The Church of the Virgin of the Pharos in Constantinople
by Georges Kazan
The cult of Christian relics first came to prominence in the eastern Roman Empire in the 4th century. For centuries, Christians had made offerings and commemorated martyrs and holy figures at their grave sites. Members of the ruling elite, based primarily at Constantinople, set the precedent of by-passing Roman law by laying hands on the remains of the dead, removing these from their graves, wrapping them in precious fabrics and placing them inside reliquary caskets to facilitate their veneration. Often, the remains were divided, enabling them to be circulated more widely. These relics were used to give saints a physical presence within Christian communities, especially those that lacked martyrs of their own.
Constantinople, founded on the site of the Greek city of Byzantion, was dedicated by the Emperor Constantine in 330. The city was also known as New Rome, and came to serve as the capital of the eastern Roman Empire. In spite of its new political authority, Constantinople lacked Rome’s credentials as a spiritual capital. The city’s church did not have an established tradition of apostolic foundation, nor did it possess the graves of any significant martyrs. To address this issue, the city’s rulers began to acquire the most prestigious relics available. While some remained in private possession, most were placed in existing or purpose-built churches within the city, where their donor might also be interred to share, albeit posthumously, in their honours and divine favour. Elite buildings, caskets, textiles, furniture and utensils were often repurposed to house Christian relics or serve the needs of their cult, while purpose-made marble reliquaries that emulated the sarcophagi used by the city’s imperial nobility began to be produced, and imitated, from the later 4th century.
In Byzantine churches, relics were usually placed inside the church altar or under it, either at ground level or in a crypt beneath the floor. These might remain accessible, or be permanently sealed. Relics could also be fixed elsewhere within the fabric of churches (e.g. in walls, ceilings and pillars), essentially transforming the building into a reliquary and granting it divine protection [1]. Similarly, relics could be enclosed within wearable items (e.g. rings, amulets and imperial diadems) to protect individuals. Where they remained accessible, relics could be exposed for veneration, usually on their feast day, during which they might be presented to the faithful, for example on a silver paten. Offerings of wine or fragrant oil were poured onto relics, either directly or through the special apertures in their reliquaries, altars or coffins. Alternatively, such offerings could be made to the lamp of the saint, which burned beside their relics. Oil and wax could be removed from this lamp to produce contact relics, which could bear stamped decoration relating to the saint in question, and be distributed to the faithful for healing and veneration, similar to the tradition of the Agnus Dei in the Roman Catholic Church.
Many Byzantine basilicas possessed a skeuophylakion, in which ecclesiastical vestments, liturgical vessels and other valuable objects were kept safe under lock and key [2]. This could consist of a small cupboard, chest or room, often situated within or identified with the diakonikon, one of two chambers flanking the church apse. In the case of Hagia Sophia, the skeuophylakion consisted of an entire building [3]. Such secure spaces provided a safe repository for additional or particularly prestigious relics that were not enclosed in altars or coffins elsewhere in the church. The relics themselves were often enclosed or locked within reliquary caskets. These could serve to communicate information about the relic, such as its value, holiness and significance, not only through their form and fabric, but also through the texts and images they sometimes bore [4].
Over the centuries, Constantinople’s imperial churches, which included the numerous chapels within the Great Palace, as well as others across the city, such as the Chalkoprateia and Holy Apostles, came to possess important collections of Christian relics. Of these, that of the Church of the Virgin of the Pharos was without parallel. It is first mentioned in 769 by Theophanes Confessor, who records the wedding of the Emperor Leo IV (775-780) there. The church was located within the Great Palace of Constantinople, close to the imperial audience room, the Chrysotriklinos, and a lighthouse (Gr. pharos) that gave it its name. The church was rebuilt by Michael III (842-867), and on its rededication in 864, Patriarch Photius lauded its décor, hinting that it was almost too opulent for such a small church.
Figure 1. The translation of the hand of the Baptist into the Great Palace of Constantinople, 12th century, manuscript illumination. Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional de España, VITR/26/2.
