International congress of byzantine studies belgrade, 22 27 august 2016

Mihail Mitrea
University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom; 
[e-mail]
Placing Golden Flourishes: Miracle Tales in the Saints’ Lives 
of Philotheos Kokkinos
Miracles are the most evident mark of holiness (although they do not amount to holiness) 
and are an integral part of almost any saint’s life, be it in the form of bios (kai politeia), enkōmion, 
logos, hypomnēma, etc. Most often Byzantine hagiographers couch miracle tales throughout and 
especially at the end of their hagiographical compositions (i.e., posthumous miracles) in order to 
portray and promote the holy figures they praised. Notwithstanding the size and significance of 
his hagiographical œuvre including lives of saints old and contemporary, Philotheos Kokkinos (ca. 
1300–1377/8), the most prolific and arguably most gifted Palaiologan hagiographer, has received 
particularly little scholarly attention. Into the narrative of his five vitae of contemporary saints—the 
hypomnēma of Nikodemos the Younger (BHG 2307), the bioi kai politeiai of Sabas the Younger 
(BHG 1606) and Germanos Maroules the Hagiorite (BHG 2164), the bios kai politeia kai enkōmion 
of Isidore I Boucheiras (BHG 962), and the logos on Gregory Palamas (BHG 718)—Philotheos 
weaved numerous accounts of healing and non-healing miracles which at times amount to almost 
one-quarter of the vita. Although these miracle accounts composed by Kokkinos are among the 
most successful literary compositions of this genre, little scholarly research has been dedicated to 
them, except the contributions by Rigo and Talbot on the miracles of Gregory Palamas. Therefore, 
they require further study.

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The present paper constitutes a preliminary survey, contextualization, and analysis of all the 
miracle accounts in Kokkinos’ lives of contemporary saints. The analysis considers several aspects 
such as the mechanisms employed by the hagiographer to construct the miracle accounts, their 
typology, structure, mise-en-scène, and time-space particulars, the social status, age, and gender of 
the beneficiaries of the miraculous powers, the typology of afflictions healed, the description of the 
illness and of the afflicted, the role of the body, the psychological elements, the methods of healing, 
the effect of the miracle on the beneficiaries and on the textual/internal audience and their reaction 
(or lack of it), the social functions of the miracles (e.g., social acceptance and promotion of a saintly 
figure; social dynamics around a holy figure; ability to suggest a transformation, and activate paideia 
mechanisms), level of detail, linguistic registry, intertextuality, and finally the extent to which 
the narrator/author is present in his texts. As I argue, a thorough examination of these features 
points to Kokkinos’ agenda (among which perhaps his effort to patronize a truthful reception and 
interpretation of the miracles) and intended audience, and offers insights into his thought-world.

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