Saints and Sacred Matter Du M ba rton oa k S by z a n t i n e S y M p oSi a a n D Col lo qu i a Series editor Margaret Mullett editorial board John Dufy John Haldon ioli kalavrezou Saints and Sacred Matter he Cult of relics in byzantium and beyond Edited by Cynthia Hahn and Holger A. Klein Du M b a rto n oa k S r e S e a rC H l i b r a ry a n D C o l l e C t io n © 2015 Dumbarton oaks research library and Collection trustees for Harvard university Washington, D.C. all rights reserved. printed in the united States of america. L i br a r y of Cong r e s s C ata l o g i ng -i n-Pu bl ic at ion Data Saints and sacred matter: the cult of relics in byzantium and beyond / edited by Cynthia Hahn and Holger a. klein. — First [edition]. pages cm. — (Dumbarton oaks byzantine symposia and colloquia) includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 978-0-88402-406-4 (alk. paper) 1. relics—byzantine empire. 2. byzantine empire—religious life and customs. i. Hahn, Cynthia J. (Cynthia Jean), editor. ii. klein, Holger a., editor. bv890.s24 2015 235�.2—dc23 2015000615 managing editor: Joel kalvesmaki Text design and composition: Melissa tandysh www.doaks.org/publications contents Acknowledgments vii introduction Cynthia Hahn and Holger A. Klein 1 1. relic, icon, and architecture he Material articulation of the Holy in east Christian art Jaś Elsner 13 2. relics an evolving tradition in latin Christianity Julia M. H. Smith 41 3. Jewish Veneration of the “Special Dead” in late antiquity and beyond R a‘anan Boustan 61 4. Medieval Muslim Martyrs to the plague Venerating the Companions of Muhammad in the Jordan Valley Nancy Khalek 83 5. Figuring relics a poetics of enshrinement Patricia Cox Miller 99 6. liturgical time and Holy land reliquaries in early byzantium Derek Krueger 111 7. Sacred installations he Material Conditions of relic Collections in late antique Churches Ann Marie Yasin 133 8. “Gr ant us to Share a place and lot with them” relics and the byzantine Church building (9th–15th Centuries) Vasileios Marinis and Robert Ousterhout 153 9. Spolia as relics? relics as Spoils? he Meaning and Functions of Spolia in Western Medieval reliquaries Hiltrud Westermann-Angerhausen 173 10. “the Sting of Death is the thorn, but the Circle of the Crown is Victory over Death” he Making of the Crown of horns Cynthia Hahn 193 11. the relics of new Saints Deposition, translation, and Veneration in Middle and late byzantium Alice-Mary Talbot 215 12. Materiality and the Sacred byzantine reliquaries and the rhetoric of enshrinement Holger A. Klein 231 13. byzantium and beyond relics of the infancy of Christ Jannic Dur and 253 14. the incarnate Shrine Shi‘ism and the Cult of kingship in early Safavid iran Kishwar Rizvi 289 15. the relics of Scholarship on the production, reproduction, and interpretation of Hallowed remains in late antiquity, byzantium, early islam, and the Medieval West Anthony Cutler 309 Abbreviations 347 About the Authors 351 Index 355 chapter eight “Grant us to Share a place and lot with them” relics and the byzantine Church building (9th–15th Centuries) Vasileios Marinis and Robert Ousterhout Στὴ μνήμη τοῦ Τίτου Παπαμαστοράκη I n t h is ch a p t e r w e e x a m i n e t h e set t i ng of r e l ics w i t h i n ch u rch es of the middle and late byzantine periods, and we attempt to come to grips with how the presence of holy objects related to the form and meaning of medieval byzantine ecclesiastical architecture. it is oten assumed that formal functionalism is a guiding principle of historic architectures—that the presence of special objects or the conduct of special ceremonies would be relected in the building. if architectural design is responsive, then we might expect the creation of distinctive spaces that would both signal and enshrine a sacred presence. an examination of the architectural setting of relics in byzantine churches ater iconoclasm suggests otherwise. While the relics may be invoked or engaged through special rituals, by and large the shape of the byzantine church remains relatively constant.1 Similarly, we do not ind a standardization in the placement of relics, and in both the middle and late byzantine periods, we ind relics installed in almost all spaces within the byzantine church. in what follows, we examine the archaeological and textual evidence for the placement of relics, as well as what this might teach us about notions of sanctity associated with venerated objects and buildings. in investigating the accommodation of relics inside a church building one needs to take into account a wide range of practical variables. portable reliquaries inhabited sacred space in ways essentially diferent from how tombs of saints or other stationary relics did. he former could have been moved around (inside the church or to a diferent location), locked up in a cabinet, exposed for ad hoc veneration, or even stolen.2 relics also varied greatly in size, from a sliver of wood to a body in a coin. While tombs were ixed and (in theory) immovable, their location was dictated by a variety of factors that included canonical regulations, the status of the person at the time of death, and desired access to the tomb. Moreover, a in many ways the post-iconoclastic relationship of relics and architecture difers from the late antique: see chapter 7 by yasin, above. 1 2 as, for example, happened to the head of a certain St. anastasia in Constantinople, stolen from the church of St. luke: M. ehrhard, “le livre de pèlerin d’antoine de novgorod,” Romania 58 (1932): 60; r. Janin, La géographie ecclésiastique de l’empire byzantin, part 1, Le siège de Constantinople et le patriarcat œcuménique, vol. 3, Les églises et les monastères (paris, 1969), 311. 153 church or chapel might have been conceived and even designed to house a relic, but more oten it acquired relics only later. Finally, there is the loss of archaeological evidence, especially from Constantinople, coupled with the byzantine propensity for descriptive vagueness and inconsistency. Such common designations as theke or soros had multiple meanings and could have referred to a variety of situations and locales, including a cofin, a tomb, the location of the tomb or the relics, a whole body, or just a fragment of a bone. as a result, it is oten diicult to distinguish between permanent and temporary installations. the most common setting for relics in a byzantine church was at the altar. relics of martyrs played a fundamental role in the rite of consecration (καθιέρωσις or ἐγκαίνια) from a very early date.3 he Second Council of nicaea (787) conclusively stipulated that all church altars must be consecrated with remains of martyrs.4 according to the rubrics of middle byzantine Constantinopolitan euchologia,5 in preparation on the topic of relics and the altar see, selectively, F. Wieland, Altar und Altargrab der christlichen Kirchen im 4. Jahrhundert: Neue Studien über den Altar der altchristlichen Liturgie (leipzig, 1912); a. Grabar, Martyrium: Recherches sur le culte des reliques et l’art chrétien antique (paris, 1943), esp. 1:37– 44, 384–93; F. W. Deichmann, “Märtyrerbasilika, Martyrion, Memoria und altargrab,” MDAIRA 77 (1970): 144–69; u. peschlow, “altar und reliquie: Form und nutzung des frühbyzantinische reliquienaltars in konstantinopel,” in Architektur und Liturgie: Akten des Kolloquiums vom 25. bis 27. Juli 2003 in Greifswald, ed. M. altripp and C. nauerth (Wiesbaden, 2006), 175–202; a. M. yasin, Saints and Church Spaces in the Late Antique Mediterranean: Architecture, Cult, and Community (Cambridge, 2009), 151–209; V. Marinis, Architecture and Ritual in the Churches of Constantinople, Ninth to Fiteenth Centuries (Cambridge, 2014), 28–30. 3 Ὅσοι οὖν σεπτοὶ ναοὶ καθιερώθησαν ἐκτὸς ἁγίων λειψάνων μαρτύρων, ὁρίζομεν ἐν αὐτοῖς κατάθεσιν γίνεσθαι λειψάνων μετὰ τῆς συνήθους εὐχῆς. Ὁ δὲ ἄνευ ἁγίων λειψάνων καθιερῶν ναόν, καθαιρείσθω, ὡς παραβεβηκὼς τὰς ἐκκλησιαστικὰς παραδόσεις: G. a. ralles and M. potles, Σύνταγμα τῶν θείων καὶ ἱερῶν κανόνων (athens, 1852), 2:581–82. his speciic canon was a response to the alleged practice of iconoclasts to consecrate churches without relics. See the useful summary in J. F. Haldon and l. brubaker, Byzantium in the Iconoclast Era, c. 680–850: A History (Cambridge, 2011), 32–40. 4 for the service of the church’s consecration the oiciating archbishop selected three “portions” of relics and deposited them in a reliquary, which could be of silver, copper, or stone.6 he evening before the consecration, the archbishop took the reliquary to a nearby church, placed it on a paten, and covered it with the asterisk and the small aer, a liturgical veil—an action very much like that performed on the amnos, the central portion of the eucharistic bread, at the end of the prothesis service. Following a vigil and the ritual preparation of the actual altar, the archbishop, accompanied by clergy and laity, carried the relics to the new church. Subsequently, the reliquary was inserted in a cavity, either under the altar or in the altar table itself,7 and was sealed with myron (perfumed oil), wax, plaster, or even lead. he surviving archaeological evidence corresponds to the liturgical rubrics. at the Chora Monastery in Constantinople, the 1957 excavations in the bema uncovered the foundations of the altar and its ciborium. beneath the loor level was a large marble-lined loculus and against its eastern side a smaller marble-lined box, in which an undisturbed lead reliquary was found.8 its discovery was the cause of much excitement at the time. Work was halted, and museum authorities were called in for the oicial opening of the reliquary, which was documented by the expedition photographer. unfortunately the box was corroded and had to be drilled open. inside were a few fragments of wood and bone, which was something of a letdown for the archaeologists Manuscript of the Constantinopolitan euchology: Grottaferrata Γ.