By 940, the Pharos Church housed a major fragment of the Wood of the True Cross, as well as the Holy Lance. In 944, it received the Mandylion of Edessa (a sacred image of Christ’s face), in 956 the Right Arm of St John the Baptist, in 975 the sandals of Christ, in 1032 the Letter of King Abgar V of Osroene (reputed to be his direct correspondence with Christ), and in 1036 the Crown of Thorns [5]. By the end of the 12th century, it had also received a Holy Nail from the Crucifixion, the Robes of Christ, the Purple Mantle of Christ, the Reed Cane of the Crucifixion, and the Stone of Unction (upon which Christ’s body was anointed with myrrh and aloe and prepared for burial [6]). The latter had been translated to the Pharos in 1169-1170 by the Byzantine emperor Manuel Comnenus himself. By ca. 1200, therefore, the Pharos Church possessed some of Christianity’s oldest and holiest relics, virtually all those associated with the life of Jesus Christ.
In ca. 1200, the Byzantine churchman Nicolaos Mesarites (1160 century?-post 1216) was forced to defend the Pharos and its treasures from an armed mob during the short-lived coup d’état of John Comnenus ‘the Fat’. He composed a lavish account of these events, emphasising his own valiant actions. Mesarites was then serving as skeuophylax – keeper of the church’s vessels and other treasures – and possessed expert knowledge of the church and its contents. His perspective is therefore extremely valuable to our understanding of how the Pharos and its collection were intended to be experienced and used within Byzantine Christianity. He describes it as follows:
This is a church, this place is another Sinai, a Bethlehem, a Jordan, a Jerusalem, a Nazareth, a Bethany, a Galilee, a Tiberias, the Washing of the Feet, the Last Supper, mount Tabor, Pilate's praetorium and the place of the Skull which, being interpreted in Hebrew, is called Golgotha. Here He is born, here He is baptized, walks on the sea, goes on foot, works miracles, and is again humbled before the woman who washed Him. The woman bows down within, she who raises from the dead not one, nor two, nor many an evil-smelling Lazarus, but numberless bodies in the grip of death, and even before death, and every day and every hour she brings up from the tomb and restores to good health souls laden with sin, showing us herein the importance of prayer, and when we ought to weep and how much to pray. Here He is crucified, and let the spectator behold the footrest. Here He is buried and the stone that has been rolled away from the tomb is in this church as proof of the story. Here too He rises and the napkin together with the winding-sheets are evidence thereof [7].
Scholars have suggested, somewhat tentatively, that Mesarites is describing a pictorial cycle. Cyril Mango notes that if this were indeed the case, it would have been too complex for the post-iconoclastic era of Michael III. One explanation might be that the church received this decoration in the Comnenian period (1081-1185). However, Mango points out that the first reference, to Sinai, “cannot be connected with any New Testament scene” [8]. Could there be another solution?
In Byzantine Christianity, contemplation of relics could facilitate a vivid spiritual encounter with the holy persons and places commemorated in Christian culture, even when these no longer survived or were physically remote. While the role of sacred images in serving this purpose is well known, the virtual presencing of an absent person or event in this way has been recorded as early as the 4th century and is sometimes termed the ‘Eye of Faith’ [9]. Mesarites invites his audience to engage in this process of mental imaging in another of his works, a description of the Church of the Holy Apostles. This building not only held relics of St Andrew the Apostle, St Timothy and St Luke the Evangelist, but also served as an imperial mausoleum for the physical remains of Constantine and a number of his successors. Mesarites encourages his audience to look past the Latin rites instituted at the church by the city’s new crusader rulers:
It is already time for us to proceed with our speech to what is also within the church, and to observe it closely through the eyes of senses and to apprehend it with the ones of the spirit. For the intellect knows how to move forward from sense-perception and, led away from the lower sphere, how to grasp that which is more perfect and penetrate the holy of holies, where that which has led it there [i.e. sense-perception] has in no way whatever the strength to cast a glance at [10].
Little is known about how the relic collection of the Pharos was presented to the viewer. Only one fragment of a reliquary from the Pharos church survives. This is a 12th-century panel in the Louvre, once part of a reliquary that contained a stone from the Holy Sepulchre.It is saturated with inscriptions that identify the elements in the scene, direct the viewer’s attention to the image of the empty tomb, and, by extension, to its physical relic, stored inside the reliquary, and invite an emotional response to the ‘beauty and splendour of the Resurrection’. Mesarites’ mention of ‘the napkin together with the winding-sheets’ seems to refer to this very image, and it is tempting to speculate upon whether, in his description, he is surveying a series of such reliquaries and their relics, stored inside the Pharos’s skeuophylakion.
Figure 2. Panel from a reliquary of a fragment of stone from the Holy Sepulchre, showing the Women at the Tomb and an Angel. Constantinople, 12th century, Louvre Museum, inv. nr. MR 348 (Wikimedia Commons).
