Palestrina’s Motet for Papal Coronations, “Hic Nunc Est”

This was spotted on Twitter yesterday, a set of photos from the Mass which formally inaugurated the ministry of the newly-elected Pope Leo XIV, feliciter nunc regnantis.

The learned Dominican and the learned Jesuit are speaking about one of the old rituals that was removed from the papal coronation Mass by the post-Conciliar reform. When the faithful had gathered in St Peter’s basilica, before the Mass began, the Cardinal Bishop of Albano would gesture first towards the clergy in choir, and then towards the crowd in the nave, and solemnly intone the motet “Hic nunc est”, which the choir would then continue, “circus tuus, hae nunc sunt simiae tuae!” Palestrina’s polyphonic setting of it, composed for the coronation of Pope Marcellus II in 1555, is pretty amazing, and came to be used as a matter of routine, so that the Gregorian original was lost. Unfortunately, there is no recording of it on YouTube, but an old friend managed to find a version of it on this platform. (The recording is not embeddable, but the external link is safe, I promise.)

https://suno.com/s/Qd39EXEd6Vgd9Khp

The Latin scholars among our readers will recognize these words as a reference to a Polish expression which has become somewhat popular in English in recent years, “Not my circus, not my monkeys”, a way of saying, “This is not my problem.” And in point of fact, it was originally a privilege of the ranking Polish cardinal or archbishop to intone the motet, IF any of them happened to be in Rome for the coronation. But Gniezno, the primatial see of Poland, is 975 miles from Rome, and most of the other important episcopal sees of that nation are even further away. Before trains and telegraphs, it usually worked out that by the time they got the news of the death of the old pope, the new one had already been elected and crowned, so over time, the custom devolved onto Albano.

The full text of the antiphon as given in the recording is as follows:

“Hic nunc est circus tuus, hae nunc sunt simiae tuae,
quas Dominus in sapientia sua Petro tradidit,
et per manus eius nunc tibi commendat.
Gaude in stultitia sanctorum,
laetare in tumultu gratiae,
nam per hos clamosos
regnum caelorum patefit.

This is now your circus, these are now your monkeys,
Whom the Lord in His wisdom handed over to Peter,
and though his hands, now commends to you.
Rejoice in the foolishness of the Saints (cf. 1 Cor. 3, 18-19),
be glad in the tumult of grace,
for through these noisy ones
the kingdom of heaven is laid open.”

And I therefore also make bold to remind our readers of these prayers for the Pope which are traditionally said at services like Benediction, and can of course be said privately any time.

The Roman Basilica of St Pudentiana

Before the feast of St Peter Celestine was added to the general calendar in the reign of Pope Clement IX (1667-69), May 19th was the feast of St Pudentiana, already attested on this date in the so-called Martyrology of St Jerome in the 5th century. Prior to Pope Clement VIII’s editorial revision of the Tridentine breviary, her name was usually given as “Potentiana”; her traditional legend is not considered historically reliable, and she was removed from the calendar altogether in the post-Conciliar reform. However, a church titled to her is one of the oldest in Rome, built at the end of the 4th century, and preserves one of the oldest Christian mosaics in the city.

Image from Wikimedia Commons by Welleschik, CC BY-SA 3.0

Unfortunately, the church has undergone a number of restorations, most notably, a radical transformation in the later 16th century, at a point when it was practically in ruins. This “restoration” clipped off much of the lower part of the mosaic, and a good portion of the sides as well; as a result, Christ now appears in the company of ten of the Apostles, rather than the customary twelve.

In the upper part are seen the four animals from the visions in the first chapter of Ezekiel and the fourth of the Apocalypse, which, according to a tradition that goes back to St Irenaeus at the end of the 2nd century, represent the four Evangelists. This is one of the oldest images of them; at the time it was made, this tradition was generally accepted, but had not yet been confirmed precisely as we now know it. Ss Jerome and Augustine, who were both alive when the church was built, give slightly different explanations of which animal represents which writer, and both differ from Irenaeus. Going from left to right, they appear in the order which Jerome gives (man – Matthew; lion – Mark; bull – Luke; eagle – John) in the prologue of his commentary on the Gospel of St Matthew. Since Jerome had lived in Rome, and been the secretary to Pope St Damasus I, who died in 384, it is quite possible that the artist or his patron took this arrangement directly from a personal conversation with the saint.

Other details are open to interpretation. The city behind Christ and the Apostles may be Jerusalem, in which case, the buildings may be the churches built there by Constantine in the early days of the peace of the Church. (All of these were destroyed by the Muslim Caliph at the beginning of the 11th century, and later rebuilt, so we cannot compare their appearance today with anything seen in the mosaic.) This is also suggested by the brightly jeweled Cross on the hill directly behind Christ, which may be intended to the remind the viewer of the famous apparition of the Cross on Mt Calvary, which took place roughly 40 years earlier.

The city may also be understood to be Rome, sanctified by the tombs of the Apostles Peter and Paul, who are here shown closest to Christ. About twenty years before this church was built, the prefect of Rome, Vettius Agorius Praetextatus, an ardent defender of the traditional worship of the pagan gods, had restored a portico in the Roman Forum dedicated to the “Dii Consentes – the Harmonious Gods”, also known as the Twelve Olympians. This was the last time a structure with a pagan religious significance was restored as an official act in the city.

The portico of the Dii Consentes in the Roman Forum, very partially reconstructed out of fragments of the original found on the site, as part of a major excavation campaign in the 1930s. (Image from Wikimedia Commons by Ursus; CC BY-SA 3.0).

The Dii Consentes were as a group the patrons of the Roman senatorial class, many of whom had residences on the Esquiline hill where the basilica of St Pudentiana is located. The majestic portrayal of Christ in gold and on an imperial throne may therefore be intended to mean that Rome is now a Christian city under the King of kings and Lord of lords. The portico which embraces the twelve Apostles would then displace that of the Dii Consentes, and show the senators that they are now under the protection, not of a group of fictitious and immoral characters, but that of Jesus’ close friends.

There is also some uncertainty concerning the two women who seem to be crowning Ss Peter and Paul. They are traditionally said to be St Pudentiana and her sister Praxedes, daughters of a senator named Pudens, who according to one of the more unlikely stories, was the host of St Peter when he first came to Rome. The feast of St Praxedes on July 21st is also very ancient, and a church dedicated to her, originally of the 5th century, but completely rebuilt in the early 9th, is only a quarter of a mile away.

A mosaic from the reign of Pope St Paschal I (817-24) in the chapel of St Zeno within the basilica of St Praxedes. The lower register depicts the Pope’s mother Theodora (with a square blue nimbus, indicating that she was alive at the time the image was made), and the sisters Praxedes and Pudentiana to either side of the Virgin Mary. In the upper part, the Lamb of God stands on a hill from which the four rivers of Paradise flow, with deer to either side as a reference to the words of the Psalm, “As the deer longeth for the streams of running water...”; to the right, a fragmentary Harrowing of Hell.

