No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
Local Patterns of Relic Veneration in Late Antiquity: Reassessing Alleged Distinctions between Greek and Roman Customs
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 August 2025
Abstract
Scholars, beginning with Hippolyte Delehaye, have long claimed a distinction between eastern and western customs of relic veneration in late antiquity: westerners left martyrial corpses intact and did not translate them, using contact relics instead, while easterners readily moved and divided these relics. They base this distinction on two papal letters from Pope Hormisdas’s legates and from Gregory the Great that distinguish between Roman and Greek customs of relics veneration. Yet scholars have almost totally neglected one piece of late antique evidence highly instructive for this topic: a letter from Eusebios of Thessaloniki, a contemporary of Gregory the Great, responding to a request from the emperor Maurice to send a corporeal relic of the Thessalonian martyr Demetrios. I argue that Eusebios’s letter demonstrates that the distinction between Roman and Greek customs of relic veneration proposed by the papal letters does not hold in late sixth-/early seventh-century Thessaloniki; furthermore, rather than giving evidence for sweeping, regional patterns, these letters all offer reflections on local, municipal customs of relic veneration in Rome and Thessaloniki in response to local imperial customs in Constantinople.
Keywords
Information
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Copyright
- © The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of American Society of Church History
References
1 Delehaye, , Les origins du culte des martyrs (Bruxelles: Société des Bollandistes, 1921), 50–99 Google Scholar for full analysis and 51 (“austère simplicité”) and 53 (“… que naquit l’usage de la translation et la division des reliques”) for quotations. For examples of Delehaye wavering between the geographic designations of Rome and western and of Greek and eastern, compare pages 51, 52, 53, 59. For the letters, see Epistle 77 (Suggestio legatorum ad Hormisdam) (ed. Andreas Thiel, Epistolae Romanorum Pontificum Genuinae [Brunsberg: Edward Peter, 1868], 1:873–75; trans. Efthymios Rizos and David Lambert, http://csla.history.ox.ac.uk/record.php?recid=E00615); and Gregory Magnus, Epistle 4.30 (ed. Gregorii I papae Registrum epistolarum [Berolini: Weidmannos, 1887], 1:263–66; trans. John R. C. Martyn, The Letters of Gregory the Great, 3 vols. [Ontario: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 2004], 1:310–12).
2 Delehaye, Origins, 53–54, where he cites Pliny, Letter 10.
3 For Latin legislation against tomb violation, see Cicero, De legibus 2.26; Theodosian Code 17.1–7; Justinian, Digest 11.7.39, 47.12.1–11; Codex Justinianus 9.19.1–6. For the Greek idea that corpses were dedicated to the chthonic gods and not to be disturbed, see Euripides, Alcestis 1135–50; Sophocles, Antigone 65; Plato, De legibus 958D–E. See also Garland, R., The Greek Way of Death, 2nd ed. (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2001), 41–47 Google Scholar; Rebillard, Eric, The Care of the Dead in Late Antiquity, trans. Rawlings, Elizabeth Trapnell and Routier-Pucci, Jeanine (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2009), 57–79 Google Scholar; Robinson, Olivia, “The Roman Law on Burials and Burial Grounds,” The Irish Jurist 10, no. 1 (1975): 175–86Google Scholar; Strubbe, Johan H., “Cursed Be He That Moves My Bones,” in Magika Hiera: Ancient Greek Magic and Religion, ed. Farone, Christopher A. and Obbink, Dirk (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), 35–99 Google Scholar; and de Visscher, F., Le droit des tombeaux romains (Milan: Giuffre Editore, 1963)Google Scholar.
4 Delehaye, Origins, 60: “La division des reliques, consequence inevitable d’une discipline moins rigoreuese … contribua, plus que toute autre cause, a faire de la relique comme l’objet d’un culte distinct, a entretenir de pieuses convoitises qui devaient souvent degenerer en passion désordonnée.”