At least on occasion, privileged visitors were allowed to view and venerate the sacred treasures of churches in Constantinople and Jerusalem [11]. Word-of-mouth descriptions by guides or custodians, such as Mesarites, as well as by inscriptions and images displayed on site, could supplement the knowledge and direct the emotional response of the viewers, who could also rely on pilgrim guides and their own knowledge.
In spite of this, viewers aware of a collection’s contents might respond to it in a range of different manners. Some might approach it primarily through ‘sense-perception’, as Mesarites puts it, rather than engaging the ‘eyes of the spirit’. For example, the description by the Frankish knight, Robert de Clari, of the Pharos and its relics, following the recent capture of Constantinople by Latin crusaders in 1204, differs significantly from that of Mesarites [12]. While his interests in producing this account were surely different, his narrative concentrates on the material identity of the relics as objects, and not the sacred places, people and events with which they correspond. Meanwhile, Christian visitors from outside the city, privileged enough to be granted a tour of the collection, produced varying accounts of their experiences. Some recount their pious veneration of these sacred objects, while others concentrate on inventorying them. Similarly, a range of responses to relics is evident during major museum exhibitions, such as at Treasures of Heaven (2011), where one might witness members of different Christian traditions, some conspicuous by their priestly or monastic attire, kneeling or bowing before display cases, as ordinary museum visitors file past, stopping occasionally to inspect an exhibit or the text describing it [13].
Once assembled, the Pharos Church’s collection appears to have taken on an identity of its own. It could be evoked by metonymy on a miniaturised scale, in reliquaries like the Limburg Staurotheke, produced in Constantinople in 968-985. This contains a central relic of the True Cross, framed by ten relics within separate compartments, holding fragments from the winding sheets of Christ, the towel of the washing of the feet, the Crown of Thorns, the Purple Robe, the Shroud and the Sponge (all known to be at the Pharos in the 10th century), as well as from the girdle and raiment of the Virgin Mary, hair of St John the Baptist, parts of which were present at the Pharos by 1200 [14], and a fragment from Christ’s swaddling clothes, held at nearby Hagia Sophia, a part of which may also have been kept at the Pharos [15]. Byzantine accounts indicate that such reliquaries such as the Limburg Staurotheke could be carried in procession by Byzantine armies, suspended by a fixed ring or hoop. Another staurotheke, containing a similar group of relics, was gifted to Armenia in 983 by the Emperors Basil II and Constantine VIII [16].
Figure 3. Limburg Staurotheke, interior view. Constantinople, 10th century. Domschatz and Diözesanmuseum, Limburg (Wikimedia Commons).
With its unrivalled collection of relics, ornate design and location inside the Great Palace of Constantinople, perhaps the greatest city of the Middle Ages, the Pharos has been hailed as the "palatine chapel par excellence" [17]. Palatine chapels housed Gods’ Collections within the residence of a ruler, serving to associate divine and political power. This served to support the concept of caesaropapism, in which the ruler, as God’s viceroy on Earth, wielded holy authority over the affairs of both State and Church [18]. The Pharos’s relic collection thus belonged at the same time to both God and the State that acquired, secured and displayed them.
The concept of the palatine chapel was, of course, nothing new. While the Pharos is first mentioned in 769, the Great Palace of Constantinople contained numerous churches, including a chapel in the Palace of Daphne, dedicated in the early 5th century to St Stephen. The saint’s name in Greek, Hagios Stephanos, means ‘Holy Crown’, making the building a natural choice for imperial coronations. Its collection thus included not only a relic of the arm of St Stephen, brought from the Holy Land in the 5th century, a fragment of the Wood of the Cross and a Gospel of St Matthew recovered from the tomb of St Barnabas the Apostle, but also imperial regalia such as sceptres and insignia. Early palatine chapels in the Latin West included Charlemagne’s Palatine Chapel in Aachen (793-813), the Cámara Santa in Oviedo (9th century), as well as the Lateran’s palatine chapel of St Lawrence, which was endowed with its famous relic collection, the Sancta Sanctorum, by Pope Leo III (795-816). The royal collections of Sens (7th-11th century) and Chelles (7th -9th century) and the papal collection of the Lateran contain a number of relics relating to Christ and the Holy Family [19]. While these distinguish them from other early medieval relic collections in the Latin West, they mostly consist of small fragments taken from major relics, whereas Constantinople’s collections often possessed the principal object from which such fragments were believed to originate.
