Flower symbolism and the cult of relics in medieval Serbia

Abstract

The Life of archbishop Eustathios I [Jevstatije] (1279-1286), deserving head of the medieval Serbian Church and a saint, is a very interesting source for studying the cult of relics with the Serbs. This is not surprising considering that the Life was penned by one of the most illustrious of Eustathios' successors on the church throne, Daniel II [Danilo], a learned Athonite and unquestionable master of the hagiographie literary genre. In his account of the life of his distinguished predecessor, Daniel describes extensively the events constituting the key stage in the glorification of a saint, namely Eustathios' death and posthumous occurrences at his grave. As most holy men, Eustathios foresaw his own death, and he departed from this world serenely. He was buried, with due honours, in the 'marble grave' he had prepared for himself in the cathedral church of Holy Saviour at Žiča. In keeping with the well-established saint-making process, a few years after the funeral 'extraordinary signs' began to occur at the archbishop's grave, in this particular case, candlelight and a multitude of murmuring voices followed by the miraculous cure of an incurably ill person. These occurrences preceded the great miracle which, to the best of my knowledge, is unparalleled in the medieval Serbian practice of relic veneration. Namely, 'one day they found growing from his marble grave three flowers endowed with wondrous beauty and impossible to liken to anything else. For, indeed, they were not of earthly humidity or of union with flowers that grow from earth; but, o wonder, how a dry stone standing for so long in the church could send forth fragrant flowers, to the renewal of the sanctified one's body'. Flower metaphors occur in the Service to the holy archbishop Eustathios, yet another piece penned by Daniel II, notably in his paraphrases of Psalm 92, 12-14 ('The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree: he shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon. These that be planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God'). The meaning of these quotations should be looked at within a broader framework, that of the medieval theology of relics where flower symbolism played a significant role. The close link between flowers and relics had its origin in the martyrological tradition and was founded on the belief that the martyrs' heavenly abode is a paradisiacal locus amoenus, a garden with springs of fresh water, lush greenery and copious flowers. It is well known that such a vision of paradeisos - a reconstruction of the Garden of Eden lost through Adam's fall, and an anticipation of the future heavenly abode - was a commonplace in the Byzantine tradition. It found its full expression in the concept of monastic gardens, conceived of as the earthly image of the fragrant flowery meadows of paradise inhabited by the righteous. Two flowers highly charged with symbolic power were the lily and the rose, considered as being paradise flowers, flowers of martyrdom and holiness. Early Christian exegesis often referred to the martyrs as...