However, the legend that links them as sisters is decidedly much later than the building of either church, and not reliable as history; it is also very unlikely that a Roman senator would give one of his daughters a Latin name, and the other a Greek name like Praxedes. It seems more probable that the two figures represent the Church of the Synagogue, i.e., those who converted to Christianity from Judaism, and the Church of the Gentiles, those who converted from paganism. This is a common motif of early Christian art, as seen, for example, in the mosaic on the counter-façade of Santa Sabina about 50 years later. In this case, the women would perhaps not be crowning the Apostles, but offering them as tributes to Christ, indicated by the gestures made in His direction by Peter, “the Apostle of the circumcision”, and Paul, “the Apostle of the gentiles.” (Galatians 2, 8).

The dedicatory inscription on the counter-façade of Santa Sabina, the only part of the church’s original mosaic decoration which survives, ca. 425 A.D. The symbolic figure of “the church from the circumcision” is on the left, and that of “the church from the gentiles” on the right. Photo by Fr. Lawrence Lew, O.P.

Finally, the inscription on the book in Christ’s hands, “Dominus conservator ecclesiae Pudentianae” may be read in two ways. “Pudentianae” may be taken as the genitive case of the woman’s name, in which case it would mean “the Lord is the preserver of the church of Pudentiana.” It may be also be taken as an adjective meaning “belonging to Pudens”, and modifying the word “ecclesiae”, and thus “the Lord is the preserver of the church of Pudens.” For this reason, some scholars believe that the association of the saint called Pudentiana with this church is purely accidental, deriving from a misunderstanding of the inscription.

An interesting piece of history connected to this church is that it was the first cardinalitial title of one Scipione Rebiba, which he received in 1556 from Pope Paul IV, whom he had previous served as the auxiliary bishop of Chieti. The vast majority of Latin Rite Catholic bishops (and therefore the priests ordained by them) today derive their Apostolic succession from Cardinal Rebiba through Pope Benedict XIII (1724-30), and the nearly 160 bishops consecrated by the latter. (Of these, by the way, only 18 were consecrated before Benedict’s election as Pope. His Holiness was evidently really fond of lengthy ceremonies; in the second month of his Papacy, July of 1724, at the age of 75, he performed episcopal consecrations on four Sundays in a row, and one on the last Wednesday of the month for good measure!)

Cardinal Scipione Rebiba (1504-77)

The Offertory Jubilate Deo, Universa Terra

Shout with joy to God, all the earth, sing ye a psalm to his name; come and hear, and I will tell you, all ye that fear God, what great things the Lord hath done for my soul. allelúja. V. My mouth hath spoken, when I was in trouble; I will offer up to thee holocausts full of marrow.

This recording of the Offertory of the Fourth Sunday after Easter, the text of which is taken from Psalm 65, includes one of the extra verses with which the Offertories were generally sung in the Middle Ages (in this case, the second of two), with a long melisma on the word “offeram - I will offer.” It is also used on the Second Sunday after Epiphany, on which the Gospel of the Wedding of Cana is read; in his commentary on that day, Durandus explains the repetition of certain words within it. “We sing out for joy, doubling the words both in the Offertory and its verses, an effect of spiritual inebriation.” The text and music can be seen in this pdf, starting on page 69:

https://media.musicasacra.com/books/offertoriale1935.pdf

Jubiláte Deo, universa terra, psalmum dícite nómini ejus: veníte et audíte, et narrábo vobis, omnes qui timétis Deum, quanta fecit Dóminus ánimae meae, allelúja. V. Locútum est os meum in tribulatióne mea, holocausta medulláta ófferam tibi.

A History of the Popes Named Leo, Part 2: Saints Leo II, III and IV

This is the second installment of a series on the thirteen papal namesakes of our new Holy Father Leo XIV; click here to read part 1.

St Leo II reigned for less than 11 months, from August of 682 to June of 683. The most important deed of his pontificate was the confirmation of the acts of the Sixth Ecumenical Council, the third to be held in Constantinople, which condemned the Monothelite heresy; being fluent in Greek as well as Latin, Leo personally made the official Latin translation of the council’s acts. At the Council of Chalcedon in 451, St Leo I’s letter was acclaimed with the words, “Peter has spoken through Leo,” and likewise at Third Constantinople, the intervention of Leo II’s predecessor St Agatho (through his legates) was acclaimed with the words “Peter has spoken through Agatho!” It is one of the oddities of hagiography that the latter has never been honored with a general feast day in the West, but is kept on the calendar of the Byzantine Rite. Leo II, on the other hand, was a Sicilian, and therefore born as a subject of the Byzantine Empire, but is not liturgically honored in the East.

The collection of papal biographies known as the Liber Pontificalis is practically the only source of information about him, and gives few other details of real interest. He was highly skilled in rhetoric and music, and noted for his love and care for the poor. He built a church in the area of Rome now known as the Velabro, dedicated to St Sebastian, and later also to St George, whence its common title “San Giorgio in Velabro.” (Because George is the patron of England, Leo XIII gave it to St John Henry Newman as his cardinalitial title.)

San Giorgio in Velabro (seen though the nearby Arch of Janus), 1820, by the Dutch painter Antonie Sminck Pitloo (1790-1837).

On the Saturday before the feast of Ss Peter and Paul, June 27, 683, he celebrated the ordination of nine priests, three deacons, and twenty-three bishops, and then died the next day. The Liber Pontificalis does not say that it was the ordination ceremony that killed him, but the heat of Rome in June and the inevitable length of such a ceremony make this seem likely more than coincidence. June 28th is his traditional feast day, but he was moved in 1921 to July 3rd to make room for St Irenaeus of Lyon, and then suppressed altogether in 1960.

St Leo III (795-816), a native of Rome, possibly of either Greek or Arab descent, was appointed as the cardinal priest of the church of St Susanna by St Adrian I, who reigned for 23 years and almost 11 months, and held the title of longest-reigning Pope (after St Peter) for over a millennium. Adrian died on Christmas of 795; the very next day, after his funeral and burial, Leo was elected by a unanimous vote to succeed him, and would reign for nearly 20 years and a half, the 12th-longest papal reign.

In 799, there occurred a very shocking incident which, although it was resolved for the good, was nevertheless a harbinger of the terrible state to which Rome and the papacy would devolve in the 10th century, the first in which there is no canonized or blessed Pope. A group of nobles disaffected with Leo’s reign, led by some of Adrian’s family, attacked the Pope during the Great Rogation procession, and attempted to render him incapable of performing the duties of his office by blinding him and cutting out his tongue. The attempt failed, and although Leo was injured, he recovered very quickly, but very naturally decided to flee to the court of Charlemagne, who as king of the Franks, had long been the protector of the papacy.

The Oath of Pope St Leo III, 1516-17; fresco by the workshop of Raphael within the apartments of Pope Julius II, known as the Stanze of Raphael, now part of the Vatican Museums.  

The following year, Leo returned to Rome, escorted by Charlemagne’s troops, and a commission was appointed to investigate the attack. The Pope’s enemies retaliated by bringing charges of such gravity against him, involving perjury and adultery, that the matter was referred back to Charlemagne, who soon came to Rome in person. A synod was called together in St Peter’s basilica, with the king himself being present. The Pope’s accusers did not dare to appear, and the assembled bishops declared that they had no right to sit in judgment of him; nevertheless, Leo solemnly swore to his innocence before the synod on December 23rd.

