1 SAINTS OF THE BALKANS Edited by Mirjana Detelić and Graham Jones 2 Table of Contents Mirjana Detelić and Graham Jones, Introduction (3-5) Milena Milin, The beginnings of the cults of Christian martyrs and other saints in the Late Antique central Balkans (6-15) Aleksandar Loma, The contribution of toponomy to an historical topography of saints‟ cults among the Serbs (16-22) Tatjana Subotin-Golubović, The cult of Michael the Archangel in medieval Serbia (23- 30) Danica Popović, The eremitism of St Sava of Serbia (31-41) Branislav Cvetković, The icon in context: Its functional adaptability in medieval Serbia (42-50) Miroslav Timotijević, From saints to historical heroes: The cult of the Despots Branković in the Nineteenth Century (52-69) Jelena Dergenc, The relics of St Stefan Štiljanović (70-80) Gerda Dalipaj, Saint‟s day celebrations and animal sacrifice in the Shpati region of Albania: Reflections of local social structure and identities (81-89) Raĉko Popov, Paraskeva and her „sisters‟: Saintly personification of women‟s rest days and other themes (90-98) Manolis Varvounis, The cult of saints in Greek traditional culture (99-108) Ljupĉo Risteski, The concept and role of saints in Macedonian popular religion (109- 127) Biljana Sikimić, Saints who wind guts (128-161) Mirjam Mencej, Saints as the wolves‟ shepherd (162-184) Mirjana Detelić, Two case studies of the saints in the „twilight zone‟ of oral literature: Petka and Sisin (185-204) Contributors Branislav Cvetković, Regional Museum, Jagodina (Serbia) Gerda Dalipaj, Tirana (Albania) Jelena Dergenc, The National Museum, Belgrade (Serbia) Mirjana Detelić, The SASA Institute for Balkan Studies, Belgrade (Serbia) Aleksandar Loma, Faculty of Philosophy, Belgrade University (Serbia) Mirjam Mencej, Faculty of Philosophy, Ljubljana University (Slovenia) Milena Milin, Faculty of Philosophy, Belgrade University (Serbia) Raĉko Popov, Ethnographic Institute and Museum, Sofia (Bulgaria) Danica Popović, The SASA Institute for Balkan Studies, Belgrade (Serbia) Ljupĉo S. Risteski, Faculty of Philosophy, Skopje University (Macedonia) Biljana Sikimić, The SASA Institute for Balkan Studies, Belgrade (Serbia) Tatjana Subotin-Golubović, Faculty of Philosophy, Belgrade University (Serbia) Miroslav Timotijević, Faculty of Philosophy, Belgrade University (Serbia) Manolis Varvounis, Demokritos University of Thrace, Komotini (Greece) 3 INTRODUCTION Mirjana Detelić and Graham Jones The cult of saints is a field of enquiry in need of continual revisiting. Constant revision of our interpretations of data is demanded in the light of new discoveries and understandings – not least those which result from the insights afforded by interdisciplinary and intercultural studies. Complex phenomena which operate on many levels demand the engagement of disciplines ranging from history to psychology via archaeology, topography, onomastics, literature, theology, anthropology, ethnology, culturology, sociology, and others besides. Among the critical issues whose exploration can be particularly helped by examining material from the Balkans is the relationship between inherited beliefs predating Christianity and the Christian model of the world adopted later, for example as concerns the rural calendar, attitudes towards the dead, and the treatment of relics. These cannot be understood well enough without multidisciplinary work that encompasses such skills as comparative folklore studies and broad environmental fieldwork. The same, broad context is also needed for studies in art history and history of literature, history of religion and mythology, as well as in comparative linguistic and Slavonic studies. The present volume grew out of an initial partnership between the Department of Language and Literature in the Centre for Scientific Research of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts and the University of Kragujevac with the intention of presenting the cult of saints in the context of Balkan folklore. The way in which this aim broadened out is illustrated by the first two essays in the present volume, both concerned with the very beginning of Christianity in the Balkans, well before the generally supposed arrival of the Slavs. Because of its geographical position at the crossroads between East and West, the Balkans has always been the cauldron in which eastern and western, and northern and southern influences were invited, altered, and in a new shape transferred again. There is a tendency – well described in several of the essays here – for the study of saints in Balkan historiography to be particular and inward- looking. In fact, as the broad sweep of topics here illustrates, the large themes our contributors address are more universal than regional and have an importance for Christian cultures