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Kreinath, Jens. Kreinath, Jens. "Aesthetic Sensations of Mary: The Miraculous Icon of Meryem Ana and the Dynamics of Interreligious Relations in Antakya." Figurations and Sensations of the Unseen in Judaism, Christianity and Islam: Contested Desires. By Birgit Meyer and Terje Stordalen. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2019. 154–171. Bloomsbury Studies in Material Religion. Bloomsbury Collections. Web. 26 Sep. 2021. <http://dx.doi.org/10.5040/9781350078666.0017>. Downloaded from Bloomsbury Collections, www.bloomsburycollections.com, 26 September 2021, 12:16 UTC. Copyright © Birgit Meyer, Terje Stordalen and Contributors. This Work is licensed under the Creative Commons License. 2019. You may share this work for non-commercial purposes only, provided you give attribution to the copyright holder and the publisher, and provide a link to the Creative Commons licence. 8 Aesthetic Sensations of Mary: Th e Miraculous Icon of Meryem Ana and the Dynamics of Interreligious Relations in Antakya1 J e n s K r e i n a t h Introduction Antakya – formerly Antioch – is the southernmost city of Turkey, known for its religious and ethnic diversity, with its people belonging to diff erent Christian and Muslim denominations. It is situated with the Mediterranean to the west and borders Syria to the east and south (see Figure 8.1 ). In 1939, Hatay was the last province to offi cially become part of the Republic of Turkey ( Shields 2011 : 17–47, 143–75, 232–49). Now, the ethnically diverse population of about 1.5 million is primarily composed of people of Turkish and Arab descent. With its unique blend of diff erent languages and cultures, Hatay became known for its religious tourism industry. In the early 2000s, the inception of the Meeting of Civilizations (Turk .: Medeniyetler Bulu ş mas ı ) and the interreligious Antakya Civilizations Choir (Turk.: Antakya Medeniyetler Korosu ),2 both initiated by the Ministry of Tourism and Culture, highlighted the city’s religious coexistence. Th is heritage of mutual religious tolerance is evident in the celebration of annual festivals and life cycle rituals shared among members of Antakya’s diverse communities ( Do ğ ruel 2009 , 2013 ; Prager 2013 ; Kreinath 2016 , 2017b ). Visits to ancient local sanctuaries for vowing, wishing, and celebrating saints’ days have played a signifi cant role in fostering the local culture. Although recent ethnographic research on Hatay has emphasized the continuous existence of interreligious relations and rising tensions due to the Syrian confl ict ( Can 2017 ; Da ğ ta ş 2017 ), the dynamics within these communities constituting the formation of interreligious relations have not been suffi ciently studied. As demonstrated in prior publications ( Kreinath 2014 ; 2015 , 2016 , 2017b ), saint veneration rituals at shared sanctuaries, like those dedicated to St. George, are a key factor in organizing interreligious relations. Th is leads to the question of how similarities in visible forms of religious practice can occur while members of various religious communities maintain diff erent notions of the invisible in their saintly encounters. 156 Figurations and Sensations of the Unseen in Judaism, Christianity and Islam Figure 8.1 Map of Hatay. © T.C. Hatay Valili ğ i: Hatay governorship in Antakya. Th is chapter addresses how variations in the veneration of Mary (Arab.: Maryam ; Turk.: Meryem ) 3 among Orthodox Christians can be explained through diff erences in aesthetic regimes and bodily sensations among clergy and laity, if compared with those traditions of saint veneration shared among members of the diff erent religious communities in the context of Antakya. 4 D e fi ned ‘by their adherence to a specifi c Aesthetic Sensations of Mary 157 regime of the sensible, which is extricated from its ordinary connection and is inhabited by a heterogeneous power’ ( Ranci è re 2004 : 22–3), I refer to aesthetic regimes as a means to account for the ways in which aesthetic frameworks of perception, or in this case sensations and confi gurations of Mary, shape the ways in which sensational forms, such as icons of her, are perceived and experienced according to tacitly accepted perceptual standards of interpretation ( Ranci è re 2010a : 175–6). By taking aesthetics as ‘a re-confi guration of sensible experience’ ( Ranci è re 2010b : 15), I aim to account for the experience of Marian apparitions by Orthodox Christian and Arab Alawite women as refl ected in their accounts and take these representations of bodily sensations as empirical evidence for my case study. As Birgit Meyer succinctly put it: ‘Attention to the aesthetic dimension of religion enables us above all to grasp the perspective – or should I say perceptions – of insiders’ ( Meyer 2009b : 719). Th us, the concept of aesthetic regime is suitable for my argument because it calls for a transformation of the sensible in ‘the general distribution of bodies, voices, and capacities at work within a given community’ ( Tanke 2011 : 72). Th is is precisely my argument to account for how the sensation of this interface is confi gured diff erently among