Two days later, on Christmas Day, Leo crowned Charlemagne as emperor of the Romans in St Peter’s, the event traditionally recognized as the beginning of the Holy Roman Empire. This alliance of Church and State brought many benefits to both, and it would be foolishly cynical to represent it, as has often been done, as no more than Leo’s attempt to strengthen his own position by strengthening that of his protector. But it also revealed a growing problem, that the position of the papacy was dependent on that of the empire, and as the latter grew progressively weaker after Charlemagne’s death, so did the former; whence also the unedifying spectacle of Rome in the 10th century, which includes the reigns of Leos V-VIII.

The Coronation of Charlemagne, 1514-15, also by the workshop of Raphael; this fresco is on the wall next to the one shown above.

As a final matter of note, pertaining to the Filioque controversy, Leo accepted what had by his time become the common understanding in the West, that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. But he advised against adding the word “Filioque” to the Nicene Creed, which had become the custom in various places, including Charlemagne’s court, and did not allow it to be said in Rome itself.

St Leo IV, also a native of Rome, was raised in one of the monasteries attached to St Peter’s basilica, and made cardinal-priest of the title of the Four Crowned Martyrs on the Caelian Hill by Pope Sergius II, whom he succeeded in April of 847.

In his time, Saracen pirates were wreaking havoc throughout the western Mediterranean; the year before his election, they had sailed up the Tiber and sacked the basilica of St Paul Outside-the-Walls, destroying at least a large portion of the Apostle’s relics. His papacy began with the construction of major works to defend Rome, including a new set of walls around the Vatican, which are still called the Leonine walls to this day, and the complex as a whole was known as the Leonine city. (This used to be the name of the bus stop in front of Cardinal Ratzinger’s old apartment building, ‘Città Leonina’ in Italian.)

In the year of his election, he put out a fire which had broken out in the Borgo, the neighborhood in front of the Vatican, by giving his blessing from the balcony of St Peter’s. Two years later, he formed a league with the maritime states of Naples, Gaeta and Amalfi; at the battle of Ostia, their combined naval forces destroyed a massive Saracen invasion force which had set out from Sardinia. Both of these events are depicted in one of the rooms now within the Vatican Museums known as the Stanze of Raphael, but these specific paintings are really the works of his students.

The Fire in the Borgo, by the workshop of Raphael, 1514-17. The three male figures on the left are a nod to the story of Aeneas escaping from the burning of Troy; their exaggerated musculature, and that of the man next to them hanging from the wall, reflects the exaggerated influence of the recently discovered statue of Laocoön, which also greatly influenced the work of Michelangelo. This painting was much admired for the cleverly designed figure on the far right, the woman with a water-jar on her head, who has just turned the corner, and opens her mouth in astonishment at the scene. ~ A few years prior to the commissioning of this painting, Pope Julius II and his architect Donatello Bramante had begun the process of replacing the ancient basilica of St Peter, then almost on the point of collapse. This image is an important historical record of what its façade looked like at the time.

The Battle of Ostia, also by the workshop of Raphael, 1514-15. Pope St Leo IV presides over the battle from the far left in cope and papal tiara, as one does; his face is that of the contemporary Pope, Leo X Medici.

The Liber Pontificalis contains an enormous list of his works in and benefactions to Roman churches, and he translated the relics of many Saints from the catacombs outside the city to churches within it. He is also traditionally, but erroneously, credited with the invention of the Asperges rite, and the sermon on the duties of priests which the Pontificale appoints to be read by the bishop at their ordination. He died on July 17, 855.

In the southwest corner of St Peter’s basilica, immediately to the left of the altar of Pope St Leo I, stands the altar of the Madonna of the Column, a votive image painted on one of the columns of the Constantinian Basilica of St Peter. In the process of tearing down the ancient church and rebuilding, the section of the column with the fresco of the Virgin and Child was saved, and later mounted within this reredos; the relics of Popes Leo II, III and IV are in the altar, which is also dedicated to them.

The Feast of Saint John Nepomuk

May 16th is the feast of St John Nepomuk, a priest of the Archdiocese of Prague who was martyred in the year 1393. His family name is variously written Wölflein or Welfin, but he is generally called “Nepomuk” or “Nepomucene” after the town where he was born between 1340-1350, about 65 miles to the southwest of Prague. As vicar general of the archdiocese, St John fell afoul of the king of Bohemia, Wenceslaus IV, on various accounts. One was the appointment of an abbot to a monastery which the king wished to suppress and turn into a bishopric, so that he could appoint a favorite to it. But a much more famous story, though far less well attested, is told that John was the confessor of the queen, Sophia of Bavaria, of whom Wenceslaus, although continually unfaithful himself, was intensely jealous. In the midst of his other conflicts with St John and with the archbishop of Prague, Wenceslaus demanded that St John reveal to him the contents of the queen’s sacramental confessions; when John refused, he was tortured, and then killed by being trussed up and thrown off the famous Charles Bridge into the Vltava River. On the night of his death, five stars were said to be seen hovering over the place where his body lay under the water, until it later washed up on the shore. He was buried in the Cathedral of St Vitus, and is today honored as the Patron Saint of Bohemia. Although his feast was never added to the general Calendar of the Roman Rite, it was kept in a great many places; statues of him may be seen on bridges all over Europe, especially within the lands of the former German and Austrian Empires. The first canonized bishop of a see in the United States, St John Neumann of Philadelphia, was named for him, his middle name being “Nepomucký” in Czech.

The spot on the Charles Bridge from which St. John was thrown; the image of the Saint is worn away from continual touching and kissing.

The Charles Bridge is named for King Charles IV of Bohemia, who began its construction in 1357. It is justifiably one of the most famous sites in one of the most beautiful cities in Europe, not the least because of the 30 Baroque statues or statue groups on the parapets. Here is the statue of St. John with a halo of stars.

The inscription reads “To Saint John Nepomuk, cast off this bridge in the year 1383, Matthias Dewinschwitz raised (this statue) in the year 1683.” It must be granted that many of the details of Saint John’s life and death are debated by scholars, and at the time this statue was erected, the year of his death was noted incorrectly by a margin of 10 years.

The tomb of St John, inside the cathedral of St Vitus, on the right side of the ambulatory of the main apse.

A monument to St John on the outside of the cathedral.

A detail on the front, showing St John being cast from the bridge.

Latin Mass Society Faith and Culture Conference in London, June 14

The Latin Mass Society, an association dedicated to the traditional Latin liturgy of the Catholic Church, has announced details of their upcoming Faith and Culture Conference. The conference, which forms part of the celebrations to mark The Society’s 60th anniversary, will bring together leading figures from the Church, the arts, and public life to explore how the timeless truths of Catholic tradition can shape and elevate the cultural landscape of our time.

The event will be taking place at the London Oratory on Saturday, June 14, and will feature the following speakers:

His Eminence Raymond Cardinal Burke, Cardinal Priest of Saint’Agata de’Goti. Cardinal Raymond Burke will join the conference via video link. His Eminence is known for his strong defense of Catholic tradition, canon law, and pro-life issues. He served as Prefect of the Apostolic Signatura between 2008 and 2014 and has been a vocal critic of modern doctrinal developments. He is a prominent advocate of the traditional Latin Mass and Catholic moral teaching.

