Greek text, English translation and commentary
Author: Cynthia Stallman-Pacitti
Editor: John Bernard Burke
Byzantina Australiensia vol. 22 (Leiden 2018)
ISBN 978-90-04-36621-3 (hardback)
ISBN 978-90-04-36644-2 (e-book)
ISSN: 0725-3079
xii + 526 pages
Copies may be ordered online. AABS financial members are eligible for a 25% discount. Brill has set up a promotion code for AABS members; please email the Secretary, Amelia Brown, at secretary@aabs.org.au to obtain the code.
The Life of St Pankratios of Taormina describes the mission and martyrdom of St Pankratios, a disciple of the Apostle Peter sent to evangelize Taormina as its first bishop and purports to have been written by St Pankratios’ successor, Euagrios. The text was composed in the early eighth century and is of Sicilian provenance. The Life contributes to our understanding of the Byzantine attitude to the past and of the novelistic approach to hagiography. It touches on the topography of Sicily and Calabria, ecclesiastical arrangements in Sicily, civil and military administration, the Sicilian language question, church decoration, liturgical rites, book production and the attitude to religious images.