The Churches are Empty, the Priests are Silent: Rewriting Ritual in Pandemic Times

The Churches are Empty, the Priests are Silent: Rewriting Ritual in Pandemic TimesReligion in the Roman EmpireSyriaca.org: The Syriac Reference PortalThe National Endowment for the HumanitiesThe International Balzan Prize FoundationDavid A. Michelsoncbsc_adminRecord added to Zotero bycbsc_adminSyriaca.org: The Syriac Reference Portalhttp://syriaca.org/cbss/H6V8VLIS/tei

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2024-08-15-04:00

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CREATED: This bibl record was autogenerated from a Zotero record.Maria E.DoerflerThe Churches are Empty, the Priests are Silent: Rewriting Ritual in Pandemic Timeshttp://syriaca.org/cbss/H6V8VLIShttps://www.zotero.org/groups/a_comprehensive_bibliography_on_syriac_studies/items/H6V8VLIShttps://www.zotero.org/groups/4861694/items/H6V8VLISReligion in the Roman Empire8:32022337-364The necrosima, a collection of 85 Syriac funerary hymns ascribed to Ephrem the Syrian, encompasses poetry in a variety of metres, commemorating Christians of all ages, genders, social stations, and professional backgrounds. Four of the madrāshê, moreover, distinguish themselves by attending to death on a broader communal scale, namely in the context of pandemic and plague. In both form and context of preservation, these hymns were manifestly part of a community's ritual repertoire. At the same time, however, they witness to periods in which ordinary ritual pathways had broken down. In the midst of sickness and bereavement, the hymns suggest, churches stood empty, clergy mourned the loss of their brothers, even burials had ceased in light of death's relentless onslaught. This article seeks to examine contexts of disaster as spaces for reconfiguring communities' ritual practices in late antiquity, including the recovery of different models for engaging the divine. Doerfler, Maria E. “The Churches Are Empty, the Priests Are Silent: Rewriting Ritual in Pandemic Times.” Religion in the Roman Empire 8:3 (2022): 337–64. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1628/rre-2022-0022. Maria E. Doerfler, The Churches Are Empty, the Priests Are Silent: Rewriting Ritual in Pandemic Times, Religion in the Roman Empire 8:3 (2022): 337–64, https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1628/rre-2022-0022.EphremEphremiana [Syriac]IV-VII CEPseudo-Ephremdeathhymnographyillnessnatural disastersplaguepoetry