The Rt Rev Dr Athanasius Schneider, Auxiliary Bishop of Astana, Kazakhstan. Bishop Athanasius Schneider is a Kazakhstani auxiliary bishop known for his staunch defense of traditional Catholic liturgy and doctrine. A member of the Canons Regular of the Holy Cross, he has written extensively on the Eucharist and Church tradition. He frequently speaks on the need for continuity in Catholic teaching and practice.

Dr Tim Stanley, Author and journalist. Tim Stanley is a British journalist, historian, and columnist for The Daily Telegraph. A Catholic convert, he frequently writes on politics, culture, and religion from a conservative perspective. He is known for his engaging commentary on faith and modern society.

Fr Christopher Basden, Priest of the Archdiocese of Southwark. Fr Christopher Basden is a Roman Catholic priest known for his dedication to the traditional Latin Mass. He has served in various parishes, promoting traditional Catholic catechesis and reverent liturgy. He is a well-known advocate of fidelity to Catholic teaching.

James Gillick, Painter. James Gillick is a British painter known for his classical realist style, specializing in religious, still life, and portrait painting. Deeply influenced by historical techniques, he uses traditional methods and materials in his work. His art is widely appreciated for its craftsmanship and connection to Catholic themes.

Dr Joseph Shaw, Academic and Chairman of the Latin Mass Society Joseph Shaw is a British academic and chairman of the Latin Mass Society of England and Wales. A philosophy lecturer at Oxford, he is a leading advocate for the traditional Latin Mass and Catholic tradition. He writes and speaks extensively on liturgical and philosophical matters.

Richard Pickett, General Manager of the Latin Mass Society, commented: “As the Catholic Church looks forward to a new chapter in its history with the election of Pope Leo XIV, we will bring together prominent clergymen, thinkers and public figures to explore the enduring relationship between faith and culture, and the continuing role of both in shaping contemporary society.”

Bookings for the conference are now open and can be made through The Latin Mass Society’s website.

The Ambrosian Feast of Mid-Pentecost

Even though it was called by a different name, the Ambrosian Rite originally had a feast which was the equivalent of the Byzantine Mid-Pentecost, which I wrote about yesterday, borrowed from that tradition. This article is mostly a translation of notes about it by Nicola de’ Grandi.

In the Ambrosian Rite, the Wednesday between the third and fourth weeks after Easter was a feast known as “In mediante die festo – in the middle day of the feast.” This custom is attested from the very earliest pertinent liturgical books of the rite until the Missal of 1560, the last edition before the post-Tridentine reform and the revised Missal of 1594. The name comes from its Gospel, John 7, 14-31, which begins with the words. “About the midst of the feast, Jesus went up into the temple, and taught.”

The Mass “in mediante die festo” in an Ambrosian Missal printed in 1548

Like the Byzantine feast from which it derives, and unlike the other celebrations of the temporal cycle, this feast has the particular characteristic that it does not commemorate a specific event in Christ’s life, or a particular deed of His. Rather, it underlines the unity of the Easter season, marking its middle point, and at the same time, giving a particular reading of its liturgical significance.

In the Gospel, Jesus compares Himself to Moses, reproving those who declare that they want to follow the law of Moses, while they attempt to kill Him who gives the Law. He does not cancel the Law, but fulfills it, bringing salvation to all of humanity, represented by the paralyzed man whom He heals on the Sabbath.

These words illuminate the authentic meaning of the Christian Pentecost as the replacement of the Jewish Pentecost. The latter celebrates the revelation of God on Mount Sinai, seven weeks after the Jewish Pascha, and the gift of the Law, (“was it not Moses who gave you the law?”); the Christian Pentecost, seven weeks and one day after the Christian Pascha, celebrates the gift of the Holy Spirit.

This parallelism between the Jewish and Christian Pentecosts is certainly very ancient, and is found in the West in a work entitled “Questions about the Old and New Testament” (95, 3), which can be dated to the pontificate of St Damasus (366-84), a contemporary of St Ambrose.

“Therefore, the law was given through Moses to the sons of Israel on the third day of the third month, as is written in the book of Exodus, which day, counting from the fourteenth day of the first month, on which the Pasch took place in Egypt, is the fiftieth, that is, Pentecost. And from this it happened that the Holy Spirit came down upon the Apostles on Pentecost to preach the law of Faith, so that the deeds of the elders might serve as images of those deeds that were to come, and this for the assurance of our faith, for that cannot seem false which was foretold from the beginning.”

Likewise in St Jerome, who was Damasus’ secretary (Epistle 22):

“Wherefore also the solemnity of Pentecost is celebrated, and afterwards, the mystery of the Gospel is fulfilled by the descent of the Holy Spirit; so that, just as the law was given to the former people, on the fiftieth day, in the true jubilee, and the true year of remission, and by the true fifty and five-hundred denarii, which were owed to the debtors: so also the Holy Spirit came down to the Apostles and those who were gathered together with them, unto the number of 120, (which is also the age of Moses), and the whole world was filled with the preaching of the Gospel by the sharing of the speech of those who believed.”

St Jerome Presents His Biblical Translations to Pope St Damasus I; from the ceiling of the Gaddi Chapel of Santa Maria Novella in Florence. (Image from Wikimedia Commons by Sailko; CC BY 3.0)

Therefore, we can say with certainty that by at least the end of the fourth century, this parallelism was known in Rome. However, its solemn celebration in the liturgy is proper to the tradition of northern Italy.

We know in fact that this feast was celebrated in the same position on the liturgical calendar by all the churches of that region, as attested by the most ancient and important manuscripts: for the Ambrosian tradition, the capitulary and Gospel book of Busto Arsizio, and the Biasca Missal; for the broader province of Milan; the Codex Mediolanensis, Vercellensis, and Vat. Reg. Lat. 9; from the province of Aquileia, Codex Rehdigeranus and Forojuliensis.

Therefore, although it looks back to a reading of the Easter season already known in the area of Rome, the solemn liturgical celebration of Mid-Pentecost is a trait strongly distinctive of the liturgical tradition of northern Italy, led by the metropolitan sees of Milan and Aquileia.

The Ambrosian Missal of Biasca, dated between the end of the 9th century and the middle of the 10th.

The feast is first mentioned in the West in two homilies attributed to St Peter Chrysologus, the first metropolitan of the new ecclesiastical province of Ravenna, in the 2nd quarter of the fifth century.

“Even though some matters seem obscure for the very depth of their mystery, nevertheless, no solemnity of the Church’s worship is without fruit: the divine feast is not to kept holy in accordance with our wills, but ought rather to kept for the sake of its own virtues. The true Christian spirit has no notion of bringing those things which come from the tradition of the Fathers, and have been strengthened by the passage of time, to oblivion, but desires rather to venerate them with all the eloquence of its devotion.

Now in the middle of the feast, the Scripture says, the Lord went up to the temple. Which temple? You are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwells within you. Today the Lord deigned to go up to the temple of our heart, who so mercifully came down into the form of our body.” (Serm. 85,1-2)

The Mass of this feast is the same as that of the preceding Sunday, but with its own proper prayers, Gospel and Preface. The “oratio super populum”, the Ambrosian equivalent of the Collect, is the only one of the prayers that refers specifically to the character of the feast, as it looks back to Easter and forward to Pentecost.

