Religious cults can be affected, transformed, or even obliterated by their transfer from region to region. The cults of saints and their related customs, legends, images, and relics, could travel away from their place of origin, following waves of migrations or networks of ecclesiastical, political, social, and commercial contacts. Transfer could transform a cult, or affect indigenous cults through their contact with imported ones. This workshop will examine the paradigm of cult transfer as a historical tool for our understanding of literary transformation in Byzantine Greek hagiography and its related linguistic traditions, in all its different manifestations.
PROGRAMME:
9.30-10.00: Stephanos Efthymiadis (Open University of Cyprus)
Transfers of cults and transformations of legends as reflected in Ninth- and Tenth-Century
Constantinopolitan Hagiography
10.00-10.30: Anna Lampadaridi (Newton International Fellow)
The legend of the monk Hilarion of Gaza between West and East
10.30-11.00: Laura Franco (Royal Holloway, University of London)
Observations on the Metaphrastic Vita of St Hilarion (BHG 755)
11.00-11.30: Break
11.30-12.00: Anne Alwis (University of Kent)
The Cult of Saint Ia of Persia
12.00-12.30 : Xavier Lequeux (Société des Bollandistes)
Le périple du martyr Mamas, de Césarée à Langres (IVe-XIIe siècles)
12.30-13.00: Efthymios Rizos (University of Oxford), Saint Julian of Cilicia and Antinoopolis
13.00-14.00: Break
14.00-14.30: Mirela Ivanova (University of Oxford)
Inventing Slavonic: Recasting Constantine-Cyril in the Life of Methodios
14.30-15.00: Bryan Ward-Perkins (University of Oxford)
The hagiographical theft of cults in Late Antiquity
Confirmed speakers are:
The event is organised by Anna Lampadaridi and Efthymios Rizos, and supported by the British Academy Newton International Fellowships, the Oxford Centre for Byzantine Research, and the Maison Française d’Oxford.
