Making the Most of Mary: the Cult of the Virgin in the Chalkoprateia From Late Antiquity To the Tenth Century

Abstract

The pivotal role that the Byzantine belief system accorded to the Mother of God found its expression not only in private devotion but also in public celebrations. The development of these celebrations from late antiquity into the Middle Byzantine period has been the subject of several studies by Jugie, Wenger and Kishpaug.1 However, these authors were primarily interested in establishing pedigrees for contemporary Catholic feasts and paid little attention to the specific social contexts in which their development took place. In this chapter I attempt to fill this gap by focusing on the Constantinopolitan church of Mary in the Chalkoprateia and on the patriarchal clergy that administered it. Through analysis of liturgical, homiletic and hymnographical sources I seek to demonstrate that members of this clergy invented and propagated new celebrations as a means to establish their church as the foremost Marian shrine in the capital against its main rival, the Church of Mary in the Blachernai. © 2011 Leslie Brubaker and Mary B. Cunningham, and the contributors.