“Deus, per cujus providentiam nec praeteritorum momenta deficiunt, nec ulla superest expectatio futurorum: tribue permanentem peractae, quam recolimus, solemnitatis affectum; ut quod recordatione percurrimus, semper in opere teneamus. Per. – O God, through whose providence the remembrances of things past do not fail, nor does any hope of the things to come remain unfulfilled; grant us abiding affection for the solemnity which we have completed and now remember; so that what we pass through in remembrance, we may also keep hold of in deed. Through…”

The prayer “over the shroud” which closes the Mass of the Catechumens, is more oblique. “Populus tuus, quaesumus, Domine, renovata semper exultet animae juventute, ut qui antea in peccatorum veternosae mortis venerat senio, nunc laetetur in pristinam se gloriam restitutam. Per. – May Thy people, we ask, o Lord, always exult in renewed youth of the soul; so that, having formerly come to the old age of that languid death caused by sins, it may rejoice that it has been restored to its former glory. Through…”

The preface is first attested in the second half of the 9th century in sacramentaries of the Roman Rite, in which it is appointed to be said on the Tuesday of the Fourth Week of Lent, when the same Gospel is read. This is also indicated by the reference to “the devotion of the saving fast.” On the other hand, the references to Resurrection and Ascension certainly seem to fit more with its Ambrosian placement in Eastertide.

“VD: Per mediatorem Dei et hominum, Iesum Christum, Dominum nostrum: Qui mediante die festo ascendit in templum docere, qui de caelo descendit mundum ab ignorantiae tenebris liberare. Cuius descensus genus humanum doctrina salutari instruit, mors a perpetua morte redemit, ascensio ad caelestia regna perducit. Per quem te, summe Pater, poscimus, ut eius institutione edocti, salutaris parsimoniae devotione purificati, ad tua perveniamus promissa securi. Per quem maiestatem. – Truly it is worthy… through the mediator of God and men, Jesus Christ, our Lord: who when the feast was at its middle day, went up unto the temple to teach, even He who came down from heaven to free the world from the darkness of ignorance. Whose coming down instructs the human race with saving teaching, whose death redeems it from everlasting death, whose ascension bringeth it to the heavenly kingdoms. Through whom we ask Thee, Father most high, that we, being taught by his institution, and purified by the devotion of the saving fast, may safely come to Thy promises. Through whom the Angels praise Thy majesty…”

The Byzantine Feast of Mid-Pentecost

In the Byzantine Rite, today is the feast of Mid-Pentecost (Μεσοπεντηκοστή in Greek; Преполовенїе in Church Slavonic, literally, “mid-way”), the twenty-fifth day after Easter, and thus the half-way point between it and Pentecost. This feast is very ancient, older even than the great Marian feasts which the Roman Rite borrowed from the East at the end of the 7th century. It is also of such importance that, although it is not counted among the Twelve Great Feasts, it nevertheless has an eight-day long After-feast, the Byzantine equivalent of an octave, in the midst of the ongoing After-feast of Easter, which occupies the whole Paschal season until the Ascension.

A Greek icon for the feast of Mid-Pentecost, which represents not the discourse recounted in its Gospel, but the young Christ in the temple speaking with the Doctors of the Law, as narrated in Luke 2, 42-52. This shows Him as the giver of a greater Law which will displace that which governs the worship in the temple, a prominent theme of the Gospel of the feast, John 7, 14-30, and those of the second half of the Easter season. This is also indicated by the fact that although He is a child of twelve, He is physically bigger than the adults around Him. (There does also exist a type of icon for this feast which simply shows Him as an adult speaking in the temple.)

Mid-Pentecost represents an unusual, but by no means unique, Byzantine example of a “feast of devotion” or “Ideenfest.” The latter term was coined by German liturgical scholars to distinguish those feasts which have as their object a truth of the Faith from those which celebrate an event in the Lord’s life. It is highly misleading, both historically and theologically. It is typically applied to Western feasts like Trinity Sunday or Corpus Christi, which alone suffices to demonstrate its gross unsuitability, since the objects of these feasts are not “ideas”, but things that really exist.

Like the feasts of the Saints, feasts of devotion are intimately connected with the life of Christ, which does not end with the Ascension or Pentecost, but continues in His Mystical Body, the Church. For example, the feast of the Holy Trinity is placed on the octave of Pentecost, to indicate that at Pentecost, the Church began to preach the doctrine of the Trinity, which is also the doctrine that man’s salvation is achieved through the Incarnation of God. Corpus Christi celebrates Christ’s abiding presence in His Church in the Sacrament by which He continually renews His life within us, and of which He said, “Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you.”

It is sometimes alleged that the absence of such feasts in the East proves that they are “inauthentic.” This seems to rest on the unjustifiable assumption that the West is for some reason not allowed to develop anything on its own, but also certainly rests on a more basic factual error, since Mid-Pentecost is essentially Corpus Christi for Baptism. The feast of the Protection of the Mother of God on October 1st, which is very popular among the Slavs, is another feast of the same kind, while the version of the Midnight Office used on Sundays is conceptually no different from the western Office of the Holy Trinity.

Jesus and the Samaritan Woman, depicted in a 16th fresco in the Stavronikita Monastery on Mt Athos, by Theophanes the Cretan. (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.)

As I explained on Sunday, the six Sundays of the Easter season are divided into two groups in the Byzantine Rite. The first three, Easter itself, and the Sundays of St Thomas and the Myrrh-bearing Women, are dedicated to the Resurrection. The three that follow are named for their Gospels, all taken from St John: of the Paralytic (5, 1-15), of the Samaritan Woman (4, 5-42) and the Blind Man (9, 1-38). All three refer prominently to water, and thus serve as a trait d’union between the two great baptismal feasts of Easter and Pentecost. They also all refer in various ways to the replacement of the Law of Moses by the Law of Christ. This looks back to the final verse of the Gospel of Easter, John 1, 17, “For the law was given by Moses; grace and truth came by Jesus Christ”, and forward to Pentecost, which was instituted to commemorate the giving of the Old Law on Mt Sinai, but under the New Covenant, celebrates the coming of the Holy Spirit, and the preaching of the Gospel to the whole world.

At Vespers of Mid-Pentecost, there are read three lessons from the Old Testament, as on many other great feasts. The first is a cento of verses from chapters 4-6 of the Prophet Micah, which begins with the words, “The Law will go out from Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.” “Go out” can also mean “depart”, and in a season when the Gospels are almost all taken from St John, “the word of the Lord” should certainly be understood to mean the Incarnate Word. The Word therefore departs from Jerusalem; this refers to the removal of the worship of God from the city where the healing of the paralytic takes place, made holy by the presence of the temple, which, however, is soon to be destroyed.

