International congress of byzantine studies belgrade, 22 27 august 2016

Max Ritter
University of Mainz, Mainz, Germany; 
[e-mail]
An Overlooked Clerical Post: 
The 
Prosmonarios
and His Relation to the Changing Economy 
of Byzantine Pilgrimage (5
th
-11
th
Cent.)
When reading Byzantine miracle reports one frequently encounters mentions of an ecclesiastical 
office called prosmonarios and paramonarios. From this point of departure it seems worthwhile to 
assemble all the evidence on this clerical post from inscriptions, ecclesiastical historiography, as well 
as imperial and canon law in order to identify its functions and diffusion in the Byzantine church.

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Since Darrouzès’s “Recherches sur les Ὀφφίκια” it is common knowledge that prosmonarioi 
held a rather inferior office whose main function was to guard the churches’ moveable property, 
especially during night. A detailed analysis may show that a reduction to this duty alone is a plain 
oversimplification. Moreover it is likely that this office has a strong interrelation to pilgrimage activity.
This becomes evident when looking at the testimonies from both Late Antiquity and the 
Middle Byzantine period (covering the time span of the 5
th
-12
th
c.), in both Latin and Greek. First of 
all, an interesting pattern emerges: in the sources of Syro-Palestinian origin the term paramonarios 
is used; while prosmonarios preponderates in the core-regions of the empire, without any semantic 
difference appearing in their notion. In Latin, most often the office was rendered as mansionarius.
Secondly, usually the office holder was consecrated as presbyter or deacon, although this was not 
deemed mandatory according to ecclesiastical law. Thirdly, they actually were part of the administrative 
staff of a church, as the Codex Iustinianus (I 3, 46) and Leontius’ Vita on John the Almsgiver reveal. 
Their duty was not only to protect the churches’ inventory like the liturgical objects made of precious 
metal, but also to add and arrange new votive offerings in the church. They are also mentioned in 
regard to distribution of food offerings to the poor and guiding the pilgrims who usually did neither 
know the locality nor the procedures to follow when visiting a pilgrimage sanctuary.
The effective distribution of testimonies of prosmonarioi among several Constantinopolitan 
shrines (St John in Oxeia, St Anastasia, Theotokos in Chalkoprateia, St Diomedes, St Euphemia in 
Chalcedon), Anatolian pilgrimage churches (Euchaϊta, Latomion, Chonai, Myra) and pilgrimage 
centres in the Near East (Qal’at Sem’an, Abu Mina, Alexandria’s former Serapeion, Caesarea 
maritima, Gerasa) underlines a correlation between pilgrimage traffic and the occurrence of this 
very office. This observation may help to identify hitherto unknown churches with pilgrimage 
activity in the future.