Constructing Motherhood: The Veneration of the Virgin in Byzantine Culture

The lecture will focus on aspects of the Virgin that gave her the position she holds today and held for many centuries in Orthodox Christianity. Based on surviving visual and textual evidence, it will present some of the reasons and historical circumstances that led to her prominent and exalted position. It will discuss the changes that can be observed in the veneration of the Virgin Mary through the centuries beginning with some of the earliest depictions and the development of her images as late as the 15th-16th centuries. The lecture will especially focus on the period when the Virgin officially became the Mother of God (ΜΗΤΗΡ ΘΕΟΥ), centuries and images that for one reason or another had a great impact in Byzantine religious thought and practice, an impact that is still very much part of our world today.