While the Pharos would not survive the Latin occupation of the city in the 13th century, it would be replicated elsewhere materially, through the transfer of its relic collection, and metaphorically, through imitation of at least some elements of its appearance, as well as of its design concept as a monumental reliquary. De Clari calls the church Constantinople’s Sainte Chapelle (Holy Chapel). This name would be also given to the royal chapel that King Louis IX of France (1226-1270) dedicated in 1248 inside his own palace in Paris, which not only shared elements of the Pharos Church’s design [20], but also held many of the same relics that had once formed part of the Pharos collection, most notably the Crown of Thorns. In turn, the architecture and display practices of the Sainte Chapelle seem to have inspired the creation of the relic chapel of Karlstejn Castle, outside Prague, Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV (1346–1378), the collection of which also included two thorns from the Crown of Thorns, received from Paris [21], Louis IX had acquired the Crown of Thorns in 1239 and begun construction of the Sainte Chapel soon afterwards. In imitation of this, Henry III, King of England, dedicated himself to the enlargement and ornamentation of Westminster Abbey, which received a relic of the Holy Blood in 1247. Henry’s visit to Paris in 1254 drove him to pursue further rebuilding work at Westminster to rival the Sainte-Chapelle: the Abbey’s radiating chapels seemingly inspired by the architecture of the Sainte-Chapelle, while the Abbey’s relic collection were also received a thorn from the Crown of Thorns and a piece of stone from the site of Christ’s Ascension [22].
Another feature that distinguishes the Pharos from other palatine chapels was that it formed part of a wider metaphorical context that reinforced the association between God and State across the broader urban landscape of the city. This served to create a parallel between the city of Constantinople, and in particular the Great Palace, and within it, the Pharos Chapel, with the New Jerusalem. The latter was interpreted not only as the contemporary Christian city that had been re-founded under Constantine around the Holy Sepulchre, but also as the Heavenly City described in the Book of Revelations [23]. This association dates back at least to CE 381, when the see of Constantinople was granted the pre-eminence that the Council of Nicaea (Canon XLVII) had previously granted to the bishop of Jerusalem [24]. Connections have also been made between church architecture in Constantinople and Jerusalem, for example the church of the Virgin of the Kouratoros in Constantinople, founded by a state official in 457-474, not only housed the relics of Martha, Mary and Lazarus, brought from Jerusalem and nearby Bethany, but is said to have imitated the shape of Jerusalem’s Holy Sepulchre church [25]. Within the Great Palace, the Nea Ekklesia, founded by Basil I, held relics associated with the Old Testament, while the Pharos Church, with its unique collection of relics connected with Christ, was presented as a New Holy Land, accentuated by its use of the liturgy of the Church of Jerusalem [26]. Thus a symbolic continuity of sacred spaces, physically grounded in the material presence of relics, connected the viewer metaphysically with the biblical Holy Land of the past, the Byzantine Holy Land of the present, and the eschatological New Jerusalem of the End of Days.
This association, while largely symbolic, was built upon the material presence of relics. As we have seen, the material presence of the Pharos relics could be extended physically through fragments carried on military campaigns or distributed as high-status gifts or, eventually, through their transfer to replica chapels elsewhere. Another means of extending the reach of these relics was through urban processions. Ritual parades of sacred objects had been a notable feature of pagan cults. We know that relics and sacred icons could be carried in a solemn procession not only upon their arrival into Constantinople, as seen on the Trier Ivory, but also within churches, around local neighbourhoods and through the wider city of Constantinople. This could take place on regular occasions (e.g. for liturgical or specific ritual purposes) or in response to specific circumstances, for example to ward off dangers such as enemy armies, famine or drought. As with the fixed placement of relics into the fabric of churches and clothing, this mobilisation of Gods Collections served to sacralise and protect space, transforming Constantinople into a holy city.
Figure 4. The Trier Ivory reliquary panel. Constantinople, 9th century Domschatz, Trier (Wikimedia Commons).
