HISTORY AND MEMORY AS FACTORS IN GREEK

O R T H O D O X PILGRIMAGE T O THE HOLY LAND

UNDER CRUSADER RULE

by ANDREW JOTISCHKY

~wr T"ESTERN pilgrimage to the Holy Land can be explained

L X / through patterns of evolving spirituality. The development
V V in the eleventh century of a penitential theology in which
pilgrimage played a crucial role, coupled with the practical opportun-
ities for travel occasioned by the success of the First Crusade, brought
the Holy Land closer than ever. The survival of a strong textual
tradition manifested in pilgrimage itineraries, many of which are
autobiographical in tone, further contributes to our perception of
pilgrimage as an example of medieval religion in practice.
If pilgrimage to the Holy Land in the Orthodox world appears less
impressive a phenomenon, and has received less scholarly attention, it
is partly a problem of source material. Only twenty-five pilgrimages to
Jerusalem from the Orthodox world are known between the eighth
and the fourteenth centuries.1 Even of these, in the case of most we
know nothing other than the pilgrim's name and general context of the
journey. The texts in which such references occur, however, do not
suggest pilgrimage as a remarkable occurrence, and it can therefore be
assumed that many more took place of which the circumstances are
unknown.2
A recent anthropological study of contemporary pilgrimage to the
Holy Land finds contrasts in the factors motivating Orthodox and
Roman Catholic pilgrims.3 In the Catholic tradition, Glenn Bowman
argues, pilgrimage has a largely inspirational function: 'Catholics
' Alice-Mary Talbot, 'Byzantine pilgrimage to the Holy Land, from the 8th to ijth
centuries', in J. Patrich, ed., The Sabaite Heritage (forthcoming).
2
The rebuilding of the Holy Sepulchre by Constantine DC (c. 1042-8), which involved
relocating some shrines to the interior of the church, is suggestive of pilgrimage interest in
the Orthodox world. See Robert Ousterhout, 'Rebuilding the Temple: Constantine
Monomachos and the Holy Sepulchre', Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 48
(1989), pp. 66-78; V. Corbo, // santo sepolcro di Gerusalemme, 3 vols Qerusalem, 1981-2), 2,
pi. 4.
3
Glenn Bowman, 'Contemporary Christian pilgrimage to the Holy Land', in
A. O'Mahony, G. Gunner, and K. Hintlian, eds, The Christian Heritage in the Holy Land
(London, 1995), pp. 288-309.

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 Greek Orthodox Pilgrimage to the Holy Land

engage . . . in a process of being repossessed by the power that gives

meaning to their personal lives and labours.'4 Catholic pilgrimage is an
individuated experience characterized by the pilgrim's interior under-
standing of the places visited. In contrast, Orthodox pilgrimage has two
quite different functions. Rather than empowering the individual to
return to the world fortified by the spiritual charge of the holy places,
it prepares the pilgrim for eternity by presenting those places as images
of Paradise. Moreover, for the Orthodox, pilgrimage is not an
individuated but a communal experience in which the pilgrims
'witness an image of the community of mankind united in Christ'.5
The Holy Land functions as an icon with the capacity to make
comprehensible the ideal of this community, which corresponds to
the Greek notion of the oikoumene.6
At the outset it must be acknowledged that direct comparisons, such
as Bowman's model proposes, can be dangerous in an examination of
medieval pilgrimage, partly because of the disproportionately smaller
number of surviving Orthodox pilgrimage accounts than Latin, and
partly because testing such propositions is not the primary concern of
the pilgrimage accounts. Nevertheless, some aspects of the model
Bowman advances of the spirituality of pilgrimage in the Orthodox
tradition can be explored by close examination of selected evidence.
Two questions immediately suggest themselves: why did Orthodox
pilgrims make the journey to the Holy Land, and what did they see
while there?
Few of the Orthodox pilgrims left written accounts of their
journeys, so the opportunity to examine motivation as articulated by
the pilgrims themselves is unusual. The two best-known Orthodox
pilgrims of the twelfth century, Abbot Daniel (i 106-8) and John
Phokas (118$), who did reflect on the question of what had led them to
the Holy Land, will provide a focus for the rest of this paper.7 Daniel
emphasises at the outset that his was a penitential pilgrimage. The
conception of the pilgrimage was itself a response to the realization of