The second is a cento of verses from Isaiah 55 and 12, which speak about the waters of baptism; both passages are also read at the solemn blessing of the waters on Theophany, the feast of Christ’s Baptism. “Ye that thirst, come to the water… draw water with joy from the well-springs of salvation.” This refers to the Samaritan woman, who comes to the well to draw water; there she meets the Man whom the Samaritans, a people who keep the law of Moses, but do not worship at the Jerusalem temple, confess to be “truly the Savior of the world.” When the Word has departed from Jerusalem, then “the hour cometh, when neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem shall you adore the Father. … (but) the true adorers shall adore (Him) in spirit and in truth.” (John 4, 21 and 23)

A painting in the cathedral of Holy Wisdom in Kyiv, Ukraine, based on Proverbs 9, 1-11, the first words of which are written in Greek on the building’s cornice. God the Father, with the seven great archangels to either side sends the Holy Spirit down upon the Virgin Mary, who stands in the middle of Wisdom’s house, with the Christ Child in a halo on Her chest, the icon type known as the “Virgin of the Sign.” The steps ascending towards Her are labelled “Faith (cut off by the frame), Hope, Love, Purity, Humility, Grace, Glory”; to the left are shown David, Aaron and Moses, to the right, the four Major Prophets. (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.)

In the third passage, Proverbs 9, 1-11, the personified figure of Wisdom, whom the Church Fathers also understand to be the Eternal Word, [1] “built for herself a house”, which is the Church. She then “sent out her servants” to call the unwise and those who lack understanding (i.e. the pagans) to “come, eat my bread, and drink the wine which I have mixed for you”, an obvious symbol of the Eucharist. The word “sent – apesteile” is from the same root as “apostle”, and also of the word “apestalmenos – sent”, which St John gives as the translation of “Siloam”, the name of the pool in which the blind man is healed.

These three readings therefore mirror the three Gospels of the second part of the Easter season.

The Gospel of Mid-Pentecost, John 7, 14-30, is chosen in part for its opening words, “Now about the midst of the feast, Jesus went up into the temple, and taught.” Much more important, however, are Christ’s words about the Old Law: “Did Moses not give you the law? and yet none of you keepeth the law? … If a man receive circumcision on the sabbath day, that the law of Moses may not be broken; are you angry at me because I have healed the whole man on the sabbath day?” This man is the paralytic healed in the Gospel of the previous Sunday.

To this, some in the crowd say, “Have the rulers known for a truth, that this is the Christ? But we know this man, whence he is: but when the Christ cometh, no man knoweth whence he is.” This echoes the words of the Samaritan woman, “I know that the Messiah cometh, who is called Christ.”

Jesus Himself says, “You both know me, and you know whence I am: and I am not come of myself; but he that sent me is true, whom you know not. I know him, because I am from him, and he hath sent me.” This refers once again to the word “sent” both as the translation of the name of the pool of Siloam, and as the origin of the word “apostles”, those to whom Christ says on the day of the Resurrection, “as the Father hath sent me, I also send you.” (John 20, 21)

Perhaps it is not too much to posit that the ordering of the three Gospels given above, which places the story of the paralytic in chapter 5 before that of the Samaritan woman in chapter 4, may have been inspired by this very Gospel.

Every Byzantine liturgical day has an abundance of hymns [2] from which to choose to highlight its significance; those of Mid-Pentecost are particularly beautiful. The two which carry over into the Divine Liturgy, the troparion and kontakion, are as follows.

Troparion The feast being at its mid-point, give Thou my thirsting soul to drink of the streams of piety; for Thou, o Savior, didst cry out to all, “Let Him that is thirsty come to Me and drink. O well-spring of life, Christ our God, glory to Thee.

Kontakion At the coming of the mid-feast of the Law, o Maker and and Master of all, Thou didst say to those present, o Christ God, “Come ye, and draw forth the water of immortality.” Wherefore, we fall down before Thee and faithfully cry out, “Grant to us Thy mercies, for Thou art the Well-spring of our life.”

A very ancient poetic form which builds on the theme of the Kontakion, and almost always ends with the same words is called the Ikos.

With the streams of Thy Blood do Thou Water my soul, which is grown dry and barren with the iniquities of my offences, and show it forth to be fruitful in virtues. For Thou didst say to all to come unto Thee, all-holy Word of God, and to draw the water of incorruption, which is living, and purifieth the sins of those who praise Thy glorious and divine Resurrection, granting also, o Good One, to them that know Thee as God, the strength of the Spirit which truly was borne from on high to Thy disciples, for Thou art the Well-spring of our life.

Notes

[1] The liturgical texts of the feast itself also speak of Christ as the “wisdom of God” five times. Before the fall of Constantinople, Mid-Pentecost was celebrated as a patronal feast of Hagia Sophia, the church “of Holy Wisdom.”

[2] In the Byzantine Rite, “hymn” is the generic term for compositions which, from a literary point of view, are similar to Roman antiphons, although they tend to be rather longer. They are not at all like the compositions in regular stanzas which we call “hymns” in the West. Their specific names (kontakion, ikos, exapostilarion etc.) refer to their functions, which are now in many cases effectively obsolete.

Driving on Liturgical Interstate 80

Grand Teton, WY (source) - you won’t see this from Route 80

Metaphors are often the best way to grapple with that which is too large or too complex for pure conceptual analysis, or where a full account risks being tedious in its details. A well-chosen metaphor cuts to the heart of the matter. When I first read Graham Greene’s novel The Power and the Glory, I found his metaphors daring and dazzling.

Well, I am not Graham Greene (for good and for ill), so I don’t know if the metaphor I am about to use is well-chosen, let alone daring and dazzling, but it unquestionably captures my experience of the difference between the traditional cycle of pre-Lent / Lent / Passiontide / Holy Week / Easter Week / Eastertide / Ascensiontide, and the replacement cycle of Lent / Holy Week / Easter Week / Eastertide in the new calendar—that is, from a seven-part sacramental drama to a four-stroke engine.

Following the old calendar from Pre-Lent through Ascensiontide is like driving through northern Wyoming into Montana: breathtaking vistas at every turn, a continually changing and highly differentiated landscape of mountains, valleys, rivers, different colors of rock, a vast expanse of sky. Inspiring, humbling, contemplative, exultant, mesmerizing, unfathomable.

Following the new calendar from Lent to the end of Eastertide is like driving on Interstate 80 [*Note] through the center of Nebraska and southern Wyoming. It is mostly straight and dull, with almost nothing appealing to look at—endless cornfields or expanses of usually brown grass, unvarying, flat and uniform, monotonous. In fact, residents of these states have reason to be grateful that this asphalt gash on the face of the Earth was placed along such generally unremarkable terrain. I lived for twelve years in Wyoming and I can testify that if you want to experience the majestic beauty of the state, you have to get off the interstate and push northwards.

In an abstract world where liturgy had never been known and history had started from zero, the Novus Ordo prayers would be “fine”—that is, in the absence of anything else to compare them with. But when we look at them against the backdrop of a longstanding tradition, they are thin gruel; it is feeding husks to the swineherds, when the Father’s house offers all His children and servants comfortable room and board.

In truth, the parable of the Prodigal Son furnishes another powerful metaphor of the Church’s liturgical situation. Returning to ourselves after having squandered our substance on loose living, we should rush back to the Father’s house and grovel in the dust for our sins against His loving provision. He will embrace us and put on the finest robe, like the chasubles of yore, featured week after week at the Liturgical Arts Journal.

