestures, which helped viewers to appreciate main semantic lines and contexts of the narrative.

Women’s genius according to St. John Paul II

The original term the ‘woman’s genius’ by St. John Paul II, contained in the letter Mulieris dignitatem and his other documents, accurately defines spirituality and the proper role of women in the Church and society. It can be a hermeneutical key when studying the figures of saints and outstanding women, including the Servant of God, Jadwiga Zamoyska. As the participation of women in the triple mission of Christ: priestly, prophetic and kingly, the ‘woman’s genius’ manifests itself in various ways. We find its fullness in Mary.

Femmes fatales, saints, empowered women: Female biopics in Italian public television

Joining the current scholarly dialogue between biopic studies and gender/feminist/media studies, this work is meant to retrace the evolution of gender politics as expressed in the biographical genre which has played the role of the mainstay of domestic television drama since the origin of Italian broadcasting. Through a historical perspective that aims to track continuity and change over time, this work places a major focus on the 2000s, during which time women’s biographies experienced considerable growth on Italian television and more importantly began to replace traditional figures of saints and femmes fatales with female professionals in positions of leadership (journalists, politicians, entrepreneurs, scientists and artists). Based on the examination of several biopics and the close analysis of the most watched recent biopic about an ‘empowered woman’ (Luisa Spagnoli [2016]), this article seeks to explore whether the new wave of female biopics breaks crystallized generic conventions and foregrounds new representational strategies influenced by feminism or post-feminism.

Crkva Bogorodice Odigitrije u selu Mušutište kod Prizrena

The history of Serbian secular art begins in the 16th century during the reign of King Milutin. In a strengthened state, Serbian nobility gained a new position in society. The new role of the nobility, as well as their newly acquired rights and responsibilities, became most evident through the construction of their own endowments.Taking inspiration from their ruler and his significant philanthropic activities, the most powerful among them followed his example. We don't have much information about the early noble endowments. The oldest known such endowment, which has been preserved to this day, is the Church of Virgin Mary Odigitri in the village of Musutistu near Prizren. Based on the donor's inscription that was located above the lintel of the western portal, we know that the church was built in the year 1315 by the great treasurer Jovan Dragoslav.Jovan Dragoslav, a high-ranking state official with executive authority, was the guardian of the royal treasury and had access to the material resources that the king allocated for the construction of a large number of endowments. The Church of Virgin Mary Odigitri in Musutistu was built following the model of a royal endowment, the Church of St. Nikita in Skopska Crna Gora. The builder replicated the architectural design that had been realized in this royal church a decade earlier. The architectural concept of both churches had its origins in the main Byzantine centers. This could also suggest the origin of the builders, who likely came to Serbia from Thessaloniki.The frescoes of the church have suffered significantly over the centuries. Only about ten figures of saints were preserved in the sanctuary and the northwest part of the cella. The rest of the surfaces had been painted over. Based on the preserved figures, it was clear that talented craftsmen had worked here. This was evidenced by the preserved figures of archbishops, holy women, holy warriors, and one figure of a holy physician.Byzantine artists brought the spirit of Palaeologan art to Serbia. Among the best of them were Mihajlo Astrapa and Evtihij, who served the king and came from Thessaloniki. We do not have information about the origins of the artists who painted the Church of Virgin Mary Odigitri in Musutistu. The preserved inscriptions on the frescoes were written in both Serbian and Greek, which was common in churches of that time. The great treasurer Jovan Dragoslav, who was respected court nobility, could undoubtedly have easily accessed skilled and talented artists. They can be counted among the finest artists of their era.Changes in the Serbian state during the reign of King Milutin led to material and spiritual progress for the people. This is best observed through the noble endowments, which were in their infancy at the time and marked a new chapter in the history of Serbian art, beginning in the early 16th century.

