Pilgrimage Shrine Research Articles

Football Disasters and Pilgrimage: Commemoration through Religious and Non-Religious Ritual and Materiality

Although the relationship between religion and football has gained considerable interest during the last twenty years, scant attention has been paid to the relationship between pilgrimage and football. This paper seeks to advance the study of this relationship through an exploration of collective memory about football disasters that throws fresh light on central themes within pilgrimage studies—pilgrimage as both a journey to a sacred place and the performance of diverse rituals at such places. The paper explores, in particular, the ways in which three different tragedies involving English football clubs have been commemorated through journeys to and ritual performance at places seen as sacred to those involved in commemoration—football stadiums and urban spaces, and cathedrals and pilgrimage shrines in England, Germany and Italy. Through this analysis, we seek to show how the commemoration of football disaster is linked to pilgrimage as a process where people seek healing and reconciliation through the public performance of rituals that link the local to the global.

Changing Jewish Pilgrimage Sites in the Galilee Region during the Medieval Period

Abstract: Four reasons led to the change of the main Jewish pilgrimage sites in Galilee from ʿAraba and Dalata to Meron during the twelfth century. The Jewish population abandoned ʿAraba and the community of Dalata declined. During the eleventh century, pilgrims from the Diaspora preferred to participate in a central annual event on the Mount of Olives, organized by the Yeshiva of the Land of Israel, which simulated pilgrimage to the temple. During the twelfth century, the Jewish regional center in the Upper Galilee region had shifted from Jish to Safed. Consequently, the main regional pilgrimage shrine changed from Dalata to Meron. The pilgrimage to Meron was a result of the Frankish ban on Jewish presence in Jerusalem and the Frankish takeover of important shrines venerated by Jews outside the Galilee region. Abstract: Four reasons led to the change of the main Jewish pilgrimage sites in Galilee from ʿAraba and Dalata to Meron during the twelfth century. The Jewish population abandoned ʿAraba and the community of Dalata declined. During the eleventh century, pilgrims from the Diaspora preferred to participate in a central annual event on the Mount of Olives, organized by the Yeshiva of the Land of Israel, which simulated pilgrimage to the Temple. During the twelfth century, the Jewish regional center in the Upper Galilee region had shifted from Jish to Safed. Consequently, the main regional pilgrimage shrine changed from Dalata to Meron. The pilgrimage to Meron was a result of the Frankish ban on Jewish presence in Jerusalem and the Frankish takeover of important shrines venerated by Jews outside the Galilee region.

Towards Re-Historicization: An Engagement of the Wesleyan Methodist Church in Zimbabwe’s Efforts to Rewrite the History of James Anta

This paper is a follow-up to the research conducted in 2021 titled James Anta: missionary, martyr, and the unsung hero of the Wesleyan Methodist Church in Zimbabwe. The paper was a reconstruction of Anta’s life, ministry, and martyrdom. The research found out that although the blood of Anta was the seed of Methodism in Zimbabwe, the church was reluctant to honour him. The research also noted that the Wesleyan Methodist church created a biased history of African cultural epistemology, which has no place for people who die young and unmarried. The paper concluded with a call for the Wesleyan Methodist church to rewrite its historiography, giving space to its martyrs like Anta. After reading the 2021 publication, the Wesleyan Methodist church leadership made urgent actions towards the re-historicization of Methodism in Zimbabwe with Harare West District dubbing its April 2022 Synod as James Anta Synod. The Synod further resolved to name the school they were intending to build after Anta. Moreover, Kadoma District agreed to rename Banket Circuit (where Anta was assassinated) as James Anta Circuit. The Wesleyan Methodist church further erected a monument of Anta and made the site a pilgrimage shrine. The fast responses by the church to honour Anta in 2022 justify their zeal to rewrite their history after 136 years of reluctancy. This paper used both primary and secondary sources to gather data. The paper concludes by challenging missionary churches to honour African agents whose history and sacrifice were seldomly considered and yet they were the key people in the Christianisation of Africa.