5 For Ambrose’s own account of his discovery and translation of Protasius and Gervasius, see his Letter 22. For analyses, see Brown, Peter, The Cult of the Saints: Its Rise and Function in Latin Christianity (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981), 36–38 Google Scholar; Dassmann, E., “Ambrosius und die Martyrer,” JAC 18 (1975): 49–68 Google Scholar; Alissa Dahlmann, “Zwischen Bischof und Gemenide—Die Entwicklung von der Martyrverehrung zum reliquienkult um 4. Und 5. Jahrhundert” (PhD diss., Westfaelische Wilhelms-Universitat Muenster, 2016), 205–14; Wiśniewski, Robert, The Beginning of the Cult of Relics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), 101–21CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Hunt, E. D., “The Traffic in Relics: Some Late Roman Evidence,” in The Byzantine Saint, ed. Hackel, S. (London: Fellowship of St. Alban and St. Sergius, 1981), 171–80, at 174–75Google Scholar notes that Ambrose does not follow the traditional distinction made by scholars between eastern and western practices. Wiśniewski, Beginning, 159 highlights Delehaye’s grouping of Ambrose’s translations with eastern practice.
6 Delehaye, Origins, 75–80 for his analysis of Ambrose’s relic translation. On page 65, he states: “The church of Milan … was modeled on the eastern churches” (L’Église de Milan … pris modèle sur les Églises d’Orient).
7 Delehaye, Origins, 63–83 and Herrmann-Mascard, Nicole, Les reliques des saints: formation coutumiere d’un droit (Paris, 1979), 35–41 Google Scholar for exceptions more broadly. See Gaudentius of Brescia, Sermon 17.14–15; Optatus, Contra Parmenianum 1.16.1 on Lucilla; and Revelatio Sancti Stephani and V. Gauge, “Les routes d’Orose et les reliques d’Étienne,” AnTard 6 (1998): 265–86 for the translation of Stephen’s relics.
8 Grabar, Andre, Martyrium, vol. 1, Architecture (London, 1972), 41–42 Google Scholar; Mango, Cyril, “Constantine’s Mausoleum and the Translation of Relics,” BZ 83 (1990): 51–62 Google Scholar; Hunt, “Traffic in Relics.”
9 Wiśniewski, Beginning, 159–79, 203–12.
10 For scholars who assume or repeat this dichotomy, see Angenendt, A., Heilige und reliquien: die Geschichte ihres Kultes vom fruhen Christntum bis zur Gegenwart (Munich: 1994), 172–75Google Scholar; Brown, Peter, “Eastern and Western Christendom in Late Antiquity: A Parting of the Ways,” in The Orthodox Churches and the West, ed. Baker, D. (Oxford: Blackwell, 1976): 1–24, at 11–19Google Scholar; Clark, Gillian, “Translating Relics: Victricius of Rouen and the Fourth-Century Debate,” Early Medieval Europe 10, no. 2 (2001): 161–76, at 167–6810.1111/1468-0254.00083CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hahn, Cynthia, “What Do Reliquaries Do for Relics?,” Numen 57, no. 3–4 (2010): 284–316, at 307–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Heinzelmann, M., Translationsberichte und andere Quellen des Reliquienkultes (Turnhou: Brepols, 1979), 20–22 Google Scholar; Hermann-Mascard, Les reliques des saints, 33–41; Torres, J., “Emperor Julian and the Veneration of Relics,” AnTard 17 (2009): 205–14, at 208–9Google Scholar; and Van Uytfanghe, M., “L’origine, l’essor et les functions du culte des saints. Quelques rèpres pour un débat ouvert,” Cassiodorus 2 (1996): 143–96, at 168–69Google Scholar.
11 Wiśniewski, Beginning, 159–79, 203–13.
12 Paul Lemerle, Ed., Les plus anciens recueils des Miracles de Saint Demetrius et la penetration des slaves dans les Balkans (Paris: Éditions du centre national de le recherche scientifique, 1979)Google Scholar.
