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Author: Anthony Bryer Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 1351916602 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 305
Book Description
The papers in this volume derive from the 28th Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies, held for the Society for the promotion of Byzantine Studies at the Univesity of Birmingham in March 1994. Virtually from the time of their first foundation, the monastic communities of Mt Athos assumed a central position in the world of Orthodox Christianity. The spiritual, and political and economic influence of the Holy Mountain soon transcended the boundaries of the Byzantine empire within which it lay, to take on a supra-national importance and become one of the pillars of Orthodoxy after the fall of the empire. For the historian, the significance of Mt Athos is enhanced by the fact that its archives contain the most substanial body of Byzantine documentation to have survived the Middle Ages, and its libraries, treasuries and buildings have preserved much that has elsewhere been lost. These archives are now largely edited, and investigation of the art and archaeology is yielding substantial evidence. The papers in this volume, by an international set of scholars, embody the fruits of this research. Starting from Athos itself, they embrace the whole phenomenon of Byzantine monasticism, dealing with questions of asceticism, authority, community, economy, enlightenment, fortification, hesychasm, liturgy, manuscripts, music, patronage, scandal, spirituality, and women (to take an alphabetical sample). Together these papers provide a coherent and immediate view of scholarship in the field.
Author: Anthony Bryer Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 1351916602 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 305
Book Description
The papers in this volume derive from the 28th Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies, held for the Society for the promotion of Byzantine Studies at the Univesity of Birmingham in March 1994. Virtually from the time of their first foundation, the monastic communities of Mt Athos assumed a central position in the world of Orthodox Christianity. The spiritual, and political and economic influence of the Holy Mountain soon transcended the boundaries of the Byzantine empire within which it lay, to take on a supra-national importance and become one of the pillars of Orthodoxy after the fall of the empire. For the historian, the significance of Mt Athos is enhanced by the fact that its archives contain the most substanial body of Byzantine documentation to have survived the Middle Ages, and its libraries, treasuries and buildings have preserved much that has elsewhere been lost. These archives are now largely edited, and investigation of the art and archaeology is yielding substantial evidence. The papers in this volume, by an international set of scholars, embody the fruits of this research. Starting from Athos itself, they embrace the whole phenomenon of Byzantine monasticism, dealing with questions of asceticism, authority, community, economy, enlightenment, fortification, hesychasm, liturgy, manuscripts, music, patronage, scandal, spirituality, and women (to take an alphabetical sample). Together these papers provide a coherent and immediate view of scholarship in the field.
Author: Anthony Bryer Publisher: Routledge ISBN: Category : History Languages : en Pages : 306
Book Description
This collection of conference papers embodies the results of research into the archives of Mount Athos. All aspects of Byzantine monasticism are covered, dealing with questions of asceticism, authority, community, economy, enlightenment, fortification, liturgy, music, manuscripts, hesychasm, scandal, spirituality and women. These papers provide an overview of scholarship in the field.
Author: Alice-Mary Talbot Publisher: University of Notre Dame Pess ISBN: 0268105634 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 341
Book Description
In this unprecedented introduction to Byzantine monasticism, based on the Conway Lectures she delivered at the University of Notre Dame in 2014, Alice-Mary Talbot surveys the various forms of monastic life in the Byzantine Empire between the ninth and fifteenth centuries. It includes chapters on male monastic communities (mostly cenobitic, but some idiorrhythmic in late Byzantium), nuns and nunneries, hermits and holy mountains, and a final chapter on alternative forms of monasticism, including recluses, stylites, wandering monks, holy fools, nuns disguised as monks, and unaffiliated monks and nuns. This original monograph does not attempt to be a history of Byzantine monasticism but rather emphasizes the multiplicity of ways in which Byzantine men and women could devote their lives to service to God, with an emphasis on the tension between the two basic modes of monastic life, cenobitic and eremitic. It stresses the individual character of each Byzantine monastic community in contrast to the monastic orders of the Western medieval world, and yet at the same time demonstrates that there were more connections between certain groups of monasteries than previously realized. The most original sections include an in-depth analysis of the challenges facing hermits in the wilderness, and special attention to enclosed monks (recluses) and urban monks and nuns who lived independently outside of monastic complexes. Throughout, Talbot highlights some of the distinctions between the monastic life of men and women, and makes comparisons of Byzantine monasticism with its Western medieval counterpart.
Author: Alice-Mary Talbot Publisher: Taylor & Francis ISBN: 1040132553 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 318
Book Description
This volume includes seventeen essays on Byzantine monasticism, focusing on the 9th to 15th centuries. Envisaged as a companion Variorum volume to Talbot's Women and Religious Life in Byzantium (2001), this compendium complements its predecessor by focusing more attention on male monasteries, hermits and holy mountains, while offering some pioneering studies of female patrons, rural nuns, and the links of many Byzantine women to Mount Athos. The volume also complements Talbot's 2019 monograph, Varieties of Monastic Experience in Byzantium, 800-1453, by offering detailed analyses of topics that could only be briefly addressed in that book. Introductory essays include an overview of the historical development of Byzantine monasteries and holy mountains, emphasising the intertwining of monasticism with urban and rural society. Subsequent essays explore the regimen at coenobitic monasteries, while paying considerable attention to the less well-known lifestyles of hermits, especially those on holy mountains. Other topics include monastery gardens and horticulture; the culture of the refectory; challenges for adolescent novices; factors influencing the choice of a monastery’s foundation site; female patronage of monastery construction and restoration; the conversion of monasteries from male to female and vice-versa; rules regarding personal poverty for monastics; and the choice of a monastic name.