4
Ibid., p. 303.
5
Ibid., p. 299.
6
The word oikoumene is here used in the sense employed by Photius, of the inhabited
world as the scene of Christ's activity and the celebration of the sacraments: Photius,
Epistolae et Amphilocia, ed. B. Laourdas and L. Westerink, 6 vols (Leipzig, 1983-8), ep. 284, 3,
pp. 2300-2.
7
Tlw Life and Journey of Daniel, Abbot of the Russian Land [hereafter Daniel], in
J. Wilkinson, ed., Jerusalem Pilgrimage 1099-1183 (London, 1988), pp. 120-71; John Phokas,
Descriptio Terrae Sanctae, 1 (PG 133, cols 923-61).

Ill
 ANDREW JOTISCHKY

his sinfulness. Thus far he appears to fit into the pattern recognizable
in Western pilgrimage.8 The efficacy of the pilgrimage is determined
by the penitential nature of the journey itself. When Daniel later
reflected on his pilgrimage, he appeared less certain of the penitential
value of the exercise. He 'travelled that holy road unworthily, with
every kind of sloth and weakness, in drunkenness and doing every kind
of unworthy deed'.9 A further danger was pride in the achievement.
Many who have made the pilgrimage, Daniel says ruefully, 'become
conceited in their own mind as if they had done something good and
thus lose the reward of their labour, and of these I am the first'.10
Daniel concludes that it is more praiseworthy not to make the actual
pilgrimage; indeed, whoever shall 'grieve in his soul' for the holy places
shall receive the same spiritual reward as the pilgrim - and,
presumably, avoid the danger of conceit. The process of pilgrimage,
therefore, is not necessary for penance.
Daniel does, however, find some virtue in what he has done. This
consists in having written down his account of the pilgrimage for
others to read. He contrasts his action in articulating his experiences
with the action of the unworthy servant in the Gospel parable who hid
his master's talent, and therefore made no profit from it.11 The profit
of Daniel's pilgrimage lies in making the holy places accessible to
others, so that they might, in Daniel's words, grieve in their souls and
thoughts for them. It is in the action of expressing his thoughts that
Daniel himself also benefits from the pilgrimage; for writing entails
remembering, and this forces the pilgrim to reflect meaningfully on
what he has seen but may have passed by thoughtlessly at the time.
John Phokas, like Daniel, understood his pilgrimage as an experi-
ence to be shared in the articulation of the event itself. 'We must
attempt... to paint a picture, using words on the canvas, and to give a
full written account to those who love God of what we saw directly
with our own eyes.'12 Here Phokas reinforces his point by using the
imagery of food. Failure to share his experiences by not writing them
down would be gluttony, as though the pilgrim were keeping for

8
Cf. Saewulf (i 102-3), w h ° c a l l s himself indignus et peaator, and pondere pressus
peaaminum: De situ Ierusalem, prologus, in Itinera Hierosolymitana Crucesignatorum (saec.
XII-Xm), ed. S. de Sandoli, 4 vols (Jerusalem, 1978-84), 2, p. 6.
9
Daniel, iA, p. 120.
10
Ibid., iA, p. 121.
" Ibid., 1 A, pp. 120-1.
12
Phokas, Descriptio, 1 (PG 133, col. 928).

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 Greek Orthodox Pilgrimage to the Holy Land

