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Chronos- Revue D’Histoire De L’Université De Balamand, Is a Bi-Annual Journal Published in Three Languages (Arabic, English and French) Chronos- Revue d’Histoire de l’Université de Balamand, is a bi-annual Journal published in three languages (Arabic, English and French). It deals particularly with the History of the ethnic and religious groups of the Arab world. Journal Name: Chronos ISSN: 1608-7526 Title: Kharetat al mousafer, an 18th-century proskynetarion of Jerusalem and The Holy Land from Saydnaia Author(s): Rand Abou Ackl To cite this document: Abou Ackl, R. (2020). Kharetat al mousafer, an 18th-century proskynetarion of Jerusalem and The Holy Land from Saydnaia. Chronos, 40, 95-118. https://doi.org/10.31377/chr.v40i.640 Permanent link to this document: https://doi.org/10.31377/chr.v40i.640 Chronos uses the Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-SA that lets you remix, transform, and build upon the material for non-commercial purposes. However, any derivative work must be licensed under the same license as the original. CHRONOS Revue d’Histoire de l’Université de Balamand Numéro 40, 2019, ISSN 1608 7526 KHARETAT AL MOUSAFER, AN 18th-CENTURY PROSKYNETARION OF JERUSALEM AND THE HOLY LAND FROM SAYDNAIA RAND ABOU ACKL1 Abstract In this article, I discuss a proskynetarion icon of the Holy Land and Jerusalem, called the Kharetat al mousafer, located in Saydnaia Monastery in Syria. The relationship between pilgrimages and proskynetaria, which served as a tool of Christian propaganda, will be discussed with a focus on the Saydnaia proskynetarion as a case study, showing the way of the Melkite painter, Issa al-Qudsi depicted the Holy Land topography. In this icon, the Holy Sepulchre (Church of Resurrection) was also represented, opening a discussion around proskynetaria in Syria during the eighteenth century. Introduction The Monastery of Saydnaia2 is situated about 30 kilometers to the north of Damascus. It is famous for the icon of the Holy Mother and Child (known as the Shaghurah), which is attributed to Luke the Evangelist. It also has many manuscripts written in Arabic, Greek, and Syriac, as well as liturgical and ritual objects and icons. This article will discuss one of Saydnaia’s icons, which called proskynetarion (plural Προσκυνητάρια, proskynetaria). This icon is well known by Saydnaia’s nuns and visitors as the Kharetat al 1 University of Rome. 2 Many of travellers from the late twelfth century onwards referred to the city as Sadanaya, Sardenal, Sardinale, Sardinella, Zardenal, Sardainne, Sardenay, or Sidonaiia, (Immerzeel, 2007: 13) Chronos nº 40 - 2019 96 RAND ABOU ACKL mousafer3 or “the traveler’s map,” the traveler being a pilgrim or hajji of the Holy Land. Both icons and maps are often described as “windows”: icons being a “window of heaven”, and the maps a “window on the theatre of the world” (Della Dora 2012: 85). The “Kharetat al mousafer” icon belongs to these two categories. Proskynetaria are icons painted on wood or canvas. They were also a type of certificate. This certificate is a sort of documentary proof that their holders had been in the Holy Land and therefore earned the right to be called hajjis; it was also a visible sign of the collective blessing they brought back from their pilgrimages. In order to provide those Orthodox pilgrims with meaningful objects commemorating their pilgrimage, icon workshops in Jerusalem produced topographic representations of the Holy Land, called proskynetaria, which portrayed the Holy City and the major Orthodox pilgrimage sites, as well as the Orthodox traditions which were intimately connected to this part of the world. Proskynetaria were painted on linen that could be rolled up or folded inside metal containers to facilitate their transport (Immerzeel 2005: 23). As far as we know, the oldest known example is dated A.D.1704 and is preserved in the museum of Saumur in France. Furthermore, proskynetaria in Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, and Persia bear inscriptions in both Arabic and Greek, although there are examples written only in Greek.4 The earliest painted proskynetaria were products of the post-Byzantine period, initiated in some Greek scriptorium (Skalova 2005: 100), arguably close to the Patriarchate of Jerusalem, thus belonging to the so-called Melkite cultural environment. The Saydnaya Proskynetarion as a pilgrimage object The Saydnaya Proskynetarion is an illustrated colour map of the holy sites and representing the topography of Palestine. To understand how this icon ended up in this monastery, one must understand the pilgrimage to 3 The author gratefully acknowledges the Monastery of Saydnaia and the Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch for their permission to photograph this icon. 4 As well as the churches of Macedonia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary. (Deluga, 2008: 70) KHARETAT AL MOUSAFER, AN 18th CENTURY PROSKYNETARION OF JERUSALEM 97 Palestine before and during the Ottoman period. The pilgrims themselves were surprisingly mobile, with pilgrimages