Sulamith Brodbeck et Anne-Orange Poilpré (dir.) Visibilité et présence de l’image dans l’espace ecclésial Byzance et Moyen Âge occidental Éditions de la Sorbonne Experiencing Miraculous Icons in Byzantium The examples of the Icon of the “Usual Miracle” and the Hodegetria in Constantinople Maria Parani DOI: 10.4000/books.psorbonne.39802 Publisher: Éditions de la Sorbonne Place of publication: Paris Year of publication: 2019 Published on OpenEdition Books: 18 December 2019 Serie: Byzantina Sorbonensia Electronic ISBN: 9791035105457 http://books.openedition.org Printed version Date of publication: 6 June 2019 Electronic reference PARANI, Maria. Experiencing Miraculous Icons in Byzantium: The examples of the Icon of the “Usual Miracle” and the Hodegetria in Constantinople In: Visibilité et présence de l’image dans l’espace ecclésial: Byzance et Moyen Âge occidental [online]. Paris: Éditions de la Sorbonne, 2019 (generated 08 janvier 2020). Available on the Internet: <http://books.openedition.org/psorbonne/39802>. ISBN: 9791035105457. DOI: 10.4000/books.psorbonne.39802. Experiencing Miraculous Icons in Byzantium: The examples of the Icon of the “Usual Miracle” and the Hodegetria in Constantinople Maria Parani The 11th century is considered by scholars of Byzantium as a period of change in devotional practices and, especially, in the way in which individuals and social groups sought to establish a more immediate, if not more personal, communication with the divine beyond the opportunities offered by participation in the institu- tionalized and controlled celebration of the liturgy. It is at this time that icons, making the invisible visible and thus directly accessible to all, appear to have acquired particular prominence as objects of private and communal devotion.1 This rising prominence is reflected, for instance, in the miniatures of the Constan- tinopolitan Theodore Psalter, dated to 1066, where numerous biblical and saintly figu es are actually shown praying to icons of Christ, placed as a rule above them.2 1. The bibliography on the subject is vast. For a general overview of lay devotional practices in the later centuries of Byzantium, see S. E. J. Gerstel and A.-M. Talbot, The Culture of Lay Piety in Medieval Byzantium, 1054-1453, in The Cambridge History of Christianity. 5. Eastern Christianity, ed. M. Angold, Cambridge 2008, p. 79-100. For devotional and liturgical practices associated specifically with icons, see selectively J. Nesbitt and J. Wiita, A Confraternity of the Comnenian Era, BZ 68, 1975, p. 360-384; N. Patterson Ševčenko, Icons in the Liturgy, DOP 45, 1991, p. 45-57; H. Belting, Likeness and Presence. A History of the Image before the Era of Art, trans. E. Jephcott, London / Chicago 1994; J. Cotsonis, The Virgin with the “Tongues of Fire” on Byzantine Lead Seals, DOP 48, 1994, p. 221- 227, at 225-227; A. Weyl Carr, Icons and the Object of Pilgrimage in Middle Byzantine Constantinople, DOP 56, 2002, p. 75-92; B. V. Pentcheva, Icons and Power. The Mother of God in Byzantium, University Park 2006; Ead., The Sensual Icon: Space, Ritual, and the Senses in Byzantium, University Park 2010; Ead., Miraculous Icons: Medium, Imagination, and Presence, in The Cult of the Mother of God in Byzantium. Texts and Images, ed. L. Brubaker and M. B. Cunningham, Farnham / Burlington 2011, p. 263-277; I. Drpić, Epigram, Art and Devotion in Later Byzantium, Cambridge 2016; G. R. Parpulov, The Rise of Devotional Imagery in Eleventh-Century Byzantium, in Byzantium in the Eleventh Century: Being in between, ed. M. D. Lauxtermann and M. Whittow, London / New York 2017, p. 231-247. 2. London, British Library, Add. MS 19358, fol. 15r, 57v, 73r, 89r, 94r, 107v, 137v, 145v, 153r, 172r, 196v, 198r, 199r, 200r, 200v, available at http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/ FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Add_MS_19352 (accessed 13 December 2016). See C. Walter, The Icon and the Image of Christ: the Second Council of Nicaea and Byzantine Tradition, in Id., Pictures as Language. How the Byzantines exploited them, London 2000, p. 155-194, at 160-162; C. Barber, Icons, Prayer, and Vision in the Eleventh Century, in A People’s History of Christianity. 3. Byzantine Christianity, ed. D. Krueger, Minneapolis 2006, p. 149- 163. Note that comparable miniatures of figu es praying before icons are absent from ninth-century psalters, such as the Chludov and the Pantokrator. © Éditions de la Sorbonne, 2019. Tous droits réservés. 