Ritual, History, and Identity: Social Dimensions of Byzantine Liturgy
Sponsoring Organization(s)
Byzantine Studies Association of North America (BSANA)
Organizer Name
Greg Peters
Organizer Affiliation
Biola Univ.
Presider Name
Greg Peters
Paper Title 1
The "God Bearing" Patriarch: Liturgy as Political Symbolism in Ninth-Century Constantinople
Presenter 1 Name
Sarah C. Simmons
Presenter 1 Affiliation
Florida State Univ.
Paper Title 2
Civic Identification with the Mother of God in the Roman City
Presenter 2 Name
Richard Barrett
Presenter 2 Affiliation
Indiana Univ.-Bloomington
Paper Title 3
Religious Iconography, Social Interaction, and Liturgical Space in the Regional Byzantine Church: A Closer Examination of Cappadocia's Tokali Kilise
Presenter 3 Name
Megan Andrea Garedakis
Presenter 3 Affiliation
Graduate Center, CUNY
Start Date
9-5-2013 10:00 AM
Session Location
Fetzer 2030
Description
Liturgy, in the words of Byzantine historian John Meyendorff, being understood as “a balance between the various dimensions of the Eucharist, as a memorial of an historical event, as an initiatory mystery and as a locus of communion of people with God,” provides a unique rhetorical medium that builds communal identity and passes on the community's memory on an ongoing basis. As far back as the second century, the key to understanding Christian worship is that it is, as Dom Gregory Dix says, a “divinely ordered anamnesis” (act of recalling). In this way, liturgical commemorations of specific events and people show clearly how tradition is passed on and reinforced across generations, and how the community of the faithful defines its own religious and cultural identity. This panel, then, will explore the social function of liturgy in the Byzantine world beyond the ceremonial mechanics. How can Christian ritual in the Byzantine world be seen as a social and religious phenomenon that interacts with and informs history, and vice versa? How does it build, maintain, and/or transmit identities? How does it educate the worshipping community? How does it express and pass on the faith of the worshipping body over time? How does it do so in a multi-sensory fashion that goes beyond being a rhetorical or textual exercise?
Greg Peters
Ritual, History, and Identity: Social Dimensions of Byzantine Liturgy
Fetzer 2030
Liturgy, in the words of Byzantine historian John Meyendorff, being understood as “a balance between the various dimensions of the Eucharist, as a memorial of an historical event, as an initiatory mystery and as a locus of communion of people with God,” provides a unique rhetorical medium that builds communal identity and passes on the community's memory on an ongoing basis. As far back as the second century, the key to understanding Christian worship is that it is, as Dom Gregory Dix says, a “divinely ordered anamnesis” (act of recalling). In this way, liturgical commemorations of specific events and people show clearly how tradition is passed on and reinforced across generations, and how the community of the faithful defines its own religious and cultural identity. This panel, then, will explore the social function of liturgy in the Byzantine world beyond the ceremonial mechanics. How can Christian ritual in the Byzantine world be seen as a social and religious phenomenon that interacts with and informs history, and vice versa? How does it build, maintain, and/or transmit identities? How does it educate the worshipping community? How does it express and pass on the faith of the worshipping body over time? How does it do so in a multi-sensory fashion that goes beyond being a rhetorical or textual exercise?
Greg Peters