- Modern Greek literature, Patristics, Byzantine Literature, Byzantine Studies, Hagiography, Iconoclasm, and 53 moreConstantinople, Hesychasm, Rhetoric, Greek Literature, Greek Language, Heresy, Byzantium, Byzantine studies (Classics), Late Byzantine history, Byzantine historiography, Translation Greek into Old Church Slavonic, Late Antiquity, Byzantine Theology, Byzantine philology, Byzantine Paleography and codicology, Byzantine monasticism, Christian Heresies, Church History, Medieval Church History, Byzantine Hagiography, Byzantine Philosophy, Late Antique and Byzantine Studies, Balkan Studies, Greek manuscripts, Collective Memory, Byzantine Iconoclasm, Symeon Metaphrastes, History of Medieval and Modern Greek language, Medieval and Modern Greek Language and Literature, Palaeologan Dynasty (1261-1453 CE), Koine Greek language, History of the Greek language, Byzantine Monasticim, Byzantine cult of relics, Cultural Memory, Rewriting, Byzantine Empire, Patriarchate of Constantinople, Byzantine Canon Law, Komnenoi, Socratic dialogue, Manuel I Komnenos, Platonic dialogues, History of Church Councils, Socratic Method, Byzantine Greek, Byzantine Emotions, Dioscorus of Alexandria, прикладная математика, Cartography, Byzantine Architecture, Medieval Studies, and Landscape Archaeologyedit
Words and Images: Iconoclasm as Seen by the Byzantines, 8th-15th cent. Saint Petersburg: Dmitry Bulanin, 2023. Paradeigmata byzantina, 6. 320 p. This is a demo file which contains first pages of the Introduction and TOC. If you are... more
Words and Images: Iconoclasm as Seen by the Byzantines, 8th-15th cent. Saint Petersburg: Dmitry Bulanin, 2023. Paradeigmata byzantina, 6. 320 p. This is a demo file which contains first pages of the Introduction and TOC. If you are interested in the full version, please, don't hesitate to send to me a pm or an e-mail.
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The Brief ekphrasis of the Holy Land ascribed to a certain Ioannes Phokas is a very unusual piece of literature because, unlike other ekphraseis, it deals with a journey. Since the Byzantines did not develop universally accepted rules for... more
The Brief ekphrasis of the Holy Land ascribed to a certain Ioannes Phokas
is a very unusual piece of literature because, unlike other ekphraseis, it deals with a journey. Since the Byzantines did not develop universally accepted rules for writing about pilgrimages, Phokas’ text (like any other rare example of what might be called Byzantine “travel” literature) is a generic experiment but, as we argue, an involuntary one. Having drawn Phokas’ cultural profile, we provide a close literary reading of the text contextualizing it against the backdrop of the ekphrastic tradition
and contemporary “travel” literature (Manasses’ Hodoiporikon). Firstly, Phokas’ text is read as a verbal map of the Holy Land and a latent dialogical ekphrasis, a form that resonates with the policy of cultural reappropriation of the region pursued by Emperor Manuel I. Secondly, reading the same text as an imaginary guide, we analyze the way Phokas writes himself and his reader into the narrative and suppresses the details of the factual journey making his text future- instead of past-oriented.
is a very unusual piece of literature because, unlike other ekphraseis, it deals with a journey. Since the Byzantines did not develop universally accepted rules for writing about pilgrimages, Phokas’ text (like any other rare example of what might be called Byzantine “travel” literature) is a generic experiment but, as we argue, an involuntary one. Having drawn Phokas’ cultural profile, we provide a close literary reading of the text contextualizing it against the backdrop of the ekphrastic tradition
and contemporary “travel” literature (Manasses’ Hodoiporikon). Firstly, Phokas’ text is read as a verbal map of the Holy Land and a latent dialogical ekphrasis, a form that resonates with the policy of cultural reappropriation of the region pursued by Emperor Manuel I. Secondly, reading the same text as an imaginary guide, we analyze the way Phokas writes himself and his reader into the narrative and suppresses the details of the factual journey making his text future- instead of past-oriented.
