Holy Sepulchre Research Articles

Из поэтического наследия Сулеймана, епископа Газского (X–XI вв.)

The publication presents a commented interlinear and literary translation of two qasidas (poems) from the Divan (collection) of the first known Arab Christian poet – Sulayman al-Ghazzi, bishop of Gaza in Palestine (Xth-XIth cent.). His poetic work is the earliest attempt at using the metrical and stylistic tools of classical Arabic poetry for purely Christian subjects. The Divan also contains multiple autobiographical data and important historical evidence of Christian persecution under the Fatimid caliph al-Hakim, including the destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. Despite their unique significance, very few of Sulayman’s poems have been translated into a modern language. The two selected qasidas belong to the opposite traditional genres of Arabic poetry – reproach and praise. In the first one the Jews who rejected Christ are targeted; the other one is focused on righteous Christians and their liturgy. In addition, the first qasida is rich in biblical allusions and quotations, loosely reworked by the author in a poetic vein, and the second one gives a detailed description of the divine service and is therefore a valuable evidence of the liturgical life of Palestinian Christians in Sulayman’s era.

Domy Polskie w Jerozolimie

The history of the Polish Houses in Jerusalem is interwoven with the history of both Poland and the Holy Land. The Old Polish House was established in 1908 at the initiative of Rev. M. Pinciurek and is located near the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The other, the New Polish House, was the fruit of tireless work by the Sisters of St. Elizabeth from the province of Poznań and the involvement of the Polish Army in the East. With the proclamation of the state of Israel and the ensuing 1948 Arab–Israeli War, the House found itself on the battle line. The sisters risked their lives to protect the Polish flag placed on the roof of the building, so as not to lose the work that had been done for “the Polish nation”.

Anu Mänd and Marek Tamm. Making Livonia: Actors and Networks in the Medieval and Early Modern Baltic Sea Region

Anu Mänd and Marek Tamm. <i>Making Livonia: Actors and Networks in the Medieval and Early Modern Baltic Sea Region</i>

The Chapel of St. Casimir in Vilnius – A Counter-Reformation Landmark

Summary The present study takes issue with the accepted view (cf. Vikipedija) that the Chapel of St. Casimir in the Cathedral of Vilnius (1623–1636) resembles the Pauline and the Sistine Chapels in the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome. A closer look and comparison of the dimensions, geometry, materials, and internal décor, however, reveals significant differences. The defining architectural features of the Chapel of St. Casimir do not derive from these Baroque chapels but from multiple Biblical and Early Christian sources. (This study focused on the Chapel’s interior features that survived the 1655–1661 occupation of Vilnius.) Its cubic core recalls the twenty-cubit amplitude of the Holy of Holies in the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem. The black marble walls (noir de Namur) allude to the blackening acacia wood of the Ark of the Covenant holding the Ten Commandment stone tablets that Moses received from the Lord on Mt. Sinai. The ox-blood colored pilasters (vieux rouge de Rance) recall the porphyry columns of the Aedicule that sheltered the Tomb of Christ in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, Jerusalem. The Chapel’s reduced Greek cross plan derives from Vitruvius and recalls Early Christian mausoleums. The Ionic column capitals in the Chapel duplicate the ones in the entrance portals of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome and in the Confessio above the tomb of St. Peter the Apostle in the Roman necropolis underneath the Basilica. The Council of Trent upheld Early Christian customs, precedents, and traditions. Materializing the Council’s values, the Chapel became a landmark of the Counter-Reformation. The study at hand relied heavily on the indispensable archival documents gleaned by Povilas Reklaitis, Paulius Rabikauskas, SJ, Zenonas Ivinskis, Mintautas Čiurinskas, Birutė Rūta Vitkauskienė, and Piotr Jacek Jamski.

"The midst of the earth”: Ps. 73:12b (LXX) in Patristic and Liturgical Understanding

The verse “You have wrought salvation in the midst of the earth” (Ps. 74/73:12) occurs in numerous liturgical texts. This article examines how this verse has been understood by patristic authors from circa third to fifth centuries. The Hebrew original and its Jewish interpretations focus on God’s salvific acts in the world, in the eyes of all peoples, while the Septuagint allows a more punctual understanding “in the centre of the world”. The latter option was utilised immediately after the construction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, as Golgotha became the solemn centre of Christian pilgrimage and was widely recognised as the centre of the earth in theological and cosmological terms. Therefore, the verse became much used in liturgical celebrations related to the cross, as witnessed already in the Typikon of Mar Saba.&#x0D; Moreover, the idea of Golgotha as axis mundi was soon applied in colourful ways regarding traditions related to the creation and burial of Adam, sacrifice of Isaac, and even eschatological visions. Excitingly, these interpretations have evident predecessors in Judaism and in the early Jewish Christian beliefs and practices. All this guarantees that the verse is one of the richest dictums in liturgical life in terms of theological, mythic, and historical connotations.

