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/Abstract / Reliquaries of the Byzantine periphery (Armenia, Bulgaria, Georgia, Rus, Serbia, Wallachia, and Moldavia) have received insufficient study but deserve consideration as an innovative group. Reliquaries and shrines from these states took two forms: first, whole bodies – often uncorrupt-ed—of foundational national figures, either ec-clesiastical or political, usually placed in front of templon beams in monastery or city churches; second, circulating fragments displayed in com-plex arrays. The bodies were often safeguarded in fixed institutional settings in the oldest of reliquary forms: the sarcophagus. The fragments, however, were contained in reliquaries of the newer forms suggesting Western and Byzantine trends. Relics allowed the creation of the notion of a sacred state and divinely sanctioned sovereignty—both by es-tablishing a geography of newly created power founded on holy bodies put in “place ” in sacred

institutions, as well as accomplishing the pow-er transfer of the imperium into these peripheral states through the institution and growing force of imperial cults, including those of the True Cross and of the Virgin.

/ Keywords / Relic, Reliquary, Armenia, Georgia, Rus, Serbia, Bulgaria, Wallachia, Moldavia, True Cross, Inscriptions, Translation, Cult of the Virgin

Branislav CvetkovićRegional Museum of JagodinaDepartment of Art Historybracvet@gmail.com

Cynthia HahnHunter College, cunyDepartment of Art & Art Historycynthia.j.hahn@gmail.com

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The study of the reliquaries in the principates and nations allied to and surrounding Byzantium (some-times called the Byzantine commonwealth and large-ly Slavic)1 is bedeviled with a number of problems: modifications of shrines and reliquaries in recent centuries, poor survival and, as yet, inadequate doc-umentation and consequently a woeful lack of recog-nition. Nevertheless, recent advances in scholarship allow clear insight into an artistic arena where it can be said that Byzantine forms and customs inspired myriad creative variations 2. Byzantium’s client and competitive neighbours sponsored the production of shrines and reliquaries for saints – both new and old – that reveals a striking picture of the fluid dis-course of power. One detail is telling – in contrast to the more passive terms used in the Greek and Latin centers of power, τα λείψανα and reliquiae, words simply designating “remains”, the Slavic term for relics, мощь (singular) or мощи (plural) itself de-notes power, being derived from the verb to be able, to have power (dynamis)3.

Imperial Aspirations: Relics and Reliquaries of the Byzantine Periphery Branislav Cvetković & Cynthia Hahn

Study of the Northern Balkans, 900–1204, Cambridge 2000; Janet Martin, Medieval Russia, 980 –1584, Cambridge 2007; Nevra Necipoğlu, Byz-antium Between the Ottomans and the Latins: Politics and Society in the Late Empire, Cambridge 2009; Averil Cameron, The Byzantines, Oxford 2009; Ivan Biliarsky, Word and Power in Mediaeval Bulgaria, Leiden 2011. For earlier major exhibitions on art of Byzantium and its neighbours, see Glory of Byzantium: Art and Culture of the Middle Byzantine Era, a.d. 843 –1261, Helen C. Evans, William D. Wixom eds, New York 1997; Byzantium: Faith and Power (1261–1557), Helen C. Evans ed., New York 2004; Byzantium and Islam: Age of Transi-tion, 7th–9th Century, Brandie Ratliff, Helen C. Evans eds, New York 2012. For some reactions and reviews, see Slobodan Ćurčić, “‘Glory of Byzantium’: Infamy of Byzantine Studies or Something Else?”, Serbian Studies, xi/2 (1997); Zaga Gavrilović “Remarks on the Art Exhibition ‘The Glory of Byzantium’”; Dušan Korać, “Byzantium on Fifth Avenue: Sailing to Byzantium Without the Serbs”, Serbian Studies, xi/2 (1997 ), pp. 15 – 27 ; Ljubica D. Popovich, “Reflections on the ‘Glory of Byzantium’”, Serbian Studies, xi/2 (1997), pp. 1– 51; See also Sharon E. J. Gerstel, “Byzantium: Faith and Power (1267–1557) by Helen C. Evans”, The Art Bulletin, lxxxvii/2 (2005), pp. 331– 341.

2 For typical Byzantine forms, see Rainer Rückert, “Zur Form der byz-antinischen Reliquiare”, Münchner Jahrbuch der bildenden Kunst, viii (1957), pp. 7– 36; Cynthia Hahn, Strange Beauty: Issues in the Making and Meaning of Reliquaries, University Park 2012, passim.; General studies of reliquaries include: Anatole Frolow, Les reliquaires de la Vraie Croix, Paris 1965; Patrick Geary, Furta Sacra: Thefts of Relics in the Central Middle Ages, Princeton 1978; Anton Legner, Reliquien in Kunst und Kult zwischen Antike und Aufklärung, Darmstadt 1995; Arnold Angenendt, Heilige und Reliquien: Die Geschichte ihres Kultes vom frühen Christentum bis zur Gegenwart, Munich 1997; Les Reliques. Objets, cultes, symboles, Edina Bozóky, Anne-Marie Helvetius eds, Turnhout 1999; Henk van Os, De Weg naar de Hemel: Reliekverering in de Middeleeuwen, Baarn 2000; Holger Klein, Byzanz, der Westen und das wahre Kreuz, Wiesbaden 2004; Relikvii v Vizantii i v drevney Rusi. Pis’menie istochniki, Alexei M. Lidov ed., Moscow 2006; Reli-quiare im Mittelalter, Bruno Reudenbach, Gia Toussaint eds, Berlin 2011; and Treasures of Heaven: Saints, Relics, and Devotion in Medieval Europe, Martina Bagnoli, Holger A. Klein, C. Griffith Mann eds, Baltimore 2011.

3 On this, see Elka Bakalova, “Relikvite kato faktor za strukturirane na kultovo prostranstvo”, Mif, vi (2000), pp. 19 – 45; Eadem, “Relikvii u istokov kulta svyatikh”, in Eastern Christian Relics, Alexei Lidov ed., Moscow 2003, pp. 19 – 44.

1 For one outline, see Anthony Eastmond, “Beyond Byzantium”, in Byzantium 330 –1453, Robin Cormack, Maria Vassilaki eds, London 2008, pp. 307– 314. See also Perceptions of Byzantium and Its Neighbors (843 –1261), Olenka Z. Pevny ed., New York 2000 and Byzantium, Faith, and Power (1261–1557): Perspectives on Late Byzantine Art and Culture, Sarah T. Brooks ed., New York 2006; Dimitri Obolensky, The Byzantine Commonwealth: Eastern Europe, 500 –1453, London 1971; Donald M. Nicol, The Last Centuries of Byzantium, 1261–1453, Cam-bridge 1993; Paul Stephenson, Byzantium’s Balkan Frontier: A Political

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fixed institutional settings / Figs 2, 6 /, however, the fragments were contained in reliquaries of the new-est forms, reminiscent of Western and Byzantine trends / Figs 3 – 5, 7, 9 –11/. Although a similar con-trast of burial shrines to portable reliquaries existed from the beginning of relic practice 8, these exam-ples, as we shall see, can be seen to be aggressively assertive of nationhood and even an aspiration to translatio imperii via the transformative powers of relics and relic collections 9.

Indeed, relic veneration in many of these regions was such a powerfully conceived tradition that its practice has survived the disruptive era of commu-nist repression and resurfaced today, both in the form of pilgrimage to and rehabilitation of older shrines and the casting of heroic modern figures in the guise of saintly figures10. Modern Serbian politicians dutifully visit the monastery of Dečani and the communist strongman and president of Yugoslavia, Josip Broz Tito, is celebrated at two different shrines – the place of his burial in Belgrade and that of his birth in Croatia. It can be argued that relic practice was and is central to the formation and rulership of these states11. Relics allowed the creation of the notion of a sacred state and a divinely sanctioned rulership – both through establishing a geography of newly created power founded upon holy bodies put in “place” in sacred institutions, as well as accomplishing the transfer of the power of the imperium into these peripheral states through the institution and growing force of the imperi-al cults of the True Cross (and as sociated Passion relics) and the Virgin. In an ironic development, many of these relics of translatio imperii have in later historical developments once more been moved to new centers of power ( / Fig. 8/ now in Moscow, and / Fig. 11/ now in Istanbul).