β.Ι, alias of Cardinal bessarion,” BollGrott, ser. 4, 4 (2007): 175–96. For the argument that the consecration of the altar and the deposition of the relics constitute two distinct rites see V. permjakovs, “‘Make his the place Where your Glory Dwells’: origins and evolution of the byzantine rite for the Consecration of a Church” (ph.D. diss., university of notre Dame, 2012). 6 pG 155:332. 5 M. arranz, L’eucologio constantinopolitano agli inizi del secolo arranz, L’eucologio, 227. he rubric pertaining to the second location (ἐν τῷ μέσῳ τοῦ βωμοῦ) is unclear and might mean either the altar table itself or on the eastern side of the foot of the altar table. XI: Hagismatarion & Archieratikon (Rituale & Pontiicale) con l’aggiunta del Leitourgikon (Messale) (rome, 1996), 227–51. Cf. the rite in the barberini euchologion (second half of the eighth century) in e. Velkovska and S. parenti, eds., Euchologii Barberini gr. 336, 3rd ed. (omsk, 2011), 367–76. one of arranz’s main witnesses, Grottaferrata Γ.β.Ι, actually dates to the thirteenth century; see S. parenti and e. Velkovska, “a hirteenth Century 8 D. oates, “a Summary report on the excavations of the byzantine institute in the kariye Camii: 1957 and 1958,” DOP 14 (1960): 228. additional information from the 1957 notebook of George H. Forsyth, Jr. (unpublished). See also Kariye: From heodore Metochites to homas Whittemore; One Monument, Two Monumental Personalities, ed. H. a. klein, r. ousterhout, and b. pitarakis (istanbul, 2007), 145, no. 31, for illustration. 154 7 Vasileios Marinis and Robert Ousterhout after the difficulty of opening the box. Here the larger loculus likely dated from the middle byzantine church, while the smaller loculus and the reliquary came from heodore Metochites’ rededication of the Chora in 1321 (ig. 8.1). in the katholikon of the eleventh-century Daphni Monastery in attica, the reliquary receptacle was located in the plinth between the two eastern feet of the altar table.9 in the south church of the pantokrator Monastery in Constantinople (twelfth century) a marble-lined rectangular receptacle was located near the site of the altar. a marble reliquary excavated in a debris layer nearby also might have come from there.10 in the late thirteenth-century church of St. John tou libos, the excavators discovered in the center of the apse a trapezoid cutting 1 m long and 30 cm deep, evidently for the deposition of the enkainia relics.11 Finally, an altar table discovered in the apse of kalenderhane Camii had a rectangular hole in the middle for the insertion of the reliquary.12 installations similar to those of churches were found in chapels. he western gallery parekklesia in the heotokos tou libos, ca. 907, preserved marble altar bases with cavities for the enkainia reliquaries (ig. 8.2).13 Here, as well as in the middle of the main apse of the church, we ind a cruciform sinking in the lower apse wall for the insertion of a cross behind the altar. he latter may not have been for relics.14 From euchologia that contain the rites of stauropegial monasteries we learn that during the consecration, a wooden cross with the names of the patriarch, 9 a. k. orlandos, “Νεώτερα εὑρήματα εἰς τὴν μονὴν Δαφνίου,” Ἀρχ.Βυζ.Μνημ.Ἑλ. 8 (1955–1956): 76–77. 10 a. H. S. Megaw, “notes on recent Work of the byzantine institute in istanbul,” DOP 17 (1963): 339, 348, igs. 1, 10. t. Macridy, “he Monastery of lips (Fenari isa Camii) and the burials of the palaeologi,” DOP 18 (1964): 266. 11 C. l. Striker and D. kuban, Kalenderhane in Istanbul (Mainz, 1997), 108 and pl. 125; peschlow, “altar und reliquie,” 186. peschlow dated this to the latin period because the loculus for the relic is on the altar table itself, something found “only in the Western church.” yet rubrics in byzantine euchologia suggest that the reliquary could be placed in the middle of the altar table: see arranz, L’eucologio, 227; J. Goar, Euchologion sive Rituale Graecorum (Venice, 1730), 663. 12 13 Macridy, “Monastery of lips,” 260 and igs. 25–26. V. Marinis, “Παρατηρήσεις για την Λειτουργία και την Αρχιτεκτονική στην Μονή του Λιβός στην Κωνσταντινούπολη,” in Βυζαντινή Αρχιτεκτονική και Λατρευτική Πράξη, ed. e. Chatzetryphonos and F. karayianni (hessalonike, 2006), 57–62. 15 16 See, for example, ralles and potles, Σύνταγμα, 2:484–85. according to Constantine, bishop of tios (ca. 800), the saint’s coin was placed under the altar and had a sizeable access hole. F. Halkin, Euphémie de Chalcédoine: Légendes byzantines (brussels, 1965), 87. 17 18 . . . αὐτὸς Δέσποτα πανάγιε ταῖς αὐτῶν ἱκεσίαις παρακλήθητι καὶ χάρισαι ἡμῖν τοῖς ἀναξίοις δούλοις μέρος καὶ κλῆρον ἔχειν μετ᾽αὐτῶν ἵνα μιμηταὶ αὐτῶν γενόμενοι καταξιωθῶμεν καὶ τῶν ἀποκειμένων αὐτοῖς ἀγαθῶν: arranz, L’eucologio, 240. all translations are by V. Marinis, unless otherwise indicated. Κύριε ὁ Θεὸς ἡμῶν, ὁ καὶ ταύτην τὴν δόξαν τοῖς ὑπὲρ σοῦ ἀθλήσασιν ἁγίοις μάρτυσι δωρησάμενος το σπείρεσθαι ἐν πάσῃ τῇ γῇ τὰ λείψανα αὐτῶν ἐν τοῖς ἁγίοις οἴκοις σου καὶ καρποὺς ἰαμάτων βλαστάνειν . . . , ibid., 244. 19 as has been suggested by n. teteriatnikov, “relics in the Walls, pillars, and Columns of byzantine Churches,” in Eastern Christian Relics, ed. a. lidov (Moscow, 2003), 77–78. 14 the local bishop, the emperor, and the date of the consecration was placed “behind the holy altar” or “in the middle of the conch.”15 relics used in consecrations of churches were not objects of devotion. access to the sanctuary was restricted,16 and the reliquary would have been small, sealed, and out of reach. he relics of euphemia in her martyrium near the Hippodrome, before they were thrown into the sea by emperor leo iii,17 were a rare exception showing that in general these reliquaries were thought to shelter unseen mediators, a role made evident in the prayers of the consecration rite. he archbishop beseeches God to accept “[the martyrs’] exhortations and grant us, undeserving servants, to share a place and lot with them, so that we become imitators of them and become worthy of the blessings reserved for them.”18 later in the ceremony, the archbishop again appeals to God who “also gited this glory to those who contested for you, namely to sow all over the earth their relics inside your holy churches and sprout fruits of healings.”19 Canonical and liturgical regulations reiterated that the relics were absolutely essential in consecrating a church. yet the ritual acts of the enkainia add another unspoken dimension to the role of relics. he reliquary was treated in a manner identical to that of the amnos and carried into the church in a procession reminiscent of the Great entrance. hus the relics became a semeion, a sign of the lord, the martyrs’ sacriice being a relection, repetition, and imitation of Christ’s sacriice. as such, relics made and continued to make the church holy. “Grant Us to Share a Place and Lot with Them” 155 Fig. 8.1 istanbul, kariye Camii (Monastery of the Chora). excavation of the loculi beneath the bema, looking east, 1957 (photo: Caroll Wales, pH.bz.0181991.0618, Caroll Wales photograph Collection, image Collections and Fieldwork archives, Dumbarton oaks, trustees for Harvard university, Washington, DC) Fig. 8.2 istanbul, Fenarı İsa Camii (Monastery of the heotokos tou libos), north church, western gallery parekklesion. altar base, looking east (photo: byzantine institute, MS.bz.004-H59.439, he byzantine institute and Dumbarton oaks Fieldwork records and papers, image Collections and Fieldwork archives, Dumbarton oaks, trustees for Harvard university, Washington, DC) 156 Vasileios Marinis and Robert Ousterhout Symeon, archbishop of hessalonike (d. 1429), clariied this in his commentary on the sacrament of the consecration: because it is not customary to execute the consecration without relics of martyrs or holy saints, since the martyrs are the foundations of the Church, built upon the foundation of the Savior. and in the church building [the martyrs] should be placed under the altar, because this is the Church, and the throne of God, and the tomb of Christ. . . . and the relics are placed [the night before] in a church because they are sanctiied and members of Christ and they are sacriices ofered for Him. and they are placed on a most holy paten because they partake of the same veneration with the lord, since they were persecuted for Him. and they are put on a consecrated altar because they died with Christ and stand beside the divine throne of His glory. it is because of this that the archbishop lits them atop his head, as if venerating the divine mysteries themselves, the body and blood of the lord.20 While the consecration relics did not igure in public or private veneration, other relics did, and the politics of control, of withholding and revealing, become important in their architectural setting. Movable, small-scale reliquaries were deposited in parts of the church and subsidiary structures where access was tightly controlled, mainly for safekeeping. byzantines had an exceedingly tactile and possessive relationship with relics. When St. nikon ho Metanoeite died, the people, “desiring to show the heat and Οὐδὲ γὰρ θέμις δίχα λειψάνων μαρτυρικῶν ἢ ὁσίων ἁγίων καθιέρωσιν ἐνεργεῖν, ὅτι θεμέλιοι τῆς Ἐκκλησίας εἰσὶν οἱ μάρτυρες, ἐπὶ τῷ θεμελίῳ τοῦ Σωτῆρος ἐποικοδομηθέντες· καὶ ἐν τῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ δέον τούτους ὑπὸ τὸ θυσιαστήριον εἶναι, ἐπεὶ καὶ τοῦτο ἡ Ἐκκλησία, ἐπεὶ καὶ θρόνος Θεοῦ ἐστι καὶ μνῆμα Χριστοῦ τοῦ Θεοῦ . . . Τὰ λείψανα δὲ προαποτίθεται εἰς ναόν, ὅτι ἡγιασμένα καὶ μέλη Χριστοῦ καὶ θυσιαστήρια ὡς τεθυμένα ὑπὲρ αὐτοῦ. Καὶ εἰς ἱερώτατον ἐμβάλονται δίσκον, ὅτι τῆς ἴσης μετέχουσι τῷ Δεσπότῃ τιμῆς, ὑπὲρ αὐτοῦ διηγωνισμένοι. Καὶ ἐπὶ καθιερωμένης τραπέζης τίθενται, ἐπεὶ συναπέθανον Χριστῷ, καὶ τῷ θείῳ τῆς αὐτοῦ δόξης θρόνῳ τυγχάνουσι παριστάμενοι. Διὰ τοῦτο καὶ ἐπὶ κεφαλῆς μετὰ τοῦ δίσκου ὁ ἀρχιερεὺς αἷρει ταῦτα, ὡς αὐτὰ δὴ τὰ θεῖα μυστήρια τὸ τοῦ Δεσπότου σῶμα καὶ αἷμα τιμῶν, pG 155:320–22. Cf. M.