Ryan, Jordan J. (2021). From the Passion to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Memories of Jesus in Place, Pilgrimage, and Early Holy Sites over the First Three Centuries. London: T&amp;T Clark

Ryan, Jordan J. (2021). From the Passion to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Memories of Jesus in Place, Pilgrimage, and Early Holy Sites over the First Three Centuries. London: T&amp;T Clark

Recreating Victory: Liturgy, Crusade Propaganda, and Simulacrum in Milan, CE 1100

Abstract A feast commemorating the conquest of Jerusalem was celebrated in Milan, on 15 July 1100. On that day, an existing Milanese church was rededicated as the “Church of the Holy Sepulchre.” The elaborate ceremony included a procession, an octave, and a pilgrims’ indulgence, along with crusade propaganda. It was perhaps the earliest one celebrated in Western Europe in the wake of the Jerusalem conquest of 15 July 1099, added to the liturgical calendar of Milan. The event was carefully orchestrated by Anselm of Buis, the archbishop of Milan – a supporter of the church reform movement and close ally of Pope Urban II. The feast was attended by the local community, among them First Crusaders returning from Jerusalem. This article focuses on the innovative nature of the Milanese feast, its liturgy and possible link with the celebration in Jerusalem a year earlier. It also considers the triumphal recreation of Jerusalem in Lombardy within the western tradition of imitations of Jerusalem.

Jerusalem Delivered to Italy: Moving the Holy Sepulcher across the Mediterranean

Previous article No AccessJerusalem Delivered to Italy: Moving the Holy Sepulcher across the MediterraneanVictoria AddonaVictoria AddonaMcGill University, Canada Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by I Tatti Studies in the Italian Renaissance Volume 25, Number 2Fall 2022 Published for Villa I Tatti: The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/721750 Views: 57Total views on this site © 2022 Villa I Tatti: The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies. All rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Jerusalem 1099

On 15 July 1099, after more than four and a half centuries of Muslim rule, Jerusalem fell to the army of the First Crusade and for the next 88 years it became once again a Christian city. At that time, the city’s population may have numbered hundreds rather than the thousands of earlier periods, but it seems to have grown afterwards. The size of the late 12th century population may therefore have been closer to that of the mid-11th century, perhaps around 20,000–30,000, that is to say roughly the same size as Acre, Tyre, Florence or London in the same period. Along with these demographic fluctuations and the reduction of the area defended by city-walls, this paper analyses the impact of Christian rule on the town structures. From the conversion of the former Aqṣā Mosque as a royal palace, and then as the Temple’s headquarters, to the renovation of the Citadel as a small triangular-shaped fortress, and mostly to the important changes made in the Holy Sepulchre, with the enlargement of the church and the addition of an adjoining monastic cloister.

Augustine’s Sermo 291 for the Natale of John the Baptist. Content Analysis, Transmission Study, and New Critical Edition

Sermo 291 is one of Augustine’s fourteen preserved sermons for the natale of John the Baptist. This article analyses its contents and transmission, and provides a new critical edition, which presents several authentic word groups and short phrases that were unknown to previous editors, but could be restored thanks to the testimony of mss. Wolfenbüttel, HAB, Weiss. 12 (4096) and Montecassino, Bibl. Abb. 12. The study of the sermon’s manuscript transmission confirms and further develops the stemmatical conclusions formulated in earlier studies with regard to other Augustinian sermons with the same or a similar transmission as s. 291. Furthermore, the study of the sermon’s indirect transmission shows its influence on two pseudo-Augustinian sermons, on Bartholomaeus of Urbino’s Milleloquium ueritatis, and on a breviary that testifies to the liturgy associated with the church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.

Дослідження християнського Сходу в науковій спадщині єпископа Порфирія (Успенського)

