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In the calendars of Eastern Christian churches, the Early Christian martyrs Hermylos and Stratonikos of Belgrade – deacon Hermylos and prison guard Stratonikos – are commemorated on 13 January and 1 or 2 June. They were martyred under Emperor Licinius (308–324), probably in 315, by being put in a woven basket and thrown into the Danube. Three days later, their bodies resurfaced by the river and were found by pious Christians, who buried them at a “rock-hewn site” or possibly in a “place made of stone” located, as their Passio states with unusual precision, eighteen miles from Singidunum. At some point, probably in the mid-fifth century, their relics were translated to the Byzantine capital, where the two saints were highly venerated and from whence their cult spread both in the territory under Byzantine domination and the Slavic lands that had adopted Christianity from the capital on the Bosporus. The earthly remains of Hermylos and Stratonikos seem to have been moved to Constantinople due to the devastating Hun invasions of the Balkans (441/2). The fact that their relics were translated to Constantinople amid those barbarian invasions suggests that their cult emerged early on. The earliest martyrologies, however, make no mention of the Belgrade martyrs. The text of their Passio, likely compiled already in the sixth century, testifies that the cult of Hermylos and Stratonikos was established in the Early Byzantine period. Despite its modest historical value, this pre-Metaphrastian, elegantly worded piece of hagiography served as the source for compiling a long panegyric in praise of the Belgrade martyrs. Like the Passio, this text is also divided into ten chapters, but the dialogues between the saints and their torturer have been considerably elaborated. A vita of Hermylos and Stratonikos was also edited by the learned Byzantine redactor of hagiographic writings Symeon Metaphrastes. Based on his version of the vita of the Belgrade martyrs, their abbreviated hagiography was prepared for the imperial menologion commissioned by Michael IV the Paphlagonian (1034–1041). Besides hagiographic writings, hymnographic texts constitute another relevant group of sources that provide further evidence about the extraordinary veneration of Hermylos and Stratonikos in the Byzantine capital. Admittedly, there is no known (or surviving) kontakion dedicated to them, but several kanons were written in their honor. The authors of those kanons were prominent Constantinopolitan poets of the ninth century: George, identified as George, Metropolitan of Nicomedia (ca. 860), deacon and chartophylax of Hagia Sophia; and Joseph the Hymnographer (ca. 816 – ca. 886), whose names are given in acrostic, as per the established custom. Joseph’s kanon, chanted in Constantinopolitan monasteries, was translated into the Slavic languages. The sources that attest to the cult of the Belgrade martyrs also include their mentions in the Synaxarion of Constantinople and the synaxarion part of the Typikon of the Great Church (Hagia Sophia) – remarkably important liturgical texts that received their final form in the tenth century. Both inform us that the memory of the Belgrade martyrs was held twice a year, in January and June, when a synaxis in their honor was performed in multiple churches in the capital. The memory of the Belgrade martyrs appears in the verse-calendar by Christopher of Mytilene (ca. 1000 – after 1050 or after 1068), and they were also eulogized by the prominent Constantinopolitan poet Theodore Prodromos (ca. 1100 – ca. 1165/70). Finally, we know that around 1200, the skulls of Hermylos and Stratonikos were kept in the sanctuary of Hagia Sophia, along with many other of the city’s relics. It was there that the Russian pilgrim Dobrynya Yadreikovich, later the Archbishop of Novgorod Anthony, paid homage to them. His valuable text is, however, the only source that reports the existence of the Belgrade martyrs’ relics in the capital on the Bosporus. It seems likely that they disappeared from the city during the Crusader conquest of Constantinople in 1204. Some relics of Hermylos and Stratonikos were presumably kept in the churches that held synaxes on their feast days. The fact that celebratory liturgical rites in honor of the Belgrade martyrs were performed twice a year, on 13 January and 1 June, seems to suggest that the Constantinopolitan church calendar commemorated both the day of their martyrdom and the day of the translation of their relics. However, all of these data are chronologically very far removed from the time when Hermylos and Stratonikos fell for the faith and date from the period when the Typikon of the Great Church and the Synaxarion of Constantinople received their final form. Although succinct, the information preserved in these important liturgical writings bears witness to the extraordinary veneration of the Belgrade martyrs in the Byzantine capital. The earliest known manuscript of the Typikon of the Great Church is the one in the library of the Monastery of Saint John the Theologian on the island of Patmos. This document is believed to have been written ca. 900, probably at a Palestinian monastery. Its entry for 13 January reads: Ἄθλησις τῶν ἁγίων μαρτύρων Ἑρμύλου καὶ Στρατονίκου ἐπὶ Λικιννίου τοῦ βασιλέως. The entry for 1 June, in addition to the names of the two Belgrade martyrs, listed as the last memory of the day, also specifies the place where their commemoration was held – ἐν τοῦ Πόσεως. Orthographic errors suggest that the scribe was unfamiliar with Constantinopolitan toponyms. There can be little doubt that this was, in fact, a reference to a Constantinopolitan quarter located within the city walls, possibly to the northeast of the Church of the Holy Apostles. The Church of Archangel Michael is known to have stood in this neighborhood. According to the Jerusalem copy of the Typikon of the Great Church, written in the second half of the tenth century and kept in the library of the Monastery of the Cross in Jerusalem, the Belgrade martyrs