Ермил и Стратоник, свети ранохришћански мученици београдски

Abstract

Hermylos, a deacon, and his jailer Stratonikos were martyred in classical Singidunum in the early fourth century, under Emperor Licinius, by being thrown together into the Danube. Their holy relics seem to have been translated already in the mid-fifth century from the tomb located – as stated in their vita with unusual precision – eighteen miles downstream from Singidunum to the capital of the Byzantine Empire, where this saints enjoyed remarkable veneration. While there is no doubt that the translation saved the memory of the Belgrade martyrs from oblivion, it also marked the end of their veneration at the site of their martyrdom for many a century. The short hagiographic writings dedicated to them and their few painted representations reveal that the medieval Serbian state had imported the cult of Hermylos and Stratonikos from Byzantium but that they were not given special attention in this milieu. Therefore, the scarcity of available data about the only authentic Early Christian martyrs who fell in the territory of present-day Belgrade is hardly surprising. The study of their cult has so far rightly focused on the hagiographic texts dedicated to these two martyrs. The history of modern research of the cults of Early Christian martyrs who died in the territory of the central Balkans, including Hermylos and Stratonikos, begins with the name of the notable Bollandist Hippolyte Delehaye (1859– 1941). He was the first to analyze the vita of Hermylos and Stratonikos redacted by Simeon Metaphrastes (ca. 900–960). The research of François Halkin (1901–1988) has substantially contributed to the hagiographic dossier of Hermylos and Stratonikos. Among the writings discovered and published by Halkin, the most prominent place certainly belongs to the sixth-century Passio of Hermylos and Stratonikos. It was his redaction of this earlier, pre-Metaphrastian vita of Hermylos and Stratonikos that was used as the source in the translation of this text into two versions in the modern Serbian language. Hence, reading the vita text as a historical source, the contributors to this volume sought to answer two questions: the precise year of the martyrdom of Hermylos and Stratonikos and the site of their original shrine. To a much lesser extent, they have explored questions related to their cult and iconography in the Eastern Christian world. At the end of the twentieth century, the Serbian Orthodox Church began to show interest in the Early Christian martyrs that had fallen in the territory of modern-day Serbia. The decision of the Holy Synod of the Serbian Orthodox Church to have one parekklesion of the Church of Saint Sava in the Belgrade quarter of Vračar dedicated to Sts. Hermylos and Stratonikos marked a watershed in the establishment of the cult of the two Belgrade martyrs. It was also decided to dedicate a chapel at the Monastery of the Three-Handed Virgin (Tricherousa) at the foot of Avala (currently under construction) to this pair of Early Christian saints martyred in Belgrade. Their previous “regular” menaion service has been expanded, becoming a service chanted at the Vigil. In addition, the figures of Hermylos and Stratonikos are increasingly being included among the frescoes of newly founded churches in the city of Belgrade, although their iconographic representations have yet to become fully standardized. All of the above has given rise to the need to revisit and systematize the available knowledge about the Belgrade martyrs in a coherent and comprehensive publication. The intention of the contributors to this volume was to use the admittedly scarce textual (historical, hagiographic, and liturgical) and iconographic sources, as well as archeological evidence, to offer as clear a picture as possible of Christianity in Belgrade in the period when the deacon Hermylos and his co-martyr Stratonikos fell for the faith, and of their cult and representations in art in the Eastern Christian world, especially medieval Serbia. This monograph on Hermylos and Stratonikos was written in the hope of encouraging new, primarily interdisciplinary research of Early Christian martyrs from the territory of Serbia that will add to the results of our work.