The Treasury Image of Mariazell: The Materialisation of Hope, Assurance and Security

Abstract One of the key sacred objects at the Austrian pilgrimage shrine of Mariazell is the Schatzkammerbild or Treasury Image, a late fourteenth-century painting of the Virgin and child in the style of a metal-encased and adorned Byzantine icon. Originally commissioned by King Louis I of Hungary, it was later donated to Mariazell. This essay traces significant changes in the life of this precious object over approximately four centuries, focusing on how its materiality was meant to stimulate feelings of hope and assurance concerning public security. From votive image given in thanks for a miraculous victory, it was transformed into a powerful heavenly object to be used against the threats of Ottoman and Protestant enemies. Then from the 1670s it began to be appropriated by its Habsburg patrons as an assurance of the security they could provide against individual and collective threat, as King Louis had done in the past.

The Long Ninth Century: Christian Reactions to Islamization and Islamication in Palestine and Al-Andalus

Christian communities in Palestine and Al-Andalus faced similar challenges during the ninth century. Although Muslim authorities tolerated Christianity and enshrined a certain degree of religious freedom, they downgraded these communities and encouraged conversion to Islam. In the long span, Christian communities decreased because many of their leading members emigrated or converted. Moreover, many of those that remained adopted the Arabic language, dressed like Muslims, and became increasingly assimilated into the ruling elite Muslim culture. This article suggests that the contacts and reciprocal influence between Christian communities from Palestine and Spain during this period were more substantial than hitherto perceived. Thus, they used the same methods with some local adaptations to tackle their critical situation. They introduced a growing use of Arabic in religious life, established and upgraded important pilgrimage shrines, and some extremist monastic communities fostered and encouraged martyrdom.

“Infrasecular” geographies and the multifaceted significance of a European shrine cathedral

ABSTRACT This paper explores how the significance of the pilgrimage shrine church, the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela is layered and multifaceted for its local community. This cathedral is more than a sacred and pilgrimage landscape. Utilizing “infrasecular” geographies as an analytical lens, this article provides greater insight into the multifaceted and layered significance(s) of the Cathedral for the local community. It focuses more specifically on how the Cathedral can be temporarily transformed by vernacular performances of everyday community life and social interactions to produce banal and, as examined in this article, Galician nationalist (regional) space. Recognizing the continuous processes of making and unmaking of “infrasecular” geographies shifts the focus away from a binary understanding of religious versus secular space to acknowledge the dynamic and overlapping meanings of sacred landscapes within society.

Innovative Significance of Research of Traditional Architectural Features of Ganja

Ganja - an ancient center of urban culture with old history, that situated on the old Great Silk way, is rich with many historical and material-cultural monuments, which have their typical, unique trade and architectural characteristics. This city has more than 4000 years old and here there is one of the main and ancient historical monuments of Muslim East civilization – Imamzadeh tomb, Jomard Gassab mausoleum. This important monument is situated 7 kilometers from the city of Ganja, on the right shore of Ganjachai river. Imamzadeh complex is one the main symbols of Ganja city and important example of medieval architecture of Azerbaijan. At the present time, as one of the most valued places of pilgrimage of the Islamic world, Imamzadeh tomb-complex in Ganja is a sacred place for local population, as well as pilgrims that come from different foreign countries. Imamzadeh mausoleum, situated in one of the ancient scientific and cultural centers - Ganja State History-Culture Reserve, was built in 739, on site of the grave of mevlana Ibrahim. The historic monument of Ganja - Imamzadeh tomb-complex attracts the attention of a number of features from the point of multiculturalism view. Ganja Imamzadeh is an important pilgrimage shrine. This place is visited by thousands of people every year. It should be noted that the number of visitors is increasing every year as well as foreign countries. Interesting fact is that non-Muslims are also among that memorial. The mausoleum, built around the grave of mevlana Ibrahim in the VIII century, was enlarged in the XIV-XVI centuries, and subsidiary buildings around it were erected in the XVII-XVIII centuries. The tomb is the most important part of the Imamzadeh complex. The area of Imamzade complex was included in the property of the Sheykhzamanlis – the descendants of Nizami Ganjavi, the great Azerbaijani poet and philosopher. During several centuries the city grew, flourished and finally turned into one of the key regional centers of economy and culture. At different stages of the history of the capital city of Ganja status while maintaining the traditions of the ancient statehood and independence was of great importance. In spite of numerous destructions suffered through the history, Ganja remains a beautiful city with many ancient sites. Among them are the Big and Small Bridges (XII century), towers, the Friday Mosque, the madrasah, hamams and caravanserais, as well as Imamzadeh complex-a picturesque building with blue domes, constructed as a Mausoleum of Imam Bagir ibn Ibrahim. The historical and architectural complex, built in the XVII century by Sheikh Bahaaddin, is also worth mentioning. It includes Juma Mosque (called Friday or Shah Abbas Mosque), Chekak-Hamam (medieval bath) and a caravanserai.Ganja - an ancient center of urban culture with more than 4000 years history, that situated on the old Great Silk way, is rich with many historical and material-cultural monuments, which have their typical, unique trade and architectural characteristics.