Examples from each of the countries noted above, made for aristocratic courts, churches and monas-teries in the principalities bordering Byzantium, display both appropriation of and opposition to the Byzantine traditions in the form and usage of reliquaries and relic veneration. At the same time, artistic elements introduced by Western artists, transplanted Western patrons, Franciscan mission-aries, and, in the case of Serbia, resident Roman Catholics allowed, as we will see, another source of inspiration12. As is entirely evident, reliquary

In modern art criticism, third world “provincial” art has recently been recast and rethought as the powerfully creative and assertive post-colonial, and dissidents have been found (in works that were first thought to be derivative) to have used first world art movements to channel strategic performances of protest. We can recognize this same sort of creative reuse of form in the relic practices of the states that surround Byzantium beginning in the twelfth cen-tury and continuing through the early modern pe-riod – relics and reliquaries were used to assert both alliance and independence, both legitimacy and defiance. Just as Hans Belting’s seminal scholarship describes the Fourth Crusade and the dissemination of much of Constantinople’s relic treasure to the West as a clear turning point for the West’s approach to relics and reliquaries 4, so this moment was also critical in the Balkans and Caucasus. A series of political calamities in the Orthodox commonwealth in the thirteenth century called upon rulers of the peripheral states to assert their place as effective political entities. They often did so through making sacred claims precisely by means of the use of relics and reliquaries. As Antony Eastmond argues in re-gard to one type of saint: “new saints and their cults specifically legitimated local power and localized forms of Christianity, and they could be controlled in the regions, without threat of interference or ab-sorption by the center ”5. Thus, although such artistic production does not originate in the Empire itself, it would not exist without the provocation that “the Empire” provided.

This short essay seeks not only to characterize something of the relic practices of the Byzantine periphery, but also to indicate the wealth of recent scholarship concerning it. Even if it is abundantly evident that much remains to be done, this may prove a start. We might begin with the general-ization that relics in reliquaries from these states (Armenia, Bulgaria, Georgia, Rus, Serbia, Walla-chia and Moldavia), presented in two forms – first whole bodies, often incorrupt, of foundational national figures, either ecclesiastical or political, usually placed in front of templon beams in mon-astery or city churches 6, and second, circulating fragments displayed in complex arrays7. The bod-ies seem most often to have been deposited in the oldest of “reliquary ” forms, the sarcophagus in

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production is better supported by textual evidence in charters, letters, lives of saints, or accounts of relic translations than by extant examples, but the surviving objects, made with such care, faith, and expense, deserve a closer look.

In Armenia, with its variant Monophysite form of Christianity and status as an Islamic client state, True Cross relics took a central place in both relic traditions and state formation13. One twelfth-cen-tury legend recounts important Armenian contri-butions to the campaign for the recovery of the True Cross from the Persians by Emperor Heraclius. When the Armenian princess Beryl in turn request-ed a fragment, Heraclius at first denied her, but then begrudgingly facilitated the request by enclosing a sword into the reliquary. The cross itself “used the sword” and chose to supply two fragments for the princess. Moreover, the legend goes on to specify that the relic then chose its place of enshrinement by first allowing its translation to Armenia but then becoming miraculously immobile at Hats’iun. This and other stories of visions and exchange justify the central place that True cross relics take in Armenian art and architecture, implicitly acknowledging the imperial power of the True Cross cult, but also clear-ly arguing for Armenia’s non-client status in the rightful possession of such relics14. As Lynn Jones argues, the cross reliquaries and their many inscrip-tions emphasize the Armenian aristocrats who were donors, “further distancing” the True Cross relics from their origin in Byzantium. The silver reliquary triptych of the Holy Cross of Khotakerats commis-sioned by Prince Eatchi of the Preshian dynasty under the Mongols (pictured center bottom / Fig. 1/ ), for the monastery church of T’anahat of which he was the patron, carries the inscription “Holy Cross of the Lord [you] be a helper to Eatchi [in Armenian] era 749 [1300]”15. The reliquary is best characterized in style and iconography as “Greco -Armenian”, that is, representing a thoroughgoing mixture of the two cultures, drawing power from both traditions.

True Cross relics as symbols of victory over ene-mies and of general protection were also revered in monumental form in Armenia in royal foundations dedicated to the Holy Cross. The relics and ornamen-tation of the Holy of Holies in the palatine Church of the Holy Cross at Aght’amar built by Gagik Artsruni, according to contemporary documents allowed it

4 Hans Belting, “Appendix c: Western Art after 1204: The Importation of Relics and Icons”, in The Image and Its Public in the Middle Ages, New Rochelle 1990, pp. 203 – 222, 264 – 269.

5 Antony Eastmond, “‘Local’ Saints, Art and Regional Identity in the Orthodox World after the Fourth Crusade”, Speculum, lxxviii (2003), pp. 707– 749, sp. pp. 746.

6 Christopher Walter, Art and Ritual of the Byzantine Church, Farnham/Lon-don 1982, pp. 144 –158; Eastmond, “‘Local’ Saints” (n. 5); Alice-Mary Talbot, “The Relics of the New Saints: Deposition, Translation, and Veneration in Middle and Late Byzantium”, in Saints and Sacred Mat-ter: The Cult of Relics in Byzantium and Beyond, Cynthia Hahn, Holger A. Klein eds, Washington d.c. 2015, pp. 215 – 230.

7 On the circulation of saints and relic fragments see Otto Meinardus, “A Study of the Relics of Saints of the Greek Orthodox Church”, Oriens Christianus, liv (1970), pp. 130 – 278; Leontije Pavlović, “Pregled svetih moštiju kroz istoriju u srpskoj pravoslavnoj crkvi”, Zbornik Pravo-slavnog bogoslovskog fakulteta, iii (1954), pp. 231– 256; Idem, Kultovi lica kod Srba i Makedonaca. Istorijsko-etnografska rasprava, Smederevo 1965. Also on icons and relics see Belting, The Image and its Public (n. 4), pp. 233 – 252; Idem, Likeness and Presence: A History of the Image Before the Era of Art, Chicago 1994, pp. 208 – 225; Chudotvornaya ikona v Vizantii i drevnei Rusi, Alexei M. Lidov ed., Moscow 1996; Alexei M. Lidov,

“Svyatoi Mandilion. Istoriya relikvii”, in Spas Nerukotvorn’i v russkoi ikone, Liliana M. Evseeva [et al.], Moscow 2005, pp. 12 – 39.

8 Hahn, Strange Beauty (n. 2), passim.9 Leaders of the newly formed or restored states of the Byzantine Com-

monwealth (Serbia, Bulgaria, Russia), endowed royal foundations with Passion relics and relics of the most important Christian saints. Such relics provided symbolic support to new dynasties, enabling newly formed state organisms to become nations, see Danica Popović,

“Relics and Politics in the Middle Ages”, in Eastern Christian Relics (n. 3), pp. 161–180; Ivan Bilirski, “Ot mifa k istorii ili ot stepi k Izrailu”, Zbornik radova Vizantoloskog institute, xlii (2005), pp. 7–22; Jelena Erdeljan, “New Jerusalems as New Constantinoples? Reflections on the reasons and principles of Translatio Constantinopoleos in Slavia Orthodoxa”, Del-tion tes Christianikes Archaiologikes Etaireias, xxxii (2011), pp. 11–18.

