Some Remarks of the Apartisis (Απάρτησις), 2015

Unusual meanings of Greek words on the eastern periphery of the Byzantine world: παραθήκη, κατοίκησις, συνοδία // Philologia classica. 2023. Vol. 18.1. P. 75-79, 2023

The author discusses the newly found Greek inscriptions from Lasica, from the basilica on Machkhomeri Hill near Khobi dated to the 6th c. CE, with three Greek words and expressions having non-standard meanings. The only possible interpretation of the expression ἔχετε ἐν παραθέκῃ (sic) that comes to mind is “to have or keep as a pledge, to have or keep entrusted” i. e. the martyrs must keep the soul of the founder Gorgonios, which he entrusted to them as a pledge of his own salvation. The standard meanings of the term κατοίκησις as “settling” or “dwelling, abode” do not correspond to the context of the list of the benefactors either as an act or as a locus, as well as the early Byzantine meaning “government, administration”. It should mean here a burial, which could be understood as a new dwelling of the body or even a shrine for the relics (probably one of the Forty Martyrs), which appeared in Machkhomeri in connection with the rebuilding of the basilica and which was placed in the martyrium in the eastern end of the southern aisle. Finally, the term συνοδία by its origin meant a “companionship on a journey”, and later became a terminus technicus for caravan; new, Byzantine meanings of this word are “Christian fellowship company of the faithful, local congregation”, “gathering, assembly for worship”, “community of religious”. But here it is an “association of lay people around an institution or an influential person, probably functioning as a group of pilgrims”.

2021

Varia epigraphica et archaeologica. Volume dédié à la mémoire de Maria Bărbulescu (Pontica 52, suppl. VI), Constanța, 2019

Eulimene, 2013

The starting point of this paper is the account of a council against heretics which was held by the Serbian grand zhupan Stefan Nemanja in his dominions in the late 12th century Serbia. Later, in the first half of the 13th century, Nemanja’s son and hagiographer, the first crowned king Stefan Nemanjić utilized a specific technical term “thrice-accursed” (τρισκατάρατος – трьклет) in his account of the council that was convened. Our aim is to present the levels of cultural and literary traditions which were transmitted from various Byzantine literary genres, which stem from the attic oratory as far as the 4th century B.C. (Demosthenes’ Oration against Aristogeiton), through the literary works of the rhetorician Lucian the Sophist in the second century A.D., and which later entered Byzantine tradition through pseudo-Chrysostomian works, and the liturgical and historiographical texts of authors such as Romanos Melodos, George the Monk, and Constantine Manasses. We aim to present both the development in the meaning of the term thrice-accursed in its long historical path from Demosthenes to Manasses, its shift from ancient pagan to Christian semantics and thus utilization in various genres of Byzantine literature, and finally its influence on the genre of Serbian medieval hagiography, especially in the works of Stefan the First-Crowned and archbishop Danilo II in his Lives of Serbian kings and archbishops.

H. Saradi (ed.), Byzantine Athens. Proceedings of a Conference (Athens, May 21-23, 2016, Byzantine and Christian Museum), 2021

Athens, as regards its epigraphic material evidence, is one of the richest cities in medieval Byzantium and can easily outcompete other urban centres of the period. This phenomenon, which bears the hallmark of a local and singular set of circumstances, is indeed owed to the numerous graffiti engraved on its ancient monuments. The graffiti apart, an ample number of inscriptions cut in stone has survived, providing information on various aspects of the civic administration, the societal fabric or the religious practices of the citizens of Athens. For the colloquium on Byzantine Athens, Ι reviewed the latter group regarding their form and content, recognizing that some of this epigraphic material has not been critically re-examined since its first publication.

2020

This large-scale collective and interdisciplinary project aims to produce a new research tool: a multi-volume dictionary providing an article of between two and ten pages (around 600 articles in all) for each important word or word group of the Septuagint. Filling an important gap in the fields of ancient philology and religious studies, the dictionary is based on original research of the highest scientific level. The dictionary will consist of four volumes and all articles are written in English. The first volume is to be published in 2018; three volumes of the same size are scheduled to follow between 2020 and 2028. Each volume will be available at a single volume's price. The subscription price on the four volumes will be approx. 15 percent below the single volume's price.