himself food that should be shared among the faithful. But by writing
his travel account, Phokas hopes to teach those who have not seen for
themselves. The act of writing is thus an act of sharing and of
educating. The concern of both pilgrims to share their experiences
indicates a purpose beyond the individual's quest for penance. The
pilgrim has responsibilities to a wider community - to remember, to
describe, and thus to teach. Here, at the outset, seems to be
confirmation of the idea of the pilgrimage as a shared act by which
the individual's place in the wider community is affirmed.
The question of what Orthodox pilgrims saw while in the Holy
Land is less straightforward than might at first appear. Medieval
pilgrimage accounts can be surprisingly poor sources for information
on the contemporary situation in the Holy Land, because pilgrims
were travelling within a conceptual framework whose parameters were
defined by biblical events. They were, in a sense, inhabiting the
narrative of the Scriptures, and therefore uninterested in the Holy
Land as a contemporary socio-political entity. 13 Pilgrims were trying to
experience the Holy Land as a series of places where the narrative
events of salvation had been played out in historic time. The narrative
was chronologically defined by the Scriptures themselves; thus,
although pilgrims did not necessarily plan their itineraries to follow
the narrative chronologically, each site could be understood according
to its place within a chronological framework.
All pilgrims, whether Western or Orthodox, visited the same major
shrines. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre with its shrines com-
memorating the Crucifixion and Resurrection, and the Church of the
Nativity in Bethlehem, are common to all pilgrim itineraries, and most
also visited other churches in and around Jerusalem and travelled to
the Jordan and into Galilee. Beyond this, however, Western and
Orthodox pilgrims made contrasting choices as to what sites to visit.
A striking feature of Orthodox pilgrimage is the tendency to visit
churches and monasteries that may not have enjoyed associations with
Jesus or the apostles, but were instead early Christian foundations
dating from the great age of monastic settlement in Palestine between

13
Thus A. Grabois, 'Christian pilgrims in the thirteenth century and the Latin kingdom
of Jerusalem: Burchard of Mt Sion', in B. Z. Kedar, R. C. Smail, and H. E. Mayer, eds,
Oulremer: Studies in the History of the Crusading Kingdom of Jerusalem presented to Joshua Prawer
(Jerusalem, 1982), pp. 285-97. There are, of course, exceptions, and one must distinguish
between the text and the pilgrim: even pilgrims interested in contemporary life wrote
within a specific genre.

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 ANDREW JOTISCHKY

the fifth and seventh centuries. Daniel and Phokas both toured the
Judaean desert while staying in Jerusalem, visiting the site of the
monastery founded by John of Choziba c. 480-520 in Wadi Qilt
between Jerusalem and Jericho, the monasteries of St John Prodromos,
St Gerasimus, St Mary Kalamon, St John Chrysostom, and St Michael
by the Jordan near Jericho, the monasteries of St Theodosius and St
Sabas, south-east of Jerusalem, and St Euthymius on the Jerusalem-
Jericho road. On a separate visit Daniel penetrated farther into the
desert to see the monastery of St Chariton.14 Some of these foundations
did have scriptural associations: Choziba with Joachim, the Jordan with
Christ's baptism, Kalamon with the flight to Egypt, St Euthymius with
the parable of the Good Samaritan.15 It is striking, however, that no
Western pilgrim in the medieval period is known to have visited the
early Christian desert monasteries. Consciousness of the other Chris-
tian confessions in the Holy Land is certainly present in some
accounts,16 and there are scattered references to their monasteries,
but these occur either in the context of a biblical association or where a
church possesses relics of interest.17 The lack of interest in early
Christian monasticism is surprising given the awareness of the role of
the desert fathers among Western monastic reformers.18 Yet only one
Western pilgrim, Thietmar, a German writing in 1217, acknowledged