10 Elka Bakalova, “La vénération des reliques dans le Sud-Est européen”, Ethnologie française. Hommage à Jean Cuisenier, h. s. (2007), pp. 73 – 82.

11 See Smilja Marjanović-Dušanić, Sveti kralj. Kult Stefana Dečanskog, Bel-grade 2007, p. 549. For the Belgrade mausoleum of Tito as an ideologi-cal complex, see Janko Maglovski, “Grob – locus religious – ideologija”, Sveske Društva istoričara umetnosti Srbijе, xxii (1991), pp. 3 –10. See also Retracing Images: Visual Culture After Yugoslavia, Daniel Šuber, Slobodan Karamanić eds, Leiden 2012. For Tito’s birthplace as the pilgrimage site, see Marijana Belaj, “‘I’m not religious, but Tito is a God’: Tito, Kumrovec, and the New Pilgrims”, in Shrines and Pilgrimage in the Modern World: New Itineraries Into the Sacred, Peter Jan Margry ed., Amsterdam 2008, pp. 71– 93.

12 See below notes 33 – 34; Also, Helen (d’Anjou) wife of Serbian king Urosh i, related to both the Hungarian royal court and the Anjou kings of Sicily and Naples, was very close to the Franciscans. She exchanged letters with them, had them at her court, and founded or restored a number of Franciscan and Benedictine monasteries. She was referred to as “dear daughter of our Roman Catholic church” by both Charles i and Charles ii of Naples and was especially close to the first Franciscan pope Nicholas iv. See Gordon McDaniel, “On Hungarian-Serbian Relations in the Thirteenth Century: John Angelos and Queen Jelena”, Ungarn Jahrbuch, xii (1982), pp. 43 – 50.

13 For issues of religion, see Vrej Nersessian, Treasures from the Ark: 1700 Years of Armenian Christian Art, Los Angeles 2001. Also, see Joan M. Hussey, The Orthodox Church in the Byzantine Empire, Oxford 2010. For the True Cross see Sirarpie Der Nersessian, Aght’amar: Church of the Holy Cross, Cambridge ma 1965; Catherine Jolivet, “L’idéologie princière dans les sculptures d’Aghthamar”, in The Second International Symposium on Armenian Art. Collection of reports, vol. iii (September 12 –18, 1978), Yerevan 1978, pp. 86 – 94, 403; Lynn Jones, “The Church of the Holy Cross and the Iconogaphy of Kingship”, Gesta, xxxiii (1994), pp. 104 –117 and Idem, Between Islam and Byzantium: Aght’amar and Visual Construction of Medieval Armenian Rulership, Farnham/London 2007, pp. 111–119.

14 Holger Klein, “Eastern Objects and Western Desires: Relics and Rel-iquaries between Byzantium and the West”, Dumbarton Oaks Papers, lviii (2004), pp. 283 – 314.

15 Nerssesian, Treasures from the Ark (n. 13), pp. 116 –117.

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16 Jones, “Church of the Holy Cross” (n. 13), p. 108.17 Alexei Lidov, “A Byzantine Jerusalem. The Imperial Pharos Chapel as

the Holy Sepulchre”, in Jerusalem as Narrative Space: Erzählraum Jeru-salem, Anette Hoffmann, Gerhard Wolf eds, Leiden 2012, pp. 63 –103.

18 Babgen Gulessarian, History of the Catholicosate of Cilicia (1441 to the Present), Antelias 1939, col. 1275.

19 Dickran Kouymjian, “Reliques et reliquaires. Comment les Arméniens honorent leurs saints”, in Armeniaca 2. La culture arménienne hier et aujourd’hui, Actes du colloque, (Université de Provence, Aix-en-Provence, 16 –17 Mars 2007), Robert Dermerguerian, Patrick Donabedian eds, Aix-en-Provence 2008, pp. 171–182; Idem, “The Right Hand of St. Gregory and Other Armenian Arm Relics,” in Les objets de la mémoire. Pour une approche comparatiste des reliques et de leur culte, Philippe Borgeaud, Youri Volokhine eds, Geneva 2005, pp. 215 – 240.

20 Nina Chichinadze, “The True Cross Reliquaries of Medieval Geor-gia”, Studies in Iconography, xx (1999), pp. 27– 49; Eadem, “Pochitanie relikvii Svyatogo Kresta v Srednevekovoi Gruzii”, in Relics in the Art and Culture of the Eastern Christian World. Abstracts of papers and mate-rial from the International symposium, Alexei Lidov ed., Moscow 2000, pp. 47– 48. For Georgia see also Antony Eastmond, Royal Imagery in Medieval Georgia, University Park 1998, pp. 60, 96 and passim.

to be “a second Jerusalem, a gate to the celestial Sion”16. Surely in this sense it functioned to secure royal/imperial power just as did the palace chapel, the Pharos in Constantinople, although it makes no explicit acknowledgment of its debt 17.

Another primary reliquary type in Armenia was the reliquary arm. The numerous (at least five) in the form of blessing hands containing relics of the fourth-century St Gregory the Illuminator were potent tokens of Armenian church authority, used extensively in liturgical ritual. A tradition arose that “whoever possessed the holy arm relic, he is the catholicos, and thus as a result of unfounded understanding, the dexter disappeared, reappeared, or others were created”18. Certain of these arm reli-quaries of Gregory today are never lent for exhibi-tion, considered too important for the functioning and rites of the Armenian Church to leave their trea-suries. It should be noted that rather than following Byzantine models, the arms probably represent Armenia’s turn toward Western forms in terms of their shape and manufacture19.

As was the case in Armenia, and again reflecting the power of the cult in Byzantium, True Cross reliquaries were also prominent among the Georgians but the practice of constructing mon-umental crosses in central parts of many church-es is unique 20. The tradition is tied to the wooden crosses that St Nino the apostle of Georgia built, and the most important early example is the Jvari (cross) church, erected on top of a hill overseeing the medieval capital Mtskheta at the confluence of two rivers, Mtkvari and Aragvi, which represents

1 / Reliquary of the Holy Cross of Khotakerats, Museum of the Catholicate, Etchmiadzin, 1300

2 / Shrine of the Christ’s Tunic, Svet’itskhoveli, Mtskheta, 11th century (renovated in 1688)

the juncture of two important Georgian provinces, Kartli and Kakheti21. St Nino, “equivalent to the Apostles”, is also celebrated in Bodbe, where the diakonikon has been transformed into her buri-al chamber and the main cult chapel22. Georgian architecture was deeply influenced by Byzantine models and ceremonies that celebrated icons 23. However, the most prominent holy site in Georgia proper, is in the patriarchal church Sve’titskhoveli in Mtskheta, itself named after the burial spot of the seamless robe of Christ; said to have been brought to Georgia by a Jewish witness of the crucifixion, and marked with the life-giving wooden pillar that miraculously erected itself above the spot. The site is now commemorated by the ciborium-like struc-ture, in effect, a reliquary constructed on a monu-mental scale / Fig. 2 / 24. This complex of relic, miracle, and monument establishes Georgia as sacred land and allows veneration of Christ’s tunic 25.

Thirteenth-century frescoes of Nino, in the rock cut monastery of Udabno depict the evangelist as an ideal of female power, and their production coincides with and supports the contested rule of Queen Tamar who came to the throne in 1184. Portraits of the two women are often paired since St Nino took a role in Georgia almost identical to that of St Constantine the Great in Byzantium 26. Nino is also represented on the shrine in Mtskheta in later frescoes that may reflect original ones. Thus, the shrine of the life-giving pillar asserts the pre-Byzantine source of a Passion relic, links it to a powerful national saint (niece of the Patriarch of Jerusalem, friend of Constantine, and relative of St George), and asserts its miraculous and rightful place in Georgia, circumventing Byzantine power while using its forms.