Author: Richard P. H. Greenfield Publisher: Harvard University Press ISBN: 067408876X Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 774
Book Description
Mount Athos was the most famous center of Byzantine monasticism and remains the spiritual heart of the Orthodox Church today. Holy Men of Mount Athos presents the Lives of five holy men who lived there at different times, from the ninth century to the last decades of the Byzantine period in the early fifteenth century.
Author: Charles River Charles River Editors Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform ISBN: 9781723518881 Category : Languages : en Pages : 54
Book Description
*Includes pictures *Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading "Clear water where evergreens, azaleas cool ceremoniously...a kele lost among cedars, its roof open to eagles, door unhinged...silver leaves like a congregation of spiders..." When one hears these enchanting descriptions, from poet David Posner's 1964 composition "Mount Athos," it is not difficult to understand why this sleepy paradise is often extolled as the most peaceful and private corner of Greece, if not all of Europe. Mount Athos is the easternmost finger of the Halkidiki peninsula - a mountainous sliver of land that stretches about 37.3 miles long and 4.3-7.5 miles wide, with a surface area of about 150 square miles. Towering over the tightly-packed chestnut forests and the blue, crystalline waters of the Aegean Sea at a height of 6,670 feet is the snow-dusted crest of the mighty mountain itself. Known to the locals as Agion Oros, or the "Holy Mountain," the peninsula today is most famed for its exclusivity, a place that continues to bar all women and their daughters from entry. The fortress-like monasteries scattered amongst the slopes and the clusters of cells clinging to the cliffs are occupied by monks of the Eastern Orthodox Church. Of course, its male-only population is just one aspect of the peninsula's anomalous nature. Planted on the peninsula's coast is a black Byzantine Cross, a flat, cross-shaped monument with a trinity of flared, wide-armed, Greek crosses in place of its arms and a traditional Christian cross in its center, kissed with rust. It serves as an emblem of the monastic society that resides there, and it delineates the boundary between Mount Athos and the rest of Greece. Entering this hallowed peninsula is like setting foot into a living time capsule, because life here has not changed in well over 1,000 years. Mount Athos is one of only two places on earth (the other being the Mar Saba) that chooses to run on "Byzantine time," meaning Hour 0:00:00 only begins at sundown. Moreover, it is the only territory in the world that flies the Byzantine flag, a regal, sword and cross clutching double-headed eagle set against a rippling canvas of gold. Of course, to reduce Mount Athos to an antediluvian, single-sex monastic retreat would be an oversimplification of the fascinating history and simple, yet complex culture that has developed on this stunning strip of land. This is a place as mystically mysterious as it is serene, a space abound with treasures, miracles, and spiritual revelations. But for a place where purity and God-fearing devotion apparently reign supreme, it is certainly burdened with its fair share of controversy. Mount Athos: The History of the Greek Mountain and the Center of Eastern Orthodox Monasticism looks at the unique region and what life has been like there since medieval times. Along with pictures depicting important people, places, and events, you will learn about Mount Athos like never before.
Author: Nicholas Fennell Publisher: Holy Trinity Publications ISBN: 1942699425 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 250
Book Description
The Aegean Sea laps the shores of the Holy Mountain of Athos, a self-governing monastic republic on a peninsula in Northern Greece. Twenty ruling monasteries comprise the republic; one of those is the monastery of St Panteleimon, where services are conducted in Slavonic. It has become known as the Russian monastery on Mt. Athos.St Panteleimon, fully restored in recent years, can accommodate up to 5,000 men, reflecting the scale of the settlement at its apogee in the nineteenth century, prior to the Bolshevik revolution in Russia. Since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 it has experienced a strong revival and is now one of the most numerous of the twenty. The vast buildings and its sketes and dependencies seen today are really only a reflection of the history of the past two centuries.In this first comprehensive account of the monastery in the English language, that stretches back more than one thousand years, Nicholas Fennell has drawn from previously inaccessible archival materials in gathering the wealth of information he shares in these pages. The history of the community is seen to interact with the wider worlds of the Byzantine and Ottoman empires and the modern nation state of Greece, together with that of a Russian homeland whose political character is constantly evolving. It covers the distinct phases in this history: From the tenth to the twelfth centuries when Russian Athonites inhabited the ancient Russian Lavra of the Mother of God, known as Xylourgou; through the six hundred years from the mid-twelfth to the mid-eighteenth century, when the monastery of St Panteleimon was commonly referred to as Nagorny or Old Mountain Rusik; and into the most recent 250 years with their fluctuating fortunes and the questioning of its ethnic identity. Themes explored include the Pan-Orthodox ideal, the role of money and political pressure, sanctity and heroism in adversity, ethnic relations, and the importance of historical memory and precedent.
Author: Bernice M. Kaczynski Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA ISBN: 0199689733 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 743
Book Description
The Oxford Handbook of Christian Monasticism addresses, for the first time in one volume, multiple strands of Christian monastic practice. Forty-four essays consider historical and thematic aspects of the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Protestant, and Anglican traditions, as well as contemporary 'new monasticism'.
Author: Graham Speake Publisher: Yale University Press ISBN: 0300093535 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 314
Book Description
Mount Athos, a spectacularly beautiful rocky peninsula on the coast of Greece has been a monastic preserve since the ninth century. This richly illustrated book tells the entire story of Athos, the Holy Mountain, from the first anchorite monks who lived in caves and huts through centuries of political and religious controversy to the thriving monastic communities of today.