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The chapter provides a spatial reading of the two hagiographies of John of Damascus as a liminal figure between the Roman Empire and the Arab East: the Oration by the Palaiologan hagiographer Constantine Akropolites and its immediate... more
The chapter provides a spatial reading of the two hagiographies of John of Damascus as a liminal figure between the Roman Empire and the Arab East: the Oration by the Palaiologan hagiographer Constantine Akropolites and its immediate source, the Jerusalem Life composed by John III, Patriarch of Antioch, at the turn of the eleventh century. Although the biographies are structured along the same lines, the imaginary maps of the Mediterranean drawn by the two writers are nothing alike. The imperialistic mental geography of the Jerusalem Life tallies up with its dating to the period of reconquest under Basil II: the Roman emperor rules over the oikoumenē and the Arabs are depicted as disparate groups of barbarians who cannot challenge his authority; the political borders are not set once and for all and Damascus can become Roman once again. By contrast, Akropolites develops in a proto-nationalistic vein a theory of Roman self-identification abroad and conceptualises the “Roman East” where John was born as a lost paradise, but eventually takes a pessimistic view on its reconquest and encourages his readership to think beyond spatial notions by making John achieve holiness through complete disappearance from the physical map.
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Mid-fourteenth-century Byzantine sources bear witness to an increased interest in Iconoclasm among the theologians involved in the Hesychast Controversy. The writings of the defenders of icon veneration were mined for authoritative... more
Mid-fourteenth-century Byzantine sources bear witness to an increased interest in Iconoclasm among the theologians involved in the Hesychast Controversy. The writings of the defenders of icon veneration were mined for authoritative quotations and the history of Iconoclasm became a repository of historical role models. This article is comprised of two sections. The first part expands a catalogue of texts of the epoch which make explicit reference to precedents in the Iconoclast period. The second part assesses, first, the polemical advantages and disadvantages of the accusation of iconoclasm in mid-fourteenth-century Byzantium by revisiting the afterlife of this label after the Triumph of Orthodoxy. Secondly, it traces the dynamics of how Iconoclasm was remembered in the Hesychast debate, distinguishing between the mythologizing and the philological levels of remembrance. The conclusion draws a connection between Nikephoros Gregoras' approaches to theological polemics and to hagiography. The initial success and eventual fading-away of the iconoclastic motif in Hesychast polemics is explained by the uniqueness of Gregoras' literary method and his personal circumstances.
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This paper addresses the Ekthesis Chronica (Ἔκθεσις χρονική), a Greek chronicle compiled by an anonymous cleric of the Patriarchate of Constantinople in the first half of the sixteenth century, which encompassed the events of the Late... more
This paper addresses the Ekthesis Chronica (Ἔκθεσις χρονική), a Greek chronicle compiled by an anonymous cleric of the Patriarchate of Constantinople in the first half of the sixteenth century, which encompassed the events of the Late Byzantine and Early Ottoman history. Its distinctive feature is a recurrent alternation of seemingly mutually excluding points of view. Its neighboring chapters comply with the demands of different genres, accepting the set of values associated with them. The imaginary world of the chapters dealing with the events prior to 1453 reminds the reader of the heroic world of chivalric romances. The chapters describing the fall of Constantinople may be read as a prosaic lamentation of the loss of the city which embodied the Byzantine civilization as a whole. In the post-Byzantine section, there appeared three approaches to the Ottoman rule over the Greeks. Whenever the chronicle-writer switches to the apocalyptic mode, the sultan becomes an infidel murderer of Christians. If, by contrast, he adopts the aretalogic (hagiographic) mode, the same sultan transforms into a philosopher on the throne. Finally, the pragmatic mode makes him a self-serving albeit sympathetic moderator in the conflicts inside the Patriarchate of Constantinople. The closer is the author to contemporary history, the more unfitting he feels the generic forms inherited from the age of the fall of Constantinople. Eventually, the chronicle-writer makes an attempt to create a new type of narrative with the characters on the foreground, which will allow his reader to feel empathy for them notwithstanding their language and faith.