The Russian principalities as well as the First Bulgarian Tsardom drew more directly on Byzantine ideological models. The Bulgars, both took up venerable Byzantine hagiographic cults (St Demetrius), and established new ones – pri-marily the cults of early Slavonic hermits, such as St John of Rila 27, but also that of St Peter, the first Tsar of Bulgaria, a rare but significant exam-ple of royal canonization. Peter was later often paired with St Paraskeve as primary patrons of the State – the two again taking up the role of the Byzantine imperial cults of St Constantine the Great

3 / Reliquary Cross of Euphrosyne of Polotsk, obverse and reverse, formerly in the Polotsk convent, 1161 (copy)

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and the Virgin 28. Unfortunately, no medieval reli-quaries of Paraskeve survive, as her relics were later translated several times, first to Serbia by the end of fourteenth century, and later to the Romanian town of Jassi 29. We will return to Bulgaria to discuss the later medieval manifestation of relic cults below.

Medieval Rus was rich in reliquaries, many of which displayed direct connections with the im-perial court in Constantinople. One of the most prominent examples, unfortunately known today only through textual and pictorial documentation and a modern copy / Fig. 3 /, is the lavish reliquary cross made in 1161 for the abbess of the Polotsk convent, the nun Euphrosyne, daughter of Prince Vseslav, ruler of the Polotsk principality. This large double-armed golden and silver cross, decorated

21 For basic information, see Marina Bulia, Mzia Janjalia, Mtskheta, Tbilisi 2000, pp. 35 – 42, 85 – 86.

22 While the silver revetment with columns of green marble of the tomb construction and the frescoes with the life of St Nino are nineteenth century refurbishments, her portrait on the grave slab is thought to have been repainted in the post-Byzantine period, see Zaza Skhirtladze, “Mar-tyrs and Martyria in the Gareja Desert”, in Monastères, images, pouvoirs et société à Byzance, Michel Kaplan ed., Paris 2006, pp. 61– 88, sp. p. 88.

23 See Vasiliy Putsko, “Les imagines clipeatae chrétiennes primitives et l’icône du Sauveur d’Anči”, Revue des études géorgiennes et caucasi-ennes, ii (1986), pp. 197– 209. See Titos Papamastorakis, “Re-decon-structing the Khakhuli Triptych”, Deltion tes Christianikes Archaiologikes Etaireias, xxiii (2002), pp. 225 – 254.

24 Revaz Siradze, “Svet’icxoveli, Santa Sofia e Sion”, Studi sull’ Oriente Cristiano. Miscellanea Metreveli, iv/2 (2000), pp. 19 – 27. For excellent photographs of the “pillar” and the seventeenth century frescoes on its sides, see Bulia/Janjalia, Mtskheta (n. 21), pp. 27– 29, 64 –73, 89 – 91.

25 Margery Wardrop, “Life of Saint Nino”, Studia Biblica et Ecclesiastica, v (1903), pp. 48, 54. For this belief and the compendium on the national saints and provenance of the Georgian church there is a booklet widely disseminated among the modern Georgians, see Arhimandrit Rafail, Ikona “Slava gruzinskoi pravoslavnoi tserkvi”, Thessaloniki 1994.

26 Eastmond, “Local Saints” (n. 5), pp. 721– 724; Idem, “Royal renewal in Georgia: the case of Queen Tamar”, in New Constantines. The Rhythm of Imperial Renewal in Byzantium, 4th – 13th Centuries, Paul Magdalino ed., Ashgate 1994, pp. 283 – 293. For Udabno, see Antony Eastmond, Zaza Skhirtladze, “Udabno Monastery in Georgia: Innovation, Conservation and the Reinterpretation of Medieval Art”, Iconographica. Rivista di iconographia medievale e moderna, vii (2008), pp. 23 – 43.

27 On this, see Elka Bakalova and Anna Lazarova, “A locus sanctus in Bulgaria: The Monastery of St John of Rila and its Sacred Topography ”, in Routes of Faith in the Mediterranean. History, Monuments, People, Pil-grimage Perspectives, Evangelia Hadjitryphonos ed., Thessaloniki 2008, pp. 309 – 327. On saintly cults in the capital Trnovo, see Jelena Erdeljan,

“New Jerusalems in the Balkans. Translation of Sacred Space in the Local Context”, in New Jerusalems. Hierotopy and Iconography of Sacred Spaces, Alexei Lidov ed., Moscow 2009, pp. 458 – 471.

28 Ivan Biliarski, Pokroviteli na Tsarstvoto. Sv. tsar Petar i sv. Paraskeva-Petka, Sofia 2004; See also Idem, The Tale of the Prophet Isaiah: The Destiny and Meanings of an Apocryphal Text, Leiden 2013.

29 On this cult, see Danica Popović, “Relikvije svete Petke: gloria Bulgariae – gloria Serviae”, in Pod okriljem svetosti. Kult svetih vladara i relikvija u srednjovekovnoj Srbiji, Eadem, ed., Belgrade 2006, pp. 271–293.

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with pearls and jewels, incorporated, along with the True Cross particle, a number of relics of saints and their images in enamel and is even now consid-ered the palladium of Belarus. Similar to Byzantine imperial crosses, it has long dedicatory inscriptions on its side faces, naming not only its donor, but also the artist, master Lazar Bogsha30.

The best known and largest of all reliquaries from the Russian principates is that of Archbishop Dionysius of Suzdal, dated to 1383 / Fig. 4 /. The long inscription consolidates bonds between the local political and ecclesiastical elites and Byzan-tium by asserting that the precious Passion relics the reliquary contains (along with relics of other saints) have been brought from Constantinople by the archbishop Dionysius to the newly formed archbishopric of Suzdal, Novgorod and Gorodets. As Alexei Lidov argues, these are specifically relics from the most sacred collection of imperial relics, the Pharos31. Furthermore, the inscription names the patron as Prince Dimitri Konstantinovich, the close relative of the renowned Dimitri Donskiy 32. Surprisingly, the form of the reliquary is not Byzantine but takes a more typically Western form of a (very large) quadrilobe phylactery inset with relic windows, however its fascinating iconography, prominently features the Byzantine formulation of the Anastasis 33.

Though linked to Byzantium through religion, medieval Serbia drew closer to the Central and West European models in art and architecture 34, and in relic practice, especially in the case of the latter, in the prominence of the dynasty founder’s cult and

the canonization of members of royalty. The corpus of hagiographies of new Serbian saints included lives of kings, queens, archbishops and patriarchs, along with distinguished hermits and monks 35. These saints were celebrated in burial shrines pre-serving bodies in sarcophagi, (only rarely allowing dismemberment and dissemination)36. The long line of sacred lineage began with the founder of the Nemanid dynasty, Stefan Nemanja, who died as the monk Simeon after retiring to the Athonite monas-tery of Chilandar. Simeon’s relics were translated to the church he founded in Studenica in the aftermath of the Sack of Constantinople and during internal strife among his immediate successors37, and re-mains there in a never-reopened marble sarcoph-agus 38. Instead only of Simeon’s body, however, relic veneration at Studenica is also focused on a much-renovated reliquary triptych centered on the icon of the Virgin’s Dormition39.

The incorrupt bodies of its national saints had a central role in Serbian history, although we no lon-ger have that of St Sabas, the founder of the Serbian church, as it was destroyed by the Ottomans in 159440.

30 Vladimir D. Sarab’yanov, Spaso-preobrazhenskaya tserkov’ Evfrosin’eva monast’rya i ee freski, Moscow 2007, pp. 5 –16.

31 Aleksei Lidov, “Tserkov’ Bogomateri Farosskoy. Imperatorskiy khram-relikvariy kak konstantinopol’skiy Grob Gospoden’”, in Yero-topia: prostranstvenii’ie ikon’i i obraz’i-paradigm’i v vizantiyskoy kul’ture, Aleksei Lidov ed., Moscow 2009, pp. 71–109; Idem, “A Byzantine Jerusalem” (n. 17), pp. 66 – 69.