following traditional routes since time immemorial5. The pilgrims called themselves hajjis but insisted on their Eastern Orthodox identity. The pilgrims from the East and the West visited the Holy Land in Palestine paying the Mamluk poll-tax; they were left free to practice their religious rites, though the laws directing the behaviour of pilgrims were still in force (Meinardus 2005a : 79). The first mentions of Christian hajjis, who were mostly clerics and monks, are dated from the sixteenth century (Izmirlieva 2014: 323). In the Antiochian church, Meletios Karmeh, the Metropolitan of Aleppo, made a pilgrimage to the Holy Places as an adult with his friend Barlaam6 and became a monk in a monastery in Jerusalem; he remained there for two years7. Under the episcopate of his successor Meletios Zaim, a large number of his faithful made a pilgrimage to the Holy Places of Jerusalem, with 60 persons from Aleppo ( Elias 2007: 61). There, Patriarch Theophanes hastened to receive them with “all attention and all honours”. In Jerusalem, the metropolitan of Aleppo met the Catholicos, Maximos of Georgia, who accompanied him to Damascus and Aleppo. In May 1642, Zai‘m was on such good terms with his patriarch that he invited him to celebrate the Divine Liturgy pontifically and to preach in his place in the Cathedral of Damascus (Raheb 1981: 80). One can argue that these Christians from Syria brought many of souvenirs back to their homeland, in particular, proskynetaria; for the very least, they saw this kind of icon in Jerusalem or Bethlehem. Likewise, Paul of Aleppo (the son of al Zai‘m) visited the Trinity Lavra of St Sergio near Moscow in 1655. He noticed in the Trinity Cathedral of the monastery “large icons striking the mind with the art of execution: all of Jerusalem with all the churches, monasteries, and holy places inside and outside of it, the representation of the entire Mount of Zion and Mount Athos” (Piatnitsky 5 Traditionally, Christian culture — both in the East and West—offers no social rewards to pilgrims to the Holy Land. The chief reason is that, unlike Judaism and Islam, Christianity makes no demand for such a pilgrimage. Pilgrims were driven to Jerusalem only by personal initiative and saw it as a purely spiritual pursuit of piety, penance, and salvation. (Izmirlieva 2014: 325) 6 This Barlaam became a monk of St. Sabas in Jerusalem and then later went from St. Sabas to Jassy, which Macarios of Aleppo visited on January 25, 1653, cf. Radu, p. 4, p. 160 ff. See Raheb 1981: 36. 7 See Kilzi 1913; Raheb 1981: 36. Chronos nº 40 - 2019 98 RAND ABOU ACKL 2005: 115). During the centuries of the Ottoman administration of the Holy Land, the rights and privileges of the various Christian churches in Jerusalem and especially in the church of the Resurrection were often disputed, especially between the Greek, the Armenian and the Latin (Franciscan) clergies (Meinardus 2005b: 35). The Sublime Porte confirmed these rights in Constantinople through the Arrangements of the status quo of 1517 and by Treaty of Paris in 1856. In our icon, Issa Al Qudsi depicts the Orthodox Patriarch holding a candle for receiving and giving the Holy Fire8. Consequently, the proskynetaria also served as pictorial records of property rights and privileges. Lastly, proskynetaria served as pious mementoes of pilgrimages to the Holy Places. The Saydnaya Proskynetarion The Saydnaya icon, (Pl. 1) is well preserved, protected by glass, although there are many cracks and much loss of paint. It is signed, in Arabic, Issa Al Qudsi and endowed in Greek by a pilgrim named Magdalena, (Pl. 3) (Immerzeel 2005: 24) and dated from the 18th century, Plate 1: Sydnaia proskynetarion, 1738-9, Saydnaya monastery, as seen behind the glass pane 8 According to the testimony of pilgrims, in the seventeenth century, Greeks, Copts, Ethiopians, Armenians, Georgians and Nestorians still received the Holy Fire from the Greek Orthodox patriarch, who distributed it to the other Christians. From the thirteenth century onwards, the Latins abstained from this ceremony (Meinardus 2005: 80). KHARETAT AL MOUSAFER, AN 18th CENTURY PROSKYNETARION OF JERUSALEM 99 1738-39 (Immerzeel 2005: 24). If this date is correct, this icon survived the earthquake of 1759 during which the church was damaged before being restored three years later (Immerzeel 2007: 19).We know little about Issa Plate 2: The scheme of Sydnaya proskynetarion, 1738-9, Saydnaya Monastery Al-Qudsi and of his icons: he had been working in the Aleppo School as an independent iconographer who developed his style. There is an icon of St. Basil the Great in Our Lady of the Entry in Hama and signed by him, and dated from the 18th century (Zayat 1987: Pl. 25) as well as “the Lady of Spring” icon in the church of Our Lady of Lattakia, dated 1743. The Saydnaya proskynetarion composition represents a warm, colourful representation of the Holy Land, showing scenes from the christological cycle integrated into their geographical settings together with historic towns, pilgrimage sites, churches, and monasteries.
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