Book contents
- Worlds of Byzantium
- Worlds of Byzantium
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Preface
- One Worlds of Byzantium
- I Patterns, Paradigms, Scholarship
- II Images, Objects, Archaeology
- III Languages, Confessions, Empire
- Thirteen Byzantine Syriac
- Fourteen Greek Identity in the Sinai
- Fifteen Patriarchs, Caliphs, Monks, Scribes, and the Byzantinization of Jerusalem’s Liturgy
- Sixteen Byzantine Judaism in Early Islamic Palestine
- Seventeen Ethiopia
- Eighteen Armenia and Byzantium
- Nineteen Byzantine Georgia/Georgian Byzantium
- Twenty Conclusion
- Index
- References
Fifteen - Patriarchs, Caliphs, Monks, Scribes, and the Byzantinization of Jerusalem’s Liturgy
from III - Languages, Confessions, Empire
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 October 2024
- Worlds of Byzantium
- Worlds of Byzantium
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Preface
- One Worlds of Byzantium
- I Patterns, Paradigms, Scholarship
- II Images, Objects, Archaeology
- III Languages, Confessions, Empire
- Thirteen Byzantine Syriac
- Fourteen Greek Identity in the Sinai
- Fifteen Patriarchs, Caliphs, Monks, Scribes, and the Byzantinization of Jerusalem’s Liturgy
- Sixteen Byzantine Judaism in Early Islamic Palestine
- Seventeen Ethiopia
- Eighteen Armenia and Byzantium
- Nineteen Byzantine Georgia/Georgian Byzantium
- Twenty Conclusion
- Index
- References
Summary
From the perspective of Constantinople, Jerusalem was part of the Byzantine periphery. Even so, its Chalcedonian Orthodox liturgy influenced Constantinople because Jerusalem was the setting of biblical events. In Jerusalem, liturgy was intrinsically connected to movement in processions and holy places, creating a distinctive Eucharistic liturgy, local calendar, and particular lectionary. After the Christological controversies and the Arab conquest, this liturgy proved a unifying factor, grounding the identity of Jerusalem’s Church. Nevertheless, Jerusalem’s liturgy eventually underwent a process of “Byzantinization,” abandoning local practices and adopting Constantinople’s liturgy. Ironically, however, this only occurred once Jerusalem was beyond the borders of the Byzantine Empire. Despite the absence of imperial policy to propagate the Byzantine Rite abroad, the reconquest of Antioch facilitated liturgical Byzantinization by disseminating liturgical manuscripts from Constantinople to Antioch and then Jerusalem. The liturgical rites these books contained were, however, received and adopted in Jerusalem only gradually. Thus, the destruction of holy sites after the Arab conquest only explains the historical circumstances in which liturgical Byzantinization occurred. Fundamentally, liturgical Byzantinization occurred because local Greek, Georgian, Syrian, and Arab scribes working near Jerusalem and faithful to Constantinople selected which liturgical texts were recopied and preserved, and which were abandoned. Throughout this process, these scribes acted as guardians of the liturgical tradition of Jerusalem, and increasingly peripheral in the eyes of Byzantium.
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- Worlds of ByzantiumReligion, Culture, and Empire in the Medieval Near East, pp. 468 - 501Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2024