32 Irina A. Sterligova, “Reliquary of Dionysus of Suzdal”, in Christian Relics in the Moscow Kremlin, Alexei M. Lidov ed., Moscow 2000, pp. 45 –52, 88 – 89, no. 5. For the wider political context, see John Meyendorff, Byzantium and the Rise of Russia: A Study of Byzanti-no-Russian Relations in the Fourteenth Century, Cambridge 2010.

33 For the type, see Cynthia Hahn, “Portable Altars (and the Ratio-nale): Liturgical Objects and Personal Devotion”, in Image and Altar,

4 / Reliquary of Dionysius of Suzdal, Kremlin Museum, Moscow, 1383

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Poul Grinder-Hansen ed., Copenhagen 2015, pp. 45 – 64. For another interesting relic issue associated with modern Suzdal, see Anya Bernstein, “The Impossible Object: Relics, Property, and the Secular in Post-Soviet Russia”, Anthropology Today, xxx (2014), pp. 7–11. Per-haps the Western form of the reliquary is not surprising as by 1383, westerners had produced artefacts for Byzantine and Russian use, as e.g. the Topkapi Baptist reliquary, see Ioli Kalavrezou, “Helping Hands for the Empire: Imperial Ceremonies and the Cult of Relics at the Byzantine Court”, in Byzantine Court Culture from 829 to 1204, Henry Maguire ed., Washington d.c. 1997, pp. 67– 70, or the famous panagiarion made in 1435 by master Ivan Arip in Russian Novgorod, see Sainte Russie: L’art russe des origines à Pierre le Grand, Jannic Durand ed., Paris 2010, pp. 290 – 291, no. 122.

34 In the 1350s, the protomaistor or chief architect of the great royal church of Dečani in Serbia (now Kosovo region) came from Catharo and was Franciscan, signing himself as “Friar Vitus, from Catharo the king’s city”. For the Gothic and Romanesque features of por-tals, windows and stonework, see Milka Čanak-Medić, “Gotika u srpskoj crkvenoj arhitekturi u razdoblju od Žiče do Resave”, in Resava Monastery, its History and Art, Miroslav Pantić ed., Despotovac 1995, pp. 111–134. Further, in archives original contracts it is clear that master masons from Dubrovnik (residents of which were Roman Catholics) were regularly employed by Serbian (Orthodox) aris-tocrats to build their churches and make furnishings (sculpture etc.), see Vojislav J. Djurić, “Dubrovački graditelji u Srbiji srednjega veka”, Zbornik za likovne umetnosti Matice srpske, iii (1967), pp. 87–103. Note that Helen (d’Anjou) married the Serbian king Urosh i and introduced Western artists: Branislav Cvetković, “Franciscans and Medieval Serbia: the Evidence of Art”, ikon. Journal of Iconographic Studies, iii (2010), pp. 247– 259 (with bibliography).

35 Danilo Drugi, Životi kraljeva i arhiepiskopa srpskih; Službe, Gordon Mak Danijel, Damnjan Petrović eds, Belgrade 1988; Danilovi nastavljači, Gordon Mak Danijel ed., Belgrade 1989; Gerhard Podskalski, The-ologische Literatur des Mittelalters in Bulgarien und Serbien 865–1459, Munich 2000.

36 Danica Popović, Srpski vladarski grob u srednjem veku, Belgrade 1992; Eadem, “Relics“ (n. 9); Eadem, Pod okriljem svetosti. Kult svetih vladara i relikvija u srednjovekovnoj Srbiji, Belgrade 2006; Eadem, “Cvetna sim-bolika i kult relikvija u srednjovekovnoj Srbiji”, Zograf, xxxii (2008), pp. 69 – 81.

37 On the special role monastery Studenica had played, see Vojislav J. Djurić, “Tabernacle du peuple serbe”, in Blago manastira Studenice, Vojislav J. Djurić ed., Belgrade 1988, pp. 20 –25.

38 Danica Popović, “Svetiteljsko proslavljanje Simeona Nemanje: prilog proučavanju kulta moštiju kod Srba”, Zbornik radova Vizantološkog instituta, xxxvii (1998), pp. 43 – 53.

39 Miroslav Timotijević, “Predanje o studeničkoj ktitorskoj ikoni Uspenja Bogorodice”, Saopštenja, xxx–xxxi (1998–1999), pp. 139 –159.

40 On all phases of this cult, see Danica Popović, “Mošti Svetog Save”, in Sveti Sava u srpskoj istoriji i tradiciji, Sima Ćiković ed., Belgrade 1998, pp. 251– 266.

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Sabas however, was himself the patron of a number of reliquaries. He organized the acquisition of relics for the newly established archbishopric of Žiča, in-cluding a particle of the True Cross, the Virgin’s girdle, and right arm of St John the Baptist 41. The reliquary of the right arm of St John the Baptist, kept today in the cathedral of Siena, has long attracted the attention of scholars, because the case features a medieval Cyrillic inscription mentioning Sabas as its donor / Fig. 5 /. It is likely that this reliquary is the original from the Žiča archbishopric as it was once part of the collection owned by Pope Pius ii who in turn had received it from despot Thomas Palaiologos, father of the last Serbian despotissa. Further research on this reliquary is anticipated. A damaged staurothek in the treasury of the mon-astery Chilandar has long been believed to have been donated to the monastery by the Serbian roy-al house and recent research has confirmed this likelihood. Although the compartments for the True Cross relic are now empty, they once contained relics donated by the Nicaean Emperor John iii Vatatzes to Sabas, who later bestowed it upon the Chilandari brethren42. Finally, a staurothek with me-dieval Serbian inscriptions in Pienza has recently been published43. The large cross reliquary deco-rated in filigree also includes an inscription naming St Sabas as both archbishop and the first Serbian patriarch, in a fashion identical to captions on paint-ed portraits in Serbia where he is shown holding a large, jeweled cruciform scepter. Not only does this reliquary expose a pattern of the popularity of cross-shaped reliquaries of Byzantine type among

Serbian church dignitaries, it may reveal a possible donor, not Sabas himself but his namesake, the patriarch Sabas iv 44.

Lengthy inscriptions are characteristic of both Byzantine reliquaries and of those from the Byzan-tine commonwealth. The unique Serbian example embroidered on a pall for the embalmed head of the sainted Prince Lazar, killed in the famous battle of Kosovo, both emulates the Byzantine tradition of epigrams on peploi and departs from it in that the text in gold wire features an original poetic prayer composed by the nun Jefimija, the former basilissa Jelena, who is known to have donated similar objects to monasteries. Discovered in the coffin reliquary of the saint, the pall renders strong evidence for the Prince’s cult at the court, while the prayer reveals medieval devotional practice and expectations of celestial help in the time of war with the Ottomans 45. Although the original casket for Lazar’s relics has not been preserved, it may have resembled that of St Stefan’s relics, third Ser-bian king of that name, whose cult is longstanding and widespread in the Balkans. This rare example of an excellently preserved medieval coffin shrine, of painted wood, richly decorated with interlace, originally was located in his mausoleum monastery church of Dečani / Fig. 6 / 46.

Unlike Serbia, late medieval Bulgaria did not develop a cult of royal saints but instead, focused on imported saints and the continuing cult of the early Slavonic hermits. A clear Byzantine import was the developing cult of the Virgin, expressed however in unique local cults and miraculous icons.

