St Ephrem the Syrian in Byzantium (original) (raw)
Related papers
Annotated Bibliography of Ephrem the Syrian
To facilitate the use of the bibliography and to prevent it becoming some kind of cryptogram, almost no abbreviations have been used. The only abbreviations found throughout the bibliography are the following:
Conference Program, 4th Annual Late Antique, Islamic, and Byzantine Studies Conference
2020
This conference will be held online by the Late Antique, Islamic and Byzantine Society of the University of Edinburgh on November 19-20, 2020. The conference focuses on disasters (natural, "man-made" or “supernatural”) that shape historical memory and our understanding of the past, concentrating on the problematic relations between catastrophes and memory in Late Antique, Islamic and Byzantine societies. Keynote Speakers: Leslie Brubaker is Professor of Byzantine Art History, with particular interest in the cult of the Virgin, ‘iconoclasm’, the relationship between text and image, manuscripts, and gender. She is also Director of the Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies, which is a unique research cluster with an international reputation, a thriving postgraduate community, and its own journal and two monograph series. Antoine Borrut is Associate Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of History at the University of Maryland. He specializes in early Islamic history and historiography and is currently working on two projects: the first focuses on the much-neglected genre of astrological histories and on the role of court astrologers in historical writing in early Islam, the second concentrates on the construction of early Islamic sites of memory and its impact on the making of an agreed upon version of the early Islamic past.
5th International Sevgi Gönül Byzantine Studies Symposium
A newly discovered pilgrimage church in Ephesus and its interaction with its religious center. Besides the progress of pilgrimage sites as over centuries grown complexes, another alternative occurs: Pre-planned and large-scaled church buildings, detached from a longstanding religious context. A previously neglected pilgrimage church in Ephesus from the early 5th century documents this phenomenon in an outstanding way. The ruins of the former imposing building are situated outside the city center on the top of a hill, overlooking the sea and the harbor canal. Its unique construction was built under high efforts: A three-aisled basilica was erected on the hill with a two-storied gallery as its substructure. Underneath the basilica is a huge crypt, completely carved into the rock. These elements of the building are each connected by large staircases for the pilgrims to reach the crypt as its sacral as well as constructional center. The question arouses, for which reasons this building has been erected? Why was exactly this place chosen if there was no cult continuity before? How did the pilgrims affect the economic as well as the sacral structure of the region? And how did the interaction of this more remote location with the main attractions of the city work? With the interdisciplinary methods of both, historical building research and archaeology, also regarding the historical context, it is possible to answer these questions. Solely the extraordinary architecture of the building points to an interpretation as a pilgrimage church. By choosing this specific landmark it was possible to combine economic benefits with religious ideas. This pilgrimage church was part of a network of churches within Ephesus to solicit for pilgrims. One function was to highlight the whole pilgrimage experience with famous St. John`s as its major destination. The site was ideal to land ships, welcome pilgrims to the pilgrimage church, and use the gathering to organize their stay in Ephesus. After erecting the building complex for mainly strategical reasons, the landmark could be defined retrospectively as a mythological-religious space. Within the network, this church had to represent the status of Christian Ephesus as its first building to be seen from the sea. Enlightening these questions will help to understand the sacred topography of Byzantine Ephesus and of Christian pilgrimage in Asia Minor.
This academic paper is an attempt to analyze the cultural background of St. Ephrem. This paper provides a broader look at the theological formation of St. Ephrem. The cultural influence is very vital in understanding the works of St Ephrem. Major Ephremian Eucharistic imageries are also introduced here briefly.