The full season from pre-Lent to Pentecost Octave is where you see the old Missal shine most brilliantly. Everything fits together so well, so tightly, made up of inevitable steps; one finds a profusion of variety, a strength of biblical fidelity, an intricate drama of mysteries fully plumbed but also subtly integrated one with another, so that all is well ordered and proportioned.

The reformers who dared to change all this (and, indeed, they left hardly a stone upon a stone) were acting from their extremely limited postwar academic perspective, and the result is, predictably, superficial—clean, obvious, and sterile; you get the sort of workmanlike coverage that might be expected in a diligently prepared government report. It is like a relationship from which romance has been sucked dry, or, more accurately, in which it never had a part.

A friend once wrote to me: “I had to explain to a Baptist friend who greatly admires St. Thomas Aquinas (he’s a philosophy professor) how they moved St. Thomas’s feast day from March 7, the day of his entrance into glory, in order to ‘restore the integrity of Lent,’ yet proceeded to gut Lent of all its ascetical significance, making of it a ghost-season and leaving nothing but a vacuous anticipation of Easter. Real Einsteins at the helm, we had.”

If you want to meet the genius of the once and future Roman Rite, there is only one way to do it: you must immerse yourself in a risky detour. People will look askance at you, but when you find that way, or better, when you peer through that door, you will find a beauty, a fullness, an integrity, that the reign of novelty hasn’t even conceived the possibility of.

[*Note: for non-American readers, the Interstate highways are the major automobile and truck arteries going north-south and east-west across the continent, comparable to the German Autobahnen, Italian Autostrade, and British Motorways.]

Interesting Saints on May 13th

May 13th is now occupied by two different feasts on the general calendar, one in the Ordinary Form, and one in the Extraordinary Form. For most of the history of the Roman Rite, it was not occupied by any feast of general observance at all, but an interesting collection of local feasts and observances is kept on this date.

St Robert Bellarmine, the second Jesuit to be made a cardinal, and one of the most famous scholars and controversialists of his era, spent much of his life in Rome as an adviser to a series of Popes in the later 16th and early 17th century. At his behest, Pope Paul V added the feast of the Stigmata of St Francis to the calendar on September 17th, the day on which it had long been kept by the Franciscans. By one of those particular acts of providence which seem to touch so many Saints, Robert himself then died on that day in 1621. When Pope Pius XI canonized him in 1930, and declared him a Doctor of the Church the following year, his feast was assigned to May 13th on the general calendar, the date of his beatification in 1923, since his death day was already occupied. September 17th was then freed by the suppression of the Stigmata of St Francis in 1960, and St Robert was moved to that date in the post-Conciliar reform.

A well-known photograph of Ss Francisco and Jacinta Martos (middle and right), together with their cousin Lúcia Santos, whose cause for canonization is in process. St Francisco died on April 9, 1919, at the age of 10, St Jacinta the following year on February 20, at the age of 9, both of them victims of the great influenza pandemic which raged though the years 1918-20, one of the greatest natural catastrophes in human history. (More deaths were caused by the so-called Spanish flu than by the First World War.) Sister Lúcia died on February 13, 2005, at the age of 97, almost 56 years after her profession as a Discalced Carmelite.

May 13th remained without any general feast until the promulgation of the revised Roman Missal of 2002, in which Pope St John Paul II assigned to it the feast of Our Lady of Fatima as an optional memorial. This was the date on which the three shepherd children had their first vision of the Virgin Mary in 1917; Ss Francisco and Jacinta Martos were canonized on this same date 8 years ago, the centenary of that first apparition. It is a well-known fact that it was also on this day in 1981 that John Paul II was shot in St Peter’s Square, while moving though the crowds at the weekly papal audience. His Holiness always ascribed the preservation of his life to the direct intervention of Our Lady of Fatima; as a sign of gratitude for his deliverance, the bullet which just missed his heart is now mounted in the crown of Her famous statue.

Less well known is the fact that in 1792, the same day saw the birth of Bl. Pius IX, the Pope who would later formally define the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. As a young man, he had suffered from some kind of seizure disorder (it does not appear to be precisely known which one), of which he was cured at the most important Marian shrine in Italy, that of Loreto. Even more remarkably, Eugenio Pacelli, who as Pope Pius XII would formally define the dogma of the Assumption in 1950, was being ordained a bishop in the Sistine Chapel at the very same time that the first apparition of the Virgin was taking place at Fatima.

Before St Robert’s feast was put on the general calendar, the first entry in the Martyrology for May 13th was the dedication of the Pantheon in Rome as a church dedicated to the Virgin Mary and All Martyrs, which took place in the year 609, in the reign of Pope St Boniface IV. As I have noted on more than one occasion, the name “Pantheon” means “building of all the gods”, but there is no evidence that there was any kind of collective worship of all the gods in the ancient Roman world, and no evidence that the building was a temple. The idea is probably a misunderstanding which arose in the Carolingian period, when much of ancient Rome lay in ruins; to an early medieval Christian’s eyes, the imposing mass of the structure, dominating the center of the city, could hardly have appeared as anything other than a religious building. Nevertheless, the legend persists that the building was dedicated to All Martyrs, and hence to All Saints, because it had previously been a temple of all the gods. On the basis of this tradition, when the Benedictines revised their calendar in 1915, they put the feast of All Relics on this same day.

Solemn Mass in the traditional rite celebrated in the Pantheon on May 13, 2009, the 14th centenary of its dedication as a church.

The entry that follows in the Martyrology is that of St Mucius (“Mokios” in Greek), a priest who was martyred at Byzantium in 304, during the persecution of Diocletian. His traditional legend is not considered historically reliable, but there is no doubt that he is an authentic martyr and that his cultus is very ancient. There was a church dedicated to him at Constantinople by the end of the 4th century, but it may have been built even earlier than that, by Constantine himself, as part of his first refounding of Byzantium as New Rome. In the Byzantine Rite, his feast is kept on May 11th, which is also celebrated liturgically as the anniversary of that refounding, while May 13th is the feast of another martyr of the same region, a virgin named Glyceria. Her acts are also historically unreliable, but she is also an authentic martyr, killed on that day at Heraclea in Propontis in the later part of the 2nd century. (As an episcopal see, Byzantium was originally suffragan to Heraclea.) There are actually quite a number of cases where martyrdoms took place in the same place on or around the same date, but at a distance of many years or decades, as is the case with these two. This is because the officials who were in charge of the courts that tried and sentenced capital crimes traveled from place to place, and the schedule by which they arrived on the same date in the same city each year was maintained for long spans of time.

In the Low Countries and many other parts of northern Europe, May 13th is traditionally the feast of St Servatius (“Servais” in French, “Servaas” in Dutch), bishop of Tongres in modern Belgium, who is said have come to that area from Armenia as a missionary, to have received St Athanasius during his exile to Trier, and defended the Catholic Faith against Arianism at various councils in the mid-4th century. The see of Tongres was later transferred to Maastricht, where a large and very beautiful church dedicated to him preserves the relics of his body, and several items said to be his.

