St Clement of Rome: Basilica of St Clement, Rome
St Polycarp of Smyrna: Basilica of St Polycarp, Izmir, Turkey
St Justin Martyr: Capuchin Church of St Mary of the Conception, Rome
St Irenaeus of Lyons: Church of St Irenaeus, Lyon (relics destroyed by Protestants)
St Cyprian of Carthage: Abbaye Saint Corneille, Compeigne, France
St Athanasius the Great: St Mark’s Cathedral, Cairo
St Nicholas of Myra: Basilica of St Nicholas, Bari, Italy
St Basil the Great: Great Lavra, Mount Athos (his skull)
St Gregory Nazianzen: Church of St George in the Phanar, Constantinople
St Gregory Nyssa: Basilica of St Peter, Vatican City
St Ephrem the Syrian: somewhere in Sanliurfa, Turkey (location lost)
St John Chrysostom: Church of St George in the Phanar, Constantinople
St Maximus the Confessor: formerly in Constantinople, now lost (?)
St John of the Ladder: Monastery of St Catherine, Sinai
St John of Damascus: formerly in St Saba Monastery near Jerusalem, apparently his relics were taken to Moscow in the 19th century
Monthly Archives: April 2007
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Well, how about that?
By the skin of my teeth, I’ve made it into the Top 50 Biblical Studies Blogs. I didn’t even know about this until seeing it on Rick Brannon’s Ricoblog, where he kindly mentions that he thinks my blog and the excellent Thoughts on Antiquity should rank higher. Modestly, I agree.
Apparently, one votes by clicking the little arrow that points upward next to the blog’s name, if one is so inclined.
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Where are they now?
Places where the largest collection of relics of the Twelve and various Saints reside:
St Peter: Basilica of St Peter, Vatican City
St Andrew: Cathedral of St Andrew, Amalfi, Italy
St James, son of Zebedee: Santiago de Compostela (“Holy Jacob of the Field of Stars”)
St John: Cathedral of St John, Ephesus (ruined, but body disappeared long ago)
St Philip: Church of the Holy Apostles, Rome
St Bartholomew: Basilica of St Bartholomew, Island in the Tiber, Rome
St Thomas: Cathedral of St Thomas, Ortona, Italy
St Matthew: Cathedral of St Matthew, Salreno, Italy
St James, son of Alphaeus: Church of the Holy Apostles, Rome
St Judas Thaddaeus: Basilica of St Peter, Vatican City
St Simon the Zealot: Basilica of St Peter, Vatican City
St Matthias: St Matthias Church, Trier, Germany
St Paul: St Paul’s Outside The Walls, Rome
St Timothy: St Paul’s Outside The Walls, Rome
St James, the brother of Jesus: Armenian Cathedral of St James, Jerusalem
St Mark: Cathedral of St Mark, Cairo, Egypt
St Luke: Basilica of St Justina, Padua, Italy (his body)
Cathedral of St Vitus, Prague (head)
St Barnabas: Monastery of St Barnabas, Salamis, Cyprus
St Stephen: Rotunda of St Stephen, Rome
St Titus: Church of St Titus, Heraklion, Crete
St John the Forerunner: Great Mosque, Damascus (his head)
St Ignatius of Antioch: Church of St Clement, Rome
Something I would love to do would be to touch the first page of each of the various New Testament books to the reliquaries of their authors. I’m sure that sounds bizarre to some readers, but to others, it’ll sound as wonderful as I think it would be. Maybe someday . . . .
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Psalms post/superscripts
The superscripts or titles of the Psalms in the Old Testament have always been quite a puzzling thing. The differences in text between the Masoretic and Septuagintal traditions notwithstanding, the meanings of individual words and phrases continue to elude us, and suggestions for their meanings appear to still be as numerous as the commentators thereon. Aside from these issues of meaning, however, there is the simple issue of the arrangement of these “blurbs,” which some have proposed should actually be split into titles or superscripts, and postscripts or colophons.
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Which Church Father are you?
Mike Aquilina at The Way of the Fathers has posted a really fun and funny quiz: Which Church Father are you?. I came up as Melito of Sardis, with the results saying:
You have a great love of history and liturgy.
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