-H. Congourdeau, Nicolas Cabasilas: La vie en Christ (paris, 1990), 2:32–34. 20 fervor of their faith,” literally attacked the body: “and one hastened to carry away something from the squalid locks on the blessed one’s head, another something from the hairs in his beard, still another a patch from his old cloak and his goatskin outer garment.”21 hus most reliquaries were kept under lock and key in safe locations and ofered for public veneration only on occasion. according to the sources, reliquaries were kept inside the bema, in chapels, and in skeuophylakia, which could be inside or outside the church proper. on some occasions the Book of Ceremonies instructed that the reliquary (or reliquaries) of the true Cross be taken out of the Great palace skeuophylakion and presented for veneration in a church in the palace and, for the general public, in Hagia Sophia.22 antony of novgorod reported in ca. 1200 that many relics were still in the skeuophylakion of Hagia Sophia.23 We also hear of various relics kept “in the bema.” When Constantine Vii had the relics of St. Gregory of nazianzos “returned” to Constantinople, ca. 950, they were deposited in the church of the Holy apostles inside the sanctuary, in an “oblong rectangular sarcophagus of ruddy color,” opposite the tomb of John Chrysostom, on the south side of the bema.24 21 text and translation in D. Sullivan, he Life of Saint Nikon: Text, Translation, and Commentary (brookline, Ma, 1987), 163–65. Such behavior had very early precedents: in the funerals of both Hypatios, abbot of ruinianai in Constantinople (d. 446), and Daniel the Stylite (d. 493) the crowd attempted to get contact relics from the body of the saint: M. kaplan, “De la depouille à la relique: Formation du culte des saints à byzance du Ve au Xiie siècle,” in Les reliques: Objets, cultes, symboles, ed. e. bozóky and a.-M. Helvétius (turnhout, 1999), 19–20; M. kaplan, “l’ensevelissement des saints: rituel de création des reliques et sanctiication à byzance à travers les sources hagiographiques (Ve–Xiie siècles),” TM 14 (2002): 319–22. on the topic of the byzantines’ tactile relationship with the sacred see V. Marinis, “piety, barbarism, and the Senses in byzantium,” in Sensational Religion: Sensory Cultures in Material Practice, ed. S. promey (new Haven, 2014), 321–40. J. J. reiske, ed., Constantini Porphyrogeniti imperatoris de cerimoniis aulae Byzantinae libri duo (bonn, 1829), 538–41, 549–50. For these ceremonies see H. a. klein, “Constantine, Helena, and the Cult of the true Cross in Constantinople,” in Byzance et les reliques du Christ (paris, 2004), 48–54. 22 23 ehrhard, “antoine de novgorod” (n. 2 above), 49–50. See also J. Wortley, “relics and the Great Church,” BZ 99 (2006): 638–39; r. F. tat, he Communion, hanksgiving, and Conclud­ ing Rites (rome, 2008), 518–22. 24 b. Flusin, “l’empereur et le théologien: À propos du retour des réliques de Grégoire de nazianze,” in Studies in Honor of “Grant Us to Share a Place and Lot with Them” 157 was in the bema of St. George at Mangana.26 antony of novgorod reported that the “clothes of the apostles” were inside a chest behind the main altar of that church.27 and in the late byzantine period the robe and other clothing of the heotokos were inside a stone casket bound with iron bands that sat on the altar of the blachernai.28 it is also possible that some reliquaries were stored in cabinet-like structures in the southern apsidal room, now usually called the diakonikon, along with sacred vessels and vestments. here is some evidence of this in the diakonikon of the south church at pantokrator, where a niche in the south wall seems to have been outitted with marble shelves and may have originally been closed by a door (ig. 8.3).29 Subsidiary chapels, that is, chapels inside, adjacent to, or near a main church, were also a common place for storing reliquaries.30 in contrast to the english word chapel, which is vague and oftentimes implies an independent, freestanding structure, the various terms martyria, eukteria, propheteia, or simply oikoi normally refer to subsidiary structures. to these terms the synaxaria and other sources frequently add the words “near” (πλησίον) or “inside” (ἔνδον, ἔνδοθεν) and the name of the main church or monastery with which they were associated.31 From the vita of Stephen the younger we learn that ater the saint’s death, in 764, part of his head was taken to the Monastery ta Diou in Constantinople, placed in a reliquary, and hidden inside the sanctuary of the “right chapel” of the monastery dedicated to the protomartyr Stephen.32 the Majeska, Russian Travelers, 366, 370. See also S. brock, “a Medieval armenian pilgrim’s Description of Constantinople,” REArm 4 (1967): 87. 26 Fig. 8.3 istanbul, zeyrek Camii (photo: Mehmet tunay, pH.bz.001-95000064, black and White Mounted photograph Collection, image Collections and Fieldwork archives, Dumbarton oaks, trustees for Harvard university, Washington, DC) at the pantokrator Monastery in Constantinople, the jar or jars in which Christ had changed water into wine were kept in the bema of the katholikon.25 he head of the apostle andrew 27 ehrhard, “antoine de novgorod,” 59. 28 Majeska, Russian Travelers, 333–37. 29 Megaw, “recent Work,” 340, and ig. a. 30 For subsidiary chapels in byzantium see G. babić, Les cha­ Cyril Mango, ed. i. Ševčenko and i. Hutter (Stuttgart, 1998), 137–53; G. Downey, “nikolaos Mesarites: Description of the Church of the Holy apostles in Constantinople,” TAPS 47, no. 6 (1957): 890, 915 (= 38.4). 25 G. p. Majeska, Russian Travelers to Constantinople in the Fourteenth and Fiteenth Centuries (Washington, DC, 1984), 293; S. brock, “rabban Ṣauma à Constantinople (1287),” in Mémorial Mgr Gabriel Khouri­Sarkis (louvain, 1969), 246, 250. 158 pelles annexes des églises byzantines: Fonction liturgique et pro­ grammes iconographiques (paris, 1969), esp. 33–65; S. Ćurčić, “architectural Signiicance of Subsidiary Chapels in Middle byzantine Churches,” JSAH 36 (1977): 95–110; Marinis, Architecture and Ritual, 77–87. See also below for the use of chapels for the placement of tombs of saints. See, for example, Synaxarium CP, 21 october, 12, 25, 27 June, 2 September. See also babić, Les chapelles annexes, 33–36. 31 32 M.-F. auzépy, La Vie d’ Étienne le Jeune par Étienne le Diacre (aldershot, 1997), 173. Vasileios Marinis and Robert Ousterhout Book of Ceremonies prescribes that the emperors venerate the head of Saint John the baptist in a chapel southeast of the Stoudios basilica.33 according to the late thirteenth-century typikon of the Monastery tou libos, the relics of Saint irene were located “in the chapel near the old church,” probably the northeastern exterior chapel of the heotokos church.34 in the monastery of heotokos panachrantos, the head of St. basil of Caesarea was kept in a chapel, probably dedicated to the hree Hierarchs.35 these reliquaries were offered for veneration only on certain days or exceptional occasions throughout the year. he synaxarion of the evergetis Monastery showcases such practices in the rubrics for the feast of the exaltation of the Holy Cross on 14 September. on the eve of the feast the appointed priest, escorted by the sacristan and a deacon, ascended to the skeuophylakion. Having put on their vestments, they brought down the venerable cross and deposited it in the sanctuary of the church.36 he next day, as soon as the singing of the canon started during matins, the priest, preceded by the deacon, processed around the church and deposited the cross on a decorated table placed in front of the templon on the right side.37 ater the ritual of the exaltation of the Cross, irst the abbot, and Λαβὼν ὁ πρῶτος βασιλεὺς θυμιατόν, θυμιᾷ, καὶ δεξιᾷ τοῦ βήματος ἐρχόμενοι, (κἀκεῖσε γὰρ πρόκειται ἡ τοῦ Προδρόμου ἁγία κάρα,) ἅπτουσιν ἐκεῖσε κηρούς, καὶ ταύτην ἀσπάζονται: see reiske, De cerimoniis, 563. his relic could not have been stored in the diakonikon for the simple reason that the katholikon in Stoudios did not have one. 33 . . . ἐπὶ δὲ τῷ ἐχόμενα τοῦ παλαιοῦ εἰς τὸ τῆς ἁγίας Εἰρήνης, ἧς τὸ σεβάσμιον λείψανον ἐν τῇ μονῇ καθευρίσκεται: see H. Delehaye, Deux typica byzantins de l’ époque des Paléologues (brussels, 1921), 110. english translation in BMFD, 3:1267. 