International congress of byzantine studies belgrade, 22 27 august 2016

Milica Križanac
, 
Byzantine Kotor. Researches 1982-1999 
Mikhail V. Fomin
, 
The Churches of Chersonese in the 4th Century 
Mikhail V. Fomin
, 
The Early Christian Art of Late Antique Chersonese. The Origin of the Art Tradition
Panagiotis Theodoropoulos
, 
The Last Eparch of Italy: An Interpretation of the Sigillographic Evidence 
Paul M. Pasquesi
, 
The Experience of Uncreated Light from Isaac Qatraye to Simeon the New Theologian; 
Narsai and Shenoute on the Council of Chalcedon: Comparative Reactions 
Spiro Nika
, 
Byzantine Heritage in the Valley of Drinos (Hadrianapolis), Gjirokastra 
Dimitrios Skrekas
, 
The Prestige of Manuscripts: From Venetian Crete to Holkham Hall and Beyond. 
A Descriptive Online Catalogue of the Greek Manuscripts from Holkham Hall 
Now in the Bodleian Library

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922
Amber Ivanova
Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”, Sofia, Bulgaria; 
[e-mail]
Saint Thecla in the South Slavic Hagiographical Tradition
Collection of Martyr Acts (Lives) and Miracles of Saint Thecla written in Old Church Slavonic, 
defining the status of Saint Thecla as an “equal to the apostles” and one of the first women saints 
in the Christian tradition – with an excursion to the pre-Renaissance period with a rewriting of 
Thecla’s Life
Amber Ivanova (University of Sofia, “St. Kliment Ohridski”) [e-mail]
Introduction
Saint Thecla is known as the main character of 
The Acts of Apostle Paul and Thecla
, which 
was considered an apocryphal text at the time of the canonization of the holy texts. According to 
previous researchers this text is to be dated back to the apostolic period, which makes the cult of 
Saint Thecla one of the oldest Christian saint’s cults.
The goal of this research is to point out her representation as a woman, saint, preacher and 
martyr and how these different components coexisted in one and the same individual. I attempt to 
answer the question how her story gained an independent status outside the
 Acts of Apostle Paul
. 
Next, I will try to explain why her text became so popular in the Byzantine and Slavic tradition. 
Afterwards, I want to show how and to what extent Saint Thecla entered and survived in the South 
Slavic tradition during the Middle Ages, for little research is done about this saint in the medieval 
Slavic literature.