Sobre Cornelius Conover, Pious Imperialism Spanish Rule and the Cult of Saints in Mexico City

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Relics and Reliquaries in Colonial Mexico

The cult of saints, through their relics in colonial Mexico, is related to the importation of relics from the great centers of pilgrimage in Europe and the Holy Land. Reliquaries were artifacts made to preserve the relics, avoid their fragmentation, and expose them to the faithful. Since the Middle Ages, different types were created with different forms whose function was to protect and exhibit the content. These designs passed to American territories, where it is still possible to admire some European reliquaries as well as some of local manufacture. The circulation of relics began in 1521, after the consolidation of the evangelization and the inauguration of the new viceroyalty government. The circulation and donation of relics should be understood as a long process. They were imported objects that were difficult to acquire, as their sale was prohibited by law. Typically, it was necessary to have contacts in the high clergy abroad. Acquiring relics also required a significant investment of funds to cover both the relic’s purchase and the costs of its transfer from abroad. Despite these difficulties, little by little, the relics of various saints and martyrs made their way to the Americas, some in carton boxes, others in gold urns or even in small paper envelopes. Reliquaries were soon manufactured to house these relics. Their design generally depended on two factors: the quantity of the relics obtained, and the shape of the relics. The collections of reliquaries with their respective relics were displayed both in the cathedral headquarters and in the temples of the religious orders. Because they were incorporated at different times, they were made in different styles using different materials, and so it is possible to find a great variety in their manufacture. Various types of reliquaries can be classified from this time, from the reliquary chapels to the altarpiece reliquaries, anthropomorphic reliquaries, and medallion reliquaries, and they stand as a testament to the cult of saints in colonial Mexico.

The Novelty of Bohuslav Balbín’s Biographies about Saint John of Nepomuk and their Role in Proving His Veneration

I am focusing on the attributes of three biographies written about Saint John of Nepomuk by Bohuslav Balbín (1621–1688) Czech Jesuit monk and historian. I am searching for the answer for the question that how can the features of ecclesiastic discipline of cult of saints after the council of Trient and the question of public respect before the canonization be caught out in these texts.This biographies of Saint John of Nepomuk has been written to be more than simple hagiographies. Due to their complexity and structural features they have become suitable to enter into a contoversy with Pope Urban VIII’s Coelestis Hierusalem decree, in which he firmly forbid the veneration of individuals not approved by the Holy See. Balbín wanted to prove it that the veneration to Saint John of Nepomuk has been existing continuously since his death, and its manifestations characterize the contemporary communities as well, finally, this devotion becomes ever more intensive therefore it is not inconsistent with the Pope Urban VIII’s restrictionary arrangements.

Il culto dei servi di DIO vescovi martiri romeni: fra diritto canonico e liturgia

The Cult of God’s Servants Romanian Martyr Bishops: between Canon Law and Liturgy. On the last day of his apostolic trip to Romania (May 31 - June 2, 2019), the Holy Father Pope Francis in the exercise of his canonical powers beatified seven Romanian Greek Catholic bishops who died in odium fidei in communist prisons. By proclaiming the formula for recognizing the martyrdom of these bishops, they are officially recognized as martyrs of the Church of Christ, and as such, according to the canonical discipline in force, they can enjoy the celebration of a public cult of worship. Their feast finds a stable place in the liturgical calendar of the Greek Catholic Church, June 2, and public worship regulated by both common law and the particular law of the Church becomes a liturgical constant that manifests the particular character of these servants of God. Starting from this canonical and liturgical premise, the present study tries to highlight some significant elements regarding the liturgical cult of these martyrs. Thus, a series of disciplinary realities are taken into account, which starting from the historical elements of the cult of saints, then highlights some particular aspects that the current procedure of declaring the martyrdom of God’s servants requires to regulate their public worship. Keywords: divine worship, worship, Servants of God, martyrs, liturgy, liturgical texts, blessed, cause of beatification, persecution.

Remembering St Brictius: Conspiracy, Violence and Liturgical Time in the Danish Massacre of 1002

This article builds upon recent scholarship on the role of church ‘reform’ and the cult of saints in English royal politics around the turn of the second millennium, arguing that the infamous ‘St Brice's Day massacre’ of 13 November 1002 may have been planned for that date in part because of the associations of the cult of Brice/Brictius. After outlining this hypothesis, the article explores the broader implications of the emergence of a universal martyrological calendar for historical writing and political action, and for the exercise and communication of violence in particular.