William James and the Pragmatic Rhetoric of Exemplary Figures: Inspirations for Spiritual Meliorism, Democratic Individuality, and Empowered Social Change

ABSTRACT As a longstanding area of practice and inquiry in rhetorical scholarship, the role of the example in rhetorical discourse has undergone its share of debates, discussions, and important advancements. One important topic of discussion on these matters involves the role of the example in providing either strategic ambiguity or experiential clarity. Through an analysis of William James’s deployment of a pragmatic rhetoric of exemplary figures in The Varieties of Religious Experience, this essay advances a view of the example as a resource for transforming the ambiguous consequences of inner ideals into pragmatic and empowered social action. In a chapter titled “The Value of Saintliness,” James invokes a cadre of saintly figures as exemplars in the attempt to cultivate democratic individuality and inspire social change efforts through the conduct of spiritual meliorism. This essay offers expanded conceptions of exemplarity and pragmatist rhetoric in contexts concerning democracy and social justice.

Утраченные фресковые росписи пещерных церквей Инкермана («храм с крещальней», «церковь География», монастырь св. Софии)

Introduction. Among the “cave towns” of Mountainous Southwestern Crimea, there are monuments located in the lower reaches of the Black River valley. There are no less than 9 rock-cut monastic complexes which include about 30 temples. Methods. Some churches of the 13th–15th centuries were decorated with fresco paintings. Today, frescoes have been preserved only in one church. Sources of the 18th–20th centuries indicate traces of paintings in more than five temples. Frescoes inside the “temple with baptistery”, “Church of Geography (Eugraphy)”, and the Monastery of St. Sophia have not survived. Archival materials that expose the plots and compositions are published in this work. Analysis. The frescoes of the “temple with baptistery” date back to the 13th century. The Deesis composition is reconstructed in the apse conch. In the “Church of Geography (Eugraphy)” (the 13th century), on each side of the throne, four figures of saints are depicted (The Holy Fathers composition). This is probably: John Chrysostom, Gregory the Theologian, Basil the Great, Cyril of Alexandria, Gregory of Nyssa, Athanasius of Alexandria and two more saints from among the Cappadocian Fathers. One of them is obviously St. Blaise. This painting in general terms repeats the traditional scheme of the lower register of the painting of the apses of the cave temples of the mountainous Crimea. The monastery of St. Sofia should be dated back to the 14th–15th centuries. During the period of the monastery’s functioning, there were fresco paintings in the Main Church and Church no. 3, but all the attempts to attribute them were unsuccessful. Results. The analyzed frescoes show themes of Deesis and the Great Cappadocians. They are common for altar compositions in cave temples in South-West Crimea. In the interiors of the cave temples of Inkerman, there are: simple linear ornaments, complex plant reports, linear ornaments with complex weaving and plant elements.

Modelizing epistemologies: organizing Catholic sanctity from calendar-based martyrologies to today’s mobile apps

Abstract The Catholic concept of “sanctity” can be thought of as a “cultural unit” (Eco) composed of a wide variety of “grounds” (Peirce) or distinctive features. The figures of individual saints, i.e., tokens of sanctity, are characterized by a particular set of grounds, organized and represented in texts of different genres. This paper presents a semiotic study of texts seeking to offer an encompassing view of “sanctity” by listing all the saints and supplementing their names with a short description of their lives emphasizing the grounds characterizing each of them. The analysis focuses on a seminal liturgical text, the Martyrologium Romanun (1584–2004), and the first official encyclopedia of saints, the Bibliotheca Sanctorum (1961–2013), as well as a sample of digital texts and media such as websites and mobile apps. While the first text offers a dogmatic perspective on sanctity and saintly figures and the second offers a historical and culturological one, websites succeed in reconciling the two paradigms into a single syncretic form of interactive fruition in which the more up-to-date encyclopedic model subsumes the traditional calendar one and, in the case of apps, adds a glocal dimension, enhancing situated cognition. The analysis shows that the introduction of the encyclopedic genre and subsequent proliferation of digital repertoires is connected to a shift in the Catholic “episteme” (Foucault) of sanctity and a growing tendency to consider saints as not (only) religious characters and objects of cult, but (also) as historical individuals and components of a culture and, consequently, as suitable objects of critical discourse.

