Chapter 1 - Earthquakes and Liturgy

Summary

This chapter concerns Constantinople’s liturgical rite for the commemoration of earthquakes in its original, fifth-century form. Celebrated each year on the anniversary of certain quakes, worshippers ritually reenacted local earthquakes, performing a long, penitential procession that retraced the earthquake evacuation route. The rite was structured by biblical readings, hymns, and prayers that framed the people of Constantinople as the sinful, biblical people of God. In ritual performance, worshippers could envision quakes as manifestations of divine wrath against the sins of the city, and their collective repentance as effective in restoring stability to the earth and balance within the human-environment-divine relationship. After discussing the liturgical rite, its performance, and theology, the chapter locates the origins of its theology of divine chastisement in local homilies and ritual responses to earlier quakes, focusing in particular on the archbishop John Chrysostom’s Constantinopolitan homilies on earthquakes from the early fifth century.