In the Dominican Rite, his feast was kept on May 22nd, because of the story given as follows in the Order’s Breviary. “When Louis of Bavaria, who was very hostile to the Church and to the Order, learned that the friars had been summoned to hold a general chapter in his domain, he laid plans to put them to death. As historical records testify, St Servatius appeared in a dream to one of our brethren, and warned the friars to flee to another city; thus did he save them from certain slaughter. Wherefore, because the Order was delivered from such great peril, the fathers decreed that henceforth his feast should be forever observed.” In his History of the Dominican Liturgy, Fr William Bonniwell notes that this story rests on very shaky historical foundations, and the feast was suppressed from the Dominican calendar in 1962.

A reliquary bust of St Servatius, 1579; image from Wikimedia Commons by Kleon3, CC BY-SA 4.0

The last entry of the day in the traditional Martyrology is that of St John the Silent, an Armenian monk who was consecrated bishop, much against his will, in the year 482 AD, at the age of only 28. After serving for nine years, he determined to lay down his pastoral charge, partly out of a sense of his own unworthiness, partly from a desire to return to the monastic life. He did this, not by formally resigning, but by disappearing; making his way to Jerusalem, and led by a miraculous sign, he entered the famous Lavra of St Sabbas, then still governed by the founder for whom it is named. However, he told no one of his past, and was received as a layman, working as an ordinary laborer.

As has often been the case, it was impossible to hide the light of holiness under a bushel, and several years later, Sabbas deemed him worthy to be presented to the Patriarch of Jerusalem, St Elias, for priestly ordination. Before the ordination could take place, John insisted on having a private meeting with Elias, at which he revealed his past, and swore him to secrecy. Elias could not, of course, ordain him a priest, but also could not reveal the reason to John’s superior, who unsurprisingly feared the worst, but the true reason for the refusal was later made known to him by a revelation of God. St John lived for 56 years after this incident, to the age of 104, without ever resuming the function of the episcopal office.

Eastward Ho! How the Western Church Looked to Eastern Iconography For Inspiration in Sacred Art

If I had been writing about sacred art 100 years ago for a Catholic readership, I would have ignored entirely any reference to traditional Byzantine art. Until the middle of the last century, the Roman Catholic world was largely unaware of or, at the very least, uninterested in Byzantine iconography. Anyone who knew about this style was as likely as not a historian specialising in Byzantine studies, who considered it a throwback to a medieval past, anomalously preserved in Orthodox and Byzantine Catholic liturgies.

In recent decades, however, there has been a surge of scholarly and popular interest in the history and development of Byzantine and Eastern Orthodox iconography. This renewed fascination crosses religious boundaries, with Roman Catholics and Protestants also incorporating these sacred images into their homes and places of worship. To fully appreciate this change, we must first establish a clear understanding of what exactly the term “icon” means.

The Lancaster Martyrs, by contemporary Catholic iconographer, Martin Earle

If you read a contemporary book on iconography or attend an icon painting workshop, you will likely encounter what is generally referred to today as a “theology of icons”, and will often get the impression that this explanation of iconography, along with the iconographic style itself, has not changed since it was first developed in the 5th century. But this is not so.

The theological justification for the stylistic elements of the iconographic tradition - the “theology of icons” - was developed relatively recently by Russian Orthodox intellectuals who were worried about the Westernisation of the traditional art being produced in Orthodox churches, and were seeking to re-establish a purer style of sacred art that corresponded to the ancient Russian tradition. The leading figure in this Russian “renaissance” was the Orthodox priest and polymath Pavel Florensky (1882–1937). Despite being an Orthodox Christian priest, Florensky never left Russia (and Stalin eventually executed him in 1937).

However, a prominent group of Russian theologians and painters, who were influential within the intellectual milieu of Orthodox Christian theology, left after the Bolshevik Revolution and ultimately settled in France. I am thinking here of the writers Leonid Ouspensky (who also painted icons), Vladimir Lossky, and Paul Evdokimov, as well as Gregory Kroug, the icon painter. Florensky’s writings were circulated amongst this group.

The goal of these expatriates was to re-establish traditional art forms of the Orthodox Church by creating a set of principles to guide contemporary artists. The result of this was that they took Florensky’s ideas and further developed them, leading to the emergence of a new theology of icons. This was a great achievement. The success of their work is evident in the surging number of people painting icons, which continues to this day, and has influenced other Orthodox churches, such as the Greek Orthodox Church, the Coptic Orthodox Church, and the Byzantine Catholic churches. The best of these contemporary iconographers paint as well as any of the past masters. It is the beauty of these contemporary icons that stirred interest and made the iconographic style fashionable outside Orthodox and Byzantine Catholic circles today in the West.

The Harrowing of Hell (Anastasis), by Gregory Kroug

Painted by Ouspensky

Painted by Kroug

While the Russo-Byzantine style, as seen in Russian and Greek Orthodox churches, is perhaps the most well-known form of iconography, it is not the only variant. The Coptic, Armenian, and other Eastern Christian churches have all developed distinctive iconographic traditions, and the general picture is one of a renewal and flourishing of these associated iconographic traditions too.

By Isaac Fanous, Egyptian, the father of neo-Coptic iconography, who studied under Ouspensky in the 1960s.

The incredible beauty of these new icons caught the attention of Roman Catholics (and Protestants). Western churches were experiencing a crisis of beauty and seemed unable to produce sacred art that wasn’t either ugly modernist or cheesy kitsch. Consequently, there was a hunger for authentic liturgical art. French Catholics, in particular, became aware of the hub of this iconographic renewal first, which was centred in Paris, France. Soon, Catholics and Protestants began to create icons as well.

But this renewed enthusiasm for icons in the West has led to certain misconceptions, and iconography is often enshrouded in an artificial mystique.

As Catholics, while acknowledging the validity of iconography and the theories that underpin its resurgence as a style, we should be cautious not to adopt all that these Russian theorists wrote. They were strongly prejudiced against Western naturalistic styles of art and baked this into their ideas. Catholics should not feel bound to accept, for example, the assertion that the iconographic style is the only valid form of liturgical art. As Benedict XVI wrote in his book The Spirit of the Liturgy, and as I explain in my book The Way of Beauty, the Gothic and Baroque styles, which are certainly not iconographic in form, can also be considered authentically liturgical forms. What the story of the successful reestablishment of the iconographic tradition in the East reveals is that the West can do something similar with its own artistic traditions. Following their method, we should choose a canon of great images and analyse them in such a way that we develop a set of defining principles that can guide artists today.

Furthermore, the notion that iconographers “write” rather than “paint” their works is a contemporary idiom with no basis in tradition. Most iconographers, including those within the Orthodox tradition, simply refer to their craft as painting without any sense of diminishing its spiritual significance. As my teacher (who is Orthodox) put it to me: “When I dip a paintbrush into paint and apply it to the surface, it is called a painting. It doesn’t demean my art to describe it as such.” Also, painting is not prayer, and prayer is not painting. They are two different activities... do I really need to explain that one?

Nevertheless, this resurgence of interest in icons has been an overwhelmingly positive development, challenging the historical marginalisation of Eastern Christian art and enriching Western art.

Our Lady Seat of Wisdom, by contemporary Catholic iconographer Martin Earle.