Military Saints

MONICA M. WHITE

Military saints were venerated as the protec­tors of armies in the medieval Orthodox world. Although this category was large, five of them – Theodore Teron (The Recruit), Demetrios, Prokopios, Merkourios, and George – had particularly vigorous cults (Delehaye 1909).

All were martyrs of the pre- Constantinian persecutions, although only three are described as soldiers in early hagiographic works. Theodore Teron, Merkourios, and George had similar stories, despite having lived at different times and in different places: they came to the atten­tion of an emperor after distinguishing themselves in battle, but were killed when they refused to offer sacrifices with him. Prokopios and Demetrios, by contrast, are described as clerics: Prokopios worked for the church in Skythopolis, while Demetrios preached the gospel in Thessalonika (Walter 2003).

Despite his lack of experience in the army, Demetrios’ military cult blossomed after he was credited with saving his city from destruction during the invasions of the early 7th century (Lemerle 1979 I: I41). Prokopios, for reasons which are less clear, experienced a similar transformation by the 8th century.

Further changes were in store for all of the saints during the middle Byzantine period, when members of the military elite began looking for divine patrons for their wars against the Arabs. The saints’ lives and post­humous heroism made them attrac­tive candidates, and efforts were made to establish their veneration in the capital. Their hagiography was rewritten to give more emphasis to their military prowess, and at this time Theodore Teron acquired a higher-ranking “twin,” Theodore Strat- elates. The new saint resembled his namesake in every respect except that he was a general rather than a recruit, illustrating the concern with prestige and station among the saints’ adherents in the court (Delehaye 1909: 41).

Another innovation was the saints’ invo­cation and depiction as a group, a practice which contrasted with their largely inde­pendent cults in late Antiquity. From the mid-10th century onward they began to appear together in a variety of artistic media, and this form of veneration was exported throughout the Byzantine Com­monwealth. They were received with partic­ular enthusiasm by the Orthodox Slavs, and their cults continued to grow and evolve beyond the empire’s borders. They were also beloved by the Komnenoi emperors and continued to be widely depicted and invoked in Byzantium until the Ottoman conquest (Kazhdan and Epstein 1985: 116).

SEE ALSO: Hagiography; Megalomartyr Saints; War

REFERENCES AND SUGGESTED READINGS

Delehaye, H. (ed.) (1909) Les Legendes grecques des saints militaires. Paris: Librairie Alphonse Picard et fils.

Kazhdan, A. and Epstein, A. (1985) Change in Byzan­tine Culture in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Lemerle, P. (1979) Les Plus anciens recueils des miracles de saint Demetrius. Paris: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique.

Oikonomides, N. (1995) “The Concept of ‘Holy War’ and Two Tenth-century Byzantine Ivories,” in T. Miller and J. Nesbitt (eds.) Peace and War in Byzantium. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, pp. 62–86.

Walter, C. (2003) The Warrior Saints in Byzantine Art and Tradition. Aldershot: Ashgate Press.

White, M. (forthcoming) Military Saints in Byzantium and Rus, 900–1200. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.