34 35 Janin, La géographie (n. 2 above), 214–15; Majeska, Russian Travelers, 377–79. r. H. Jordan, ed., he Synaxarion of the Monastery of the heotokos Evergetis, bbtt 6.5 (belfast, 2000), 52. he wording of the rubric indicates that the skeuophylakion was located above the ground loor, perhaps in the galleries of the church. he Testament of Athanasios of Athos suggests the existence of a skeuophylakion in the galleries of the katholikon of the Great lavra in Mount athos, where athanasios’s testament was kept: see p. Meyer, Die Haupturkunden für die Geschichte der Athosklöster (leipzig, 1894), 123. BMFD, 1:274. 36 37 Jordan, Synaxarion of Evergetis, 58. For this text see also G. Descoeudres, Die Pastophorien im syro­byzantinischen Osten: Eine Untersuchung zu architektur­ und liturgiegeschichtlichen Problemen (Wiesbaden, 1983), 153, where it is mistranslated. then everybody else in pairs, venerated the cross. the relic remained there until the beginning of the liturgy.38 a similar ceremony took place on the third Sunday of Great lent.39 in this instance the Cross was kept in the bema and exposed for veneration during orthros on the Wednesday and Friday of the fourth week of lent.40 in like manner, according to the Typikon of the Great Church and the Book of Ceremonies, the true Cross was taken out of the skeuophylakion and exhibited for public veneration for four days preceding the feast of the exaltation of the Cross (10–13 September), for four days in the week following the third Sunday of lent, and for the week before and two weeks after 1 august.41 in the late byzantine period, the monastery of Saint George at Mangana possessed a triple chest with relics of Christ’s passion. hese were exhibited on a table for public veneration only once every year, on Holy hursday, in the north aisle of Hagia Sophia; this was, according to the russian pilgrims, the only such opportunity.42 indeed, ignatios of Smolensk was able to kiss only the table on which the relics were exhibited, but he made a point of visiting other shrines on their feast days, when their relics would have been presented for veneration.43 he illustration in the Menologion of basil ii of the veneration of the chains of St. peter, kept in his eponymous eukterion close to Hagia Sophia, illustrates this practice. he miniature shows the chains displayed on a table—not an altar—on the day commemorated in the synaxarion.44 in addition to these programmatic expositions, reliquaries could be taken out for veneration by special visitors. For 38 Jordan, Synaxarion of Evergetis, 58, 60, 62. 39 ibid., 404, 406, 408. 40 ibid., 418, 422, 424. 41 J. Mateos, Le typicon de la Grande Église (rome, 1962), 1:28–33, 2:40–47; reiske, De cerimoniis, 538–41, 549–50. See also klein, “Cult of the true Cross,” 45–53. Majeska, Russian Travelers, 216–18, 366–67. Cf. Mateos, Le typicon de la Grande Église, 2:78. 42 Majeska, Russian Travelers, 92, 100, 289, 335 (blachernai and Saint anastasia). according to antony of novgorod the clothes of heodore of Stoudios were exhibited on his tomb in the Stoudios monastery on the saint’s feast day: ehrhard, “antoine de novgorod” (n. 2 above), 58. 43 44 Synaxarium CP, 16 January. on this small church see Janin, La géographie, 398–99; tat, Communion (n. 23 above), 503–4. “Grant Us to Share a Place and Lot with Them” 159 example, ruy González de Clavijo (d. 1412), the Spanish ambassador, visited the monastery of St. John the baptist in petra, in Constantinople, in order to venerate the monastery’s relics and speciically the passion relics, which were transferred to that foundation from the Mangana in the early iteenth century.45 he monks mounted the “tower of the church, where the relics were preserved” inside a sealed chest.46 his they “carried down into the church and placed on a high table which was spread with a silken coverlet.” Subsequently the monks presented, one by one, a formidable number of mostly passion relics. From Clavijo’s description it is clear that most of the contents of the chest were small reliquaries, each sealed and locked.47 in addition to the pragmatic concern of keeping such valuable commodities safe, restricted access to relics created an economy of desire. Constantinople was famed in the West for its collection of relics. before 1204 the byzantine imperial administration carefully exploited the prestige of important relics through git-giving and regulated access to eminent visitors.48 he massive transfer of reliquaries to Western europe ater the Crusader sack of Constantinople underlined how successful this construction of relic-lust had been. it is not accidental that both western and eastern visitors to Constantinople were attracted mainly to the city’s relics and showed little interest in anything else.49 yet even beyond the politics of the palace, the only occasional exposition of a relic held by a church or a monastery might have 45 Majeska, Russian Travelers (n. 25 above), 342–44. he russian anonymous reports a chest of relics in the monastery of peribleptos: Majeska, Russian Travelers, 146. 46 47 r. González de Clavijo, Embassy to Tamerlane, 1403–1406 (new york, 1928), 80–83. antony of novgorod describes a similar exposition of relics on a table in the monastery of the prophet elijah: ehrhard, “antoine de novgorod,” 62. 48 on this see H. a. klein, “eastern objects and Western Desires: relics and reliquaries between byzantium and the West,” DOP 58 (2004): 283–314. See also a. eastmond, “byzantine identity and relics of the true Cross in the hirteenth Century,” in Eastern Christian Relics, ed. lidov, 205–16. lists of relic possessions by church or monastery constituted the largest parts of the foreign pilgrims’ accounts. See Majeska, Russian Travelers; k. n. Ciggaar, Western Travellers to Constantinople: he West and Byzantium, 962–1204 (leiden, 1996); a. lidov, Relikvii v Vizantii i Drevneĭ Rusi (Moscow, 2006). 49 160 increased the relic’s (and, by extension, the foundation’s) reputation and enhanced its mystique, especially in a city where pilgrims had the option to venerate literally hundreds of such objects. Stephen of novgorod clearly expressed the inancial ramiications of the pilgrim traic for the city’s religious establishments when he admonished his reader that “if you attempt to get around [in Constantinople] stingily or cheaply you will not be able to see or kiss a single saint unless it happens to be the holiday of that saint when [you can] see and kiss [the relics].”50 permanent or semipermanent ixtures such as tombs and relic shrines also had a variety of locations inside the byzantine church. hese relected to a degree the places where movable reliquaries were kept, although the considerations that dictated this arrangement were certainly diferent. For example, in the Mangana, the aforementioned chest with the passion relics was located “on the right side in front of the altar.”51 Whether this means inside or outside the bema proper is unclear, but a semipermanent installation is implied here, one that would have permitted pilgrims and visitors to venerate the container, albeit not the relics themselves. he anonymous Mercati described in similar terms the location of the sarcophagus of St. euphemia inside her martyrium in Constantinople.52 in the fourteenth century in Dečani the relics of St. Stefan Dečanski were moved from his tomb in the southwestern part of the naos to an elevated wooden reliquary placed just to the north of the main sanctuary entrance right outside the bema (ig. 8.4).53 he Dečani example is indicative of the complications of mapping the topography of supposedly ixed sacred loca in middle and late byzantine churches. tombs of saints do not have a standard location. antony of novgorod saw the tomb of St. Metrophanes, the irst patriarch of Constantinople, behind the altar in the church of 50 Majeska, Russian Travelers, 44–46. later the relics were kept in petra: see Majeska, Russian Travelers, 368–69. 51 52 k. n. Ciggaar, “une description de Constantinople traduite par un pèlerin anglais,” REB 34 (1976): 256–57; Majeska, Russian Travelers, 320. 53 S. Ćurčić, “proskynetaria icons, Saints’ tombs, and the Development of the iconostasis,” in he Iconostasis: Origins, Evolution, Symbolism, ed. a. lidov (Moscow, 2000), 134–60. Vasileios Marinis and Robert Ousterhout Fig. 8.4 Dećani, Church of Christ pantokrator, plan (S. Ćurčić modiied by r. ousterhout) St. akakios.54 in the monastery of St. lazaros in the topoi, built probably by leo Vi, the body of St. lazaros was deposited to the let of the altar and the body of St. Mary Magdalen to the right, against the templon, in a silver coffin.55 the russian anonymous noted that “there are two incorrupt bodies . . . St. Sabas and St. Solomonis repose in the corner on the let side” of the naos of the Stoudios in Constantinople.56 he ot-mentioned miracle-working tomb of St. nicholas may have been in the lateral aisle of his church at Myra, but its location is not entirely certain—even the italian merchants who stole the body needed assistance to identify it.57 Very oten, saints’ tombs were located in auxiliary chapels, crypts, and other subsidiary spaces. St. heodora of hessalonike reposed inside a sarcophagus with a wooden cover located in a chapel of the heotokos “in the middle of the right-hand colonnade of the church in the convent of St. Stephen in hessalonike.”58 in the ninth century, the body of theodore Stoudite and the remains of his brother, Joseph of hessalonike, were translated to the Stoudios and placed in the same tomb as their uncle, plato, inside a chapel dedicated to the martyrs located to the east of the main church.59 later in the ninth century two other important Stoudites, naukratios and nicholas, were buried together in the same chapel.60 St. athanasios of athos’s tomb was eventually located in the north chapel attached to the katholikon of Great lavra.61 he relics of St. babylas and the eighty-four children 58 e. kurtz, Des Klerikers Gregorios Bericht über Leben, Wun­ derthaten und Translation der hl. heodora von hessalonich nebst der Metaphrase des Joannes Staurakios (St. petersburg, 1902), 31. english translation in a.