were commemorated in another Constantinopolitan church dedicated to the archangel Michael – the one in the city quarter of Oxeia. The Cult of Hermylos and St ratonikos in the Byzantine 87 This manuscript names as many as three Constantinopolitan churches where the memory of the Belgrade martyrs was held, two of them located in the vicinity of Hagia Sophia. More specifically, their January synaxis was performed in the already mentioned Church of Archangel Michael in Oxeia, and the June one in the same church, the center of their cult, as well as in a church in Phirmoupolis and another one in Spoudaioi, not far from the orphanage. The locality of “Posseos” mentioned in the Patmos copy does not appear either in the Jerusalem one or any other transcription of either the Typikon of the Great Church or the Synaxarion of Constantinople. However, the special veneration of the Belgrade martyrs in the Church of Archangel Michael in Oxeia is also confirmed in the Synaxation of Constantinople, which informs us that this church commemorated the Belgrade martyrs on 2 June. The city quarter in question was located on a slope that led from the grand bazaar of Constantinople to the Golden Horn. Little is known about the second church that performed the synaxis of Hermylos and Stratonikos, the church in Phirmoupolis, except that it was in the European suburban part of the capital. The Typikon of the Great Church provides no information about the patron of this church and mentions no other saints commemorated there besides the Belgrade martyrs, but there is insufficient evidence at present to determine whether the church was dedicated to them. To summarize, in the mid-tenth century, the Belgrade martyrs were commemorated twice a year in at least three Constantinopolitan churches, two of which were located in central city quarters. Given that very few saints enjoyed such a high level of veneration in the capital, this is very remarkable. It is unknown if their relics were kept in the church in Oxeia and/or in another sacral building that held their synaxis. Similarly, there is no information about the place whence their skulls arrived at Hagia Sophia. Besides urban parochial churches, Hermylos and Stratonikos were celebrated in Constantinopolitan monasteries, where they were commemorated once a year, on 12 rather than 13 January, because the day of their usual commemoration coincided with the afterfeast of Epiphany, as explained in the late eleventh-century synaxarion of the Monastery of the Theotokos Evergetis. Hence Hermylos and Stratonikos were celebrated together with Saint Tatiana of Rome, as the second memory of the day; on that occasion, two stichera were sung in their honor at Vespers; Joseph’s kanon and a poetic kathisma were sung and their synaxarion vita read at Orthros. This practice was, no doubt, adopted from the older Stoudite Typikon, as attested by other Constantinopolitan typika such as the Typikon of Patriarch Alexios Stoudites (1025–1043). By the late 1060s or early 1070s, this typikon had been translated into Old Russian (Old East Slavic), suggesting that the cult of Hermylos and Stratonikos made its way to Russia via Constantinople. Hence, the celebration of Hermylos and Stratonikos on 12, 13 or, very rarely, 14 January came to be accepted in other areas, too. The well-known typikon of the Monastery of Christ the Savior (Santissimo Salvatore) in Messina, Sicily (1131), one of many that draw on the Stoudite Typikon, prescribes the commemoration of the Belgrade martyrs on 13 January. However, the June memory of Hermylos and Stratonikos did not completely disappear in the Italo-Byzantine milieu, and so 88 Dubravka Preradović both dates appear in the eleventh- and twelfth-century menaia of the Abbey of Saint Nilus in Grottaferrata. A well-known Palestinian-Georgian calendar from the tenth century pushed the memory of Hermylos and Stratonikos to 14 January. On a Sinai hexaptych from the late eleventh or early twelfth century, however, the Belgrade martyrs were painted in the field for 13 January, which is also the case on other calendar icons kept at the Sinai monastery. On the other hand, an under-researched Sinai kanonarion dated to the ninth-tenth century lists Hermylos and Stratonikos under 1 June and prescribes dedicating the divine liturgy in their honor. Both commemorations, in January and June (the latter much more rarely), are present in the synaxaria and calendars of Slavic liturgical codices. Besides the abovementioned translation of the Typikon of Alexios Stoudites, the January memory is found in the menologion appended to the Gospel of Mstislav (late eleventh – early twelfth century) and in the calendar of the Ohrid Apostolos from the late twelfth century. The June memory appears in the Ostromir Gospels (1056–1057). However, there is no mention of the two Belgrade martyrs in the oldest manuscript in the Serbian recension of Old Slavonic, the menologion of the Miroslav Gospel from the 1180s. A liturgical codex copied by the notable scribe Raboulas (Ῥαβουλᾶς) in the second half of the fourteenth century, kept in the library of the Sinai monastery, lists the memory of Hermylos and Stratonikos under 13 January as the only commemoration of the day. Other textual and visual sources show that 13 January was also accepted in the Serbian milieu as the date of their commemoration but that 1 June, directly adopted from the Synaxarion of Constantinople, was not entirely dropped. Finally, the Typikon of Archbishop Nikodim (1318–1319) records 13 January as their feast day, as do the painted menologia of Serbian churches. All of the above suggests that the cult of Hermylos and Stratonikos could not take hold outside of the Byzantine capital, where their relics were kept and where the two Belgrade martyrs certainly enjoyed a remarkable level of veneration. The memory of Hermylos and Stratonikos in the Eastern Christian world was gradually reduced to a single yearly commemoration (13 January) without a more substantial liturgical celebration, and their representations in art were very uncommon. |