14
Daniel, 27-39, 56> PP- I36-4 1 - ' 49; Phokas, Descriptio, 16-24 (PG 133, cols 945-53). O n
the desert monasteries, see J. Patrich, Sabas, Leader of Palestinian Monasticism. A Comparative
Study of Eastern Monasticism, Fourth to Seventh Centuries (Washington, D C , 1995); L. Perrone,
'Monasticism in the Holy Land: from the beginnings to the crusaders', POC, 45 (1995),
pp. 31-63.
15
Daniel mentions the association of Choziba with Joachim, an eighth-century tradition
first recorded by Epiphanius, Enarratio Syriae (PG 120, col. 269). The monastery was only
rebuilt later in the century.
16
Haymerus Monachus, De statu Terrae Sanctae, 1, in deSandoli, Itinera Hierosolymitana, 3,
pp. 166-8, of c. 1199 but relying on earlier anonymous accounts, e.g. ibid., 3, pp. 34, 96.
James of Vitry, Historia Orientalis (Douai, 1597), chs 75-82, pp. 137-57, a l s o relies on these
earlier accounts. For a reappraisal of the manuscript tradition and authorship of the De statu
Terrae Sanctae see Benjamin Z. Kedar, T h e Tractatus de locis et statu terrae Ierosolimitane', in
John France and William G. Zajac, eds, The Crusades and their Sources: Essays Presented to
Bernard Hamilton (Aldershot, 1998), pp. 111-35.
17
De locis Sanctis et populis et bestiis in Palaestina vitam degentibus, i, 6 (de Sandoli, Itinera
Hierosolymitana, 3, p. 30), c. n 80, mentions Armenian and Greek churches. John of
Wiirzburg (c. 1160/5) visited the Jacobite monastery of Mary Magdalene in Jerusalem,
Peregrinatores Tres, ed. R. B. C. Huygens, CChr.CM 139 (Turnhout, 1994), p. 111. Saewulf (c.
1102/3) mentions St Sabas, De situ lerusalem, vi, 21 (de Sandoli, Itinera Hierosolymitana, 2,
p. 22).
18
Exordium magnum ordinis Cisterciensis, i, 2-6, PL 185, cols 997-1000; Orderic Vitalis,
Historia Ecclesiastica, viii, 26, in The Ecclesiastical History of Orderic Vitalis, ed. M. Chibnall, 6

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 Greek Orthodox Pilgrimage to the Holy Land

the relevance of the early Christian history of the Holy Land to his
own pilgrimage. In his prologue, Thietmar describes the Holy Land as
the country not only of Jesus but also of the venerabiles priores nostri.19
It was precisely this sentiment that led Daniel to visit the sites of
ruined and abandoned monasteries, such as St Euthymius, for, as he
explains, 'here lie St Euthymius and many other holy fathers, their
bodies as if still alive.'20 Daniel was visiting not just archaeological
remains but the relics of the monks themselves. The interest in the
monastic heritage is nowhere clearer than in his account of St Sabas,
the greatest of the desert monasteries, founded in 498 and still
functioning in Daniel's day. Here Daniel gave special mention to the
tombs of the founder himself and of prominent Sabaite monks, among
them John the Hesychast, John Damascene, and Theodore of Edessa.21
Phokas describes the physical appearance of the tomb of Sabas, with its
marble-covered walls and domed roof, and the monuments to the
'holy fathers who lived their glorious lives in the desert'. Other tombs
caught his attention, notably those of the six monks who had 'spoken
with God'.22 Similarly, the monastery of St Theodosius the Coeno-
biarch, south-east of Bethlehem, was a place of pilgrimage for both
Daniel and Phokas because it contained the tomb of the saint and other
monks.23
The history of monasticism in Palestine was an extension of the
biblical narrative of salvation, and by visiting the monasteries the
pilgrim was commemorating the lives of the monks as though they
were part of that same narrative. Pilgrims thus saw, as though in a
series ofexempla, how redemption had been achieved by the penitential
commemoration of the biblical sites. Holy places were filtered through
the lens of the early Christian monks. This gave the activity of
pilgrimage an extra dimension, by demonstrating to the pilgrim the
continuing efficacy of a given site in the post-scriptural age. Pilgrimage

vols, OMT (Oxford, 1969-80), 4, pp. 312-18; William of Saint-Thierry, Epistola adfratres de
monte Dei, ed. J. Dechanet, 2 vols (Paris, 1975), 1, p. 144, among other examples.
19
Thietmar, Iter ad Tenant Sanctam, prologus (de Sandoli, Itinera Hierosolymitana, 3,
p. 254).
20
Daniel, 39, p. 141.
21
Ibid., 38, p. 140.
22
Phokas, Descriptio, 16 (PG 133, col. 948). The monks supposedly killed in the Persian
invasion of 614 are still kept in the martyrium in the church of St Nicholas.
23
Phokas, Descriptio, 17 (PG 133, col. 948); Daniel, 37, p. 139. Daniel mentions the
tradition, apparently unknown to Phokas, that the cave-tomb of the saints was the place
where the Magi had rested on their flight from Herod. He also specifies among the other
bodies in the tomb the mothers of Theodosius and Sabas.

