International congress of byzantine studies belgrade, 22 27 august 2016

NEW FEASTS, NEW SERMONS: 
THE CULT OF MARY ON THE EVE OF ICONOCLASM, 
IN BYZANTIUM AND BEYOND
Conveners:
 Beatrice Daskas
, 
Francesca Dell’Acqua
Ernesto Sergio Mainoldi
, 
The Introduction of Marian Feasts in Byzantium
Mary B. Cunningham
, 
From Palestine to Constantinople: Seventh- and Eighth-Century Greek Homilies on the Dormition
Maria Lidova
, 
The Chalkoprateia Image of the Annunciation and Material Evidence for a Lost Iconography
Beatrice Daskas
, 
The 
Akathist Hymn
in the Early Medieval West
Diego Maria Ianiro
, 
“Credere virginem in corde per fidem.” Images of Mary in the Libri Carolini
Natalia Teteriatnikov
, 
On the Iconography of the Hypapante in Byzantine Art
Francesca Dell’Acqua
, 
On the Iconography of the Hypapante in Western Art (And the Earliest Latin Homilies on the Feast)

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Ernesto Sergio Mainoldi
Morimondo, Italy; 
[e-mail]
The Introduction of Marian Feasts in Byzantium
The introduction of Marian feasts in the Byzantine liturgical calendar was planned according 
to the imperial project to promote the capital city as the 
Theotokoupolis
. During the 5
th
and the 
6
th
century Constantinople became gradually the centre of the cult of the Virgin, through the 
transferring into the capital of her relics–consisting of her clothes, supposedly still conserved in 
Jerusalem–, the development of the liturgical cult, and the insertion of new feasts in the liturgical 
calendar. Justinian assumed this project, that was inaugurated by his predecessor Elia Pulcheria, 
and brought it to its almost definitive output. His vision of the role of Constantinople not only 
as the political guide of the empire, but also as the leading centre of the orthodoxy in the whole 
ekoumene
, was destined to find in the cult of the Virgin a fundamental support. The development of 
the liturgical cult was also related with the reconstruction and embellishment of the Marian shrines 
already venerated in the 
Polis
. The veneration of the vestments of the Virgin was also conceived to 
orient the providential and protecting intercession of the Virgin as following the geographical axis 
Jerusalem-Constantinople. The New feasts, celebrating the most important facts in the life of Mary 
(the Presentation to the Temple, the Dormition etc.), were also accompanied by the construction 
of new Churches dedicated to these hagiographical events, and were intended to fix a definitive 
hagiographical version of the life of the mother of God after the Crucifixion. Aim of this paper 
will be the reconstruction of the historical outline of the series of the Marian feast in the Byzantine 
liturgical cycle, with a special regard to the occasion of their creation and the theological basis that 
has lead to their definition.