Reception of the Western European Cult of Saints Cyril and Methodius on the Example of Papal Documents Grande munus, Egregiae virtutis, Slavorum Apostoli: Description and Analysis

The relevance of the given problems is due to the church, state and socio-cultural veneration of the saints Cyril and Methodius as the creators of the Slavic alphabet and translations of the Holy Scriptures and hymnography into the Slavic language, which distinguishes the Slavic world into a separate cultural type, which often interacts with the multicultural paradigm of the modern European paradigm of the civilizational space. A significant place in the article is occupied by the problem of broadcasting the cult of Saints Cyril and Methodius in Catholicism in the coverage of official documents of the Roman Catholic Church, in particular, the encyclical as a separate type of papal documents that correspond to the social concept of the Roman Catholic Church. The purpose of the study is to analyze the encyclicals of the popes Leo XIII and John Paul II in different languages, discovering the general and the particular in their structure, which will serve as an incentive for further interpretation of the cult of the Holy brothers in the Roman Catholic world in the context of the formation of ecumenical communication of Christian churches and interfaith dialogue. The objective of the study is to identify the reception of the cult of Saints Cyril and Methodius in Western Christian religious culture. The novelty of this research is an attempt to analyze and interpret the structure and composition of papal encyclicals and the subsequent identification of the reception of the cult of the saints in Western European religious culture due to the absence of such works in Russian science. The methodological basis of the research is, first of all, an interdisciplinary approach, as well as historical, comparative historical, chronological and textological methods. All analyzed documents raise questions of the primacy of the Pope, missionary work, Catholic piety and the establishment of liturgical veneration of Saints Cyril and Methodius. An analysis of the texts shows the significance of these documents in the context of the formation of the Cyril and Methodius tradition in the West and the dialogue between East and West. The results obtained allow us to speak about the significance of the cult of Saints Cyril and Methodius in the context of individual Slavic countries and the entire Christian world as a whole.

Vikings, Saints, and Pilgrimage

This chapter gives an account of the emergence of pilgrimage in Norway and its intersections with medieval warfare, trade, and travel. Coastal Norway was the main travel and access route before modern travel. Viking raiders encountered Christianity in the British Isles, and Christian communities spread first along the coast. Eventually, baptismal covenants came to replace the increasingly brittle bonds of Viking raiders to their leaders and a different form of social contract, as well as a different faith, is introduced. St. Olav plays a central role in this shift toward greater political and religious unity, though his own overreach eventually resulted in his death, though not in the defeat of the project of unification under one Christian law and crown. The cult around his relics begins shortly after and renders Nidaros/Trondheim a central location in the sacred geography of Norway. During the Reformation, however, pilgrimage and the cult of saints became widely repressed in Norway, and shrines are either destroyed or relics moved to unknown locations.

Veneration of Rural in Armenia: The Transformation of Tradition

В сельских областях Армении повседневная религиозная жизнь протекает в сурбах - местных святилищах, домашних реликвариях, часовенках и молельнях. Сурб - в переводе с армянского «святой» - это комплексное понятие, которым верующие обозначают и святого, и пространство его почитания. Сурбами могут быть действующие или разрушенные церковные и монастырские постройки, книги, хачкары, родники, деревья, камни. Материальная форма сурба не ассоциированный со святым предмет, несущий на себе печать его святости, как принято в традиционном христианском культе святых, а сам святой. Именно это делает культ сурбов уникальным в ряду похожих культов народного христианства. Обустройство сурбов и паломничество к почитаемым локальным святыням - наиболее распространенные вернакулярные формы духовной жизни местных жителей. В статье исследуются изменения традиционных аспектов почитания сельских сурбов на основе доступных историко-этнографических источников и полевом материале, собранном автором в Армении в 2016-2021 гг. In rural areas of Armenia, daily religious life takes place in “surbs” - local shrines, domestic reliquaries, chapels and oratories. “Surb” means “saint” in Armenian; it is a complex concept that believers use to designate both a saint and the space of his veneration. Surbs can be an active or demolished church or monastery building, books, khachkars (carved stone stelae with the image of a cross), springs, trees, stones. The material form of the surb is not an object associated with the saint, bearing the seal of his holiness, as is customary in the traditional Christian cult of saints, but the saint himself. This is what makes the surb cult unique among similar cults. The arrangement of surbs and pilgrimage to revered local shrines are the most common popular expressions of the spiritual life of local people. The article examines changes in the traditional veneration of rural surbs on the basis of available historical and ethnographic sources as well as field material collected by the author in Armenia in 2016-2021.

Stones of the Saints? Inscribed Stones, Monasticism and the Evangelisation of Western and Northern Britain in the Fifth and Sixth Centuries

Despite the paucity of written sources for fifth- and sixth-century Britain, there are many inscriptions containing brief texts in Latin or Irish. This paper reinterprets these inscribed stones, showing that, contrary to the universal current assumption that most represent the memorials of secular notables, a much stronger case can be made for understanding them as ecclesiastical monuments associated with the cult of saints. Read in this way, they offer new insights into the fifth- and sixth-century British Church and the evangelisation of the west and north of Britain during these centuries.