In fourth to sixth century Syria a nave-platform known as the Bema became popular in some regions before mysteriously disappearing; this study seeks to explain how these bemata functioned and which elements led to their decline.
In fourth to sixth century Syria a nave-platform known as the Bema became popular in some regions before mysteriously disappearing; this study seeks to explain how these bemata functioned and which elements led to their decline.
This book provides a comprehensive study on the proclamation of Holy Scriptures as an enacted celebration, as well as its function as a performance within sacralized theatrical spaces. Scripture is integral to religious life within Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and these traditions have venerated the reading of texts from an appointed place as a sacred act. Thus, the study of how these readings are conducted illuminates some vitally important aspects of this widespread act of worship. Contributing to an underexplored area of scholarship, the book offers an overview of scripture reading in the three Abrahamic faiths and then focuses on where and how the “Word of God” is presented within the Christian tradition. It gathers and summarizes research on the origins of a defined place for the proclamation of holy writings, giving a thorough architectural analysis and interpretation of the various uses and symbols related to these spaces over time. Finally, the listener is considered with a phenomenological description of the place for reading and its hermeneutical interpretation. The material in this book uncovers the contemporary impact of a rich history of publicly reading out scriptures. It will, therefore, be of great interest to scholars of liturgical theology, religious studies, and ritual studies.
In Architecture and Asceticism Loosley Leeming presents the first interdisciplinary exploration of Late Antique Syrian-Georgian relations available in English. The author takes an inter-disciplinary approach and examines the question from archaeological, art historical, historical, literary and theological viewpoints to try and explore the relationship as thoroughly as possible. Taking the Georgian belief that ‘Thirteen Syrian Fathers’ introduced monasticism to the country in the sixth century as a starting point, this volume explores the evidence for trade, cultural and religious relations between Syria and the Kingdom of Kartli (what is now eastern Georgia) between the fourth and seventh centuries CE. It considers whether there is any evidence to support the medieval texts and tries to place this posited relationship within a wider regional context.
Some hundred early Christian churches are attested on Cyprus, dating from the fourth to seventh centuries.Their architectural remains have shaped the Cypriot landscape.The peculiar evolution of the features of the Cypriot church gave rise to a scientific discussion on how to evaluate these specific local developments. In the last decade, individual research as well as conferences and workshops dedicated to late antiquity and the early Byzantine period have contributed towards a new approach and a new impulse for the study of this period in Cyprus.The volume reinforces and furthers this trend taking into consideration relevant parameters reflected on the architectural planning, such as structural knowledge and innovations, cultic behaviours, liturgical traditions, economic capacities, social and political aspirations. Based on current developments in research, new findings in Cyprus and the focus on intercultural contacts, the volume is organised into four different sections: 1) Building the Christian cityscape and landscape; 2) Christian communities and church building, fourth to seventh centuries; 3) Interior arrangement and theological concepts; 4) 'International Byzantine Style'? Local traditions and adaptations in- and outside Cyprus.
This book sheds light on the reciprocal relations between liturgical performance and the physical spaces in which they took place in synagogues and churches in antiquity. The kernel of the manuscript revolves around a decorated stone that was found during the excavations of a synagogue dated to the first century CE at Magdala on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. The book displays how this important archaeological discovery radically transforms our understanding of the changes in the shape of the liturgical space and the liturgical furniture in the places of assembly of the two sister faiths, Judaism and Christianity.
Sanctifying Texts, Transforming Rituals: Encounters in Liturgical Studies explores the dynamics of Christian ritual practices in their relation to a broader cultural framework. The nineteen essays, written in honour of the liturgist Gerard A.M. Rouwhorst (Tilburg University), study liturgical developments in times of transition, in which religious and cultural changes set the development of worship practices in motion. The chapters in the first part (Texts) concentrate on the close connection between narrative texts and liturgical practice. In part two (Rituals), the focus shifts to the significance of liturgy as it expresses itself in rituals, and to the understanding of ritual acting. This section includes a variety of ritual aspects of liturgy, including the performance of the sacraments and the persons involved, as well as the relation between the liturgical ritual and material objects, such as images and relics. Section three (Encounters) crosses the borders of the discipline of liturgical studies. This final section of the book studies (ritual) relations between Christians and non-Christians through history, and includes contributions that study the dialogues between different liturgical languages and media. Contributors are: Elizabeth Boddens Hosang, Paul Bradshaw, Harald Buchinger, Charles Caspers, Paul van Geest, Bert Groen, Martin Klöckener, Bart Koet, Clemens Leonhard, Ruben van Luijk, Gerard Lukken, Daniela Müller, Willemien Otten, Marcel Poorthuis, Paul Post, Ilia Rodov, Els Rose, Joshua Schwartz, Louis van Tongeren, and Nienke Vos.
Church Architecture of Late Antique Northern Mesopotamia examines the church architecture of Northern Mesopotamia between the fourth and eighth centuries. Keser Kayaalp draws attention to several aspects ranging from the small scale to the large, focusing on settlements, the variety of plantypes, the remarkable continuity of the classical tradition in the architectural decoration, the heterogeneity of the building techniques, patrons, imperial motivations, and stories that claim and make spaces. Employing archaeological and epigraphical material and hagiographical and historicalsources, a holistic picture of the church architecture of this frontier region emerges, encompassing the cities of Nisibis (Nusaybin), Edessa (Sanliurfa), Amida (Diyarbakir), Anastasiopolis (Dara/ Oguz), Martyropolis (Silvan), Constantia (Viransehir), and the rural Tur 'Abdin region. The periodcovered spans the last centuries of Byzantine and the first century and a half of Arab rule, when the region was, on the one hand, a stage of war and riven by religious controversies, and on the other, a dynamic space of cultural interaction. Keser Kayaalp provides a regional contribution to thestudy of the transformation that the Byzantine civilisation underwent in the late antique period, and assesses the continuities and changes after the Arab conquest in pursuit of discovering whether one can talk about a church architecture in this period that is specific to the SyrianOrthodox.
This book discusses hagiographic, historiographical, hymnological, and theological sources that contributed to the formation of the sacred picture of the physical as well as metaphysical Jerusalem in the literature of two Eastern Christian denominations, East and West Syrians. Popa analyses the question of Syrian beliefs about the Holy City, their interaction with holy places, and how they travelled in the Holy Land. He also explores how they imagined and reflected the theology of this itinerary through literature in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, set alongside a well-defined local tradition that was at times at odds with Jerusalem. Even though the image of Jerusalem as a land of sacred spaces is unanimously accepted in the history of Christianity, there were also various competing positions and attitudes. This often promoted the attempt at mitigating and replacing Jerusalem’s sacred centrality to the Christian experience with local sacred heritage, which is also explored in this study. Popa argues that despite this rhetoric of artificial boundaries, the general picture epitomises a fluid and animated intersection of Syriac Christians with the Holy City especially in the medieval era and the subsequent period, through a standardised process of pilgrimage, well-integrated in the custom of advanced Christian life and monastic canon. The Making of Syriac Jerusalem is suitable for students and scholars working on the history, literature, and theology of Syriac Christianity in the late antique and medieval periods.