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 ANDREW JOTISCHKY

could thus be loosed from the moorings of biblical history, and

extended to a wider field of memory encompassing the more recent
past.
In recalling the spiritual athletes of the desert, pilgrims were
celebrating not only Christian history but also Byzantine Orthodoxy.
For by the time of Phokas' pilgrimage, the ruins of the Judaean desert
had come to life. St Euthymius, on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho,
St Mary Choziba in the Wadi Qilt, St Theodosius at 'Ubeidiyya, St
Elias between Jerusalem and Bethelehem, and St John Prodromos by
the Jordan had all been rebuilt and reoccupied by Orthodox monks.24
Phokas' 'account of the desert', as he calls the description of the
monasteries,25 is characterized by the pilgrim's quest for the living
tradition of monasticism. At St Sabas he remarks on the cells of the
lavra, where Sabas and his followers lived before the monastic buildings
were erected overlooking the Wadi Kidron, and finds that the caves
are still inhabited by 'those who despise the world for the sake of the
kingdom of Heaven'. At Choziba he finds, again, that ancient caves are
being reused by monks, who live in such intense heat that the very
rock seems to emit tongues of flame.26 Proceeding east to Jericho and
the Jordan, Phokas visited the same monastic sites as Daniel. The
monastery of St John Prodromos, demolished by an earthquake, had
been rebuilt after the appeal of the hegoumen to Emperor Manuel
Comnenus, and Kalamon boasted impressive walls and towers.27 It was
solitary monks, however, who most interested Phokas. He had already
remarked, in an earlier stage of his itinerary, on the anchorites' cells in
the Cave of Melchizedek on Mount Tabor, and when in Jerusalem he
had seen monks living in the rock-tombs in the Valley of Jehosaphat
outside the eastern wall of Jerusalem.28 Another solitary monk, a
Georgian stylite whom Phokas had met long ago living on a rock by
the Attalian Sea, now inhabited a column near the monastery of St
John Chrysostom by the Jordan.29
Living near the ruins of the uninhabited monastery of St Gerasimus,
Phokas found another solitary monk whom he refers to as a stylite. The
24
Phokas, Descriptio, 22-4, 27, 28 (PG 133, cols 952-3, 956, 960).
25
Ibid., 25 (PG 133, col. 956).
26
Ibid., 16, 19 (PG 133, cols 948-9).
27
Ibid., 22, 24 (PG 133, cols 952-3). O n the rebuilding of Kalamon, see Denys Pringle,
The Churches of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, a Corpus, 2 vols (Cambridge, 1993-8), 1,
pp. 197-201.
28
Phokas, Descriptio, 11,16 (PG 133, cols 937, 945-8).
29
Ibid., 24 (PG 133, col. 953).

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 Greek Orthodox Pilgrimage to the Holy Land

encounter with this monk, a Georgian, forms a separate anecdote

within the 'account of the desert'. Phokas first declares that he
personally was greatly helped by the intercession of this miracle-
worker, then proceeds to tell a story describing one of his recent
miracles. 30 The Georgian had tamed a pair of the lions who lived in the
marsh by the river Jordan, and used to feed them from his own meagre
rations of pulses soaked in water. After a period of twenty days without
food - an occupational hazard of the solitary life - the monk became
concerned that the lions would starve, so reliant had they become on
his feeding. He therefore instructed them to bring him some driftwood
from which he could make crosses to offer as blessings to pilgrims, in
return for donations of money. The lions duly brought him the wood
tucked under their chins. 31
Phokas' encounters with hermits, though recounted briefly, offer
interesting perspectives on Orthodox monasticism and pilgrimage in
the Holy Land. The ascetic practices described by Phokas confirm
hagiographical evidence that the tradition of living on columns in
deserted places had been revived. 32 Stylites had always been a feature
of monastic life in the Orthodox world, but their presence in twelfth-
century Palestine must surely be part of the revival of Orthodox
monasticism under crusader rule. 33 Other elements of the practices
described by Phokas are also suggestive. The lion-taming monk
apparently had little or no food supply other than what he received
as alms; at any rate, the supply was sufficiently erratic to suggest that
he did not grow food for himself. He did not, however, expect to
receive food for nothing, and his readiness to engage in economic
activity suggests that he had access to a local market, presumably in
Jericho. The practice of making wooden crosses to offer to pilgrims
may be seen as a localized form of the kind of manual work
undertaken by monks in the 'golden age' of desert monasticism.
Egyptian and Palestinian monks typically used to weave rushes or