By contrast to the relic collection of the Pharos, Christian sources from Constantinople often lacked the knowledge to interpret these artworks and artefacts, produced by their classical Roman forebears, which had been imported to Constantinople by Constantine and his successors. As a result, these objects mostly became curiosities. Such spolia – reused objects despoiled from other locations – served express Constantinople’s other identity, as New Rome - a cosmopolis where the entire world came together as one [27]. They included cult objects from other Gods’ Collections - major pagan sanctuaries across the Roman Empire, such as Delphi, Karnak and Olympia. Ignorance of the true significance of their pagan heritage did not prevent Constantinople’s Christian inhabitants from forming an emotional response to them. With no concept of Antiquity, Byzantine audiences frequently reinterpreted such images, often identifying them with Christian subjects (Heracles becoming Samson, for example). Statues could also become a focus for legend, hearsay anecdotes and superstition, as evidenced in a secular Byzantine text that inventories many of the city’s statuary, the Parastaseis syntomoi chronikai (8th – 9th century). In the popular imagination, suspicions also remained that such objects were haunted by daemones – pagan spirits. "Statues were perceived on both the intellectual and popular level as animated, dangerous and talismanic," observes Liz James [28]. As a result, the sign of the cross was often carved or painted onto the eyes, mouth and foreheads of pagan statues and other objects, effectively ‘baptising’ them to confirm their place within the city’s Christian topography.
Depending on their audience, therefore, Constantinople’s church collections could similarly become places of transport or repositories for curiosities. For spectators with the requisite knowledge and beliefs, the holy relics they preserved could assume the role of images, portals to a spiritual reality. Upon these relics also could be founded a virtual landscape of sacred space that extended far beyond their church’s walls to encompass the wider urban topography of Constantinople. The Pharos Church and its relic collection seem to have become an integral part of this process. The effect could be reproduced elsewhere, through the procession and transfer of the relics, or fragments of them, and of the concept of the Pharos as a palatine church-reliquary.
The collection of the Pharos Church and those of other sanctuaries in Constantinople show us that while the space that frames such collections, be it a temple, church or museum, can direct the process of engagement in a variety of ways, it is the spectator’s response that defines an object and its setting as sacred or profane, prompting them to act accordingly. To those without sufficient knowledge or belief, these Gods’ Collections may appear mere objects, works of art, curiosities, or in the case of relics, “a worthless bit of dust” or “a paltry bit of powder, wrapped up in a costly cloth” [29].
Notes
[1] Lidov, A. 2012. The imperial Pharos Chapel as the Holy Sepulchre, in Hoffmann, A., Wolf, G. (eds.) Jerusalem as Narrative Space. Erzahlraum Jerusalem. Leiden: Brill, 2012, pp. 63-103.
[2] Cf. Vikan, G. and Nesbitt, J. 1980. Security in Byzantium: Locking, Sealing and Weighing, Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks.
[3] Majeska, G.P. 1998. “Notes on the Skeuophylakion of St. Sophia”, Vyzantijskij vremennik 55, pp. 212-215.
[4] Cf. Hostetler, B. 2016. The Function of Text: Byzantine Reliquaries with Epigrams, 843-1204. PhD Thesis. Florida State University: Tallahassee (https://www.academia.edu/24640715)
[5] See Klein, H. 2006. Sacred Relics and Imperial Ceremonies at the Great Palace of Constantinople, in Bauer, F.A. (ed.) Visualisierungen von Herrschaft, BYZAS 5. Veröffentlichungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts: Istanbul, pp. 79-99: 91-92.
[6] John 19:38-42.
[7] Crit. ed. Heisenberg, A. 1907. Die Palastrevolution des Johannes Komnenos, Programm des Königliches alten Gymnasiums zu Würzburg. Würzburg: Königliche Universitätsdruckerei von H. Stürtz, p. 66. Eng. tr. Jenkins, R.J.H. and Mango, C.A. 1956. The Date and Significance of the Tenth Homily of Photius, Dumbarton Oaks Papers Vol. 9/10, pp. 123-140: 138.
[8] Jenkins and Mango 1956: 138.
[9] Frank, G. 2000: The memory of the eyes: pilgrims to living saints in Christian Late Antiquity. Berkeley, p. 133. “But to touch the relics themselves […] as if it is the same body, still alive and flourishing, those beholding it embrace it with the eyes, the mouth, the ears. And when they have approached it with all the senses, they pour tears out over it from piety and emotion. And as if he was intact and appearing, they address to the martyr a plea that he would intercede on their behalf.” (Gregory of Nyssa, De Sancto Theodoro, in Leemans, J., Mayer, W., Allen, P. and Dehandschutter, P. 2003 (eds. and tr.) ‘Let us Die That We May Live': Greek Homilies on Christian Martyrs. London: Routledge, p. 85.