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The Mother of God Osenovitsa in the monastery of Rila was in some sense the offspring of the cult of hermit St John of Rila47. At Rila, on the holy moun-tain, in addition to the relics of the hermit venerated in his coffin in front of the iconostasis, reverence was offered to a portable icon incorporated into a complex reliquary triptych with thirty-two com-partments densely packed with the relics of various saints, exposed without any means of covering and with captions on frames identifying relics of saints / Fig. 7/. The icon is the focus of an elaborate rite which has a distinctive topography – encompassing rituals in the nave and the portico, extending to a ritual addressing a fresco copy of the icon, and including a series of devotional practices involving the community where the icon was processed and also kissed. The reliquary has parallels in both Byz-antine and Western reliquary icons, for example, as Bakalova argues, to the famous reliquary diptychs in Meteora and Quenca, made for the regional rul-ers of Epirus, despot Thomas Preljubović and his wife Maria Angelina. Since the Rila icon reliquary belongs to the late medieval period, it has been sug-gested the patron may have been Mara Branković, daughter of the Serbian despot Djuradj Branković, influential wife of the Ottoman sultan Murad ii and stepmother of Mehmed the Conqueror 48.

Discussion of this icon takes us to the end of four-teenth century in the Balkans, a period that saw the demise of the Serbian Empire and its break up into smaller independent regions that one by one suc-cumbed to Ottoman conquest or sovereignty, com-plete in 1459 49. Before the final conquest however,

41 Danica Popović, “Sacrae reliquiae Spasove crkve u Žiči”, in Manastir Žiča. Zbornik radova, Gojko Subotić ed., Kraljevo 2000, pp. 17– 33. For earlier scholarship on the Serbian dexter reliquary in Siena, see Pavle Popović, “O srpskom natpisu u Sijeni”, Prilozi za književnost, jezik, istoriju i folklor, xvi (1936), pp. 157–170; Mirjana Ćorović-Ljubinković,

“Pretečina desnica i drugo krunisanje Prvovenčanog”, Starinar, v–vi (1956), pp. 105 –114. Admittedly, this is one of a number of “arms” of John the Baptist, see Ida Sinkević, “Afterlife of the Rhodes Hand of St. John the Baptist”, in Byzantine Images and their Afterlives: Essays in Honor of Annemarie Weyl Carr, Lynn Jones ed., Farnham / London 2014, pp. 125 –141.

42 Bojan Miljković, “Hilandarski časni krst i stara manastirska stav-roteka”, Zbornik radova Vizantološkog instituta, xxxviii (1999/2000), pp. 287– 297.

43 Danica Popović, “A staurotheke of Serbian provenance in Pienza”, Zograf, xxxvi (2012), pp. 157–170. For the heavily restored reliquary cross donated to Ras bishopric by king Milutin and bishop Grigor-ios ii, now in Dominican monastery in Dubrovnik, see Karmen Gagro,

“Predmeti zlatarstva u Dominikanskom samostanu u Dubrovniku”, in Dominikanci u Hrvatskoj, Igor Fisković ed., Zagreb 2011, pp. 211, 426, no. z / 24.

44 See Milan Radujko, “Presto svetog Simeona”, Zograf, xxviii (2000 –2001), pp. 75 – 80.

45 Popović, “Relics” (n. 9), pp. 173, 180, fig. 5.46 Danica Popović, “Sveti kralj Stefan Dečanski”, in Pod okriljem svetosti.

Kult svetih vladara i relikvija u srednjovekovnoj Srbiji, Eadem, ed., Belgrade 2006, pp. 143 –183, 344 – 346; Marjanović-Dušanić, Sveti (n. 11). It is now in the Museum of Serbian Orthodox Church in Belgrade, while the king’s relics in the monastery church are kept in the more recent sarcophagus constructed of stone slabs.

47 Asen Kirin, “The Cult of the Mother of God Osenovitsa (She Who Over-shadows)”, Problemi na izkustvoto. Izv’nreden broi, (1998), pp. 25 – 28.

48 Elka Bakalova, “Rilskata chudotvorna ikona-relikvariy, Konstantinopol i Mara Brankovich”, in B’lgariya i S’rbiya v konteksta na vizantiyskata tsivilizatsiya, Vasil Gyuzelev [et al.] eds, Sofia 2005, pp. 193 – 228. For Mara Branković, see Mihailo St. Popović, Mara Branković. Eine Frau zwischen dem christlichen und dem islamischen Kulturkreis im 15. Jahrhun-dert, Wiesbaden 2010.

49 For this period, see Sima M. Ćirković, The Serbs, Hoboken 2008, pp. 63 –110.

in a pattern similar to that of Byzantium after 1204, in ultimately futile bids for legitimacy, each of these regions developed its own unique political and ideological platform. Insofar as these ideological constructs depended on relics, many were contin-gent on translations of prestigious remains, some of Constantinopolitan origin. Written sources attest to

5 / Arm Reliquary of St John the Baptist, Cathedral of Siena, 13th century

6 / Shrine of Holy King Stefan iii Dečanski, Dečani monastery, ca. 1343

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a translation of the relics of the Byzantine Empress Theophano from Bulgaria to Serbia along with the relics of St Paraskeve, but unfortunately we know nothing of the reliquaries or the present where-abouts of Theophano’s relics 50. A lavish reliquary containing the arm of St Constantine the Great with Cyrillic inscriptions recently and unexpectedly reap-peared in the Kremlin collection and may have been produced in this historical context. It has attracted unparalleled attention in scholarship due to its form, dimensions and apparently medieval Serbian origin / Fig. 8 /  51. The use of the reliquary is not in doubt as it is covered with inscriptions from the liturgy of the Feast of St Constantine and Helena (and its long narrow form, lack of a base, and the orientation of the inscriptions may indicate that it was held aloft in some fashion during ceremonial appearances), however it lacks any indication of a donor. Never-theless, Anatoliy Turilov has recently argued that it was made for despot Stefan Lazarević 52.

Although the notion of the ruler as a “New Con-stantine” is a motif common in royal ideology from the beginning of the Serbian state, the relics of the

first Christian emperor had never been referred to in any domestic or foreign account 53. Fifteenth-century sources do indicate that the genealogical lineage of the Serbian royal house came to include Licinius, and even Constantine and Augustus 54. Furthermore, the despot Stefan Lazarević acted in what one might call Constantinian fashion in constructing his capi-tal Belgrade as a New Jerusalem, as attested by his biographer Konstantin from Kostenets, a project deeply rooted in well-established models of the ideal and holy city 55. The holy nature of the city and the Serbian state was supplemented by the presence of the miraculous icon of the Belgrade Virgin. Unfor-tunately, such holy power did not prevail; the icon was looted by the Ottomans and taken to Istanbul; Belgrade fell in 152156.

Translation of saintly bodies and relics was con-sistently used as a political tool in the Orthodox world from the time of Constantine, perhaps it should even be seen as a specifically Byzantine strat-egy – after all Constantinople’s wealth of relics was ultimately the product of a series of translations to the capital57. Following the Constantinopolitan lead,

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Stefan Lazarević (as above) as well as Bulgarian the Tsars (in the thirteenth century) translated saints to their capitals. As a result the Bulgarian city of Tarnovgrad, was transformed to what Bakalova calls a “center of sanctity ”58.

Such translations were thought to make a city stronger in terms of its defense, again in the Constantinopolitan mode. Several accounts testify to the many translation of the relics of the Apostle Luke, initially from Rogos to Smederevo, the last capital of the Serbian Despotate, (a remarkably ex-pensive project costing thirty-thousand ducats!), undertaken in order to strengthen the defense of the capital against advancing Ottoman troops. Although belief in their protective powers was genuine, the relics could not prevent the capture of the city. Be-fore the capital fell, however, the relics were rescued, taken to Bosnia and later to the West 59. Other relics and reliquaries similarly moved from home to home because of political disruptions in the Balkans of the later Middle Ages. We have already mentioned the peregrinations of St Paraskeve, who was transported to Belgrade as a protector 60.