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Six early Palaeologan hagiographical metaphraseis praising the saints of the iconoclast era are considered alongside their source-texts. The first section of the article is a brief annotated presentation of the relevant sources. The... more
Six early Palaeologan hagiographical metaphraseis praising the saints of the iconoclast era are considered alongside their source-texts. The first section of the article is a brief annotated presentation of the relevant sources. The second explores three metaphrastic shifts altering the image of the iconoclast controversy: displacements in chronology, changes in psychological portraits, amalgamation of personages. The third speculates on how these metaphraseis functioned within the framework of Palaeologan political agenda.
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The “Sacred Arsenal” composed by Andronikos Kamateros on the request of the emperor Manuel I Komnenos (1143–1180) opens with a dialogue, which claims to be an exact record of a theological dispute organized in Constantinople between... more
The “Sacred Arsenal” composed by Andronikos Kamateros on the request of the emperor Manuel I Komnenos (1143–1180) opens with a dialogue, which claims to be an exact record of a theological dispute organized in Constantinople between Manuel and the envoys of the Pope Alexander III (1158–1181) within the framework of Manuel’s unionist projects. Kamateros set a goal not only to refute the Filioque doctrine and put forward arguments against the primacy of Rome, but also to eulogize Manuel as a gifted logician able to develop solid argumentation based on sets of irrefutable syllogisms. Most assuredly, this peculiar focus could have been suggested by the commissioner, but, in my view, Kamateros did find a way to express his authorial self even within the strict limitations imposed by the commission. This resulted in two authorial choices, which allow the “Sacred Arsenal” to claim a place not only in the history of Byzantine theological thought, but in the history of Byzantine literature as well. Firstly, Kamateros contrasted Manuel’s self-characterization with the narrator’s view in the introductory section. If Kamateros holds Manuel’s syllogisms in greater esteem than patristic quotations, Manuel himself disregards his natural gift of a logician and distrusts syllogistic method in general. Secondly, Manuel’s interlocutors are shown in development. The cardinals enter the dialogue as Papal envoys without their own voice; then they get involved into the dispute and try to overpower Manuel in theoretical discussion. Soon enough, they realize that they are confused and ask Manuel for help in solving their perplexities thus making their way from staunch opponents to confused suppliants and disciples.
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This is an author-created non-proofread version. The final publication is available at https://www.degruyter.com/view/j/byzs.2016.109.issue-2/bz-2016-0020/bz-2016-0020.xml
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Nicephorus Gergoras was the first polemicist of the XIVth century to bring an accusation of iconoclasm against Gregory Palamas and his partisans drawing upon Nicephorus’ of Constantinople writings erroneously ascribed to Theodore Graptos.... more
Nicephorus Gergoras was the first polemicist of the XIVth century to bring an accusation of iconoclasm against Gregory Palamas and his partisans drawing upon Nicephorus’ of Constantinople writings erroneously ascribed to Theodore Graptos. In the “First Antirretici” and “Historia Rhomaike” he 1. proved the possibility of employing anti-iconoclastic testimonies in the Hesychast controversy; 2. offered an original heresiological concept of genetic and typological connection between Iconoclasm and Palamism; and 3. drew a complex scheme of political allusions and historical reflections, presenting Palamas as a new Eusebius of Caesarea, himself — as a new Theodore Graptos, and John VI Cantacuzene — as a new Theophilus.
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Research Interests: Byzantine Literature, Iconoclasm, Historical memory, Byzantine Studies, Byzantine History, and 9 moreByzantine historiography, Heresy and Orthodoxy, Byzantine Iconoclasm, Theodore the Studite, Alexius I Comnenus, Anna Comnena / Anna Komnene, John Italus, Eustratios of Nicaea, and Nicephoros of Constantinople
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Miraculous cure of dumbness or speechlessness by a saint is a topos of Byzantine hagiography, whereas instances of miraculous healing of particular speech defects (stammering or inability to utter certain sounds) are relatively rare. An... more
Miraculous cure of dumbness or speechlessness by a saint is a topos of Byzantine hagiography, whereas instances of miraculous healing of particular speech defects (stammering or inability to utter certain sounds) are relatively rare. An attention is called to a mid-9th century context, namely the Life of st. Ioannikios the Great. According to its author Sabas the Monk, Ioannikios cured his devotee’s son’s speech impediment consisting of an inability to pronounce proper r and substituting this sound with l. His manner of speech is described by ψελλίζων ἐτραύλιζεν. This episode, absent in an earlier version of st. Ioannikios’ Life composed by Peter the Monk and as yet unknown both to linguists and historians of Byzantine medicine, may shed light on a broader issue of transmission of ancient terminology of speech disorders (Aristotle, Galen) in the Middle ages and also (if compared with data provided by Byzantine historians and literati, Michael the Grammarian, Michael Psellos, Anna Komnene, Nikephoros Bryennios and Eustathios of Thessalonica) allows to speculate on the Byzantine attitude towards defective vs. normative pronunciation.