13 I have found only three such instances. Grabar, Martyrium, 1:40 argues that “il n‘y a aucune raison de croire, par conséquent, comme on l’a fait, que cette pratique de dépècement et de dispersion des corps saints, si fréquente par la suite en Occident comme en Orient, avait été d’abord limitée à l’Orient,” drawing out Gregory the Great and Eusebios’s similar refusals of the relic requests, references to local custom, and likely concerns about their respective cities’ prestige gained through maintaining sole access to their patron saints’ relics. Yet his comparison constitutes merely a paragraph of his monumental two-volume study on Christian art and architecture. Kötting, Bernard, “Reliquienverehrung, ihre Enstehung und ihre Formen,” ThS 67 (1955): 321–34, at 330Google Scholar notes briefly and without description that in both Rome and Thessaloniki martyrial bodies were not partitioned until the 7th century. Finally, Taronas, Katherine, “Art, Relics, and the Senses in the Cult of Saint Demetrios of Thessaloniki,” Gesta 62, no. 2 (2023): 153–86, at 16110.1086/725871CrossRefGoogle Scholar briefly elaborates the similarities between Eusebios and Gregory’s letters; yet her analysis comprises a mere paragraph within her study on the development of the cult of Saint Demetrios.
14 Jones, A. H. M., The Later Roman Empire, 284–602 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1964), 2:880 Google Scholar.
15 Jones, Later Roman Empire, 2:880–94. Council of Nicaea, Canon 6.
16 Jones, Later Roman Empire, 2:890–92. Council of Constantinople, Canon 3. Council of Chalcedon, Canon 28. For Leo’s rejection of the canon, see Demacopoulos, George, The Invention of Peter: Apostolic Discourse and Papal Authority in Late Antiquity (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2013), 59–71 10.9783/9780812208641CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
17 George Demacopoulos, Invention.
18 Gregory Magnus, Letters 5.37; 5.41; 5.44; 7.30–31; and 9.156. See Richards, Jeffrey, Consul of God: The Life and Times of Gregory the Great (London: Routledge, 1980), 217–21Google Scholar and Demacopoulos, Invention, 152–57.
19 Examples from Gregory’s letters abound. See Martyn, Letters, 74–81; and Demacopoulos, Invention, 152–61.
20 S. L. Greensdale, “The Illyrian Churches and the Vicariate of Thessalonica, 378–95,” JTS 46, no. 181/182 (1945): 17–30. See also Jones, Later Roman Empire, 1:211.
21 For the development of the Vicariate of Thessaloniki, see Dunn, Geoffrey D., “The Church of Rome as a Court of Appeal in the Fifth Century: The Evidence of Innocent I and the Illyrian Churches,” JEH 64, no. 4 (2013): 679–99Google Scholar; Skedros, James, “Civic and Ecclesial Identity in Christian Thessaloniki,” in From Roman to Christian Thessaloniki: Studies in Religion and Archaeology, ed. Nasrallah, Laura et al. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2010), 245–61, at 248–55Google Scholar; MacDonald, J., “Who Instituted the Papal Vicariate of Thessaloniki?” SP 4 (1961): 478–82Google Scholar; Mikhail Gratsianskiy, “The Issue of the Collectio Thessalonicensis from the Perspective of the Roman Acts of 531,” in Issues of Identity Metamorphoses in Transitional Epochs: Social Changes and Mental Evolution, ed. Elena Litovchenko (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2021), 22–41; and Pietri, Charles, “La géographie de l“Illyricum ecclésiastique et ses relations avec l’Église de Rome (Ve-VIe siècles),” Publications de l’École Française de Rome 77 (1984), 21–62 Google Scholar.
22 Collectio Thessalonicensis (ed. Carlos de Silva Tarouca [Rome: Pontifical Gregorian University, 1937]). Skedros, “Civil and Ecclesial,” 249n12. Gratsianskiy, “Issue,” discusses the collection’s authenticity.
23 Collectio Thessalonicensis III (Tarouca, Epistularum, 19–20). For interpretation, see Dunn, “Church of Rome,” 684–85; Skedros, “Civic and Ecclesial,” 251; Greenslade, “Illyrian Churches,” 26.
24 Collectio Thessalonicensis IV (Tarouca, Epistularum, 20–21). See Dunn, “Church of Rome,” 685; MacDonald, “Who Instituted,” 478.
25 Collectio Thessalonicensis V (Tarouca, Epistularum, 21–22). See Skedros, “Civic and Ecclesial,” 251; Greenslade, “Illyrian Churches,” 27.
