Subversive Pilgrimages: Barsauma in Jerusalem

In the rich and well-researched annals of late ancient pilgrimage to the Holy Land, the pilgrimage record of Barsauma, a monk who rose to prominence in the middle of the fifth century, revealed a strikingly different model. Barsauma embarked on four pilgrimages, the first undertaken when he was reputedly a child. Barsauma’s road to Jerusalem was paved not with pious activities, but with destruction of non-Christian sanctuaries. Above all, in Jerusalem Barsauma embarked on two prone campaign, one aimed at Eudocia, then resident of the Holy City, the other aimed at uprooting the Jewish past from the most important site associated with Judaism, the Temple Mount. My study provides analytical contextualization of these events against the background of the struggle between Chalcedonian and Monophysite camps.