THÈSE DE DOCTORAT De l’Université de recherche Paris Sciences et Lettres PSL Research University Préparée à l’Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales Saint Georges: "Un Saint Partagé" en Méditerranée? Approche historique et anthropologique du pèlerinage (Turquie et Liban) Ecole doctoral en°150836 CESOR Spécialité Anthropologue COMPOSITION DU JURY : ESOR Mme. Chantal Verdeil (professeur, INALCO), Rapporteur M. Dionigi Albera (Directeur de recherches, CNRS/ IDEMEC, Aix/ Soutenue par Marseille), Rapporteur Mustafa Yakup DİKTAŞh M. Emma Aubin-Boltanski (Directrice de recherche, CNRS / IFPO (Beyrouth), Membre du jury M. Alexandre Toumarkine (professeur, Dirigée par INALCO), Membre du jury Bernard HEYBERGER Mme. Danièle Hervieu-Léger, Directrice d'études, EHESS (CeSoR), Membre du jury M. Dionigi Albera (Directeur de recherches, CNRS/ IDEMEC, Aix/ Marseille), Membre du jury Mme. Chantal Verdeil (professeur, INALCO), Membre du jury M. NOM Prénom Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales Centre d'études en sciences sociales du religieux (CéSor) Saint Georges : "Un Saint Partagé" en Méditerranée? Approche historique et anthropologique du pèlerinage (Turquie et Liban) Thèse de doctorat Mustafa DİKTAŞ Directeur de thèse Prof. Bernard HEYBERGER 2018 To the ones who still believe in dreams… To Firuze….. Acknowledgements Undertaking this PhD has been a truly life-changing experience for me and it would not have been possible to do without the support and guidance that I received from many people. I would like to first say a very big thank you to my supervisor Bernard Heyberger for all the support and encouragement he gave me. Without his guidance and constant feedback this PhD would not have been achievable. I am indebted to my beloved friend Ana Munteanu who has been by my side throughout this PhD, living every single minute of it, and without whom, I would not have had the courage to embark on this journey. I greatly appreciate the support I received during my field work – thank you to Deacon Nadim Challita from Sarba St George Parish for his endless support. Without him I couldn’t have completed my fieldwork. I would also like to say a heartfelt thank you to all inhabitants of Sarba who were always so helpful and provided me with their assistance throughout this journey. I am especially grateful to Marc Tarazi for believing in my research and for cognitive and emotional support. I am also very thankful to Nour Farra Haddad from whom I got the inspiration to work on Mar Jirjes al Batiyeh. Finally, very special thank you to my Mum, Dad: Songül and Selçuk for always believing in me and encouraging me to follow my dreams. And my brother Inan for helping in every way he could during this challenging period. i Saint Georges: "A Shared Saint" in the Mediterranean ? An Historical and Anthropological Approach to Pilgrimage (Turkey and Lebanon) Abstract The people of the Mediterranean basin share ways of living and practicing their faith, which resist religious divisions and political manipulations. The religious landscape of the Eastern Mediterranean is more complex and is marked by forms of inter-confessional convergence. This thesis is an anthropological gaze towards a reading of political and cultural changes that affect sanctuaries and recent transformations of rites around two ambiguous shrines. Although this thesis pays attention to two case studies in particular, namely Aya Yorgi in Turkey and Mar Jirjes al Batiyeh in Lebanon, it draws on multi–disciplinary research in order to set a broader context. These places are explored deeply through qualitative analysis, while at the same time taking note of parallel work concerned with other sites such as Lod, Edirne and Athens. Ranging from the search for spirituality around the sites dedicated to St George, my findings that include spiritual as well as secular aspirations suggest a deconstruction of poles of meaning such as sacred and profane, movement and place, religion and secularity, community and individual. This methodologically diverse study argues that, contrary to perception, traditional forms of religious rituals are not necessarily incompatible with late–modern consumer culture. Through consumer culture, religious traditions are being revitalized. The renewed popularity of pilgrimage today demonstrates how some religious landscapes and spaces of Aya Yorgi and al Batiye have remained important through political and religious movements, by literature, media, specialist tourist markets and private enterprise. Finally, this study reveals a picture of noticeably wide variety of groups and individuals visiting them Countries in Middle-Near East and Balkans have a similar concept of sainthood, and parallelism in shrine policies, naturally, as a result of long centuries of common history and interaction. Common history which is a four centuries of Ottoman domination in the region is not the major focus on or the main rationale behind this study, yet, shared social history and the regional proximity