50 On this, see Smilja Marjanović-Dušanić, “Dinastija i svetost u doba porodice Lazarević: stari uzori i novi modeli”, Zbornik radova Vizan-tološkog instituta, xliii (2006), pp. 90 – 92.

51 Elena A. Morshakova, “Kovcheg dlya desnitsi svyatogo tsarya Konstantina”, in Christian Relics in the Moscow Kremlin, Alexei M. Lidov ed., Moscow 2000, pp. 126 –128; Eadem, “Reliquaire du bras de Con-stantin”, in Sainte Russie: L’Art russe des origines à Pierre le Grand, Jannic Durand ed., Paris 2010, p. 455, no. 201.

52 Anatoliy A. Turilov, “Serbskiy kovcheg-relikvariy sv. tsarya Konstan-tina iz Blagoveshchenskogo sobora moskovskogo Kremlya: datirovka i gipotez’i o proiskhozhdenii”, Crkvene studije, x (2013), pp. 125 –133.

53 Vojislav. J. Djurić, “Le nouveau Constantin dans l’art serbe médiéval”, in ΛΙΘΟΣΤΡΩΤΟΝ. Studien zur byzantinischen Kunst und Geschichte. Festschrift für Marcell Restle, Birgitt Borkopp, Thomas Stepan eds, Stuttgart 2000, pp. 55 – 64; Branislav Cvetković, “St Constantine the Great in Mileševa Revisited”, Niš & Byzantium, xii (2014), pp. 271– 284 (with bibliography).

54 Stari srpski rodoslovi i letopisi, Ljubomir Stojanović ed., Sremski Karlovci 1927, p. 419, no. 3.

55 Ninoslava Radošević, “Laudes Serbiae. The Life of Despot Stephan Lazarević by Constantine the Philosopher”, Zbornik radova Vizantološkog instituta, xxiv–xxv (1986), pp. 445 – 451; Jelena Erdeljan,

“Beograd kao Novi Jerusalim. Razmišljanja o recepciji jednog toposa u doba despota Stefana Lazarevića”, Zbornik radova Vizantološkog instituta, xliii (2006), pp. 97–110.

56 M. Tatić-Djurić, “Ikona Bogorodice beogradske”, Godišnjak grada Beograda, xxv (1978), pp. 147–161.

57 John Wortley, “The Earliest Relic-Importations to Constantinople”, in Studies in the Cult of Byzantium up to 1204, Burlington 2009, pp. 207– 225.

58 Bakalova, “La vénération des reliques” (n. 10), p. 73.59 For cult of St Luke in Serbia and his relics, see Danica Popović,

“Mošti svetog Luke – srpska epizoda”, in Eadem, Pod okriljem svetosti: kult svetih vladara i relikvija u srednjovekovnoj Srbiji, Belgrade 2006, pp. 295 – 317.

60 Bakalova, “La vénération des reliques” (n. 10), p. 75.

7 / Virgin’s Icon with Relics, Rila monastery, end of 15th century

8 / Arm Reliquary of St Constantine the Great, Kremlin Museum, Moscow, 14th – 15th century

9 / Reliquary of brothers Musić, Vatopaidi monastery, ca. 1390

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A reliquary example, the luxurious Serbian staurothek in the Athonite monastery of Vatopedi / Fig. 9 / remains in good condition despite its trav-els. The cross, embellished with gems, survives along with the outer frame made in the manner of the Rila icon-reliquary with compartments for the relics of several Christian saints, although these are enclosed with tiny doors supplied with icons of the relevant saints 61. It is not known how and when the staurothek came to Athos, but a number of manuscripts, icons and other reliquaries simi-larly arrived in the monastery after the Ottomans occupied the Balkans. The extant inscriptions on both sides of the stem of the cross testify that the reliquary was made to the order of the brothers Stefan and Lazar of the Musić clan, and that they originally donated it after their mother’s death ca. 1390 to the family endowment, the monastery of Nova Pavlica. Although without doubt a signifier of devout belief, the reliquary with its many inscrip-tions was also clearly intended as an instrument of aristocratic representation and expression of the regional lordship of the clan; the inscriptions also mention the regional Metropolitan John as the rel-iquary’s co-donor 62. Its meaning in its new home at Athos has, of course, necessarily changed.

With the collapse of the majority of the Eastern Orthodox states during late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, members of the ruling elite either perished in battle or became refugees, but nevertheless relics were perceived as still precious, and both protec-tive and worthy of protection. One rare surviving example of a collection of relics produced in these circumstances was subsequently incorporated into the lavish reliquary of Barbara Frankopan Branković, now in the Franciscan monastery at Tersatto above Fiume in northern coast of Croatia / Fig. 10 /. Accord-ing to extensive inscriptions on the two largest relic units and on a panagiarion (e. g. a small liturgical paten customarily ornamented with the image of the Virgin) embedded in the lower part of the con-struction, the reliquary once belonged to despotissa Barbara, princess from the Frankopan aristocratic lineage and wife of Vuk Branković, one of the last titular Serbian despots. The present reliquary has forty framed relic units arranged within the growth of a “ heavenly ” vine, constructed of tubular stems, floriated ornaments and revetments in filigree, and

adorned with jewels, pearls, and captions in Serbian and Greek. The arrangement allows the exposed relics a strangely organic quality, transforming them from static bone fragments to growing dynamic elements. They are however also characterized as

“gems ” by their elaborate settings. This masterpiece is the work of five different craftsmen who worked for the Branković house during the mid-fifteenth century; while the late Gothic stand with its angels of presentation was added in 1576, obviously as a substitute for a damaged original handle or support. Along with a number of smaller and larger relics of predominantly Orthodox saints, the ensemble in-cludes relics of Roman Catholic saints Ursula, Clara, and Apollonia, a nod to Barbara’s western origin and interests. Among three enkolpia, at the reliquary’s lower center there is the embellished panagiarion on the obverse of which is a miniature capsule with the Virgin and Child in relief on its lid. The reverse side features long dedicatory inscription naming the donor and, on the rim, a prayer to the Holy Trinity, named in Eastern Orthodox hymnography as the Prayer of St Ioannikios the Great. Due to its rich adornment and complex form, the pangiarion/enkolpia is perhaps the most unusual specimen of the kind, probably once worn by the despotissa Barbara before it became part of the reliquary 63.

Surviving as vassal states under the Ottomans, Wallachia and Moldavia (later joined to form mod-ern Romania)64, maintained the Christian faith in the form of a number of shrines, especially those dedicated to the bodies of local saints65. In pursuit of political legitimacy and in following the tradition

61 Branislav Todić, “Τρείς σερβικές λειψανοθήκες στη Μονή του Βατοπεδίου”, in Ιερά Μονή Βατοπεδίου. Ιστορία και τέχνη, Paris Gounaridis ed., Athens 1999, pp. 243 – 252.

62 Branislav Cvetković, “Portreti u naosu Nove Pavlice: istorizam ili politička aktuelnost?”, Saopštenja xxxv/xxxvi (2006), pp. 79 – 97. For the monastery Nova Pavlica and the period, see Idem, Manastir Nova Pavlica. Istorija, arhitektura i živopis, Ph.D. Thesis, Belgrade 2009.

63 For analysis of all the frames, see Branislav Cvetković, “Relikvijar despotice Barbare Frankopan Branković: Prilog proučavanju”, Zbornik Muzeja primenjene umetnosti, viii (2012), pp. 23 – 36.

64 For the royal iconography of both Rumanian realms, see Laura-Cristina Ştefănescu, Gift-Giving, Memoria and Art Patronage in the Principalities of Walachia and Moldavia. The Function and Meaning of Princely Votive Por-traits (14th – 17th Centuries), ma thesis, Utrecht 2010; Elisabeta Negrău, Cultul suveranului sud-est european şi cazul Ţării Româneşti: o perspectivă artistică, Iaşi 2011.