Memorial buildings of Ternopil region (origins and formation of design in the XIX — first third of the XX century)

Ternopil region today is the center of tourist routes. Many monuments of memorial stonework have been preserved here. Most of them are currently in an abandoned and little-studied state. Therefore, the research of memorial buildings is relevant today. The research methodology is based on systematics, reliability, logic, historicism. The purpose of the study is to begin a comprehensive work on the study, preservation, restoration of memorials and to explore the problem of using these art objects for tourism purposes. The author examined hundreds of memorial buildings in Ternopil region. Most of them have been developed and put into scientific circulation for the first time. In particular, in Terebovlya, Narayiv and other centers of stonemasonry. The national peculiarities of memorial constructions of masonry are considered, i.e. isosceles/ Greek type of crosses with endings in the form of a shamrock, peculiarities of iconography of drawings of figures of Saints, of Jesus Christ, etc., thematic variety of sculptural figures. In the perspective of further research, it is recommended to provide theoretical justifications for the creation of lapidary museums of memorials in order to better preserve them for posterity and use as artistic objects for tourist routes.

The model of Mary between Islam and Catholicism: The figurativization of normative principles in the intercultural exchange

Abstract In the Catholic tradition, saintly characters work as figurativizations or narrative representations of underlying values and normative principles and therefore represent strategic communication media to disseminate particular models of behavior among the faithful. This paper tests the efficacy of the representation of saintly figures in the case of the interreligious dialogue by focusing on the case study of the construction and communication of the figure of the Virgin Mary in the encounter between Catholics and Muslims. What emerges from an analysis of scholarly and institutional texts, as well as from some reflections on ecumenical practices in Marian shrines, is that the representation of Mary as the figurativization of abstract values and norms mostly concerns a cultivated elite and that the dialogue on the respective representations of Mary is quite limited and concerns especially Mary as the model of the perfect pious and devout person.

PRODUCTION OF ARTILLERY IN LVIV IN THE XV–XVIII CENT. AND PARTICIPATION OF THE UKRAINIANS IN IT

The article describes the events that accompanied the process of the appearance, production, and decline of artillery production in Lviv in the XIV–XVIII centuries. The factors that have become prerequisites for setting up the production of guns in Lviv are analyzed. An important factor influencing the development of metalworking and weapons production in Lviv was the rich deposits of marsh ore from the Dniester along the Zubra River valley to Lviv. Long before the casting of artillery in the city was already pouring bells. Due to its favorable geographical location, Lviv was an important center of trade and crafts, which in turn contributed to the rapid emergence of new weapons in the city. The initial period of development of artillery production is characterized, the preserved Lviv bell tower of the XІV century is described from the holdings of the Museum of the Polish Army, it was concluded that its design corresponds to the requirements of the time.The key moments of the development of artillery production in Lviv in the XVI–XVII centuries are considered with an emphasis on the ethnic origin of foundries operating in the city. The influence of European production technologies is monitored through foreign craftsmen who worked as a sworn city foundries. The high authority of Lviv foundries is evidenced by the right to supervise masters of their profession throughout the territory of the Rzeczpospolita on a par with Krakow’s colleagues. We do not find any documentary references to the involvement of Ukrainians in working with city guns. Obviously, this is due to the general confrontation between the communities in the city at the time.Military-political and economic reasons for the actual cessation of production of artillery after the invasion of Charles XII’s troops are examined. An attempt to resume casting in Lviv at the beginning of the XVIII century is described. On the basis of the analysis of some documents of the Epiphany fraternity and a comparative analysis of the image of the figures of saints on guns, it is established that I. Polyansky — the author of the last known series of guns poured in Lviv, was of Greek Catholic faith, that is — Ukrainian in origin.

Texture, Colour and Surface Appearance of the Cividale Stuccoes

The article discusses the material and aesthetic qualities of the female stucco saints in the Tempietto Longobardo at Cividale del Friuli (c. AD 750). The stuccoes combine two artistic and technical traditions: marble statuary of antique derivation and figural stucco relief. The surface texture of stucco differs considerably from that of marble: while marble is shiny, stucco tends to be dull. Since colours enhanced the visual impact of the saintly figures in the Tempietto, the polychromy – of which only very faint traces remain – was probably the most important aspect of the sculpture. It is a matter of speculation whether the viewer would have perceived any physical difference in surface appearance between the painted stucco and painted stone when seen from a distance. In order to gain an idea of the aesthetic impact of the reliefs when painted and perhaps gilded, the article presents hypothetical reconstructions of colour based on the wall paintings preserved in the Tempietto.