26 Pope Leo I, Letter 6.2. See Skedros, “Civic and Ecclesial,” 248–49; Pietri, “Geographie,” 23–37.
27 Skedros, “Civil and Ecclesial,” 249n12; Gratsianskiy, “Issue.”
28 Skedros, “Civic and Ecclesial,” 253–54; Pietri, “Geographie,” 37–47.
29 E.g., Gregory Magnus, Letter 8.10, 9.157. See note 18 above on Gregory’s authority in the Illyrian provinces.
30 Skedros, “Civic and Ecclesial,” 249.
31 Procopius, Buildings 1.4 on Justinian’s reconstruction of Holy Apostles church.
32 Hormisdas, Letter 77 (Thiel, Epistolae, 874).
33 Skedros, “Civic and Ecclesial,” 253–54.
34 On the Acacian Schism, with translations of relevant epistles, see Allen, Pauline and Neil, Brownen, “Negotiating the End of the Acacian Schism,” in Conflict and Negotiation in the Early Church: Letters from Late Antiquity, Translated from Greek, Latin, and Syriac (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2020), 32–89 Google Scholar; and Davis, Leo Donald, The First Seven Ecumenical Councils (325–787): Their History and Theology (Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 1983), 199–204 Google Scholar.
35 Hormisdas, Letter 13 (Thiel, Epistolae, 717; trans. Allen and Brownen, “Negotiating,” 54).
36 Hormisdas, Letter 7 (Thiel, Epistolae, 748; trans. Allen and Brownen, “Negotiating,” 59).
37 Hormisdas, Letter 65 (Thiel, Epistolae, 858–61; trans. Allen and Brownen, “Negotiating,” 81–84).
38 Letter 77 (Thiel, Epistolae, 875; trans. Lambert and Rizos, http://csla.history.ox.ac.uk/record.php?recid=E00615)
39 McCulloh, J., “From Antiquity to the Middle Ages: Continuity and Change in Papal Relic Policy from the 6th to the 8th Century,” in Pietas. Festschrift für Bernhard Kötting, ed. Dassmann, E. and Suso Frank, K. (Münster, 1980), 313–24Google Scholar; Hermann-Mascard, Reliques, 45–47; Kotting, Reliquienverehrung.
40 For the collection of relics in Constantinople from abroad from Constantine until 1204, see Wortley, J., “The Legend of Constantine the Relic-Provider,” in Studies on the Cult of Relics in Byzantium up to 1204 (Burlington, VT Ashgate), 487–96Google Scholar; Bozoky, E., La politique des reliques de Constantin à saint Louis: Protection collective et legitimation de pouvoir (Paris: Éditions Beauchesche, 2006) 74–105 Google Scholar; Burgess, R., “The Passio Artemii, Philostorgius, and the Dates of the Invention and Translations of the Relics of Sts. Andrew and Luke,” AB 121, no. 1 (2003): 5–36 Google Scholar; Mango, Cyril, “Constantine’s Mausoleum and the Translation of Relics,” BZ 83 (1990): 51–62 Google Scholar; Dagron, Gilbert, Naissance d’un capitale: Constantinople et ses institutions de 330 à 451 (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1974), 367–409 Google Scholar; Woods, David, “The Date of the Translation of the Relics of Ss. Luke and Andrew to Constantinople,” VC 45 (1991), 286–9210.1163/157007291X00116CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Andrade, Nathanael, “The Processions of John Chrysostom and the Contested Space of Constantinople,” JECS 18, no. 2 (2010): 161–89Google Scholar; Hartl, Martina, “Die Mobilisierung der Toten. John Chrysostomus und die Reliquien,” in Metamorphosen des Todes: Bestattungskulturen und Jenseitsvorstellungen im Wandel–Vom alten Ägypten bis zum Friedwald der Gegenwart, ed. Merkt, Andreas (Regensburg, 2016), 145–64Google Scholar; Wortley, “The Earliest Relic-Importations to Constantinople,” in Studies on the Cult of Relics, 207–25; James, Liz, “Bearing Gifts from the East: Imperial Relic Hunters Abroad,” in Eastern Approaches to Byzantium, ed. Eastmond, Antony (New York: Ashgate, 2001), 119–32Google Scholar; Wortley, “The Marian Relics at Constantinople,” in Studies on the Cult of Relics, 171–87; and Limberis, Vasiliki, Divine Heiress: The Virgin Mary and the Making of Christian Constantinople (New York: Routledge, 1994), 56–57 Google Scholar.