Sharing on the Way to the Holy Land: The Shrine of Our Lady of Cassiope on the Island of Corfu

ABSTRACT This article examines the history of a small Greek church on the island of Corfu and attempts to explain how it grew into an important pilgrimage shrine for Latin pilgrims travelling to Jerusalem. It also reviews the legends, miracle stories and devotional practices that developed around the site and discusses these within the context of the pilgrims’ experience during their voyage to the Holy Land. The article argues that in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the visit to the church of Cassiope marked the first contact between western pilgrims and the Greek rite and the first instance of shared worship during their pilgrimage.

Francisco Oller and France: New Perspectives

Abstract Francisco Oller was one of the most distinguished and influential artists to emerge from the Caribbean in the mid-nineteenth century. Often referred to as the painter of Puerto Rico, he is most noted for his depictions of everyday life on the island, landscapes, still lifes, portraits, and history paintings. However, his four lengthy journeys to Spain and France throughout his life indelibly marked his artistic production. This essay reconsiders the impact of French art on Oller. It deals with two heretofore unstudied paintings (both in private collections). A tabletop still life with peonies and other flowers reminds us of his interest in Henri Fantin-Latour and his contemporaries in Paris. Oller’s small but panoramic landscape of the pilgrimage shrine to Our Lady of Lourdes in southern France opens up questions regarding the artist’s own religious leanings and his interest in depicting public spaces.

‘What is going on here?’ Gazing, Knowledge and the Body at a Pilgrimage Shrine

This article focuses primarily on the role of the camera in representing the famous, much visited Roman Catholic shrine of Lourdes, France, and what this role tells us about the relationship between gazing, knowledge, and the body. After outlining the historical development of the shrine, the discussion proceeds to consider the growth of popular media and the cinematic gaze, the expansion of tourism, debates concerning the morality of gazing at bodies as personal cameras and smartphones becoming increasingly available and used at the shrine, the representation of human and saintly bodies, and the part played by the camera in the attempt to ensure security.

Not Just Counters: Clay Tokens and Ritual Materiality in the Ancient Near East

Clay tokens, or small geometric artifacts, from ancient Near Eastern sites have been interpreted as counters for economic transactions for more than 75 years. I challenge this paradigm with an alternative scenario where clay is not always an expedient substance for mundane purposes, but a symbolically important one to make ritual objects. While some clay tokens functioned as calculi, others served in religious contexts, such as ceremonial offerings. In this article, I cover the archaeological and comparative cultural evidence of the material patterning of ritual clay tokens to reexamine the economic token paradigm. In the ancient Near East, clay tokens were used in temples, human burials, pilgrimage shrines, and ritual caches, which indicates that tokens served in ritual contexts and not just as counters. Cross-culturally, worshipers utilize small clay objects for ceremonial purposes, such as pilgrims’ tokens. Clay absorbs spiritual power at shrines in many cultures, making it a significant material for ritual offerings, blessings, or protection. Worshipers place clay tokens at shrines or take them home for family members and sick persons to touch or consume. Similar material contexts suggest that ancient people in the Near East used some clay tokens to gain merit from deities for prosperity, health, and religious devotion.

Longings, Letters and Prayers: Visitor's Books at Hungarian Marian Shrines

The following study seeks to show the flow of contemporary rituals associated with pilgrimage shrines. I will consider how visitor’s books placed on display at shrine churches are being utilized in the modern context by pilgrims and tourists alike. Requests, words of thanksgiving, and testimony are coupled with an honest, reflexive style that lends to the formation of these individualized prayers. These prayers are original, specific and peculiar as they follow patterns that are informal in nature. These prayers allow pilgrims to initiate contact with the Transcendent through the act and practice of writing. An idiosyncratic form of sacred communication arises in these prayers. In what follows, I will seek to evaluate such books, as well as prayer slips with similar prayers, found at five notable Hungarian shrines. I will seek to determine the function and purpose of said books. First, I am curious as to what gestures and practices are typical of pilgrims who write in such books. Lay tourists follow patterns they became acquainted with at museums, or galleries where they encountered similar books. However, most pilgrims who visit such shrines in Hungary will use these visitor’s books as a forum of thought, and as a vessel for longings and prayers. In their own petitions to the Transcendent realms, they not only make requests, worship, and give thanks but rather, take concrete steps towards solving their problems. They do so by writing down their cares and troubles. This task lends itself as a way to find spiritual relief and peace of heart. In my study I present the different ways visitor’s books are used in the shrines. My aim is to show how, in this particular, written rite, the border between tourism/commerce on the one hand and religion or the profane and the sacred is blurred.

