Summary
Konstantinos M. Vapheiades – Nikolaos Vryzidis,
Visual Evidence on the Cult of Hosioi Athanasios and Joasaph, Kterors of the Monastery of the Great Meteoron
The extant representations of Hosioi Athanasios and Joasaph, kterors of the Monastery of the Great Meteoron, examined in this paper, provide important in-formation on their veneration from the fifteenth century on, as well as the desicive efforts by certain abbots to disseminate their cult within the frame of their monastery’s supremacy. This visual evidence leads to the following conclusions.
First, all the representations of Hosioi Athanasios and Joasaph conform to the same iconographic type, i.e. their full body-portraits that survive in the monastery’s Old Katholikon (1483). The occasional variations are limited to secondary iconographical elements. No wall paintings or vita icons dedicated to the saints’s life survive.
Second, the mural representations of Athanasios and Joasaph are dated be-tween 1483 and 1552 and, except for that in the Monastery of St. Nicholas Anapausas (1527), have been painted in their monastery’s katholikon. To the best of our knowledge, not a single representation of the saints has been discovered in the other Meteora monasteries. This indicates that the dissemination of their cult was probably confined within the walls of the Great Meteoron Monastery; a localization we see in other cases of ktetors as well. This is quite surprising, especially considering the Great Meteoron’s position of leadership among the other monasteries until the middle of the eighteenth century, as well as the belief in the holiness of its ktetors since the sixteenth century.
What is more, two Great Meteroron hegumens, Simeon in the middle of the sixteenth century and Parthenios towards the end of the eighteenth century, made definite efforts to diffuse the saints’ veneration outside the walls of their monastery. The first, constructed the new magnificent katholikon in 1552, where the ktetor’s relics were rehoused, and adapted the service of Hosios Athanasios, to include the panegyric celebration of the memory of Hosios Joasaph. On the other hand, the second produced a copper engraving that was meant to spread the cult as well as to visually propagate his monastery’s primacy.
The monk’s intentions to diffuse of the cult of their monastery’s ktetors are clearly reflected in details of the aforementioned copper engraving: first, the Virgin is depicted as the supervisor and protector not only of the Great Meteoron but of all of other neighboring monasteries as well. Also, it is no coincidence that Athanasios and Joasaph are mentioned as founders of all of the monasteries. This again implies the Great Meteoron’s imposing position in Meteora, as well as its monk’s intention to promote its leadership in the second half of the eighteenth century.
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