-M. talbot, ed., Holy Women of Byzantium: Ten Saints’ Lives in English Translation (Washington, DC, 1996), 209. 56 Majeska, Russian Travelers, 146. 59 C. Van de Vorst, “la translation de S. héodore Studite et de S. Joseph de hessalonique,” AB 32 (1913): 60. See also ehrhard, “antoine de novgorod,” 58; Ciggaar, “Description de Constantinople,” 262. likely remains of this chapel, whose surviving lower level may have been a sort of hagiasma, still survive to the southeast of the basilica. 57 J. borchhardt, ed., Myra: Eine lykische Metropole in antiker 60 pG 105:921. und byzantinischer Zeit (berlin, 1975), 349–51. 61 54 ehrhard, “antoine de novgorod,” 62. 55 pG 147:573; brock, “armenian pilgrim” (n. 26 above), 86. babić, Les chapelles annexes (n. 30 above), 47. “Grant Us to Share a Place and Lot with Them” 161 that were martyred with him were kept in coins in a crypt underneath the church of the martyr anthimos in the monastery of Chora.62 and the tombs of the prophet Daniel, St. niketas, and the martyr romanos were in an underground chapel in the church of St. romanos.63 he narthex, however, appears to have been the most preferred location (e.g., niketas of Medikion, kliment of ohrid, paul the younger, and ignatios, abbot of Savior bathyrrhyax in Constantinople, among others).64 St. heodora of arta (d. 1270) was buried on the south side of the narthex in the monastic church of St. George. he tomb still survives although it has been severely altered.65 he case of heodora of arta is signiicant because she was the founder of the church and nunnery in which she was interred. indeed, the location of saints’ tombs in aisles, narthexes, and chapels follows patterns identical to those of tombs of founders, benefactors, and monastic leaders, as it was the case with the several Stoudites buried in the Chapel of the Martyrs.66 in other words, a tomb inside the church or a chapel was not the exclusive prerogative of saints, but should be seen in the context of privileged burial. he byzantine Church did not have an oicial process of canonization before the late thirteenth century,67 and in most cases, sanctity was proved through a complex and lengthy process.68 Many of the above-mentioned saints were buried inside the conines of a sacred space because of their status as founders or benefactors and were recognized as saints only subsequently. his fact limits the usefulness of any conclusions. 65 noncorporeal relics are less problematic. at the pantokrator Monastery in Constantinople, the Stone of the unction was permanently put on display in relationship to the imperial tombs, speciically that of Manuel, who had brought the stone to Constantinople. originally housed at the pharos church, the stone was set up at the pantokrator ater Manuel’s death, in 1180.69 Megaw is undoubtedly correct in envisaging the stone set under the great arch between the south and central churches, opened to visually connect the monastic church with the imperial tombs. it thus could have been venerated from either side of the arch, while forming an efective barrier between the south church—closed of for monastic use—and the funeral chapel, which seems to have been accessible from the northern, public church of the complex. in addition, it it nicely with the mosaic decoration of the funeral chapel, whose program was devoted to the death and resurrection of Christ. in the church of the Holy Cross in his enkleistra near paphos, the future St. neophytos had a wooden cross set into a cruciform recess on the east wall, beneath an image of the Cruciixion painted in 1183. He had obtained a fragment of the Holy Cross ca. 1165, and this was apparently set into a cavity at the center of the wooden cross (ig. 8.5),70 constructing a mimetic relationship similar to that in the limburg Staurothek. notably, this section of wall faces due east, while the bema is oriented to the north.71 the surrounding painted program relates to the relic and directs our eyes toward it: note the angle of the cross carried by Simon (let) and the line of Christ’s arm in the Deposition (right). byzantine churches oten preserve loculi in the walls that may have contained venerated relics of lesser importance. in the Chora naos, for example, a rectangular recess aligns with the cuttings for hanging icons along the north wall.72 according to a legendary account of the construction of Hagia Sophia, relics were enclosed in columns 66 on the topic of burials inside churches see Marinis, “tombs and burials.” 69 Megaw, “recent Work” (n. 10 above), 342. 62 M. b. Cunningham, ed., he Life of Michael the Synkellos (belfast, 1991), 124. For this church see Janin, La géographie (n. 2 above), 34. See also Synaxarium CP, Sept. 4. Janin, La géographie, 85–86; Majeska, Russian Travelers, 326–29. 63 64 V. Marinis, “tombs and burials in the Monastery tou libos in Constantinople,” DOP 63 (2009): 159–60. a. k. orlandos, “Ὁ τάφος τῆς Ἁγ. Θεοδώρας,” Ἀρχ.Βυζ. Μνημ.Ἑλ. 2 (1936): 105–15. 67 a.-M. talbot, Faith Healing in Late Byzantium: The Posthumous Miracles of the Patriarch Athanasios I of Constanti­ nople by heoktistos the Stoudite (brookline, Ma, 1983), 21–30. 70 C. Mango and e. J. W. Hawkins, “he Hermitage of St. neophytos and its Wall paintings,” DOP 20 (1966): 158. 68 on this topic see kaplan, “l’ensevelissement des saints” (n. 21 above), 319–32. 72 See r. ousterhout, he Architecture of the Kariye Camii in Istanbul (Washington, DC, 1987), pl. 52. 162 71 teteriatnikov, “relics in the Walls” (n. 14 above), 78–79. Vasileios Marinis and Robert Ousterhout Fig. 8.5 paphos (near), enkleistra of St. neophytos, looking east (photo courtesy image Collections and Fieldwork archives, Dumbarton oaks, trustees for Harvard university, Washington, DC) and within every twelth brick in the arches of the great dome.73 relics inhabited sacred space, but did they afect its form and function? he idea of an architectural reliquary is very clear in the early byzantine period. he ith-century circular chapel in which the maphorion of the theotokos was kept at t. preger, Scriptores originum Constantinopolitanarum (leipzig, 1901), sec. 14.22. See also Majeska, Russian Travelers (n. 25 above), 30–31. Whether the cross-shaped cavities found throughout Hagia Sophia contained reliquaries or, more likely in our opinion, devotional crosses is unclear: see n. teteriatnikov, “Devotional Crosses in the Columns and Walls of Hagia Sophia,” Byzantion 68 (1998): 419–45; eadem, “relics in the Walls,” 81–82. blachernai was called soros, literally a reliquary casket.74 yet, with very few exceptions, it is doubtful that this idea was carried over to the medieval period. his is peculiar because, if we are to believe the liturgical sources, Constantinopolitans continued to use several early foundations where the existence of a relic and eponymous dedication of a chapel indicate that the latter was built to house the former. his is the case with the aforementioned chapel of St. peter near Hagia Sophia, which housed the chains of peter;75 the 73 74 For this chapel see J. b. papadopoulos, Le palais et les églises des Blachernes (hessalonike, 1928); a. M. Schneider, “Die blachernen,” Oriens 4 (1951): 97–105; Janin, La géographie, 161–71. ater 1261 clothing items of the heotokos were inside a stone casket placed on the altar of the blachernai. 75 See above, n. 44. “Grant Us to Share a Place and Lot with Them” 163 Fig. 8.6 Jerusalem, church of the Holy Sepulchre, plan, mid-11th c. (r. ousterhout) martyrium of SS. Florus and laurus near the cistern of Mokios, which housed their heads (they were subsequently moved to the pantokrator Monastery);76 or the chapel of St. Stephen in the palace, built to house the relic of the saint’s right arm.77 Middle byzantine typika and synaxaria for Constantinople indicate that very oten the synaxis, or liturgical gathering on the saint’s feast day, took place in these chapels, enhancing the localized connection among the saint, relic, and place of veneration. Subsidiary chapels and related structures were primarily commemorative in function, and they could be used for the safekeeping of movable reliquaries and as the setting of saints’ tombs. We have already mentioned some examples, although in all those cases the relic or tomb was added to an 76 Synaxarion CP, 908. Janin, La géographie, 496–97; Majeska, Russian Travelers, 293. i. kalavrezou, “Helping Hands for the empire: imperial Ceremonies and the Cult of relics at the byzantine Court,” in Byzantine Court Culture rom 829 to 1204, ed. H. Maguire (Washington, DC, 1997), 53–79. already-existing structure. but there are examples of de novo constructions. in the eleventh-century byzantine rebuilding of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, for example, the presence of numerous relics associated with the passion of Christ led to the construction of a circuit of annexed chapels around the courtyard, allowing the faithful to visit in chronological sequence the relics associated with the prison, the lagellation, the crown of thorns, and the division of the garments, before ascending to the elevated chapel of Calvary (ig. 8.6).78 Here, unusually, the unique redesign of the complex came as a response to the simultaneous presence of both relics and a large public wishing to venerate them. he katholikon of the monastery of Hosios Meletios in attica was constructed around the year 1100. Sometime shortly ater the death of Meletios in ca. 1105, the narthex was enlarged into a spacious lite with a peculiar form (ig. 8.7). 