Il pozzo e la cisterna: l’acqua nella vita quotidiana e nell’eucologio bizantino
Water was, and still is, an essential element for life on earth, and this stands true both for mankind and animals. Quite early in their history, the Byzantines realized the importance of water for life, mainly in the countryside, where aqueducts did not reach the extremities of remote villages and...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Print Article |
| Language: | Italian |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
[2017]
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| In: |
Orientalia christiana periodica
Year: 2017, Volume: 83, Issue: 1, Pages: 35-57 |
| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Euchologium
/ Well
/ Cistern
/ Blessing
/ History 500-700
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| IxTheo Classification: | KAD Church history 500-900; early Middle Ages KBL Near East and North Africa KDF Orthodox Church RC Liturgy |
| Summary: | Water was, and still is, an essential element for life on earth, and this stands true both for mankind and animals. Quite early in their history, the Byzantines realized the importance of water for life, mainly in the countryside, where aqueducts did not reach the extremities of remote villages and monasteries. By considering the many prayers dedicated to wells and cisterns, the author has chosen some interesting and ancient texts concerning a new well and the purification of a cistern. Through an interdisciplinary approach of liturgy, which incorporates the “book of prayers” (Euchologion), archaeology, hagiography and epigraphy, we may apprehend this widespread rite of the benediction of water of the Theophanies as the backbone of all subsequent prayers used for blessing water. The provenance of these prayers is traceable to Palestine, and if the waters of the Theophanies were blessed in Jerusalem, the need for new prayers for a well and a cistern may be quite reasonably explained by the arid, desert land of Palestine and Syria, which later spread to Asia Minor. |
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| ISSN: | 0030-5375 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Orientalia christiana periodica
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