Places of Faith, Places of Memory
Creating or reviving sacral traditions of specific sites in the late ancient and medieval Caucasus, Armenian highlands, and Upper Mesopotamia was part of a process by which objects and material artifacts gained legitimacy. Regional literary sources such as Armenian and Georgian historiographies, geographies, chronicles, and 'minor' literary texts (poems, sermons, martyrologies, epistolography, travelogues and pilgrimage accounts), as well as archaeological and material evidence, show strategic and institutional approaches to construct, explain, and support the existence and propagation of socio-religious practices that were meant to legitimize a group or a position of authority through inclusion or alienation.
The construction of distinctly sacred spaces and examples of hierophany in the medieval Caucasus can be interpreted both on their own terms and within their wider environment. Hierotopic projects might evoke a wider Christian topography in a vast network of interwoven holy spaces, just as they might reflect the struggle for religious legitimacy and authority. The process of creating holy spaces, such as places of pilgrimage, and of locating relics in a specific geographical and cultural spaces served not only to establish or reinforce connections between the territory and the faith community (‘Glaubensgemeinschaft’) but also to delimitate the social and institutional borders between different religious and confessional identities.
Defining the sacral topography of the Caucasus as a multi-faith and interreligious space and drawing on inter-disciplinary research approaches, this workshop seeks to explore the history of hierotopy in the medieval Caucasus, the organisation and functionality of its sacred spaces, and their social, political, religious, economic, legal, gendered, cultural, visual, and material significance.
The workshop will run over two consecutive days in person on the 4th and 5th of October 2024, with a keynote talk and wine reception on the evening of the 3rd of October. The event will consist of four sessions on day one and two sessions on day two, with each session consisting of two one-hour presentation slots (40–45-minute papers and 15–20 minutes for questions). The languages of the workshop will be English and French.
Programme |
|
Thursday, 3 Oktober | |
18:00 | Welcome Address - Ambassador of the Republic of Armenia to Austria Armen Papikyan |
18:15 | Opening Remarks - Benedetta Contin, Lewis Read, Anahit Safaryan |
18:30 | Keynote: The Relationship between Architectural Space and Liturgy in Armenia and its Later Developments in the Overall Subcaucasian Region: A Theological Insight | Boghos L. Zekiyan |
19:30 | Wine Reception |
Friday, 4 Oktober | |
09:30-09:45 | Welcoming Address | Claudia Rapp and Andreas Rhoby |
| Opening Remarks | Benedetta Contin and Adrian C. Pirtea |
09:45-11:15 | |
| Nikoloz Alexidze | Saints, Objects, and Landscape in Highland Svaneti |
11:15 - 11:45 | Coffee Break |
11:45 - 13:15 | |
| Lewis Read | Commemorating Saint Eudoxius: Armenian Hagiography and the Byzantine Empire |
13:15 - 14:30 | Lunch Break |
14:30 - 16:00 | Session 3: Memorialising Sacred Sites |
| Valentina Calzolari | Relics, burials and places of worship in the Armenian Christian apocryphal literature |
16:00 - 16:30 | Coffee Break |
16:30 - 18:00 | |
| Mariam Chkhartishvili | At the Origins of Georgian Christian Hierotopy |
19:00 | Dinner Reception |
Saturday, 5 Oktober | |
09:30 - 11:00 | |
| Victoria Arakelova | Sacral Topography of Cross-Cultural Zones: Armenians, Alevi Zazay, Yezidis, Kurds |
11:00 - 11:30 | Coffee Break |
11:30 - 13:00 | |
| Eve MacDonald | Of men, mountains and gods: High Alpine Landscapes, Spatial Construction of the Divine and the Realpolitik of the Dariali Fort in the Late Antique and Early Medieval Caucasus |
13:00 - 13:15 | Closing Remarks |
13:15 | Lunch (at own expense) - Optional |
15:00 | Visit to the Museum and Library of the Mekhitarist Congregation in Vienna - Optional |