Martyrdom, Liberation, and Belonging: An Ethnography on the Popular Saint George Veneration among Palestinian Christians

ABSTRACT Among the broad religious spectrum of the Levant, the figure of Saint George/Al-Khader stands out. As the patron saint of Palestine, Saint George is one of the most popular saints among Palestinian Christians. Traditionally, the popular Saint George veneration has been associated with phenomena such as Canaanite rituals, shared shrines, blood sacrifices, and rural culture. This centuries-old practice survived and is still widely alive among local Palestinian Christians. Based on a critical study of textual sources and twelve months of ethnographic fieldwork in the West Bank, this article provides an ethnographic-theological account on the Palestinian Saint George veneration, focusing on the controversial political uses and the spiritual meaning of this figure in the Palestinian context. I argue that this popular faith expression has transformed from a cult focused on human flourishing to a platform for grassroots theological ideas, mainly concerning themes like martyrdom, liberation, and belonging to the land.

The Catholicon of the Monastery of Agios Panteleimon on the Island of Ioannina, Greece

The Catholicon of the Monastery of Agios Panteleimon on the Island of Ioannina, Greece

ОБОРОННИЙ КОСТЕЛ СВЯТОГО МИКОЛАЯ ТА МОНАСТИР ОО. БЕРНАРДИНІВ У БЕРЕЖАНАХ

The article is devoted to the history of the monastery of the Order of Bernardines in Berezhany in Ternopil region. The analysis of the architectural features of the complex is main purpose of the work. The monastery is located in the northwest corner of the city. The territory of the was surrounded by defensive bastion fortifications. The monastery fortifications were a part of the city defensive lines. The mountain, on which the monastery located, is called - "St. Nicholas Mountain". On the place of the present monastery was a boyar's manor in the XIV century, and then the orthodox church of St. Nicholas.The construction of a defensive complex of monastic buildings began in 1630. The Bernardine complex includes - the Catholic Church of St. Nicholas, the house of the monastery cells, defensive walls and ramparts. The complex occupied the highest position in the north-western wing of the city's defense system. It was an important strategic point that controlled the Lviv-Berezhany road. The construction of all the objects of the monastery lasted 112 years until 1742.In 1809–1812, the Austrian authorities liquidated the city's powerful defenses. In particular, the ramparts and bastions that were on the territory of the monastery were eliminated. Today there is only a fragment of a defensive wall and a moat on the southern slope of the mountain, which separated the territory of the monastery from the urban areas of the New Town. The fortifications of the monastery are shown on the map of 1720 by Major Johann von Fürstenhof. The bastion belt of the monastery had underground structures. In 2010, murals were found in the interior of the church. According to the author, the carved stone decoration of the church (columns, capitals) was made by the sculptor Johann Pfister (in 1630–1642). The altars, with carved figures of saints, were probably made by the artist Georg Ioan Pinzel from Buchach. The architecture of the monastery's defensive structures needs further research. In the temple there are several valuable icons of the prophetic series of iconostasis. These are works originating from the famous Krasnopushchany iconostasis by Gnat Stobynsky and Fr. Theodosius of Sichynskyi. This iconostasis was donated in 1912 by Metropolitan Andrei Sheptytskyi. Restoration work on the monastery began in 2007 after a visit by President Victor Yushchenko. First of all, the roof of the temple was repaired. Work is underway to restore and recreate the interior of the temple. Archaeological research of lost fortifications needs special attention.

The making of a hybrid body: Corpus Christi in Lisbon, 1582

AbstractIn Renaissance Lisbon, the procession of Corpus Christi was not only the most important event on the liturgical calendar but also one of the largest collectively produced works of art. This article argues that, in order to understand this complex, multi‐layered artwork, it is necessary to move beyond such categorical opposites as ‘local vs. other’, ‘artist vs. viewer’ and even ‘people vs. things’, and instead approach these processions as a certain kind of hybrid. Focussing on a publication that recounts the Corpus Christi procession of September 1582, held to coincide with King Philip II of Spain’s residency in Lisbon, the first part of the article examines the diverse artistic origins of elements of the procession, which included highly decorated streets, music, dances, and countless figures of saints and demons, demonstrating that Renaissance Lisbon was a hybrid space. The second part of the article asks how this hybridity can be studied when art historical concepts and methods developed for canonical European art do not easily apply. It instead proposes an anthropologically inspired framework that defines Lisbon’s Corpus Christi as a networked hybrid of things, humans, and ideas.

