Memory and Commemoration: A Comparative Study of four Late Antique Saints of Eastern Christendom

Student thesis: Doctoral ThesisDoctor of Philosophy

Abstract

This thesis examines the articulation of the memory and the commemoration of late antique saints over the centuries. The wide scope of research into the cult of saints has long necessitated a compartmentalisation of scholarship. This thesis, built on four case studies, brings together most of these different fields of research, to compare the liturgical records of the sanctoral commemoration of four saints, with every other form of literary and artistic devotion that was offered to their memory, from the time of their death until the moment their cults came to possess the specific characteristics for which they are still commemorated today.

The aim of this comparison is to identify the factors underpinning the long-term success of these four saints, whose memory has come down to us a full seventeen centuries after their deaths. In Late Antiquity and in the Middle Ages, when as yet no more formal processes of canonisation had evolved, this success represented the only form of validation of the holiness of these individuals. This study thus proposes to re-examine the process of sanctification at an early phase in the evolution of the Christian Church, through the case of four distinctive fourth-century saints.

For the purposes of comparison, the four saints examined, St. Julian in Antioch, St. Artemius in Constantinople, St. John of Lycopolis in Egypt and St. Macrina the Younger in Cappadocia, each represents a different cultural area of the Eastern part of Christendom, and a different model of sanctity – a stereotypical martyr, a controversial healer, a reclusive monk and an abbess. Comparing the formation and the reception of the commemoration of these four saints, this study places their evolution in the wider context of the long process of unification of the Christian cult, which gathered new momentum with the end of persecution in the fourth century. This process of comparison offers us a better understanding of the impact of the remarkable phenomenon of the cult of saints on the overall formation of the ecclesiastical structures of Eastern Christendom.
Date of Award1 Jan 2021
Original languageEnglish
Awarding Institution
  • King's College London
SupervisorPeter Heather (Supervisor) & Dionysios Stathakopoulos (Supervisor)

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