The Cult of Saints in Late Antiquity

THURSDAY, 27 September

12.00-14.30 – Registration/coffee

14.30-14.45 – Opening remarks

14.45-16.15 Visualising saints. Chair: Efthymios Rizos
Maria Lidova (University of Oxford): Placing martyrs in the Apse. Visual strategies for the promotion of saints in Late Antiquity
Robin Jensen (University of Notre Dame): Icons as relics: the role of the portrait in the early cult of saints
Luigi Canetti (Università di Bologna): Marks of glory. Material and immaterial traces of the divine between Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages

16.15-16.35 COFFEE BREAK

16.35-18.05 Material aspects. Chair: Adam Łajtar
Julia Smith (University of Oxford): From Material Blessings to Spiritual Pledges: Relics c. 400-c. 700
Cynthia Hahn (CUNY): Happy opportunity in the early cult of relics—reliquaries and shrines
Raymond Van Dam (University of Michigan) An environmental history of the cult of St. Martin

18.05-18.25 – COFFEE BREAK

18.25-19.00 – The Presbyters of the Late Antique West – launch of the database

19.00-19.30 – REFRESHMENTS

FRIDAY, 28 September

9.00-11.00
Constantinople. Chair: Bryan Ward-Perkins

Stephanos Efthymiadis (Open University of Cyprus): The cult of saints in Constantinople (sixth-twelfth c.): some questions
Vincent Déroche (Centre d’Histoire et Civilisation de Byzance): Half forgotten saints: the abbots of the first centuries of Constantinople
Michał Pietranik (University of Warsaw): Emperor and sanctity at war: the case of Maurice (582-602)
Konstantin Klein (University of Bamberg): Wandering saints: the development of the cult of saints in Jerusalem and Constantinople

11.00-11.20 – COFFEE BREAK

11.20-12.50
Regions and migrations 1. Chair: Anne-Marie Helvétius

Aaltje Hidding (Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich): From commemoration to martyr cult. Remembering the Great Persecution in late antique Egypt
Nikoloz Aleksidze (University of Oxford): Georgian sources for the study of the cult of saints in the Holy Land
Ian Wood (University of Leeds): The lives of episcopal saints in Gaul, c.470-550

12.50-14.15 – LUNCH BREAK

14.15-15.45
Regions and migrations 2. Chair: Vincent Déroche

Olga Špehar (University of Belgrade): Tracing late antique cults and rituals in the central Balkans: art, architecture and written testimonies
Anna Lampadaridi (University of Oxford): The origins of Italo-Greek hagiography: the cult of Sicilian martyrs
Bryan Ward-Perkins (University of Oxford): Unity and diversity in the late antique cult of saints

15.45-16.05 – COFFEE BREAK

16.05-18.05
Specific saints. Chair: Ian Wood
Efthymios Rizos (University of Oxford): Relationship between hagiography and institutions of Cult: remarks on the legends of Athenogenes of Pedachthoe and Julian of Cilicia
András Handl (KU Leuven): Invented, interwoven and interplayed: the evolution of the bishop-martyr Calixtus’ cult in late-antique Rome
Anna Salsano (la Sapienza, Rome): The Archangels Michael and Raphael in Coptic Acta Martyrum
Filippo Ronconi (EHESS, Paris): Sophronius of Jerusalem, Santa Passera, Santa Maria Antiqua and the beginning of the cult of Sts. Cyrus and John in Rome

CONFERENCE DINNER

SATURDAY, 29 September

9.30-11.00
Saints and senses. Chair: Robert Wiśniewski
Xavier Lequeux (Société des Bollandistes): Les saints myroblytes: des origines à l’an Mil
Martin Roch (Université de Genève): Significations et fonctions sociales de l’odeur suave des saints dans l’Antiquité tardive
Julia Doroszewska (University of Warsaw, CSLA Project): Apparitions of saints in late-antique literature

11.00-11.20 – COFFEE BREAK

11.20-12.20
Saints and monasteries. Chair: Julia Smith
Anne-Marie Helvétius (Université Paris 8): Monasteries and the cult of the saints in Gaul, c. 400-700
Evanthia Nikolaidou (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki): Conflicts among congregants and among monasteries: a demonstration of their cult and strong religious devotion to saints

12.20-12.40 COFFEE BREAK

12.40-13.40
Promotion and veneration. Chair: Elżbieta Jastrzębowska
Marlena Whiting (University of Amsterdam): Gendering the cult of saints: female worshippers for female saints?
Arik Avdokhin (Higher School of Economics, Moscow): Miraculous hymns and devotion to Saints in Late Antiquity: a perspective from the Greek-speaking Mediterranean

13.40 – A very brief conclusion

Organizers: Julia Doroszewska, Bryan Ward-Perkins, Robert Wiśniewski