30
Ibid., 23 (PG 133, col. 952).
31
Ibid., 23 (PG 133, cols 952-3).
32
Gabriel, another Georgian, occupied a stylos in the Judaean desert in the n 80s:
Narratio de monacho Palaestiniensi, ed. H. Delehaye, 'Saints de Chypre', AnBolI, 26 (1907),
pp. 162-75. The Georgians presumably came from or were associated with the Georgian
monastery of Holy Cross to the west of Jersusalem. For further discussion of Gabriel, see
Andrew Jotischky, 'Greek Orthodox and Latin monasticism in the Holy Land under
crusader rule', in Patrich, The Sabaite Heritage.
33
See Rosemary Morris, Monks and Laymen in Byzantium, 843-1118 (Cambridge, 1995),
pp. 57-63, for changes in stylitic practices.

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 ANDREW JOTISCHKY

palm leaves into baskets which were then sold in local villages to
provide the necessary income for food.34 Phokas' Georgian was
probably adapting a traditional practice, in the knowledge that most
pilgrims visited the Jordan, and that it was customary for pilgrims to
take back home palm leaves or reeds from the river-bank as tokens of
their pilgrimage.35
The lions, too, provide a link to an earlier age of Palestinian
monasticism. John the Hesychast, whose tomb at St Sabas Phokas
visited, had summoned lions to defend the monastery from Persian
attack. In the Life ofPaul of Thebes attributed to Jerome, in the seventh-
century Life of St Mary the Egyptian, and anonymous anecdotes of the
same period, desert monks were buried by lions they had tamed. John
Moschus tells seven stories of monks and lions in the Pratum spirituale.36
The best-known of these is also the most significant in the context of
Phokas' Georgian monk, for it concerns St Gerasimus, the founder of
the monastery in whose ruins the twelfth-century monk lived.
Gerasimus healed a lion's injured paw and kept the tamed beast as a
companion.37 It is tempting to assume that the Georgian, knowing the
story of Gerasimus, self-consciously sought out lions to tame in
imitation of the founder.
However we interpret the story, its presence in a pilgrimage account
is striking. Phokas' text seems at this point to depart from the thrust of
the narrative, as the pilgrim shifts his focus from the site and its
biblical associations to the individual commemorating that site. Every
element of the story recalls the archetype - Gerasimus himself - and,
just as important, the context of the archetype. The Georgian monk's
participation in the local economy echoes not only the practices of the
desert monks but the relationship between the Judaean desert
monasteries of the early Byzantine period and the wider society in
which they functioned. Palestinian desert monasticism, unlike that in
Egypt, was closely linked to urban society. Jerusalem - within a day's
walk of almost all the monasteries by the Jordan or the Dead Sea - was

34
For an early example, see the life of St Pachomius, Sancti Pachomii vitae Graecae, vita
prima, 23, ed. F. Halkin, in Life of Pachomius, tr. Apostolos A. Athanassakis (Missoula, GA,
1975), p. 28.
35
William of Tyre, Chronicon, xxi, 16, ed. R. B. C. Huygens, CChr.CM 63A (Turnhout,
1986), p. 984.
36
J. Wortley, T w o unpublished psychophelitic tales', Greek, Roman and Byzantine
Studies, 37 (1996), pp. 281-300, with discussion of all sources. The presence of lions in
the twelfth century is attested in De locis Sanctis, v, 2, p. 40.
37
John Moschus, Pratum spirituale, 107 (PG 87, cols 2965-8).