41 On Gregory’s relationship with the imperial family, see Martyn, Letters, 8, 43–44; Richards, Consul of God, 39. Gregory wrote many of his extant letters to Maurice, naturally, but also several to Empress Konstantina: 5.38; 5.39; and 4.30.
42 Gregory Magnus, Letter 4.30 (Edwald and Hartmann, Gregorii, 1:264; trans. Martyn, Letters, 310).
43 Gregory Magnus, Letter 4.30 (Edwald and Hartmann, Gregorii, 1:264; trans. Martyn, Letters, 310).
44 See, for example, Freeman, Michelle, “Seeing Sanctity: John Chrysostom’s Use of Optics in His Homilies on Saints,” JECS 31, no. 2 (2023): 171–200 Google Scholar; Angenendt, “Relics and Their Veneration,” 31, 29; and Wiśniewski, Beginning, 122–58.
45 Cf. 1 Samuel 6:19; 2 Samuel 6.6–7. Hahn, “What Do Reliquaries Do?” 307–8 notes these biblical precedents.
46 Krautheimer, Richard, “S. Lorenzo Fuori Le Mura in Rome: Excavations and Observations,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 96, no. 1 (1952): 1–26 Google Scholar; Debra M. Israel, “The Sixth Century (Pelagian) Building of San Lorenzo fuori le Mura at Rome” (PhD diss., Bryn Mawr College, 1984); and Krautheimer, Corpus basilicarum christianorum Romae: The Early Christian Basilicas of Rome (IV–IX Cent.), vol. 2 (Città del Vaticano: Pontifical Institute of Christian Archaeology, 1959), 1–134.
47 Ambrose of Milan states that, when the Christians of Milan found the bodies of Gervasius and Protasius, “old men say now that they used to hear other names given to these martyrs and that they have read their inscription” (Letter 22.12 [CSEL 82.10.3:134; trans. FC 26:380]). Procopius, Buildings 1.4 explains that the relics of Andrew, Luke, and Timothy were unknown to people when Justinian found them as he was reconstructing the church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople.
48 Gregory Magnus, Letter 4.30 (Edwald and Hartmann, Gregorii, 1:264–65; trans. Martyn, Letters, 310–11).
49 See, e.g., Gregory Magnus, Letter 3.33; 6.50; 6.58; 9.184; 9.229b; 11.5; 11.20; 12.13; and 14.12. In the survey of John M. McCullough, “The Cult of Relics in the Letters and ‘Dialogue’ of Pope Gregory the Great: A Lexicographical Study,” Traditio 32, no. 1 (1976): 145–84, McCullough surveys Gregory’s use of the terms brandeum, sanctuaria, reliquiae, and benedictiones and concludes that Gregory “gives no indication that any of these actions involved dismembering or even disturbing the corpse of a saints. … [T]here is no evidence that he at any time departed from the principles he enunciated in his letter to Constantina. Nor is there any suggestion that he ever granted to others, or sought for himself, corporeal relics” (181). On Gregory’s gift-giving more broadly, see G. Rapisarda, “I doni nell’epistolario de Gregorio Magno,” in Gregorio Magno e il suo tempo: XIX Incontro di studiosi dell’antichità Cristiana in collaborazione con l’Ecole Francaise de Rome, Roma, 9–12 maggio 1990 (Rome: Institutum Patristicum Augustinianum, 1991), 1:285–300.
