And he transformed their temple into a church’: The redefinition of sacred spaces in Libya in Late Antiquity

The aim of studying the context in which churches were built in honour of the Theotokos or dedicated to her in North Africa, as well as in the rest of the Empire, during the sixth century, is to gain a more thorough understanding of Justinian I’s political programme, the utility of unifying dogma an...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor: Sánchez Medina, Esther
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2023
País:España
Institución:Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
Repositorio:Biblos-e Archivo. Repositorio Institucional de la UAM
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:repositorio.uam.es:10486/710635
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/10486/710635
https://dx.doi.org/10.3390/rel14070845
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Byzantine Africa
Theotokos
Renovatio imperii
Procopius of Caesarea
Sacred space
Overlapping cults
Religious conversion
Political identity
Historia
Descripción
Sumario:The aim of studying the context in which churches were built in honour of the Theotokos or dedicated to her in North Africa, as well as in the rest of the Empire, during the sixth century, is to gain a more thorough understanding of Justinian I’s political programme, the utility of unifying dogma and the religious conversion of dissident elements, such as pagans, Jews, Samaritans etc. These issues are addressed by analysing the spatial—principally architectural—and rhetorical superposition of Orthodox Christianity on the places of worship of other communities. It is held here that it is possible to demonstrate that this redefinition of space went a long way towards reinforcing the identity of provincial populations, especially in conflictive or border areas, which had to be secured within the territories that the Byzantine Empire had recently recovered so as to guarantee their political loyalty