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 Greek Orthodox Pilgrimage to the Holy Land

close enough to allow both political participation and economic

reliance of the monks on the city. Monasticism in Palestine was not
a distant limb of Orthodoxy but its very heart, no less in the twelfth
than in the sixth century.38
Phokas' 'account of the desert' serves as a reminder of the way in
which pilgrimage to the Holy Land was in the Orthodox world
interwoven with monasticism. The desert monasteries maintained as
an important part of their functions guest-houses for pilgrims, who
could make use of the connecting paths between the monasteries
themselves.39 In the crusader period this function was clearly main-
tained by St Sabas, which owned property for the purpose in
Jerusalem.40 In Byzantine hagiographical literature the journey to
the holy places often functions as a motif to convey the accumulation
of experience and wisdom by a monk during an early stage of his
vocation. Thus, for example, Lazaros of the Galesian Mountain in the
early eleventh century made the pilgrimage to the Holy Land and lived
as a monk at St Sabas and St Euthymius, before returning to Asia
Minor to establish his own community.41 Similarly, Phokas' own
contemporary Neophytus travelled from Cyprus to the Holy Land
to find a master of the monastic life from whom he could learn the
craft of anchoritism, then put the fruit of his experience to use in his
foundation on Mount Paphos, which he called Nea Sion.42 Christo-
doulos' monastery on Patmos, founded at the end of the eleventh
century, specified in its typikon the use of the liturgy of St Sabas, which
Christodoulos had himself experienced while on pilgrimage.43 In the
thirteenth century St Savas of Serbia travelled to the Holy Land to
make a pilgrimage that included a period of residence at St Sabas, and
on his return introduced to Serbia not only the liturgical typikon of St

38
L. Perrone, La chiesa ii Palestina e le controversie cristologiche (Brescia, 1980); B. Hamilton,
The Latin Church in the Crusader States (Aldershot, 1980), pp. 159-88.
39
A fine example of a xenodochium has been excavated at the monastery of Martyrius at
Ma c ale Adumim, east of Jerusalem: Y. Megan and R. Talgam, T h e monastery of Martyrius
at Ma c ale Adumim (Khirbet el-Murassas) and its mosaics', in G. C. Bottini, L. Di Segni, and
E. Alliata, eds, Christian Archaeology in the Holy Land, New Discoveries: Archaeological Essays in
Honour ofVirgilio C. Corho OFM (Jerusalem, 1990), pp. 91-152.
40
Daniel, 15, p. 131.
41
De sancto Lazaro monacho in monte Galesio, ActaSS, 3 Nov., pp. 515-16.
42
F. E. Warren, T h e "Ritual Ordinance" of Neophytus', Archaeologia, 47 (1882),
pp. 12-13.
43
F. Miklosich and J. Miiller, eds, Acta et diplomata Graeca medii aevi, 6 vols (Vienna,
1890), 6, p. 71.

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 ANDREW JOTISCHKY

Sabas but also new architectural forms inspired by Palestinian

monasteries.44
Through pilgrimage, monks engaged with the wider Orthodox
community. Abbot Daniel's account culminates in a vivid description
of the Easter Fire ceremony, in which he participated with the monks
of St Sabas in the Holy Sepulchre. The sense of responsibility conveyed
as he places his lamp on behalf of the Russian people at the tomb, and
recalls in his prayers the Russian princes and bishops, stands out as the
most personal moment of the entire narrative. In the same moment,
however, he is a member of the Orthodox community, privileged to
participate with the monks of St Sabas in the liturgy.45 The association
of a Russian abbot and a Serbian bishop with St Sabas indicates not
only the honour in which the monastery was held throughout the
Orthodox world but also the nature of the Orthodox oikoutnene itself.
In the itinerary of Phokas this oikoumene appears as a political as
well as a spiritual entity. Behind the physical revival of Orthodox
monastic life lies the patronage of Emperor Manuel Comnenus. On
occasion, as for example with the rebuilding of the monasteries of St
Elias and St John Prodromos, Manuel was responding to appeals from
the local Orthodox community.46 Coupled with his pivotal role in the
political life of the Crusader Kingdom in the 1150s to 1170s and his
interest in the reunion of the Churches,47 Manuel's patronage in the
Holy Land indicates an ambition to be seen as the guardian of
Orthodoxy in the Holy Land - an ambition that seems to have been
gratified by the placing of images of himself in the Church of the
Nativity, which Phokas notes with pride.48 Without being overtly
hostile to the Franks, Phokas is sensitive to the ambiguities of their
presence in the shrines. The portraits of the emperor were set up by
'the shepherd of the Latins in that place', rather than the more