The study is devoted to the scientific heritage of Bishop Porphyry (Uspensky) (1804–1885), who found a significant number of written and material sources on church history in the Christian East. The bishop made three trips to the East during 1843–1846, 1848–1854 and 1865–1877. The main sources for this article were published documents, primarily the epistolary heritage of Porphyry, his publications in periodicals and in separate editions. Based on them, it was found that the bishop’s scientific activity in the East can be divided into three interrelated areas. The first was the description of ancient church buildings and monasteries, the second was the study of manuscripts found in monastery libraries, and the third was the study of early Christian painting. Porphyry visited a large number of monasteries, churches and other religious places in Constantinople, Jerusalem and around it, in Palestine, Athos and Sinai. For most of them, he compiled descriptions, drawings, revealed architectural features. As a result of his work in the libraries of the Sinai Monastery, the Holy Sepulcher Monastery in Jerusalem and the Jerusalem Patriarchate, the bishop found more than a thousand different church documents and manuscripts. Among them, the most controversial was the Sinai Code of Scripture. In studying ancient manuscripts and historical events, Porphyry was an uncompromising critic of the unverified facts that took place in the Christian history of the East. The manuscripts of the conversations of Patriarch Photius of Constantinople, edited by Porphyry, contain important information about the campaigns of Prince Askold of Kyiv, which is rather fragmentary in sources of domestic origin. Exploring ancient paintings, Porphyry noted that there were few such monuments in the East, and those that have survived have been carefully copied and described. In addition, the bishop made a comparative analysis of the pictorial style of the most important ancient icons. The scientific heritage of Porphyry (Uspensky) was a significant contribution to the study of the history of the Christian East.

An Image of the Holy City in the Holy Land ‘Atlit Castle Chapel

‘Atlit Castle chapel was the only polygonal church built in the Holy Land in the thirteenth century. Through a study of the archaeological remains, this article examines for the first time the possibility that the chapel was built following the model of the Holy Sepulchre Frankish choir, as part of a deliberate program to present ‘Atlit Castle as a substitute for a visit to Jerusalem. The unified and complex design of the chapel at ‘Atlit, unlike some of the western copies of the Holy Sepulchre, was founded on a deep personal knowledge of Jerusalem, its landscape and its most important shrines. It is argued that the Templars and their architect employed numerous tools to create a particular image of Jerusalem—at that time in Muslim hands and with only limited access to the Franks—in their newly built castle at ‘Atlit. Meticulously designed to serve a religious community, the architecture conveyed a multi-layered message transparent both to passers-by and to the Templars themselves.

More Syriac Graffiti at the Southern Entrance to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre

Abstract This article presents nine Syriac graffiti which until now have been overlooked in the literature on the well-known inscriptions at the entrance to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. These additional graffiti attest to known and unknown Syriac pilgrims who visited the church. Some can be located within the Ottoman period while the date of others is less clear. Several of the graffiti are of particular interest. One attests to the visitation of a well-known East Syriac cleric, and another provides a clue to the architectural history of the closed eastern door at the southern entrance.

The Façade of Saint-Gilles-du-Gard: The Visual Strategies of a Political Agenda

The sculptural program of the façade of Saint-Gilles-du-Gard, whose current appearance is nearly identical to its original state, is organized around four iconographic clusters or narrative sequences corresponding to the three portals and the frieze that links them. Exegetical literature imbued the episodes depicted from the life of Christ with an ecclesiological meaning: the church is the Ecclesia, the community of the faithful, governed by spiritual and temporal powers, and whose completion is predicted for the end of time. The interpretation of the sequences is “directed” by the precise and systematic articulation of the motifs of which they are composed, suggesting that symmetries in the design of the façade correspond to semantic relationships between the subjects. The designer of the Saint-Gilles façade made narrative coherence and the demands of the iconographic tradition subservient to the goals of the patron and instigator of the project, Raymond V, count of Toulouse and lord of Saint-Gilles (1148–94). Developed by the count’s entourage and likely with the support of his wife Constance, the construction of the church aimed to reinforce Raymond V’s authority, which at that time was weakened by serious accusations of heresy. At Saint-Gilles, the designer’s political strategy consisted of recalling the participation of the counts of Toulouse in the crusades and celebrating the merits of a power dedicated to the defense of the Church and its faithful. To this end, the designer selected the Holy Sepulcher as the model for the abbey’s iconography and plan in an attempt to create the illusion of a second Jerusalem at Saint-Gilles.

Klosterneuburger Librettodrucke aus dem 18. Jahrhundert – neu bewertet

The music collections of the monasteries and convents in Central Europe contains many interesting sources. To date, they have been only partially accessed and catalogued. Furthermore, not only the music itself has to be considered, but also various other types of sources such as librettos, periochæ, inventories, invoices, requests, diaries, correspondence etc. These sources need to be described and evaluated in a detailed manner, and only on this basis may questions about the interweaving of repertoire or personnel between the different monasteries – both in the field of liturgical and secular music – arise. The aim of this paper is to take a closer look at a valuable source material, namely the libretti preserved in Klosterneuburg Abbey. The Klosterneuburg libretto collection currently contains a total of 77 exemplars in three different groups. The oldest prints date from the last decade of the 17th century to the most recent from 1765. The largest proportion is made up of the Lenten oratorios and those oratorios performed at the Holy Sepulchre during Holy Week (46 pieces). The second group represents a series of oratorios in honour of St. John of Nepomuk (14 pieces), and the last comprises various homage and occasional works (17 pieces). This paper follows on from the essay by Otto G. Schindler, who did the fundamental cataloguing of the libretti in the library of the Augustinian canons' monastery of Klosterneuburg in the second half of the 20th century. This text attempts to classify the librettos of the Abbey library according to the current state of research and to present some interesting examples.