of modern day locations of these two shrines are the primary factors why I selected them as fields of study. Despite the “deep rooted kinship” of the territorial resemblances of modern Turkey and Lebanon, for almost one hundred years, they have been evolving in their own separate lines and pace. Turkey has almost managed to become a nation state after the fall of the Ottoman Empire, less heterogeneous in terms of religious confessions and growing prevalence of Sunni Islam in public and private sphere along with ambivalent secularism. However Lebanon on the other hand is a small country in the region with sectarian political structural system where the confessions sometimes act like different ethnical entities and creating a nation is still a goal matter. Therefore via this study I aim to clarify if the difference between two countries’ demographic, linguistic, and socio political constructions have impact on the attribution of meaning to recently popular anthropological research area: “shared sacred sites” The shared sacred sites that I am scrutinizing throughout this study are both dedicated to Saint George - an outstanding saintly figure all around Middle East, Europe and Balkans: Aya Yorgi is the Turco-Greek name for Saint George and Mar Jirjes (Jiryes, Gerges) is the name given to the same saint in Lebanese Arabic. These sites are also popular pilgrimage spots that receive a great number of pilgrim-tourists throughout the year either in daily basis or for certain calenderical rituals. Saint George and Khidr are seen as two counterparts. Their relation with each other has been frequently questioned by a number of academics or clerics since the beginning of 20th century as in the example of Husluck, Kanaan and Ocak. The attempts to understand the connections between these two holy figures and the ritual practices around the shrines dedicated to “two saints in one body” have not been concluded yet: ii Khidr who has drunk of the Water of Life and teaches hidden knowledge to the prophet Moses according to the hadith literature, St George, Christian martyr and a dragon slayer. They seem to be standing in the opposite poles of a continuum. Ambiguous identification of such different personages with each other still causes confusion in the hearts and minds of researchers and the ordinary believers. No matter what was said before, in modern times defenders of “religious dialogue” and “coexistence” frequently refer to the common aspects of these two saints and embrace such unification as a symbol of common way. Others who are cautious about religious overlapping reject this commonality. To be precise, in contemporary Middle East and Anatolian context, in reality, not many people know much about these saints once considered being the same figures with different names. Many people even do not have slight idea about what do they stand for. Whereas it is somehow true that in Lebanon there are some people who still link al Khidr with George. In the thesis, I also examine the relationship between place, healing and spirituality in the context of healing and well-being. Through a discussion of fieldwork at two sites in Turkey and Lebanon a framework is proposed for the investigation of pilgrimage sites of spiritual significance, detailing features such as connection, renewal, reproduction, participation and expectation. Water is an important ritual and healing element both at al Batiyeh and Aya Yogi. As it has already been shown in this study, the cult of Saint George as another major world spread hierophany includes the symbolism of water in itself. St. George is related to the beginning of summer, to rains and fertility. Also he carries the fame of being the savior of the maiden and the one who gave the water back to people killing the dragon. A connection between St George and the masculine principle of water which falls from the skies and comes as an active principle fertilizing the soil wouldn`t be therefore too exaggerated. If water has been seen as a masculine and feminine principle as well, then the patronage of St George over the oratory cave of al Batiyeh offers a complex approach upon people`s beliefs enhancing the power of the two symbols. As my research shows, Aya Yorgi has become a site where ‘power and resistance find expression’. I found out that through Aya Yorgi visits and pilgrimages, secular women resist the power of the authorities determining how to practice Islam. Although informants were from different confessions of Christianity and expressed their diverse and sometimes contradictory views and rituals, Aya Yorgi offers a space where their worlds can converge. Against the disciplining presence of the Diyanet or ‘official’ Islam at the shrines and mosques by saying what is acceptable and what is not, women appeared to enjoy the greater sense of freedom of expression and the possibilities inherent in conducting their ‘internal’ worship or prayer in an environment free from the somewhat ‘threatening’ presence of males and the often judgmental male gaze.