50 Gregory Magnus, Letter 4.30 (Edwald and Hartmann, Gregorii, 266; trans. Martyn, Letters, 310–12).
51 See Jensen, Robin, “Saints’ Relics and the Consecration of Church Buildings in Rome,” SP 71 (2014): 153–69Google Scholar. The Council of Paris in 614 (Jean Michaud, “Culte des reliques et epigraphie. L’example des dedicaces et des inscriptions,” in Les Reliques: objets, cultes, symboles. Actes du Colloque international de l’Université du Littoral-Côte d’Opale [Boulogne-sur-mer, 4–6 Septembre 1997, ed. E. Bozóky and A.-M. Helvétius [Turnhout, 1999], 199–212, at 201) and later the ecumenical Council of Nicaea II in 787 (Canon 7) calls for the dedication of altars with relics.
52 Gregory Magnus, Letter 4.30 (Edwald and Hartmann, Gregorii, 1:265; trans. Martyn, Letters, 311).
53 Gregory Magnus, Letter 4.30 (Edwald and Hartmann, Gregorii, 1:265; trans. Martyn, Letters, 311).
54 Geary, Patrick, Furta Sacra: Theft of Relics in the Central Middle Ages (Princeton: 1978)10.1515/9781400820207CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Geary, “Sacred Commodities: The Circulation of Medieval Relics,” in The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective, ed. A. Appadurai (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 169–91.
55 Gregory Magnus, Letter 4.30 (Edwald and Hartmann, Gregorii, 1:265–66; trans. Martyn, Letters, 311).
56 Pseudo-Marcellus, Passion of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul 66 (ed. Richard Lipsius and Max Bonnet, Acta apostolorum apocrypha post Constantinum Tischendorf [Leipzig: Mendelssohn, 1891], 1:175; trans. David Eastman, Ancient Martyrdom Accounts of Peter and Paul [Atlanta: SBL Press, 2015], 269). Denzey Lewis, The Early Modern Invention of Late Antique Rome (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020), 202–3 notes Gregory’s borrowing of this story.
57 Denzey Lewis, Early Modern, 198–206.
58 For example, Athenians were to be buried in their homeland (F. P. Retief, L. Cilliers, “Burial Customs, the Afterlife and the Pollution of Death in Ancient Greece,” Acta Theologica 26, no. 2 [2006]: 44–61, at 52). Justinian, Digest 47.12.3 allows for a corpse to be moved if it is not in its final resting place.
59 Gregory Magnus, Letter 9.26 (ed. Gregorii I papae Registrum epistolarum [Berolini: Weidmannos, 1891], 2:59–60; trans. Martyn, Letters, 561–62).
60 For the text, see Paul Lemerle, Le plus anciens recueils, vol.1, Le texte.
61 On the various miracle collections, see Lemerle, Les plus anciens, 1:10–13; Skedros, Saint Demetrios, 3; Franz Alto Bauer, Eine Stadt und ihr Patron: Thessaloniki und der Heilige Demetrios (Regensburg: Schnell & Steiner, 2013), 224–25; Lemerle, “La composition et la chronologie des deux premiers livres des Miracula S. Demetrii,” BZ 46 (1953): 349–61.
62 Lemerle, Le plus anciens, 2:32.
63 603 is the terminus post quem for the beginning of his episcopacy because Gregory the Great addresses his last extant letter to bishop Eusebios of Thessaloniki in 603 (see note 86 below). 640 is the terminus ante quem for the end of his episcopacy because Pope Martin addresses two letters to a bishop Paul of Thessaloniki in 649. See Lemerle, Le plus anciens, vol. 2, Commentaire, 27–28.
64 Lemerle, Le plus anciens, 2:80. Skedros, Saint Demetrios, 110–14 successfully challenges the singular view of Paul Speck, “De Miraculis Sancti Demetrii qui Thessalonicam profugus venit,” Ποικίλα Βυζαντινά 12 (1993): 255–532 that the Miracles were compiled in a final, revised form in the 9th century from the works of several earlier authors.