77 164 r. ousterhout, “rebuilding the temple: Constantine Monomachus and the Holy Sepulchre,” JSAH 48 (1989): 66–78. 78 Vasileios Marinis and Robert Ousterhout Fig. 8.7 Hosios Meletios, katholikon, plan (a. k. orlandos modiied by r. ousterhout) the north bay of the lite, which houses the pseudo-sarcophagus of Meletios, projects signiicantly from the north wall of the katholikon and creates a chapel-like space for the saint’s tomb. orlandos argued that the addition of the lite was due to functional reasons—the monastic community became too large.79 his was certainly a consideration, yet the lite and especially its northernmost bay also create an appropriate architectural context for the tomb of Meletios. under the lite there is a crypt, which likely extended beneath the present location of Meletios’s sarcophagus. its function is still unclear, but it is possible that Meletios was originally buried there and his relics subsequently translated above ground, an arrangement relected in the crypt a. k. orlandos, “Ἡ μονὴ τοῦ Ὁσίου Μελετίου καὶ τὰ παραλαύρια αὐτῆς,” Ἀρχ.Βυζ.Μνημ.Ἑλ. 5 (1939–40): 79–83. 79 and katholikon of Hosios loukas, which we will examine later in this chapter. Some unusually situated burials in Cappadocia might signal special veneration. at the tenth-century kubbeli kilise in Soğanlı Dere, an isolated, barrel-vaulted tomb is located of the north transept (ig. 8.8). large enough for a single burial, the chamber is accessible only through a small rectangular window in the transept. Within the naos proper, the badly damaged scene of the Holy Women at the tomb of Christ appears in the north lunette, with the angel barely visible; the tomb of Christ is represented by an arch that mimics the form of the barrel vault immediately behind it. hus the angel’s gesture toward the tomb of Christ also directs our view to the actual burial. his may have been the tomb of a locally revered holy man, which would account for the unusual concentration of burials “Grant Us to Share a Place and Lot with Them” 165 Fig. 8.8 Soğanlı Dere (Cappadocia), kubbeli kilise, plan (r. ousterhout and a. Henry) in this area; more than one hundred have been counted inside and around the church.80 in some cases, subsidiary chapels inherited the function of early byzantine martyria and prophe­ teia, some of which were attached to larger foundations as well. hey created an appropriate and safe place for a tomb or reliquary and they facilitated the low of visitors. hey were, in a sense, architectural reliquaries. but this statement needs qualification. Slobodan Ćurčić’s fundamental study of subsidiary chapels showed an array of possible arrangements, and archaeological evidence indicates a lack of standardization both in the form of the chapels and in their connection 80 r. G. ousterhout, “remembering the Dead in byzantine Cappadocia: he architectural Settings for Commemoration,” in Architecture of Byzantium and Kievan Rus rom the 9th to the 12th Centuries (St. petersburg, 2010), 89–100. 166 to the main church.81 Chapels were created to house relics or tombs, but most oten these were deposited in a chapel long ater the chapel’s construction, as is the case with the aforementioned head of St. Stephen the younger or the several Stoudites buried in the Chapel of the Martyrs. Moreover, chapels in medieval byzantium had a variety of functions; many had no relics whatsoever. he tenth-century church of the heotokos tou libos was equipped with six subsidiary chapels, and as far as we know only one possessed relics.82 With the exception of clear cases of a relic and an eponymous chapel (most of which date from before the ninth century), reliquaries were deposited in chapels for practical reasons, primarily security and access control. here was usually 81 Ćurčić, “architectural Signiicance” (n. 30 above). 82 See above n. 34. Vasileios Marinis and Robert Ousterhout no causal relationship between relics and the creation of such architectural spaces. or was there? Scholars oten argue that certain palace chapels were the equivalent of giant reliquaries, and that the pharos chapel in particular was the byzantine reliquary chapel par excellence.83 Constructed already in the eighth century, the pharos played an important role in the liturgical life of the palace. in addition, the emperor venerated the Holy lance there on Holy Friday; and the true Cross was exhibited and venerated there in the middle of Great lent and on 1 august.84 beginning with the arrival of the Mandylion of edessa in 944, the pharos became a depository of dominical relics.85 Magdalino has argued that the collection was put together primarily between 944 and 1032 as a direct consequence of the empire’s successful expansion wars in the east.86 by 1200, when nicholas Mesarites, the skeuophylax of the pharos church, enumerated its holdings, the list is nothing short of impressive:87 the Crown of horns, a precious nail, the Whip (φραγέλλιον), the lance, the Sandals, Christ’s purple robe, and so on. We know about some of the reliquaries: for example, the Fragellion was in a box and the Mandylion in a tabula.88 but we have little information about exactly where inside the pharos these relics were kept. according to the Narratio the Mandylion was placed “to the right side in 83 he church of pharos is attested for the irst time in heophanes in conjunction with the betrothal of leo iV and irene in 769. it was constructed perhaps by Constantine V kopronymos in the eighth century, or even earlier in the seventh century, and was rebuilt largely by Michael iii. See Janin, La géographie (n. 2 above), 232–36; p. Magdalino, “l’église du phare et les reliques de la passion à Constantinople (Viie/Viiie–Xiiie siècles),” in Byzance et les reliques du Christ, ed. J. Durand and b. Flusin (paris, 2004), 15–23. 84 Magdalino, Byzance et les reliques du Christ, 18–19. See also V. kydonopoulos, “Παρατηρήσεις στην ταύτιση του ναού της Θεοτόκου της 10ης ομιλίας του Πατριάρχου Φωτίου με το ναό της Θεοτόκου του Φάρου: Νέα στοιχεία υπέρ αυτής της ταύτισης,” Byzantina 23 (2002): 143–53. 85 on the circumstances of the Mandylion’s deposition see S. G. engberg, “romanos lekapenos and the Mandilion of edessa,” in Byzance et les reliques du Christ, 123–42. the east.”89 his likely indicates the diakonikon. However, at some point the Mandylion and its counterpart, the keramion (Holy tile) were displayed in the middle of the church, suspended from the vault. robert de Clari, who saw the chapel in 1204 writes, “here were two rich vessels (vaisseaus, i.e., reliquaries) of gold hanging in the midst of the chapel by two heavy silver chains. in one of these vessels there was a tile and in the other a cloth.”90 Hanging reliquaries were not unusual and might relect hagiopolitical practices.91 Depictions of the Mandylion in monumental art are frequent. although the Mandylion does not have a ixed place in these images, it is oten situated in the diakonikon, as at karanlık kilise in Göreme (mid-eleventh century),92 or under the dome as a pendant to the keramion, as at episkopi in the Mani (twelth century).93 both may relect how the Mandylion was kept and exhibited in pharos.94 it is tempting to read sacred topographies in the selection of relics in the pharos. indeed, nicholas Mesarites did that already in the late twelfth century when he called the church “another Sinai, bethlehem, Jordan, Jerusalem, nazareth, bethany, . . . Golgotha.”95 yet the pharos, like many of the palace churches, only gradually became “la Sainte-Chapelle des byzantines,” as it is often called. it was certainly not built as such. he accumulation of relics happened over a period of several decades, by emperors with difering agendas. here are 89 ἐκτενοῦς δὲ συνήθως γεγονυίας δεήσεως ᾔρθη μετὰ τὴν ταύτης συμπλήρωσιν ἐντεῦθεν πάλιν ἡ θεία εἰκὼν καὶ ἐν τῷ προρηθέντι τοῦ Φάρου ναῷ ἐν τῷ δεξιῷ πρὸς ἀνατολὰς ἀνιερώθη καὶ ἀνετέθη μέρει: e. von Dobschütz, Christusbilder: Untersuchungen zur christlichen Legende (leipzig, 1899), 85**. robert de Clari, he Conquest of Constantinople (new york, 2005), 104–5. 90 91 bacci, “relics,” 242. n. hierry, “Deux notes à propos du Mandylion,” Zograf 11 (1980): 16–19. See also C. Jolivet-lévy, “note sur la représentation du Mandylion dans les églises byzantines de Cappadoce,” in Intorno al Sacro Volto: Genova, Bisanzio e il Mediterraneo (secoli XI–XIV) (Venice, 2007), 137–44. 92 93 t. Velmans, “l’église de khé, en Géorgie,” Zograf 10 (1979): 86 Magdalino, “l’église du phare,” 25. 74–78. 87 a. Heisenberg, Nikolaos Mesarites: Die Palastrevolution des 94 We ind very little evidence for the claims in a. lidov, “he Johannes Komnenos (Würzburg, 1907), 29–32. Mandylion and keramion as an image-archetype of Sacred Space,” in idem, Eastern Christian Relics, 249–80. 88 M. bacci, “relics of the pharos Chapel: a View From the latin West,” in Eastern Christian Relics, ed. lidov, 241. 