Archaeological excavations in Jerusalem, Holy Sepulchre: a preliminary report

Archaeological excavations in Jerusalem, Holy Sepulchre: a preliminary report

Notes on the Holy Sepulchre Chapel at Vienne

A chapel dedicated to the Holy Sepulchre, probably of Carolingian date, was incorporated into the rebuilt Romanesque nave of the cathedral of Saint-Maurice at Vienne. It was transferred in 1524/1525 by the Dean of the Chapter, Guillaume Palmier, to the little cloister to the north, where it was rebuilt with a new dedication added, to Notre-Dame de Pitie, a cult already very popular in the Dauphine on the eve of the Reform. This chapel was destroyed in 1804-1805 but its appearance is known from a unique engraving. Palmier’s will gives details of the transfer of the chapel. In the Romanesque nave of the cathedral the chapel was overlooked by sculptures of Christ and five seated angels, placed at the apex of the arcades above the chapel and contemporary with this part of the building, of the second quarter of the 12th century. The capitals in this area reflect in their subject-matter the chapel’s dedication to the Holy Sepulchre, but do not seem to have been part of a more generalised ‘programme’ of capital sculpture in the nave.

From the Passion to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre: Memories of Jesus in Place, Pilgrimage, and Early Holy Sites over the First Three Centuries, Jordan J.Ryan, T&amp;T Clark, 2021 (ISBN 978‐0‐5676‐7745‐7), xviii + 274 pp., hb £85

From the Passion to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre: Memories of Jesus in Place, Pilgrimage, and Early Holy Sites over the First Three Centuries, Jordan J.Ryan, T&amp;T Clark, 2021 (ISBN 978‐0‐5676‐7745‐7), xviii + 274 pp., hb £85

Early Byzantine ‘Basket’ Capitals in Churches and Monasteries of the Holy Land: Stylistic and Morphological Synthesis

To the best of my knowledge, all Early Byzantine “basket” capitals discovered in the churches and monastery of the Holy Land were included in this article. There are 13 in number, all carved from limestone. Seven of them were found in Jerusalem, including the Holy Sepulchre; five - in the monasteries of the Judean desert, one in the Judean hills and two in Samaria. The majority of these churches/monasteries ranked high in the hierarchy of the Holy Sites, and such type of capitals might be considered luxurious. The geographical distribution of the items let to the assumption that they were locally produced in one of the workshops in Jerusalem or its suburbs, and their subsequent delivery to the other sites via roads. One “basket” capital was discovered in the Golan synagogue in Umm el-Qanatir. it features quite a different tradition as compared to the ecclesiastical. Stylistic analysis of the capitals, their comparison with each other, to the marble and limestone parallels from other regions show a high level of creativity, which implied free artistic experiments with patterns (especially on the calathus rim) and proportions, but still within strict order canons. The earliest local limestone capitals predate the marble capitals from Constantinople and elsewhere.

Le cinque piaghe di Christo von Nicolò Minato und Antonio Draghi (1677) und die Verehrung der fünf Wunden Christi durch den Sternkreuzorden

The musico-dramatic works to be performed in front of the Holy Sepulcher during the Triduum Sacrum (sepolcri) were very popular in the 17th and 18th centuries. They have their origin at the Viennese court and are not least widespread in the countries of the Bohemian crown. It is a paraliturgical form of devotion with direct reference to the context of Holy Week. It therefore seems worthwhile to ask about the connection between the content of these works and the piety of the viewers. This can be well understood by looking at Eleonore II. (1630–1686), the widow of Emperor Ferdinand III. (†1657). From 1660 to 1686 in Eleonora's chapel sepolcri were performed, usually dedicated to individual elements of the Passion of Jesus Christ. An example of this is Le cinque piaghe di Christo by Nicolò Minato and Antonio Draghi (1677). In the forms of piety practiced by or at least recommended for the members of the Star Cross Order, which Eleonore II. founded in 1668, the mystical veneration of the five wounds of Christ also plays an important role. In this way it is possible to show to what extent what maybe seems rather strange today was a religious matter of course in the 17th century, and thereby deepen the understanding of the work of Minato and Draghi.