65 Skedros, Saint Demetrios, 109–10.
66 There are three versions of the passion account: (1) Passio Prima, represented by three texts from the 9th century; (2) Passio Altera, a slightly elaborated longer version, and (3) Passio Tertia, the 10th-century version of Symeon Metaphrastes. For Demetrios’s execution and burial, see Passio Prima 7 (ed. Charalambos Bakirtzis, Ἀγίου Δημητρίου Θαύματα· Οι Σύλλογες Ἀρχιεπισκόπου Ἰωάννου και Ἀνωνύμου [Thessaloniki: Ekdosis Agra, 1997], 32–34; trans. Skedros, Saint Demetrios, 157); and Passio Altera 12–14 (Bakirtzis, Ἀγίου Δημητρίου, 42–44; trans. Skedros, Saint Demetrios, 152–53). Skedros, Saint Demetrios, 8–10 dates the event to 304–308.
67 Georgios Sotiriou and Maria Sotiriou, Η Βασιλικὴ του Ἀγίου Δημητρίου Θεσσαλονίκης (Athens: 1952), 5 (excerpt from Symeon Metaphrastes) and 58–64 for discussion.
68 Passio Prima 8 (Bakirtzis, Ἀγίου Δημητρίου, 34; trans. Skedros, Saint Demetrios, 157); Passio Altera 15 (Bakirtzis, Ἀγίου Δημητρίου, 44; trans. Skedros, Saint Demetrios, 153–54). The claim is repeated in various medieval sources: see Sotiriou and Sotiriou, Βασιλικὴ, 1–10. The date at which Leontios made this construction is debated, with the 410 s and 447–48 among the dates suggested: Skedros, Saint Demetrios, 29–39; M. Vickers, “Sirmium or Thessaloniki? A Critical Examination of the St. Demetrius Legend,” BZ 67 (1974): 337–50.
69 Krautheimer, Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture, rev. Krautheimer and Slobodan Ćurčić, 4th ed. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986; orig. Pub. 1965), 125–28 dates the five-aisled basilica to the last quarter of the 5th century. Skedros, Saint Demetrios, 29–39 and Aristolelis Mentzos, “Ἔνδειξεις και Πληροφορίες για τον Αρχαιότερο Νάο του Ἀγίου Δημητρίου,” in Χριστιανικὴ Θεσσαλινίκη· Η Ἐπαρχιακὴ Μητροπολιτικὴ Σύνοδος Θεσσαλονίκης (Thessaloniki: University Studio Press, 2000), 179–202 think that Leontios built a three-aisled predecessor to the five-aisled church. J.-M. Spieser, Thessalonique et ses monuments du IVe au VI siècle: contribution a l’etude d’une ville paleochretienne (Athens: Boccard, 1984), 165–215 dates it even later, to no earlier than the first quarter of the 6th century, based on its architecture.
70 Sotiriou and Sotiriou, Βασιλικὴ, 58–63 describes the findings.
71 Skedros, Saint Demetrios, 37–38; Vickers, “Sirmium or Thessaloniki?”; and Spieser, Thessalonique.
72 See note 68 above.
73 Some scholars claim a complete lack of physical relics of Saint Demetrios in Thessaloniki: Taronas, “Art, Relics, and the Senses,” 158–63; and Lemerle, “Saint Demetrius de Thessalonique et les problemes du martyrion et du transept,” Bulletin de correspondance hellenique 77, no. 1 (1953): 660–94, at 661–73. Whether or not relics were actually present, I suggest below—along with other scholars—that many people in late antiquity did think they were present somewhere in the church, even if the exact location was unknown and there was no direct access to them.
74 Bakirtzis, “Pilgrimage,” 188–91.
75 Sotiriou and Sotiriou, Βασιλικὴ, 58–63.
76 Lemerle, “Saint Demetrius de Thessalonique,” 661–73. See Passio Altera 12 (Bakirtzis, Ἀγίου Δημητρίου, 42; trans. Skedros, Saint Demetrios, 153).
77 Skedros, Saint Demetrios, 56–60, 85–94; Bauer, Eine Stadt, 172–78; Lemerle, “Saint Demetrius of Thessalonique.”
78 On the ciborium: Skedros, Saint Demetrios, 88–94; Taronas, “Art, Relics, and the Senses”; Robin Cormack, “The Making of a Patron Saint: The Powers of Art and Ritual in Byzantine Thessaloniki,” in World Art: Themes of Unity and Diversity, ed. Irving Lavin (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1989), 3:547–54; Bauer, Eine Stadt, 166–72; and Sotiriou and Sotiriou, Βασιλικὴ, 101–2.
