Book contents
- Frontmatter
- PART I THE ECUMENICAL PATRIARCHATE
- 1 The Byzantine Commonwealth 1000–1550
- 2 Byzantium and the west 1204–1453
- 3 The culture of lay piety in medieval Byzantium 1054–1453
- 4 The rise of hesychasm
- 5 Art and liturgy in the later Byzantine Empire
- 6 Mount Athos and the Ottomans c. 1350–1550
- 7 The Great Church in captivity 1453–1586
- 8 Orthodoxy and the west: Reformation to Enlightenment
- 9 Bars’kyj and the Orthodox community
- 10 The legacy of the French Revolution: Orthodoxy and nationalism
- PART II THE RUSSIAN CHURCH
- PART III EASTERN CHRISTIANITIES
- PART IV THE MODERN WORLD
- Bibliography
- Index
- References
3 - The culture of lay piety in medieval Byzantium 1054–1453
from PART I - THE ECUMENICAL PATRIARCHATE
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2008
Edited by
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- PART I THE ECUMENICAL PATRIARCHATE
- 1 The Byzantine Commonwealth 1000–1550
- 2 Byzantium and the west 1204–1453
- 3 The culture of lay piety in medieval Byzantium 1054–1453
- 4 The rise of hesychasm
- 5 Art and liturgy in the later Byzantine Empire
- 6 Mount Athos and the Ottomans c. 1350–1550
- 7 The Great Church in captivity 1453–1586
- 8 Orthodoxy and the west: Reformation to Enlightenment
- 9 Bars’kyj and the Orthodox community
- 10 The legacy of the French Revolution: Orthodoxy and nationalism
- PART II THE RUSSIAN CHURCH
- PART III EASTERN CHRISTIANITIES
- PART IV THE MODERN WORLD
- Bibliography
- Index
- References
Summary
Orthodox faith permeated the everyday lives of Byzantine men and women, not just when they attended church services, but at home, in the streets and even at work. The liturgical calendar, which designated certain days of the week for fasting and Sundays for worship, provided a temporal framework for the pious. Each day of the year had a special significance, whether it was a dominical feast day of Christ, a celebration of the Virgin Mary, a saint’s day, or a commemoration of key events in the lives of Christ and His Mother. Ecclesiastical rituals sanctified life passages, such as birth, marriage and death. Finally, in addition to their concerns about life on earth, Byzantines focused intensely on the afterlife, with eternal salvation as their foremost goal.
The laity at church
The Byzantine landscape, whether urban or rural, was marked by ecclesiastical structures of varying size, shape and purpose. Within the city, the laity had access to large-scale metropolitan churches, which often retained the architectural form of the venerable basilicas constructed in the early centuries of the empire. Judging from the size of the medieval basilicas that still stand in Berroia, Kalambaka, Servia, Ohrid and Edessa (medieval Vodena), as well as in other large and small Byzantine cities, hundreds of parishioners could have been accommodated within the body of a single church. These buildings provide us the spatial context in which to imagine the powerful sermons of such figures as Gregory Palamas, who, as bishop of Thessalonike (1347–59), brought the city’s residents to the heights of religious fervour.
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- The Cambridge History of Christianity , pp. 79 - 100Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2006
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