Hidden and forgotten frescoes in Danilo’s narthex at the patriarchate of Pec

The paper discusses unknown frescoes in the narthex of the Patriarchate of Pec Monastery dating from c. 1332 and found during the conservation-restoration works undertaken in 1931. They were discovered above the younger vaults (the cycle of the Passion of Christ) and in the large arched openings on the western side of the narthex, which were walled up in the sixteenth century (cycle of the True Cross, busts and figures of saints). During works on the presentation of the monument in 1932, these frescoes were once again concealed without having been subjected to scholarly research. However, the photographs taken during the conservation works do allow them to be studied. The results of their research have significantly altered the picture of the original wall paintings in the narthex.

Монументальная живопись Никейской империи: границы и этапы развития

The article deals with the murals of the Empire of Nicaea. There were several centres of art production in the Empire. At the time of the Empire’s foundation the murals of Zoodochos Pege in Monagri on Kos and of Tavşan Ada (the 4th layer) were created by the same local artists. The next stage (first third of the13th century) is represented by the paintings in Caria and Ionia: on the Inçekemer Taş rock, in the destroyed church in Punta on Mykale cap, Deesis in the skeuofylakion of St. John church in Ephesos, in the church onTheatre terrace in Pergamon and the frescoes of Latmos (monastic caves outside the Kellibaron gate, cave of Christ above Ancient Latmos, cave of St. Paul of Latmos). Some echoes of the dynamic style of the 12th century are combined in these ensembles with new trends — voluminous characteristic faces, modeled in Kellibaronin live pasty technique. The frescoes of Pergamon and Ephesos look more ordinary. Next stage, the reign of John III Vatatzes, is represented by the paintings in Kyriakosellia on Crete (1230–1236) attributed to Nicene masters. These are high quality paintings, with much more plasticity and inspiration, however, with some provincialism. They are characterized by spatial compositions, complicated architecture,dynamic poses of saints with voluminous figures and plastic faces, sometimes grotesque. On the contrary, the third layer of murals of St. Michael at Thari and the first layer in St. Phanourios in the old cityof Rhodes (1226–1234) made by Nicene painters demonstrate more archaic elements. The second layer of the murals in Patmos refectory (1230–1240) must have been created under Nicene influence, while some ensembles on the islands of Crete, Leros and Cos made under the influence of Patmos were painted by Niceneartists themselves, as A. Katsioti suggests. The style of frescoes in the basilica of Anaia and the two pastophoria of St. Sophia in Nicaea continue and develop the trends outlined in Kyriakosellia, demonstrating the third stage in the development of Nicene art at the end of the reign of John III Vatatzes and Theodore III Laskaris(1240–1250s). Their careful consideration reveals high quality of painting, refined colors, monumental scaleof figures of saints and angels, obvious emphasis on volume and lively turns. The faces have beautiful classical types with large features. The monumental classicism of these poorly preserved paintings, dating back mostlikely to around the middle of the 13th century, is impressive. These frescoes should be placed somewhere between the paintings of Mileševa and Sopoćani. To Nicene painters should be also ascribed the frescoes of Bojana(1259), the first layer in the church of Sts. Nicholas and John in Stavropigi, Mesa Mani, and the murals inthe monastery of the Virgin Kyriotissa in Constantinople. Appreciating the role of Nicea in the developmentof art one should consider another important center, Thessaloniki. Yet the art connections between these two centers, Constantinople and The Second Bulgarian Kingdom, were really complex. Poorly preserved and little-known monuments of the Empire of Nicea allow a better understanding of the artistic processes of the13th century, which led to the appearance of the Early Palaeologan style.

