International congress of byzantine studies belgrade, 22 27 august 2016

Mary B. Cunningham
University of Nottingham, Nottingham, United Kingdom; 
[e-mail]
From Palestine to Constantinople: 
Seventh- and Eighth-Century Greek Homilies on the Dormition
This paper will examine the development of the Greek homiletic tradition surrounding the feast 
of the Virgin’s dormition and assumption into heaven, which was celebrated in Palestine in the fifth 
century but added, by the late sixth and middle of the seventh centuries, to the Constantinopolitan 
and Roman liturgical calendars, respectively. Basing their teaching on the apocryphal ‘Palm of the 
Tree of Life’ version of the dormition narrative, preachers explored the doctrinal and devotional 
implications of the legend. The Palestinian writers, including Theoteknos of Livias and John of 
Damascus, linked their praise of the Virgin with physical landmarks in Jerusalem, including the 
house (containing the ‘upper room’ mentioned in Acts 1:13) at Sion and the tomb at Gethsemane. 

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The focus for all early Byzantine preachers, however, remained the mysterious disappearance of the 
Virgin Mary’s body from her tomb and the nature of her afterlife in heaven. The surviving homilies 
reveal differences in their theological and pastoral interpretation of these events, which reflect not 
only the various geographical backgrounds in which they were composed, but also some diachronic 
development between the early seventh and mid-eighth centuries.
Maria Lidova
British Museum, London / University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom; 
[e-mail]
The Chalkoprateia Image of the Annunciation 
and Material Evidence for a Lost Iconography
The Chalkoprateia church of Constantinople is known to have been one of the main Marian 
shrines in the city. Built most probably in the fifth century, it was decorated and renovated on 
several occasions in the course of its history. At the time of Justin II (565–78) the wall decoration 
of the church is said to have been expanded and two scenes were added to the original program 
representing the feasts, one if which, that of the Annunciation, would be traditionally celebrated 
in this basilica. Information on the Chalkoprateia image is provided in a famous ninth-century 
account of a miracle that happened to a boy, Elias, who was saved from death by the Virgin after 
he had fallen into a well. According to this source, the Chalkoprateia image was marked by the 
presence of an image of the Pre-Incarnate Lord being held by the Mother of God. Cyril Mango 
who studied this text in his classic article on “The Chalkoprateia Annunciation”, states that the 
only artistic equivalent of this scene known to him in Byzantine art is found in a couple of unusual 
twelfth-century representations of the Annunciation. Without questioning the validity of this 
association, this paper attempts to expand the range of material artifacts that can be considered in 
relation to the Chalkoprateia image. I intend to discuss a number of very small Late Antique objects 
that clearly indicate the existence of an early Byzantine Marian iconography. These images, to my 
knowledge, have not yet received scholarly attention or been included in the indices of Christian art.