44
D. Obolensky, Six Byzantine Portraits (Oxford, 1988), pp. 163-6; S. Popovic, 'Sabaite
influences on the Church of medieval Serbia', in Patrich, The Sabaite Heritage.
45
Daniel, 97, pp. 166-71.
46
Phokas, Descriptio, 27 (PG 133, col. 956). Note also Manuel's patronage in the Holy
Sepulchre and the Church of the Nativity: J. Folda, The Art of the Crusaders in the Holy Land
(Cambridge, 1995), pp. 347-64, 379-82.
47
B. Hamilton, 'Manuel I Comnenus and Baldwin IV ofJerusalem', in J. Chrysostomides,
ed., Kathegetria: Essays Presented to Joan Husseyfor her 80th Birthday (London, 1988), pp. 353—75;
A. Jotischky, 'Manuel Comnenus and the reunion of the Churches: the evidence of the
conciliar mosaics in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem', Levant, 26 (1994), pp. 207-25.
48
Phokas, Descriptio, 27 (PG 133, col. 957).

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straightforward designation 'bishop' - presumably because the Ortho-

dox Church had never recognized Bethlehem as an episcopal see. This
'shepherd', moreover, is said by Phokas to have been 'installed' rather
than elected.49 Behind this lies the consciousness that guardianship of
the Holy Land was in some way the entitlement of Orthodoxy. Phokas
calls Mount Tabor, the site of the Transfiguration, 'the delight of the
eyes of the Orthodox', and remarks on the two monasteries on the hill,
the Latin on the site of the miracle itself, while to the left 'our
Nazarenes are sanctified by and sanctify that holy place'.50 He does not
deny the Latins the right to cultivate the holy places, but save for these
brief allusions there is scarcely any reference to the Latin Church in his
itinerary, or to Frankish political control of the Holy Land. Phokas
might almost have been travelling in a province of the Byzantine
Empire.
Phokas' sense of the oikoumene was also historical. He sought out
solitary monks, just as in an earlier age the 'holy man' was sought out
by petitioners wrestling with both spiritual and mundane problems.51
The factor of revival in the Orthodox Church in Palestine has been
stressed here, but the role of the holy man was perennial, and in
Phokas' own day they could be found anywhere in the Orthodox
world.52 What is striking about Phokas' Georgian monk by the Jordan
is the imitation of historic models of behaviour by both monk and
pilgrim. Like a latter-day John Moschus, Phokas could consult as he
travelled holy men who were engaging in largely the same practices as
their eminent predecessors. Pilgrimage was itself an act of memory, the
textual record of the pilgrimage a further refinement of that act. All
pilgrims engaged in a collective process of remembering. For Orthodox
pilgrims, however, the act of remembering was particularly subtle and
layered. They encountered a kind of dramatized memory in the form
of individuals - such as the Georgian monk by the ruins of St
Gerasimus - dedicated to the imitation of past events and lives in
specific places. The purpose was, as Phokas expresses when he speaks of
sanctifying and at the same time being sanctified by a place, to achieve

49
Ibid., 27 (PG 133, col. 957): the word used is TrapevBeros. H. E. Mayer, Bistumer, Klbster
und Stifte in Konigsreich Jerusalem (Stuttgart, 1977), pp. 55—6.
50
Phokas, Descriptio, 11 (PG 133, cols 936-7): ayia^ofievot 'ayiat,ovai.
51
Peter Brown, T h e rise and function of the holy man in Late Antiquity', Journal of
Roman Studies, 61 (1971), pp. 80-101.
52
P. Magdalino, T h e Byzantine holy man in the twelfth century', in S. Hackel, ed., The
Byzantine Saint (London, 1981), pp. 51-66.

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a state where the act of dramatized remembering itself continues and

extends the act being remembered. In this way Orthodox pilgrims
could affirm a shared identity not only as part of a present community
of believers, but also as part of the historic Orthodox oikoumene.

Lancaster University

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