95 Heisenberg, Nikolaos Mesarites, 31–32. “Grant Us to Share a Place and Lot with Them” 167 good reasons to believe that the Mandylion was originally placed by romanos in the church of Christ in Chalke and was only later moved to the pharos by Constantine Vii.96 Furthermore, the collecting of relics by emperors throughout the byzantine period follows no consistent pattern.97 hus, from a functionalist perspective, the pharos is a problematic case. Was there anything in the architecture of this building that warranted, required, or caused its status as the quintessential byzantine “reliquary church”? its opulence must have been impressive, but this could hardly have been unique to Constantinople, particularly within the Great palace. its selection as sacred depot must have been due to the fact that it was the premier palatine church, located close to the Chrysotriklinos and connected by a corridor to the imperial apartments. Subsequent emperors may have deposited related relics in the pharos simply because they were following a precedent begun by the venerable Macedonian dynasty.98 it was therefore in the preexisting status of the pharos, rather than in its architecture, that determined its function. rhetorical platitudes of the byzantines and symbolic constructs by contemporary scholars simply obscure the most fundamental motivation—namely prestige, vested in the emperor, the city, and the empire, as well as utility in international diplomacy.99 the responses of visitors and conquerors alike amply demonstrate these motives. the second important repository of relics associated with the Great palace, this time relics related to Constantine i and to old testament igures and events, was the nea ekklesia, built by basil i in 880.100 he ive-domed church is known 96 engberg, “romanos lekapenos.” 97 For a useful overview see H. a. klein, “Sacred relics and imperial Ceremonies at the Great palace of Constantinople,” in Visualisierungen von Herrschat [= Byzas 5] (istanbul, 2006), 79–88. 98 he case of the Sandals of Christ is instructive. tzimiskes originally deposited them in the chapel of Christ in Chalke but basil ii likely moved them to pharos, where they appear in several lists. See Magdalino, “l’église du phare,” 24–25. 99 klein, “eastern objects” (n. 48 above). 100 Janin, La géographie, 361–64; p. Magdalino, “observations on the nea ekklesia of basil i,” JÖB 37 (1987): 51–64; idem, “basil i, leo Vi, and the Feast of the prophet elijah,” JÖB 38 (1988): 193–96; idem, “l’église du phare.” 168 from its ekphrasis in the Vita Basilii.101 it was dedicated to Christ, the heotokos, St. nicholas, the prophet elijah, and an archangel, originally Gabriel and later Michael. he corresponding number of dedications and domes indicates the existence of separate chapels inside the church. the Book of Ceremonies mentions specifically the one dedicated to elijah and another to the archangel and makes references to other sanctuaries.102 Stephen of novgorod also writes of chapels inside the nea.103 as a compartmentalized container of multiple relics, the nea might be compared to contemporary reliquaries, such as the Fieschi-Morgan reliquary.104 We know the locations of some of the relics in the nea; most were kept inside the bema or displayed on the templon. elijah’s sheepskin cloak was kept in the sanctuary of the chapel of the prophet elijah, as the Book of Ceremonies relates.105 antony of novgorod, who visited in 1200, writes that the cross with which Constantine went to battle was above the doors of the bema; Constantine’s shield was inserted on the templon; the horns of abraham’s lamb and perhaps the horn of Samuel were inside the bema; behind the altar was the table on which abraham ate with the Holy trinity; in the same chapel was a cross made with the vine that noah planted ater the Flood, and encased there was the olive branch that the dove brought him. in the same bema, antony saw part of the sheepskin cloak and belt of elijah, which by that time had apparently been moved from its original location.106 although there is a discrepancy between the list of relics in the Book of Ceremonies and those in antony’s account, Magdalino has convincingly argued that the collection represents the intentions and the agenda of basil i. if this is indeed the case, the nea must have been conceived, at 101 i. Ševčenko, ed., Chronographiae quae heophanis contin­ uati nomine fertur liber quo Vita Basilii Imperatoris amplectitur (berlin, 2011), 272–81. 102 reiske, De cerimoniis (n. 22 above), 1:117, 120–21. 103 Majeska, Russian Travelers (n. 25 above), 36–38. H. C. evans and W. D. Wixom, he Glory of Byzantium: Art and Culture of the Middle Byzantine Era, A.D. 843–1261 (new york, 1997), 74–75. 104 105 reiske, De cerimoniis, 1:117. 106 ehrhard, “antoine de novgorod” (n. 2 above), 57. See also Ciggaar, “Description de Constantinople,” (n. 52 above), 246. Vasileios Marinis and Robert Ousterhout least in part, as their original place of exhibition and safekeeping. yet, with the exception of elijah’s cloak, which at least initially was kept in the chapel dedicated to him, the other relics do not correspond to the dedications of the nea and do not appear to have been specially accommodated in or dispersed throughout the chapels of the nea. if antony of novgorod is correct, they did not have a ixed place (with the exception of the two Constantinian relics) and were moved, as was the case with elijah’s sheepskin. again, it is diicult here to argue that accommodation of relics had any architectural exigencies. yet there were certainly exceptions. the monastic complex of Hosios loukas in boeotia constitutes the best-preserved example of architectural accommodation of relics from the Middle byzantine period. he opulent monastery marks the site of the inal hermitage and tomb of the blessed luke of Steiris, who died in 953.107 luke was known for his healing powers and his ability to predict the future, and he continued to perform miracles from his tomb. luke built the irst church, probably on the site of the present panagia church, and when he died, his disciples buried him beneath the loor of his cell.108 he continuous miracles at the tomb attracted increasing numbers of visitors, much to the surprise of the monks. by the late tenth century, the tomb was enclosed in a cruciform eukterion.109 Sometime in the irst half of the eleventh century the katholikon was constructed, incorporating parts of the old eukterion into the present-day crypt (igs. 8.9–10). he relics of luke were removed from his tomb and placed in a proskynetarion above, presumably in 1011.110 he location of the proskynetarion dictated the functional relationship between the two churches and determined the design of the complex. positioned in a close vertical relationship to the tomb below, the proskynetarion is also in a prominent and accessible position, allowing pilgrims access from the exonarthex and lite of the panagia church and from the naos of the katholikon, as well as through a passageway in the east wall of the complex.111 he number of pilgrims is evident from the thousands of graiti throughout the building. Very clearly, the architecture of Hosios loukas responded directly to the sacred presence and to the necessities of pilgrimage. However, cases like the complex of the Hosios loukas monastery were exceptional in byzantium. byzantine church architecture occupied a spiritual landscape somewhat diferent from that of its early Christian predecessors or its western medieval contemporaries in that the presence of relics did not spur the creation of speciic architectural forms, such as the Carolingian annular crypts and rotundas or the multiple apses of the so-called romanesque pilgrimage churches.112 107 he construction history of the complex and the donor or donors of the monastery are still debated issues. in this chapter we follow Chatzidakis (see below), whose opinions seem the most plausible to us. For the monastery of Hosios loukas see, selectively, r. W. Schultz and S. H. barnsley, he Monastery of Saint Luke of Stiris, in Phocis, and the Dependent Monastery of Saint Nicolas in the Fields, near Skripou, in Boeotia (london, 1901); M. Chatzidakis, “a propos de la date et du fondateur de Saint-luc,” CahArch 19 (1969): 127–50; idem, “précisions sur le fondateur de Saint luc,” CahArch 22 (1972): 87–88; e. Stikas, Ὁ κτίτωρ τοῦ καθολικοῦ τῆς μονῆς Ὁσίου Λουκᾶ (athens, 1974); D. pallas, “zur topographie und Chronologie von Hosios lukas: eine kritische Übersicht,” BZ 78 (1985): 94–107; n. oikonomides, “he First Century of the Monastery of Hosios loukas,” DOP 46 (1992): 245–55; p. M. Mylonas, Μονὴ τοῦ Ὁσίου Λουκᾶ τοῦ Στειριώτη: Ἡ ἀρχιτεκτονικὴ τῶν τεσσάρων ναῶν (athens, 2005). For the vita of Holy luke see D. z. Sophianos, ed., Ὁ βίος τοῦ Ὁσίου Λουκᾶ τοῦ Στειριώτη (athens, 1989). english translation in W. r. Connor and C. l. Connor, he Life and Miracles of Saint Luke of Steiris: Text, Translation and Commentary (brookline, Ma, 1994). 108 Sophianos, Βίος, paras. 72, 78–79. 109 ibid., para. 81. 110 Chatzidakis, “a propos,” 129. 111 Mylonas, Μονή, 57–60. For case studies of roman churches in late antiquity and the middle ages see S. de blaauw, Cultus et décor: Liturgia e architettura nella Roma tardoantica e medievale (Vatican City, 1994); J. J. emerick, “altars personiied: he Cult of Saints and the Chapel System in pope paschal i’s S. prassede (817–819),” in Archaeology in Architecture: Studies in Honor of Cecil L. Striker, ed. J. J. emerick and D. Mauskopf Deliyannis (Mainz, 2005), 43–63. For the medieval period see, selectively, J.