Oxford Byzantine Society Graduate Conference 2018

During 23-24 February 2018, I attended the Oxford Byzantine Society Graduate Conference on Space Dimension in Late Antiquity and Byzantium and presented a paper on "Sacred Landscapes in Byzantium: Travel Accounts in Kokkinos' Vitae of Contemporary Saints."

Abstract

This paper analyzes the travel accounts embedded in the five vitae of contemporary saints, Nikodemos the Younger (BHG 2307), Sabas the Younger (BHG 1606), Isidore I Boucheir (BHG 962), Germanos Maroules (BHG 2164), and Gregory Palamas (BHG 718), composed by Philotheos Kokkinos (ca. 1300-1378). A native of Thessalonike, student of worldly rhetoric, Athonite monk with a distinguished ecclesiastical career culminating in his appointment as metropolitan of Thracian Herakleia and subsequently as the patriarch of Constantinople, Kokkinos was arguably one of the most gifted late Byzantine hagiographers. In his prolix vitae of contemporary saints (amounting to more than 150,000 words), Kokkinos follows closely the movements of his heroes. All connected to his patris of Thessalonike, the holy men travelled to various corners of Byzantium, especially on the axis Mount Athos-Thessalonike-Constantinople, and well beyond the Byzantine shrunken empire. By offering a survey of these travels and mapping, as it were, Kokkinos' geography of sainthood, this paper inquires into the role and portrayal of travel for the monastic and ascetic life. Moreover, it shows how the hagiographer constructed a spiritual realm that had his patris of Thessalonike and Mount Athos as its centre and that extended through these wandering saints far beyond the political boundaries of Byzantium.

Last modified: Wed, 05 Feb 2020 16:11:21 GMT