79 See Skedros, Saint Demetrios, 45, 88–94; Taronas, “Art, Relics, and the Senses,” 159; Cormack, “Making,” 548; and Bakirtzis, “Pilgrimage,” 177.
80 Lemerle, Les plus anciens, 66; my translation.
81 Lemerle, Les plus anciens, 93; my translation.
82 Lemerle, Les plus anciens, 115; my translation. An edict from Justinian II mentioning Demetrios’s relics also indicates a popular tradition that the relics existed (Bakirtzis, “Pilgrimage,” 178).
83 See Taronas, “Art, Relics, and the Senses,” for the transition from the cult’s visual piety in late antiquity to more tactile piety in the 11th century. Also, Cormack, “Making,” 550; Bauer, Eine Stadt, 335–94; and Bakirtzis, “Pilgrimage,” 179–87.
84 Miracle 5.50 (Lemerle, Le plus anciens, 1:89; my translation).
85 Miracle 5.51 (Lemerle, Le plus anciens, 1:89; my translation).
86 See Gregory Magnus, Letters 8.10; 9.157; 9.197; 11.55; and 14.8.
87 Lemerle, Le plus anciens, 1:42, 2:41, 74; Skedros, Saint Demetrios, 87; and Taronas, “Art, Relics, and the Senses,” 160.
88 On Maurice’s interest in acquiring relics, see Whitby, Michael, The Emperor Maurice and His Historian (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988), 23 Google Scholar.
89 Miracle 5.52–54 (Lemerle, Les plus anciens, 89–90; my translation).
90 Noted by Taronas, “Art, Relics, and the Senses,” 161; and Grabar, Martyrium, 1:41.
91 Cf. Gregory Magnus, Letter 4.30 (Edwald and Hartmann, Gregorii, 1:266; trans. Martyn, Letters, 312): “But I trust in the almighty Lord … that you will always enjoy the power of the holy apostles, whom you love with all your heart and mind, not from their bodily presence but from their protection.”
92 Skedros, Saint Demetrios, 15; and Bauer, Eine Stadt, 47 note that Ioannes mentions in Miracle 12 a shrine of the martyrs Chione, Eirine, and Agape outside the walls of the city. Additionally, a reliquary, now located in the Museum of Byzantine Culture in Thessaloniki, was found beneath the altar of the 5th-century 3rd September Street Basilica east of the city walls: E. Kourkoutidou-Nikolaidou, “Το ἐνκαίνιο στο ανατόλικο νεκροτάφειο Θεσσαλονίκης,” AE (1981): 70–81.
93 Miracle 5.53–54 (Lemerle, Les plus anciens, 89–90; my translation). The parallel with Gregory’s letter is noted in Taronas, “Art, Relics, and the Senese,” 161–62.
94 Bakirtzis, “Pilgrimage,” 177–78; Cormack, “Making,” 548; and Taronas, “Art, Relics, and the Senses,” 160.
95 See page 11 above.
96 See page 10 above.
97 Maraval, Pierre, Lieux saints et pèlerinages d’Orient. Histoire et géographie. Des origines à la conquête arabe (Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1985), 189 Google Scholar; Rothkrug, Lionel, “The ‘Odour of Sanctity,’ and the Hebrew Origins of Christian Relic Veneration,” Historical Reflections/Réflexions Historiques 8 (1981): 95–142 Google Scholar; Cronnier, E., Les inventions de reliques dans l’Empire romain d’Orient (IVe–VIe s.) (Turnhout: Brepols, 2016), 202–61Google Scholar; and Harvey, Susan Ashbrook, Scenting Salvation: Ancient Christianity and the Olfactory Imagination (Berkely: University of California Press, 2006), 90, 228 Google Scholar.
98 Miracle 5.53 (Lemerle, Les plus anciens, 90; my translation).
99 Miracle 5.54 (Lemerle, Les plus anciens, 90; my translation).
100 Wiśniewski, Beginning, 280.