[10] Crit. ed. Heisenberg, A. 1908. Grabeskirche und Apostelkirche, zwei Basiliken Konstantins, II. Die Apostelkirche in Konstantinopel. Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs, pp. 10-96: 22-23. Engl. tr. Downey, G. 1957. Nikolaos Mesarites, Description of the Church of the Holy Apostles at Constantinople. Transactions of the American Philosophical Society n.s. 47.6, pp. 855-924.
[11] Cf. Majeska, G.P. 1984. Russian Travelers to Constantinople in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries. Washington DC: Dumbarton Oaks. Wilkinson, J. 2002. Jerusalem Pilgrims Before the Crusades. [2nd ed.]. Warminster: Aris & Phillips.
[12] McNeal, E.H. (tr.) 1936. Robert de Clari: The Conquest of Constantinople New York: Columbia University Press, pp. 103-105.
[13] Apostolos-Cappadona, D., Religion and the Arts: History and Method. Leiden: Brill, p. 51.
[14] Lidov 2012, p. 68.
[15] While a major relic of Christ’s Swaddling Clothes is known to have been preserved at Hagia Sophia in the 12th century, a piece was used in 958, along with relics from the Pharos, in a ritual to sanctify water, Lidov 2012, p 69.
[16] Frolow, A. 1961. La relique de la Vraie Croix. Recherches sur le développement d'un culte. Institut Français d'Études Byzantines: Paris, no. 151.
[17] Jenkins and Mango, p. 134
[18] Bacci, M. 2003. Relics of the Pharos Chapel. A View from the Latin West, in Lidov, A. (ed.) Vostočnochristianskie relikvii = Eastern Christian relics. Moskva: Progress-Tradicija, pp. 234-248: 235.
[19] Cf. Galland, B. and Vezin, J. 2004. Les Authentiques du Sancta Sanctorum. Vatican City: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana.
[20] Cohen, M. 2015. The Sainte-Chapelle and the Construction of Sacral Monarchy: Royal Architecture in Thirteenth-Century Paris. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 115-117.
[21] Crossley, P. 2000. The politics of presentation. The architecture of Charles IV of Bohemia, in Rees Jones, S, Marks, R. and Minnis, A.J. (eds.), Courts and regions in medieval Europe. York: York Medieval Press, pp. 99-172.
[22] Pearsall, D. 2001 Gothic Europe 1200-1450 Routledge, p. 57; Cohen 2014: pp. 100-102.
[23] Carile, M. 2006. Constantinople and the Heavenly Jerusalem? Through the imperial palace, Paper given at 21st International Congress of Byzantine Studies, London. Online source: https://www.scribd.com/document/190136759/Constantinople-and-the-Heavenly-Jerusalem-Through-the-Imperial-Palace (accessed 21.12.2021).
[24] Dagron, G. 1984. Constantinople imaginaire: études sur le recueil des Patria. Bibliothèque byzantine: études, 8. Presses Universitaires de France : Paris, p. 458
[25] Janin, R. 1969. La géographie ecclésiastique de l'empire byzantin. Volume III: Les églises et les monastères. [2nd ed.] Paris: Institut français d'études byzantines, pp. 173, 191; Bardill, J. 2004. Brickstamps of Constantinople. Oxford Monographs on Classical Archaeology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 111.
[26] Bacci 2003: p. 238.
[27] Constantinople’s status as New Rome was further cemented by the transfer of several secular institutions that had been exclusive to Rome, such as a senate and urban annona (or public food dole).
[28] James, L. 1996. 'Pray Not to Fall into Temptation and Be on Your Guard': Pagan Statues in Christian Constantinople, Gesta 35.1, pp. 12-20: 15.
[29] Migne, J.P. 1845. Contra Vigilantium Liber Unus, Patrologia Latina vol. 23. Paris : J.P. Migne, coll. 339-352C: 357, 362. Eng, tr, Schaff, P. and Wallace, H. (eds) 1893. Jerome: Letters and Select Works, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, series II, vol. 6. New York, The Christian literature Company, pp. 417-423.
Georges Kazan is a British archaeologist. His research focuses mainly on the study of Christian relics, and the application of modern science to the study of the past. He is a Senior Researcher (Turku Institute for Advanced Studies – Department of Archaeology) at the University of Turku in Finland, and also a Research Associate at the University of Oxford (School of Archaeology) in the UK.
