Objects Materialising the Texts:

Liturgical Objects in the Eastern Orthodox World and their Role in Visual Understanding of the Rite

Programme

The connection between written sources and the materialisation of objects is important for understanding the processes of visual articulation in the Orthodox liturgy and other religious services. Liturgical artefacts reflect not only the artistic but, above all, the religious context of their time. Church utensils made of precious metal were intermediaries that could travel long distances, transporting ideas and iconographic patterns, various types of “secondary decorations”, and the morphological characteristics of certain types of liturgical objects. In this sense, certain types of artefacts play a crucial role in the construction and formation of Eastern Orthodox visual culture and iconography.

Keywords:

Material Culture, Liturgical Objects, Iconography, Liturgical Practices, Early Modern Period

Chairs

Vuk Dautović

University of Belgrade

 Darina Boykina

Institute of Art Studies, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences

Sofia 2024 Call for Papers

The aim of the session is to bring together scholars engaged in the study of liturgical objects, including reliquaries, made of precious metals produced in the early modern period. We invite submissions dealing with the transmission of written sources and their influence on iconographic themes and motifs, as well as the symbolic decorations of liturgical silver. Our intention is to promote the dialogue between verbal and visual culture and the connection between artistically designed church utensils and the Holy Scriptures, liturgical literature, and other written sources.