members of the clergy and laity. Th erefore, I employ aesthetic regime in conjunction with bodily sensations to contour the interface of the visible and invisible in the adorations and apparitions of Mary ( Ranci è re 2010a : 138–9). For bodily sensations, I refer to Meyer’s insights in her discussion of aesthetic formations and sensational forms. To clarify my theoretical point, I specify how I utilize these concepts as follows: I agree that sensational forms like aesthetic regimes become useful by conceptualizing them as ‘relatively fi xed, authorized modes of invoking and organizing access to the transcendental, thereby creating and sustaining links between religious practitioners in the context of particular religious organizations’ ( Meyer 2009b : 707). However, this only applies to the more rigid forms of organized religious practice as instituted by the clergy, not necessarily to the less tangible forms of individual religious practice of the laity. Hence, it is also suitable to account for the laity by conceptualizing sensational forms as ‘transmitted and shared; they involve religious practitioners in particular practices of worship and play a central role in forming religious subjects’ ( Meyer 2009b : 707). I, therefore, distinguish diff erent aesthetic regimes and sensational forms among clergy and laity, and use bodily sensations as equivalent to aesthetic formations, namely as the part of shared experiences that helps to highlight the convergences and divergences of subject formation in the making of internally diff erentiated communities. Th us, my focus on bodily sensation may help capture ‘the formative impact of a shared aesthetics through which subjects are shaped by tuning their senses, inducing experiences, molding their bodies, and making sense, and which materializes in things’ ( Meyer 2009a : 7). To identify similarities and diff erences in these aesthetic regimes of clergy and laity, I analyse Marian veneration rituals in conjunction with offi cial accounts of Orthodox Christian priests and personal experiences of Marian apparitions collected during my fi eldwork in Hatay.5 Starting with the veneration of Meryem Ana and her Miraculous Icon in Antakya, I argue that the aesthetic regimes and bodily sensations among Orthodox Christian clergy and laity are considerably diff erent in relation to iconic fi gurations of the unseen, while saint veneration rituals among Orthodox Christian 6 158 Figurations and Sensations of the Unseen in Judaism, Christianity and Islam and Arab Alawite 7 women share the most commonalities, including vows and wishes. To elaborate on an aesthetics of religion approach grounded in comparative research ( Meyer and Verrips 2008 ; Grieser and Johnston 2017 ; Kreinath 2018 ), I argue that a major diff erence consists between the clergy and lay Christian women. Th e former emphasizes aesthetic regime while the latter emphasizes bodily sensation. Th is diff erence – as I submit – has implications for the organization of social relations within the Orthodox Christian community and for the dynamics of interreligious relations among Christian and Muslim women and their interactions mediated through Marian sanctuaries in Hatay. Meryem Ana sanctuaries and places of veneration Several places in Hatay are dedicated to Meryem Ana, most of which are the offi cial churches and chapels of Eastern Orthodox Christian communities. For example, the Armenian Christian Church in Vak ı fl ı and the Eastern Orthodox Church in Toka ç l ı , the only Armenian and Orthodox villages in Turkey, respectively, have a documented history traceable to a remote past. By contrast, most Orthodox Christian sanctuaries in Hatay dedicated to Meryem Ana are modern constructions attributed to apparitions of Meryem Ana and known for miracles. Regardless, no interlocutor could specify the exact reasons for the sanctuaries’ foundations, or their modern constructions. Th e Meryem Ana chapel (Arab.: maqam ; Turk.: makam ) at the Orthodox St. George Church in İskenderun is an example of a sanctuary allegedly built aft er an apparition of Meryem Ana. Although the local church authority recognizes the sanctuary, and that it is visited by members of the Christian and Muslim communities, it is unclear who or what initiated the construction of the sanctuary. Th e church’s caretakers believe Meryem Ana appeared to the priest in a dream, and thus the chapel was built. In contrast, the priest, who affi rmed that he initiated the construction, denied any association with an apparition of Meryem Ana. He maintained that he built the chapel to comply with the congregation’s request for a place to venerate Meryem Ana. Regardless of the chapel’s origins, its visitors attribute its existence to an apparition of Meryem. Th is Meryem Ana Makam ı in İ skenderun is signifi cant because of its architectural features and usages, which indicate the site’s heritage and its signifi cance for interreligious saint veneration rituals ( Kreinath 2015 , 2016 , 2017b). Contrary to common conventions for Christian chapels, this sanctuary is oriented towards the west with the entrance facing east.
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