Underground Churches in Frankish Famagusta, Cyprus

This paper examines a unique group of four crusader-period underground churches in Famagusta. The dedication, dating, and religious significance of these shrines are discussed in a regional context, using historical and archaeological sources. Two extramural churches attracted veneration from Latin and Greek communities: St. Mary de la Cava was a pilgrimage site managed by Greeks from Sinai, while the second grotto was originally a Latin edifice with a well providing holy water (agiasma). Inside the walls, an underground church, perhaps owned by the Melkites, had two altars and entrances, suggesting that it was possibly a pilgrimage shrine venerated by two religious communities. The fourth church, dedicated perhaps to the Nativity, is half built, half cut into the rock in a manner resembling the grotto of the Nativity in Bethlehem. Although the preserved shrines cannot be identified with certainty, this study indicates that they were important religious centers, which developed together with the growing Latin-ruled metropolis and had devotional, architectural, and institutional links with other pilgrimage shrines in Cyprus and the Levantine mainland.

"This is a glimpse of Paradise": Encountering Lourdes Through Serial and Multisited Pilgrimage

Based on fieldwork conducted with pilgrims traveling from England to the Marian apparition shrine of Lourdes, this article will focus on the experience of serial pilgrims, those who have made the journey to Lourdes repeatedly for several years. Serial pilgrimages to Lourdes are often a family affair, spanning multiple generations, and become compulsive for those who undertake them. Yet the stories of several Lourdes pilgrims reveal that they do not feel this compulsive need to go to Lourdes alone. Many frequently navigate the European circuit of Marian pilgrimage shrines, including Walsingham in England, Knock in Ireland, Fatima in Portugal, and Medjugorje in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Attending to the nature of serial and multi-sited pilgrimage underscores that pilgrimage shrines are not static, bounded sites. They indeed become porous as pilgrims travel between them, with cross-currents flowing back and forth. They become intimately familiar, a storehouse for memories of pilgrimages past, and sites for continued spiritual refreshment. Pilgrimages to multiple shrines punctuate the spiritual journey of the serial pilgrim, and as this article will show, also provide a means by which some shrines are contrasted and privileged over others, revealing the values and motivations underlying serial pilgrimage.

Dynamic Dirt: Medieval Holy Dust, Ritual Erosion, and Pilgrimage Ecopoetics

Environmental citizenship has intellectual roots extending into the Middle Ages. We need to get down and dirty—literally. This article—rooted in vibrant materialist intersections with medieval pilgrimage poetry—transverses literary and ecological paths as it explores pilgrimage ecopoetics. From the Middle Ages to today, voluntary migrants in the form of pilgrims cause environment degradation, everything from waste disposal to soil erosion on frequented paths. Focusing on dirt in which pilgrimage paths have sprung up and dirt used as healing relic, we come to understand actants like dirt and holy dust in a new way. Tomb dust and holy dirt convey an agency that catalyzes our understanding of pilgrimage as materially grounded in the earth. Things are not mere objects, but possess independence from us. Possessing agency, matter itself is not static but generative. Dirt’s extended fellows include reviled trash, waste, and crap. A modern-day pilgrimage shrine, the Cathedral of Junk in Austin, TX, is a refuse pile of rejected garbage. Sustainably reused by the creator, this shrine perfectly realizes a Judeo-Christian ethos of charity. See in this way, dirt—normally reviled as abject, even ‘out of place’ (Douglas 1966/2002: 44)—can be viewed as positive, even sacred. Like waste poetry, dirt ultimately heals homeopathically for both spirit and body.