wherever found. Of the fourteen essays presented here, the first two discussions help to establish historical foundations. Milena Milin explains „The beginnings of the cults of Christian martyrs on the territory of Serbia‟, and Alexander Loma explores hagio-toponyms. Milin writes that during the so-called Great persecution, the most numerous Christian martyrs in the Roman provinces Pannonia II, Moesia I and Dardania, are known to have suffered in Pannonian capital of Sirmium. Their names, noted already in the Martyrologium Hie- ronymianum, are sometimes epigraphically testified. The cults of martyrs were carefully cherished in Sirmium (St Irenaeus and Sinerotas, for example, whose martyria have been discovered), but many of them (sometimes with martyr‟s relics) were spread to the eastern and/or western parts of the Roman Empire. There they were worshipped even mo- 4 re than in their homeland (St Anastasia, for example, was venerated in Constantinople, Zadar, Rome, and Fulda). Loma asserts that after settling down in the seventh century in the Byzantine province of Dalmatia, the Serbs, not unlike theirs kinsmen and neighbours the Croats, found themselves exposed to the influences of a local Christianity, whose terminology and nomenclature were basically Latin, though impregnated with Greek admixtures. This situation is reflected in the oldest loan words and names of Christian provenance in Serbo-Croatian, and place-names with sut- from Latin sanctus, while some names of saints were adapted in a phonetic shape based on middle-Greek pronunciation, for example Ilija (Elijah), Varvara (Barbara), Vlaho (Blasius), and so on. After the schism and together with the gradual shifting of the centre of their medieval state under Nemanjic-dinasty southeastward, the Serbs definitely turned to the Eastern Church and adopted Church Slavonic as their liturgical language. Nevertheless still survive some remnants of this original syncretism among the orthodox Serbs, not only in onomastics, but also in their folk calendar, as Loma demonstrates. Three contributions address devotional themes from the Middle Ages. From the historians‟ perspective, Tatjana Subotin-Golubović describes the cult of Michael the Archangel in medieval Serbia, while Danica Popović explores the ecclesiastical and political programme represented by the eremitism of St Sava of Serbia. The concept of desert is one of the important categories not only in the history of east-Christian monasticism, but also in the entire medieval civilisation and its religious mentality. The art historical view is taken by Branislav Cvetković, discussing the icon and its functional adaptability in medieval Serbia. Religion was harnessed to national political agendas both in the time of St Sava and as medieval attitudes gave way to modern. Miroslav Timotijević describes how leading members of the ruling Despotic family Branković were remodelled first as saints and then, in the Nineteenth Century, as historical heroes. They seem to have provided a model for the parallel veneration of the sainted Stefan Ńtiljanović, popularly though unofficially viewed as the last Despot of the medieval Serbian state. The growth of devotion to his relics is traced by Jelena Dergenc. From here the narrative moves into the field of popular understandings, customs, and folklore. Gerda Dalipaj reports from her fieldwork on saint‟s day celebrations and animal sacrifice in the Shpati region of Albania, focusing on how these reflect local social structure and identities. Raĉko Popov describes the hugely important Balkan devotion to the conflated saints Paraskeva, also represented as Petka, together providing a saintly personification of women‟s rest days and other themes. Popov‟s essay traces the cult in Bulgaria, Serbia, Romania, and Greece, and Paraskeva/Petka‟s personification of Friday, her role in winter as patron of wolves and mice, and her summer aspect as rival and sub- stitution of God‟s Mother. Manolis Varvounis surveys the cult of saints in Greek traditional culture, and Ljupĉo Risteski lays out the concept and the role of saints in Ma- cedonian popular religion. In Risteski‟s view, the starting point is a notion that self-con- sciousness of popular religion is basically Christian, in spite of its scientific definition and multilevel structure which are conspicuous only from the point of view positioned outside the traditional culture. Christianity, though, popular as well as official, is based on the cult of the saints. This cult is here fully analysed on Macedonian folklore material and widely illustrated by the author‟s field research. Varvounis argues that the cult of 5 saints in Greece may be considered as an outcome of basic traditional and religious beha- viour of the Greek people. A contemporary