Byzantine Christianity (review)

In introducing these ten articles, Derek Krueger emphasizes that this volume proposes to study Byzantine Christianity, not from the usual perspective of doctrinal disputes, ecumenical councils, and theological tracts, but rather from a consideration of how lay Christians in Byzantium from the emperor to simple villagers actually practiced their faith. In place of summarizing each essay, I will mention a few important points.

Perhaps the most original of the articles is Sharon Gerstel's discussion of rural Greek churches. Her survey reveals that modern Greece preserves approximately 2000 churches from medieval times, but most of these were built between 1204 and 1453. More specifically, of 900 Cretan churches, only five percent were built before the Venetian occupation (1204). Gerstel provides fascinating descriptions of these churches and their frescos, illustrations of biblical events, and images of uniquely Orthodox saints. These frescos totally covered the internal walls of most structures. She also describes important Orthodox customs which grew up in and around these churches during these late Byzantine centuries: for example, the lively ceremony of the Epiphany when the bishop or priest throws a cross into a nearby body of water for young swimmers to retrieve. Gerstel locates the earliest reference to this practice in a Genoese document from Caffa on the Black Sea, dated 1440. What Gerstel does not explain is why so many churches survive from these late Byzantine centuries, when supposedly hostile Latin regimes ruled much of Greece and the islands. Gerstel no doubt addresses this key question in her forthcoming monograph on Byzantine churches in Greece.

James Skedros stresses the large number of religious holidays in the Byzantine calendar by discussing a law of Manuel I (1143-1180) limiting the number of days when the law courts closed to seventy-three per year. Skedros emphasizes that Manuel had reduced the number. Under earlier emperors the courts had observed even more holidays. In view of these religious festivals, one wonders how Byzantine judges managed to litigate as many cases as the records show that they did.

Jaclyn Maxwell and Vasiliki Limberis combed the speeches of John Chrysostom and the Cappadocian Fathers for details about fourth-century Byzantine congregations. Chrysostom described how Christian women wore amulets just as the pagans did, though their good-luck charms contained scripture verses rather than magical formulas. Gregory of Nyssa attacked the practice of pilgrimages, on theological grounds because such practices assumed that the action of the Holy Spirit was limited to a sacred place, and on moral grounds because some pilgrims masked immoral behavior behind the anonymity of traveler. Chrysostom also criticized excessive grief at funerals as inappropriate in view of Christ's promise of eternal life.

Several other articles discuss funerals. Georgia Frank's essay on Romanos the Melodist refers to women's ritual lamentation, a pagan custom which easily passed into Byzantine funerals. In his essay devoted entirely to death and dying, Nicholas Constas mentions charitable societies which provided funerals for poor people in the ninth century. Such burial societies belonged to a class of institutions in Byzantium often classified as confraternities. In her article on Byzantine women, Alice-Mary Talbot found that both men and women belonged to a confraternity in central Greece. Talbot here refers to a key article by John Nesbitt and John Wiita, which describes a lay confraternity in twelfth-century Thebes. Such confraternities evolved from urban monastic groups of the fifth and sixth centuries and represent an important element of lay piety. Unfortunately, no author in this volume directly addresses this fascinating topic, but neither have scholars who have studied the Byzantine ascetic movement from which these lay organizations clearly evolved.