-p. Caillet, “reliques et architecture religieuse aux époques carolingienne et romane,” in bozóky and Helvétius Les reliques (n. 21 above), 169–97; b. brenk, “les églises de pèlerinage et le concept de prétention,” in Art, cérémonial et liturgie au Moyen Âge: Actes du Colloque de 3e Cycle Romand de Lettres, Lausanne­Fribourg, 24–25 mars, 14–15 avril, 12–13 mai 2000 (rome, 2002), 125–39; J. Crook, he Architectural Setting of the Cult of Saints in the Early Christian West, c. 300–1200 (oxford, 2000). See also the useful overviews in p. Gerson, “art and pilgrimage: Mapping the Way,” in A Companion to Medieval Art: Romanesque and Gothic in Northern Europe, ed. C. rudolph (Malden, Ma, 2006), 599–618; É. palazzo, “relics, liturgical Space, and the 112 “Grant Us to Share a Place and Lot with Them” 169 Fig. 8.9 Hosios loukas Monastery, katholikon and church of the panagia, plan (r. ousterhout, redrawn ater Schultz and barnsley) one of the fundamental peculiarities of the locus sanctus in byzantium was its movability. its role is primarily as ceremonial setting, lacking an identiiable formal response to sacred place or sacred presence. Similarly, few byzantine relics were site-speciic. his is plainly evident in the case of portable reliquaries, and we have argued in this chapter that it was primarily the need for security and controlled access that dictated their location inside the church—locked in a cabinet in the bema, inside a chapel, or sometimes hung from the ceiling. but even primary burials inside churches were not impervious to relocation— quite the opposite. an example is Mary the younger, a pious housewife whose husband beat her to death in Vize, ca. 903. She was buried in the cathedral of the town, probably because of her husband’s rank; she was not recognized as a saint heology of the Church,” in Treasures of Heaven: Saints, Relics, and Devotion in Medieval Europe, ed. M. bagnoli et al. (new Haven, 2010), 99–109. 170 at the time of her death. ater miracles began to occur at her tomb, she demanded her own “house of prayer” through a dream sent to her husband. about twenty-ive years ater the irst translation, Mary’s son turned this “house of prayer” into a monastery and relocated Mary’s body to a diferent tomb inside the same church.113 in another example, St. euphemia, one of Constantinople’s few local martyrs and an upholder of orthodoxy, was originally venerated in Chalcedon, where a martyrium was constructed, with her tomb in a chapel adjoining the sanctuary. in the troubled seventh century, 113 For the vita of St. Mary the younger, see BHG 1164, AASS novembris 4 (brussels, 1925), 692–705, as well as the english translation with introduction by a. laiou, in Holy Women of Byzantium: Ten Saints’ Lives in English Translation, ed. talbot (n. 58 above), 239–89. For the date of her death, see t. pratsch, “Das totesdatum der Maria (der Jüngeren) von bizye (BHG 1164): 16. Februar 902,” BZ 97 (2004): 567–69. For recent observations on the church at Vize, see F. a. bauer and H. a. klein, “he Church of Hagia Sophia in bizye (Vize): results of the Fieldwork Seasons 2003 and 2004,” DOP 60 (2006): 249–70. Vasileios Marinis and Robert Ousterhout when the asian shore was threatened by persian attack, her relics were transferred into the city.114 eventually—although it is unclear when—they came to be housed in a more centrally located church dedicated to her, by the Hippodrome, formerly the hall of a ith-century palace, as noted above.115 Curiously, rather than being ixed and immutable, her original place of burial seems to have been forgotten. he relics, wherever they were, assumed greater importance than her martyrium. another telling example, the robe of the heotokos, had been kept at the blachernai church since its arrival in Constantinople in the ith century.116 regarded as the sacred palladion of the city, its resting place was considerably less important than its activated presence. in its protective role, the robe was empowered by parading it along the city walls in times of crisis. indeed, the eicacy of the relic as protector of the city seems to have depended on its movement through space. all of this suggests that the relic was oten understood independent of its architectural setting. recent studies have examined the symbolic potential of the architectural image to represent sacred space. Ćurčić and Hadjitryphonos emphasize the iconic value of the byzantine architectural image—that is, like an icon, the AASS Sept. 5:275; r. naumann and H. belting, Die Euphemia­Kirche am Hippodrom zu Istanbul und ihre Fresken (berlin, 1966), 23–24. 114 115 naumann and belting, Die Euphemia­Kirche, 49–53. With limited remains, the dates of the mausolea are uncertain. Mathews had argued for a sixth-century conversion for building on the overwhelming 6th-century character of its liturgical furnishings—that is, he proposed that the conversion had occurred before the transfer of relics; see t. F. Mathews, he Early Churches of Constantinople: Architecture and Liturgy (university park, pa, 1971), 61–67. However, a close examination of the evidence suggests that the sixth-century marbles are spolia, and thus a later conversion seems more likely—perhaps even as late as the 796 restoration by irene and Constantine Vi; see C. Mango, “he relics of St. euphemia and the Synaxarion of Constantinople,” in Ὠπώρα: Studi in onore di mgr Paul Canart per il LXX compleanno, III = BollGrott 53, ed. S. lucà and l. perria (1999): 79–87. We thank Jordan pickett for his observations on St. euphemia. Fig. 8.10 Hosios loukas Monastery, katholikon, reliquary of H. loukas, present state, looking east (photo courtesy V. Marinis) 116 n. baynes, “he Finding of the Virgin’s robe,” AIPHOS 9 (1949): 87–95; n. baynes, “he Supernatural Defenders of Constantinople,” AB 67 (1949): 165–77; av. Cameron, “he heotokos in Sixth-Century Constantinople: a City Finds its Symbol,” JTS 29 (1978): 79–108; eadem, “images of authority: elites and icons in late Sixth-Century byzantium,” PP 84 (1979): 3–35. “Grant Us to Share a Place and Lot with Them” 171 architectural representation ofers a valid intermediary for communication with the divine.117 but if the church as sacred space was to be equated with its sacred contents, it is perhaps noteworthy how few byzantine reliquaries take the form of churches. he original function of the late tenthcentury church-shaped reliquary of anastasios the persian is disputed; the inscriptions suggest it was originally an artophorion.118 other architectural reliquaries are either post-byzantine or Western european, such as the 1613 kivotion from Serres,119 or the domed reliquary now in berlin of ca. 1175, which may have held the head of Gregory of nazianzos.120 Does a byzantine church share in the sanctity of its contents? in some instances, such as at the Holy Sepulchre or Hagia Sophia, the building came to be regarded as a relic in its own right. While relics certainly contributed to the construction of sacred space in byzantium, we can ind almost no examples in which signiicant deviations from the norm signal the presence of relics. even though some standard features, such as annexed chapels, lent themselves to the housing of venerated tombs, the same spaces could be used for a variety of other commemorative purposes. in the byzantine iguration, architecture 117 S. Ćurčić and e. Hadjitryphonos, eds., Architecture as Icon: Perception and Representation of Architecture in Byzantine Art (new Haven, 2010). W. b. r. Saunders, “he aachen reliquary of eustathius Maleinus, 969–970,” DOP 36 (1982): 211–19; bagnoli et al., Treasures of Heaven, 55. 118 did not simply house holy objects, it symbolized the sacred presence—in the words of Germanos of Constantinople (d. 730), it represented “heaven on earth.”121 but unlike the early Christian or western european architectural settings or reliquaries, the post-iconoclastic byzantine context rarely allows us to experience a mnemonic relationship between the relic and its container. he multitude of accommodations that we have investigated indicates that in byzantium relics were lexible. hey were literal and symbolic constructs that depended on their real or perceived value (for example, a relic of the true Cross versus the body of a local saint), the agenda of the owners, who might want to advertise their possessions or, at the other end, keep the relic safe from thet and other calamities, as well as practical considerations, such as size and mobility. he materiality of the saints’ presence inside the church, combined with their invocation during corporate acts of worship, contributed to the construction of sacred space. he saints’ simultaneous residence on earth and in the City of God connected the earthly to the heavenly congregation—the church militant with the church triumphant. Just as the church building provided a vision of “heaven on earth,” relics created a foretaste of the communion of saints who, together with the living, ofered worship to God. he byzantine faithful anticipated experiencing both—the vision and the foretaste—whenever they entered a church. 119 Ćurčić and Hadjitryphonos, Architecture as Icon, 194–95. 120 r. toman, ed., Romanesque: Architecture, Sculpture, Paint­ ing (potsdam, 2007), 364–65. 172 St. Germanus of Constantinople, On the Divine Liturgy (Crestwood, ny, 1984), 56. 121 Vasileios Marinis and Robert Ousterhout