172 MARIA PARANI Equally evocative of eleventh-century attitudes is the fact that in two miniatures the icon appears to respond to the prayer by a hand extended beyond the frame, as if Christ is not simply imaged on the panel but really present in the icon and thus able to answer to and interact with the persons addressing him through it.3 These latter miniatures cannot fail but bring to mind Michael Psellos’ well- known description of the icon of Christ Antiphonetes (“the guarantor”, but also “the one who responds”) owned by Empress Zoe (born ca 978 – died 1050) in the first half of the same century. This icon, as its name implies, would respond to the empress’ questions about the future by changing its color.4 Both the miniatures and Psellos’ account of Zoe’s interaction with the Antiphonetes intimate that at that time icons, beyond acting as the vehicle through which prayers could reach the depicted saintly figu e residing in heaven, came to be considered as potential foci or loci of sacred power or grace, if not outright presence, as the late eleventh-century bishop Leo of Chalcedon had argued.5 Though Leo’s views were condemned by both Church and State as heretical, they seem to have been informed – as firs demonstrated by Annemarie Weyl Carr – by current beliefs and attitudes that resulted in certain icons being considered as charismatic and commanding an impressive and widespread cult in their own right as sites of the miraculous.6 The most famous of these charismatic devotional icons that came into promi- nence for the first time in the 11th century are the Marian panel of the so-called “usual miracle” at the church of the Virgin at Blachernai and the icon of the Virgin Hodegetria housed at the Hodegon Monastery, both in Constantinople. Their rise into prominence, the theological, spiritual and performative parameters of their cult, and their inscription in the religious and the political life of the imperial capital have been discussed at great length by many scholars and need not be reiterated here.7 3. London, British Library, Add. MS 19358, fols 15v, 125v, available at http://www.bl.uk/ manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Add_MS_19352 (accessed 13 December 2016). 4. Michael Psellos, Chronographia, ed. D. R. Reinsch, Berlin 2014 (Millennium-Studien 51), p. 380. For Psellos’ discourse on icons and spiritual seeing and its philosophical underpinnings, see C. Barber, Contesting the Logic of Painting. Art and Understanding in Eleventh Century Byzantium, Leiden / Boston 2007, p. 61-98. 5. On the controversy concerning the alienation of church treasures during the reign of Alexios I Komenos (1081-1118), within the context of which Leo had expounded his views, see A. A. Glavinas, Ἡ ἐπὶ Ἀλεξίου Κομνηνοῦ περὶ ἱερῶν σκευῶν, κειμηλίων καὶ ἁγίων εἰκόνων ἔρις, 1081-1095, Thessaloniki 1972. 6. A. Weyl Carr, Leo of Chalcedon and the Icons, in Byzantine East, Latin West. Art Historical Studies in Honor of Kurt Weitzmann, ed. C. Moss and K. Kiefer, Princeton 1995, p. 579- 584; see also Pentcheva, Miraculous Icons (cited in n. 1). 7. See, selectively, I. Tognazzi Zervou, L’iconografia e la ‘vita’ delle miracolose icone della Theotokos Brefokratoussa: Blachernitissa e Odighitria, Bollettino della Badia greca di Grottaferrata 40, 1986, p. 215-287; G. Babić, Les images byzantines et leurs degrés de significatio : l’exemple de l’Hodigitria, in Byzance et les images, ed. A. Guillou and J. Durand, Paris 1994, p. 189-222; A. Weyl Carr, Court Culture and Cult Icons in Middle Byzantine Constantinople, in Byzantine Court Culture from 829 to 1204, ed. H. Maguire, Washington DC 1997, p. 81-99; M. Bacci, Il pennello dell’Evangelista. Storia delle immagini sacre attribute a san Luca, Pisa 1998, p. 114-129, p. 136-144; C. Angelidi and T. Papa- mastorakis, The Veneration of the Virgin Hodegetria and the Hodegon Monastery, in Mother EXPERIENCING MIRACULOUS ICONS IN BYZANTIUM 173 Instead, within the framework of the present volume and its preoccupation with the presence and visibility of images within the church space, I propose to explore some of the practical conditions that shaped the ways in which these charismatic icons were experienced by the faithful, especially within the sacred spaces that housed them. These include the location of these miraculous icons within the church, the manner in which they were displayed and the accoutrements with which they were adorned and which affected their visibility, as well as the means by which physical – visual and haptic – access to them was regulated and the ritual acts and behaviors which were associated with their veneration. Through this enquiry one hopes to achieve a better understanding of how the encounter with the divine was orchestrated, with these charismatic icons acting as a point of contact – sometimes stationary, sometimes mobile – between the sacred persons represented on the icons, i.e., the Virgin and Child, and the faithful reaching towards them physically, spiritually and emotively. Since neither the two miraculous panels nor the sanctuaries that housed them survive today, this investigation is based primarily on written accounts of the miraculous and ritual performances of the two icons by Byzantine authors and non-Byzantine visitors to Constantinople, as well as on a small series of devotional epigrams documenting pious donations to the Hodegetria.8 Pertinent artistic representations will also be brought into the discussion, especially where they can help clarify certain ambiguous statements in the sources.