From church perseverance in authoritarian states to today´s religious inspired tourism

A chronological analysis of Christian pilgrimages over the course of around 2,000 years of existence suggests that there have been swings in their level of popularity: strong whenever the ruling classes whether religious or civil) protect popular sanctuaries and declining whenever policies constraint the practice of pilgrimages. This paper starts with the characterization of two authoritarian regimes, a fascist one in a western European country, Portugal 1928-1974): and a communist one in a central European country, Slovakia 1948-1989): at that time part of Czechoslovakia. The aim of this research was to explore the status quo during the period of government by the two authoritarian regimes, analyse the approach taken by each regime in regards to religious manifestations and how, with the eventual transition to democracy, it served to determine the dynamics surrounding each country´s main pilgrimage shrine, respectively Fatima Portugal) and Levo?a Slovakia. The research findings show that in Portugal there was no interruption on the increasing popularity and development of Fatima, from the authoritarian to democratic regimes. Meanwhile, in Slovakia only after democracy was reinstated, was it allowed for people to manifest freely their religious beliefs that led to a revival of pilgrimages and visits to Levo?a. The findings provide an understanding of the role of the state under authoritarian regimes and the policies implemented that prompted the importance and potential of the two shrines as religious tourism destinations.

Reform vor der Reformation: Augustiner-ChorherrenstiftsgrÜNdungen an Marienwallfahrtsorten durch die Windesheimer Kongregation, by Jörg Bölling

This study, by Jörg Bölling, of the foundation of houses of Augustinian Canons in Marian pilgrimage sites is based on a doctoral thesis in theology submitted at Bochum University. It is not easy to define its nature because the critical edition it contains is about the same length as the text itself, the Chronicle of Eberhardsklausen, an account of the foundation and early history of a pilgrimage site, and eventually a religious house, in the archdiocese of Trier. The reader is either dealing with an analytical text with a rather large appendix or with an edition following a rather extensive introduction. The book’s main theme is the impact of religious reforms inspired by Geert Groote’s Devotio Moderna (modern devotion) movement, which led to a reinvigoration of lay piety as well as the institutional expansion of the canons belonging to the Windesheim congregation. This theme is pursued on the basis of just one example, the image, later pilgrimage shrine and eventual ecclesiastical centre of Eberhardsklausen. Although repeated references to other centres of reform (Bödingen, Birklingen, Hirzenhain and, crucially, Windesheim and Böddeken) seem to indicate a fulfilment of the promises made in the book’s title, the author really only deals with the foundation of Eberhardsklausen, drawing most of the information from the chronicle, a text by Wilhelm of Bernkastel, who was instructed by one of Trier’s auxiliary bishops to record the events of the foundation process.

‘Differing in status, but one in spirit’: sacred space and social diversity at island monasteries in Connemara, Ireland

Abstract

The Spaces of Domestic Religion in Late Antique Egypt

Abstract Domestic religion-or family religion, or household religion-should be considered as a cluster of concerns and orientations, not just “religion in the home.” More importantly, the ritual resolution of these concerns is typically pursued- by the agents of domestic religion (more often women)-in a variety of places, not just in the home: that is, the local environment and neighborhood and even further afield. For example, a pilgrimage shrine is not in itself a phenomenon of domestic religion; it is its own religious phenomenon. But it is in the nature of domestic religion to include that pilgrimage shrine as part of a “domestic” topography of ritual spaces. This is the kind of extra-domestic space that this paper addresses.

The Emotional Economy of Early Modern Pilgrimage Shrines: The Case of Mariazell

This article aligns with recent attempts to challenge the notion that pilgrimage shrines were unified centres of sacred power. It aims to demonstrate that pilgrimages offered varied and changing benefits through their various cultic objects, and that these benefits were transformed as meanings attributed to objects changed over time in response to changing historical pressures and needs. It explores the different emotional benefits cultic objects generated – whether consolation, gratitude, joy, fidelity, self-abasement or resilience – within a broader economy of emotional exchange, promotion and control. The history of three significant objects in the Mariazell basilica – the Statue of Mercy, the Marian Column and the Treasury Image – demonstrates how physical and cultural framing, associated religious rituals, and broader political patronage and association, promoted different emotional responses around these objects. Under pressure of the Hapsburgs’ close association with the shrine from the seventeenth century, changes in the promotion of objects like the Marian Column and the Treasury Image, as well as more structured and choreographed pilgrimage practices, reflected the transformation of Mariazell into a site for the expression of collective and proto-national emotions, in addition to the individual emotional benefits that continued to be critical for the shrine’s ongoing popularity and survival.