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Contemporary Greek scholars use the term εἰκονολάτραι / εικονολάτρες to designate one of the two parties who took part in the iconoclastic controversy in 8–9th-c. Byzantium. Throughout the Byzantine era, however, this designation was... more
Contemporary Greek scholars use the term εἰκονολάτραι / εικονολάτρες to designate one of the two parties who took part in the iconoclastic controversy in 8–9th-c. Byzantium. Throughout the Byzantine era, however, this designation was never used for the purposes of self identification and carried only negative connotations. It was invented in mid-8th c. by the adversaries of partisans of icon veneration as a derogatory label. Those accused of being εἰκονολάτραι rejected the charge by providing a distinction between λατρευτική (due to Divinity) and σχετική (due to icons) veneration. After their final victory in AD 843, the supporters of icon veneration became simply “orthodox”, and thus every additional term of self identification was rendered unnecessary. Consequently, the label in question was marginalized and became a distinguishing mark of the iconoclastic discourse (it was used by Middle and Late Byzantine hagiographers as a literary device — to imitate the iconoclastic way of thinking and speaking). The same applies to certain post-Byzantine writers. E.g. in compliance with the Byzantine tradition, Eugenios Voulgaris in 1768 mentioned the term εἰκονολάτραι as a pejorative label applied to the Orthodox by the Protestants. The situation changed in mid-19th c. Following a pan-European romantic trend in historical writing, the first modern Greek historians S. Zabelios and C. Paparrigopoulos attempted to reevaluate the history of the Greek Middle ages and to achieve an unbiased view of the iconoclastic controversy. Thus, seeking an appropriate term to designate the partisans of icon veneration, they turned to the iconoclastic polemical vocabulary and borrowed the term εἰκονολάτραι.
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The paper deals with a lost iconoclastic work by Constantine V, as preserved in Apologeticus atque Antirrhetici by Nicephorus of Constantinople. The examination of this treatise shows that a) the most plausible title for Constantine’s... more
The paper deals with a lost iconoclastic work by Constantine V, as preserved in Apologeticus atque Antirrhetici by Nicephorus of Constantinople. The examination of this treatise shows that a) the most plausible title for Constantine’s works is not Πεύσεις but Προβλήματα; b) these texts are to be distinguished from other works ascribed to Constantine; c) Problemata combine genre features of a theological treatise and a political apology; d) Nicephorus did not possess the complete text of Problemata; e) the 3rd Problema is less coherent and more aggressive in comparison with the 1st and the 2nd.
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23rd International Congress of Byzantine Studies, Belgrade, 22-27 August 2016
RT "Metaphrasis in Byzantine Literature", Tuesday 23rd August, 11-00
RT "Metaphrasis in Byzantine Literature", Tuesday 23rd August, 11-00
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An entry on Kritoboulos in the Orthodox Encyclopedia (Православная энциклопедия), vol. 39. Moscow, 2015.
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An entry on Laonikos Chalkokondyles in the Orthodox Encyclopedia (Православная энциклопедия), vol. 40. Moscow, 2015.
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An entry on Leo of Chalcedon in the Orthodox Encyclopedia (Православная энциклопедия), vol. 40. Moscow, 2015.
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An entry on Constantine Acropolites in the Orthodox Encyclopedia (Православная энциклопедия). Vol. 37. Moscow, 2015.