Praying with the Senses: Contemporary Orthodox Christian Spirituality in Practice ed. by Sonja Luehrmann†

Reviewed by: Praying with the Senses: Contemporary Orthodox Christian Spirituality in Practice ed. by Sonja Luehrmann† Irina Paert Sonja Luehrmann†, ed. Praying with the Senses: Contemporary Orthodox Christian Spirituality in Practice. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2018. 264 pp. (illustrated). Following the ground-breaking volume edited by Chris Hann on Eastern Christianities from an anthropological perspective, this book is a step forward in the process of breaking with the stereotypes that surround Orthodoxy. It continues the program initiated by Hann in studying Eastern Christianity through ethnographic studies and provides a mature response to the challenges presented in the earlier studies. Focusing on prayer, eight authors engage in a fascinating conversation about various aspects of Orthodox approaches to communication with the divine, emphasizing the material, the practical, and the sensory. The volume engages in a subtle way with the dichotomies that characterize Western Christianity—individual versus communal, logos versus icon, ritual versus theology, institution versus charisma, and so on—dichotomies that are not issues for Eastern Christianity. The volume is exemplary of scholarly collaboration, evident in the ways parts of the book intersect with and cross-reference each other, suggesting effective dialogue and reciprocal learning. Vlad Naumescu draws on examples from his research on Greek Catholics in Ukraine, Old Believers, and the Malabars in India, borrowing the metaphor "mystery and mastery" from an Indian priest and exploring an ethical tradition of Orthodox faith that is passed not through moral prescriptions, but through tradition embodied in holy figures. Drawing parallels between the Protestant born-again experience and the renewal of faith among Orthodox, Naumescu emphasizes that tradition is "the primary source to draw on in order to flourish in the present and [it] provides scope for creativity, expanded agency and virtuous conduct" (45). In his study of the role of media for Orthodox in Greece, Jeffers Engelhard makes a distinction between the marked and unmarked mediation: while the former (electronic, broadcast, and digital media) normally requires spiritual discernment, the latter ("natural" media for Orthodox sounds and messages, such as incense-laden air, human voices and bodies, and bells) does not. He explores how, in Greece, in the moment of post-crisis austerity in 2013, the marked media manifested the "push back to church" for many younger generation Greeks. Angie Heo's contribution on icons in Egypt explores the centrality of the icon in personal identity. Icons are the visual tools for identifying the unknown, an aggregate of various signs of personal identity. She employs Peter Brown's concept of a holy man as a living icon to characterize the popular saintly figures and points out that, while on earth, the holy men and women hide their divine attributes from others to avoid turning the living icon into an idol. Luehrmann's own essay on reading prayers straddles the familiar dichotomies between the individual and the communal by focusing on the anthropology of reading set prayers. Finding a surprising parallel with the evangelical practice of speaking in [End Page 244] tongues, she argues that praying by the book offers "a shift to automatic thinking, marking sacred time and the simultaneous possibility of communal experience and private withdrawal" (136). Yet, unlike the charismatic prayer in tongues, the repetition of the words of people who prayed before brings believers together in a transtemporal community, connecting the living and the dead. The parts of the essay on the role of baptismal names, the importance of paraliturgical akathisto, and the lack of prayers for stillborn infants or those who have committed suicide are brilliant insights enriching Orthodox studies from an anthropological point of view. Jeanne Kormina's essay on practices of prayer in the context of what she calls "religious nomadism" stands out in this volume as she employs a clearly spelled-out model rather than metaphors, distinguishing the fixed, stable form of belief (with the focus on a territorial parish) from the "nomadic," fluid one represented by the pilgrims who believe without belonging. The competition of these two models is illustrated by a case study in which the "fixed" is represented by a priest, while the "nomadic" by Nadiezhda, an active female pilgrim. The process of domestication of Nadiezhda, a "nomadic believer," Kormina argues, occurred as she...

‘Valued most highly and preserved most carefully’: Using saintly figures’ houses and memorabilia collections to campaign for their canonisation

ABSTRACTIn this article, I argue that the houses and memorabilia collections associated with venerated personages played an important role in campaigns to elevate popular, unofficial, saintly figures to the level of the blessed or even canonised saints. Two practices converged in these campaigns: the Catholic tradition of sacralising specific sites and endowing material remnants with special meaning, and the ‘museumification’ of memorial houses and collections. The focus here is on the use of material culture in the beatification campaigns for modern stigmatics (who carried the wounds of Christ). Of the hundreds of cases that were reported, only a few were beatified and canonised. The article concentrates primarily on one success story: the evolution of the German stigmatic Anne Catherine Emmerick (1774–1824) from a ‘living saint’ to her being officially blessed (2004) and the role that her houses and possessions played in the promotion of her cult following and image construction.