5. Eastern Mary—Byzantium and Islam

‘Eastern Mary—Byzantium and Islam’ examines Marian ideals in Byzantine Christianity as well as the Islamic view of Maryam, which reflects and rejects the Byzantine worldview from which Islam partly emerged. It was in the east that Christians celebrated the first Marian festivals and dedicated the earliest Marian churches. A Byzantine icon serves to illustrate key ideas about Mary as they developed in the east, where the first Marian relics were also discovered and venerated. Muslims revere Al-ʿAdhraʾ (the Virgin) as a model of piety, following the lead of the Prophet Muhammad, who stated that Maryam was one of the four spiritually perfect women in Paradise. There are a number of famous texts in the Qur’an devoted to Mary, a significant factor in Islam’s high regard for Mary and Jesus.

Love as Descent: Comparing the Models of Proclus and Dionysius through Eriugena

This paper explores the models of the providential-erotic descent in Neoplatonism and Christianity and the ethical consequences that these two models entail. Neoplatonic representative is an excerpt from Proclus’ Commentary on the First Alcibiades, where a parallel with ancient Greek mythology is drawn: Socrates’ providential love for Alcibiades is compared to Hercules’ descent to Hades in order to save Theseus. This image recalls not only the return of the illumined philosopher back to the Cave (from Plato’s Republic) but also the Byzantine hagiographical depiction of Jesus Christ’s Resurrection qua Descent to Hades. The end of Dionysius’ 8th Epistle (the Christian counterpart to Proclus) recalls this Byzantine icon and forms a narration framed as a vision that a pious man had. There are crucial features differentiating Proclus from Dionysius, and Eriugena’s poetry (paschal in tone) helps in order to understand their ontological background and the eschatology they imply, as well as explain why Christ’s “philanthropy” (love for mankind) is more radical than that of Proclus’ Socrates.

The Byzantine Icon Hermeneia

In the context of the flagrant mistakes that are encountered in ecclesiastical painting and the lack of basic knowledge in this field, this study comes to present how Hermeneia has evolved throughout history. Starting from the Byzantine period, passing through the post-Byzantine period and reaching to the present day, Hermeneia and her predecessors, manuscripts and sketchbooks, aimed to help and maintain a canonical-artistic-ecclesial unity throughout the Orthodox Christian area. Another aspect of the article presents some ways of approaching Hermeneia from various points of view: technical, iconographic-illustrative, compositional, academic and theological. Throughout history, Hermeneia has been synthesized and structured in such a way as to provide a maximum of information but its volume should not be difficult to use by iconographers.

The Byzantine Icon of the Virgin in the Church of the Blachernae: Michael Psellos on the Problem of Miraculous Timing

This article looks closely at the report of a miracle that occurred in eleventh-century Constantinople in which the veil covering an icon of the Theotokos (Virgin) at the Blachernae church lifted itself miraculously. The report, scripted by the Byzantine polymath Michael Psellos, focuses in intriguing ways on the actions and nonactions of the veil when the icon presided over a judicial trial. The article contends that Psellos insists on the theme of timing (with regard to the lifting and otherwise of the veil) and the Blachernae icon's role in determining a critical, decisive moment in the arbitration of human affairs. This emphasis, in turn, bespeaks a broader concern over the timing of sacred icons during significant moments in Byzantine history as understood by contemporary chroniclers: namely, their failure to act in appropriate ways at critical moments when the empire itself was at stake.

Fragments of a steatite icon (diptych wing) with the Great Feasts cycle excavated in Chełm (eastern Poland)

The paper presents fragments of a Byzantine icon discovered in 2015 during regular archaeological excavations carried out in Chełm, eastern Poland. Iconographic analyses allow the nine surviving fragments to be interpreted as belonging to a diptych wing with the Great Feasts cycle. The icon represents archaic iconography of the subject, with the scene of Transfiguration placed after Entry into Jerusalem and before the Crucifixion. The artefact was created in the second half or at the close of the 12th century, and it was made from steatite, which has been confirmed by petrographic analyses. The icon was discovered in the remains of a palace complex of King Daniel Romanovich, the greatest ruler of the Galicia-Volhynia Lands. The results of the archaeological research allow the terminus ante quem for the icon’s arrival in Chełm to be determined as before the middle of the 13th century. Various possible explanations as to how the icon found its way to Chełm are also explored in the paper.

Sight and the Byzantine icon

This article addresses the sense of sight through case studies drawn from Byzantine art, the art of Orthodox Christianity. Vision is central to Orthodox worship, facilitated by images known as icons. By enabling the visualization of the invisible divine, the importance of icons is paramount in enhancing the faithful’s religious experience.

L’icona miracolosa del principe Ašot II Bagratuni

The Armenian prince Ašot II Bagratuni (685/686-688/689 d.C.) placed in the church he himself founded in the village of Daroynkʽ a Byzantine icon mentioned in the Armenian historical sources as an image of the «Incarnation of Christ», coming from «the West». The years of the principate of Ašot partly coincide with those of the first of the two reigns of Justinian II, the emperor who for the first time issued monetary coins with the image of Christ impressed, and presided in 692 d.C. the Quinisext Council ‘in Trullo’, whose canon no. LXXXII dealt with the representation of the Saviour’s body. The case of Ašot is an example of the worship of icons in the late 7th century Armenia, and contributes to witnes both the circulation of this kind of artifacts in the armenian territories, and the the impact of the contemporary reflections about the Incarnation of Christ and the sacred images; in agreement, moreover, with the condemnation of the iconoclastic theses expressed in the Armenian treatise attributed to Vrtʽanēs Kʽertʽoł.

On the saints represented in the Byzantine icon of the Triumph of Orthodoxy in the British Museum in London

The article is dedicated to the study of the saints depicted in the representation of the Triumph of Orthodoxy in the icon probably made in Constantinople around 1400 which is now kept at the British Museum in London. New identifications of certain figures are proposed. Questions are posed as to how the scene was shaped and which writings were the basis for its creation.