65 Matei Cazacu, “Saint Jean le Nouveau, son martyre, ses reliques et leur translation à Suceava (1415)”, in L’Empereur hagiographe. Culte des saints et monarchie byzantine et post-byzantine, Petre Guran, Bernard Flusin eds, Bucharest 2000, pp. 137–158; Paul Cernovodeanu, “La double histoire de Sainte Philothée d’Argeş et ses miracles”, in Ibidem, pp. 159 –176.

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10 / Reliquary of Barbara Frankopan Branković, obverse and reverse, Franciscan monastery, Tersatto, end of 15th century

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sixteenth centuries cannot fully represent the history of relics and reliquaries in those various states, it is to be hoped that it will serve as an introduction to the riches that once served as an ornament as well as a foundation for those states. We have seen the resourceful use of translations, of inscriptions, of shrines, and of reliquaries. The imperial cults of the True Cross, the Virgin, and of Constantine and Helena have seen reemployment in many different forms, in many different places – from the derivative to the creatively reimagined. Through all these many examples, however, above all we are insistently re-minded that relics and reliquaries were among the most valuable material goods in these societies, and that the manufacture of such containers and shrines were the work of countless talented artists and ar-tisans satisfying the desires of myriad princes and many ecclesiastics. Ultimately, we cannot overstate the value to the nations or to the souls of faithful of these holy bodies, of these pieces of the true cross, of these testimonies to the divine. Their study deserves our continuing attention.

of the appropriation of imperial models mapped out above, Romanian rulers continued to donate reliquaries even into the late middle ages. The finest example is a lavishly decorated skull reli-quary of St John the Baptist, long misinterpreted by scholars / Fig. 11/. The metal enshrinement for the skull is heavily adorned with interpenetrating vine and floral settings for pearls and gemstones (in-cluding some large fine rubies) arranged in a cross shape with prominent Cyrillic inscriptions in the interstices. Bakalova has deciphered the perplexing Old Slavonic text, concluding that the reliquary was made by the Wallachian ruler duke Ioan Neagoe Bassaraba around 1515 66. The captions confirm that the reliquary contains not only part of St John’s head, but also relics of two other saints, St John Chrysostom and St Peter. Both in its elaborate vine-like decoration, and in its collection of the relics of a variety of saints, it is similar to the Tersatto reli-quary. As the primary center for devotion on Mount Athos for the Wallachian court, the monastery of Dionysiou was the intended recipient for the gift, but similar to the fate of so many of the other lavish reliquaries we have discussed, it was looted, and today is kept in the Topkapi Museum.

Although this discussion of a small selection of reliquaries and attendant relic practices from the Byzantine Commonwealth from the twelfth through

66 Elka Bakalova, “Kovcheg dlya glav’i Predtechi kak knyazheskoe dare-nie: relikvariy Nyagoe Basaraba iz Muzeya Topkap’i v Stambule”, in Idea and Image: Studies in Byzantine and Russian Medieval Art, Andrey Batalov, Engelina Smirnova eds, Moscow 2009, pp. 437– 441; Eadem,

“Relikvariyat s cherepa na Sv. Ioan Predtecha ot Topk’p’saray: b’lgarski, sr’bski ili rum’nski?”, in Terra antiqua Balcanica et mediterranea. Miscella-nea in honour of Alexander Minchev, Acta Musei Varnaensis, viii/ 2 (2011), pp. 375 – 388.

11 / Reliquary of Neagoe Bassaraba, obverse and reverse, ca. 1515, Topkapi Museum, Istanbul

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Summary/ Imperiální ambice: relikvie a relikviáře z byzantské periferie

Studium relikviářů v okrajových územích Byzantské říše je komplikováno jejich stavem dochování. Nejnovější vědecké studie nám však umožňují nový pohled na tuto uměleckou oblast. Je zřejmé, že byzantští objednavatelé a jejich am-biciózní sousedé sponzorovali produkci svatyní a relikviářů pro staré i nové světce, které odha-lují pozoruhodný obraz proměnlivého diskurzu moci. Praktiky spojené s relikviemi se začaly ob-jevovat ve 12. století a pokračovaly skrze raný novověk, zahrnovaly relikvie a relikviáře, které sloužily k ostentativnímu prohlašování spojenectví, ale také nezávislosti, legitimity a zároveň vzdoru vůči císařství.

Relikvie a svatyně z těchto států (Arménie, Bul-harska, Gruzie, Rusi, Srbska, rumunského Valašska a Moldávie) se vyskytovaly ve dvou formách. Za prvé jako celá, často neporušená těla významných národních postav (buď církevních, nebo politic-kých), která byla obvykle umístěna před přepáž-ky v klášterech nebo v městských kostelích, a za druhé jako cirkulující fragmenty vystavované v komplexních souborech. Těla byla často uložena do nejstarších relikviářových forem, tj. sarkofágů, v institucionálním prostředí, zatímco fragmenty byly uchovávány v relikviářích nového typu, při-pomínajících západní i byzantské tendence.

Relikvie umožňovaly vytvoření představ o sva-tém státu a vládě potvrzené Bohem. To se dělo jak skrze ustavení geografie moci vybudované na tělech světců in situ v posvátných institucích, a následným přenesením moci císařství do okrajových států jejich prostřednictvím, tak také skrze variace císařských kultů Pravého kříže (a relikvií Umučení), Panny Marie a Konstantina a Heleny.

Arménské relikvie a relikviáře zahrnovaly Pravý kříž a relikviář ve tvaru paže s ostatky sv. Řehoře

Iluminátora, světce, který obrátil na křesťanskou víru první arménské panovníky. Gruzínské uctívání relikvií se rovněž soustředilo na Pravý kříž, ale zahrnovalo také nový typ monumentálních křížů v kostelích a zázračný dřevěný pilíř na místě ulo-žení Kristova bezešvého roucha v Sve’titskhoveli v Mschetě. Významný byl také kult ženské „apo-štolky“ Nino. Bulhaři uctívali oblíbeného byzant-ského světce Demetria i nové lokální světce, jako např. poustevníka Jana z Rily nebo Petra, prvního bulharského cara. Svatá Petka společně s Petrem tvořila uctívanou dvojici připomínající Konstantina a Helenu. V pozdním středověku v Rile nabývá na důležitosti také kult Matky Boží.

Středověká Rus, podobně jako Arménie a Gruzie, vyznávala kult Pravého kříže. Vznikl zde slavný suzdalský relikviář, který má sice západní podobu, ale jeho četné inskripce jej pojí k Byzanci. Naproti tomu Srbsko následovalo mnoho západních podob uctívání relikvií, přičemž přední pozici zaujímal kult zakládajících královských osobností Stefana Nemanja a Sabase, a vznikaly zde relikviáře ve tvaru paží nebo stauroték. Na konci 14. století došlo k zániku srbského císařství, ale důležité relikviáře pozdního období byly nalezeny v Kremlu, na hoře Athos a v Tersattu. Valašsko a Moldávie, přežívající jako vazalské státy pod Osmanskou říší, uctívaly zejména těla lokálních světců. Mezi jejich relik-viáři je i ten, který obsahuje ostatky lebky sv. Jana Křtitele, dnes uložený na hoře Athos.

Přenášení relikvií, tvorba drahocenných relikvi-ářů s dlouhými zbožnými inskripcemi jmenujícími donátory a tvůrčí využívání relikvií a svatyní – to vše byly prostředky, kterými národy byzantského společenství koncentrovaly moc do svých koste-lů, měst a paláců, čímž posilovaly svou nadvládu a přijímaly posvátné.