Geographies of Encounter: The Making and Unmaking of Multi-Religious Spaces 3030825248, 9783030825249

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Geographies of Encounter The Making and Unmaking of Multi-Religious Spaces Edited by Marian Burchardt · Maria Chiara Giorda

Geographies of Encounter

Marian Burchardt  •  Maria Chiara Giorda Editors

Geographies of Encounter The Making and Unmaking of Multi-Religious Spaces

Editors Marian Burchardt Institute of Sociology Leipzig University Leipzig, Germany

Maria Chiara Giorda Department of Humanistic Studies Roma Tre University Rome, Italy

ISBN 978-3-030-82524-9    ISBN 978-3-030-82525-6 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82525-6 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the ­publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and ­institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: Khashayar Javanmardi / EyeEm This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Acknowledgements

Spaces are marked by divergent religious artefacts and practices and these artefacts and practices tell us something about encounters between people. Our project began with this simple insight. Over time, it has allowed us to intellectually penetrate and, as a matter of fact, render intelligible and comparable a wide host of interreligious encounters and their spatial underpinnings, in historical settings ranging from antiquity to the present. More concretely, this book grew out of a series of panel discussions. These include some international seminaries and workshops: The International Seminar “New Spaces and Architectures of the Sacred”, organized by The Bruno Kessler Foundation in Trento, on 5 April 2018; The International Workshop “Materializing Tolerance: Multi-Religious Paces Between Conflict and Accommodation”, held at the Roma Tre University and La Sapienza University of Rome, on 29 November 2018; The International Workshop “Geographies of Encounter: The Rise and the Fall of Multi-­ Religious Spaces”, held via Zoom on 5 October 2020. A first attempt to gather some papers on this topic was concretized in 2019 with the publishing of a special issue of the Annali di Studi Religiosi, titled Materializzare la tolleranza: luoghi multi-religiosi tra conflitto e adattamento, that we edited. We are especially indebted to Amelie Blaser and Johanna Schröpfer. As research assistants at Leipzig University, they offered tremendous help in compiling the manuscript. We also wish to thank Therese Mager (Leipzig University) Robert Parkin (Oxford University) for the wonderful support of the language edits. Finally, the production of the book was made very enjoyable by the competence and kindness of Palgrave editor, Elizabeth Graber. v

Contents

1 Geographies of Encounter: The Making and Unmaking of Multi-Religious Spaces—An Introduction  1 Marian Burchardt and Maria Chiara Giorda

Part I Multi-Religious Cities  27 2 Unholy Religious Encounters and the Development of Jerusalem’s Urban Landscape: Between Particularism and Exceptionalism 29 Nimrod Luz 3 Ancient Rome: The Shrinking and Growth of Religious Diversity in a Cosmopolitan City 55 Jörg Rüpke 4 A Pagan Temple, a Martyr Shrine, and a Synagogue in Daphne: Sharing Religious Sites in Fourth Century Antioch 75 Maureen Attali and Francesco Massa 5 Constantinople as a (Unwilling) Multireligious Space (330–1453) 99 Przemyslaw Marciniak vii

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6 Religious Diversity and the Long Nineteenth Century: Exploring Port Cities113 Cristiana Facchini

Part II Multi-Religious Places 133 7 Cohabiting in an Imaginary Space: Ancient Jewish and Christian Representations of the Temple and the Tabernacle135 Carla Noce 8 Touristification as a Strategy for Peaceful Coexistence: The Case Study of the Sveti Naum Monastery (Macedonia)155 Evelyn Reuter 9 The Interreligious Complex at Vulcana-­Băi in Romania: A Multi-Religious Place Between Idealism and Pragmatism179 Ioan Cozma 10 The “Casa delle religioni” of Turin: A Multi-­Level Project Between Religious and Secular205 Luca Bossi and Maria Chiara Giorda 11 Multi-Religious Places by Design: Space, Materiality, and Media in Berlin’s House of One231 Marian Burchardt

Part III Multi-Religious Landscapes 253 12 The Veneration of St. Yared: A Multireligious Landscape Shared by Ethiopian Orthodox Christians and the Betä Ǝsraʾel (Ethiopian Jews)255 Sophia Dege-Müller and Bar Kribus

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13 A Shared Holy Landscape: The Reactualization of Egypt’s Sacred History and Geography in Medieval Islamic Thought281 Luca Patrizi 14 Spatial Arrangements for Conviviality: The Garden of Faiths as a Multi-Religious Landscape in Germany303 Rasool Akbari and Mahdi Hasanzadeh Index321

Notes on Contributors

Rasool  Akbari holds a PhD in Comparative Religions from Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Iran. To carry out his binationally supervised doctoral project, 2018–2020, he was an invited researcher at ZeKK (the Centre for Comparative Theology and Cultural Studies), Paderborn University of Germany. His postgraduate research was particularly focused on the ambivalent presences of religion in conflict and peace building. His research interests include digital and material religion, multi-religious space, contemporary Shiite Islam, political Islam, Iranian religiosities in diaspora, and religion in contemporary Iran. Maureen Attali  is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of History at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland. She is a member of the research project “Religious Competition in Late Antiquity: A Laboratory of New Categories, Taxonomies and Methods (ReLAB)”, funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation. She specializes in religious interactions and Ancient Judaism, from the Hellenistic period until the seventh century CE. Luca Bossi,  sociologist, carried out a PhD in Social and Political Change at the Universities of Turin (Department of Culture, Politics and Societies) and Florence (Department of Social and Political Sciences), and in Sciences of Religions in co-tutorship with the University of Lausanne (Institut de Sciences Sociales des Religions). His areas of research include cultural and religious diversity; migration and social inclusion; politics and policies for minorities; urban contexts, diversity management; and coexistence. He is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Turin. xi

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Marian  Burchardt  is Professor of Sociology at Leipzig University. His research explores how power, diversity, and subjectivity play out in public space. He is the author of Faith in the Times of AIDS (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015) and Regulating Difference: Religious Diversity and Nationhood in the Secular West (2020) and co-editor of Topographies of Faith: Religion in Urban Spaces (2013) and Affective Trajectories: Religion and Emotion in African Cityscapes (2019). His work appeared in International Sociology, Current Sociology, Sociology of Religion, Social Compass, and Comparative Sociology. Ioan  Cozma is Professor of Byzantine Canon Law in the Faculty of Eastern Canon Law at the Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome, Italy. His research interests are in comparative religious law, inter-religious conflicts, Byzantine law, monasticism, and religious places. He co-authored the book Căsătoriași Familia. Izvoare legislative bisericeștișilaice (sec. XX– XXI) (Marriage and Family: Church and Secular Legislative Sources, XX– XXI centuries, 2020). Sophia  Dege-Müller  is a researcher both at the Center for Religious Studies in Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany and at the HiobLudolf Center for Ethiopian Studies in Hamburg University, Germany. She has dedicated her main focus to the interaction of Jews (Beta Israel) and Christians in Ethiopia, and has defined the field of Beta Israel manuscript studies. Cristiana  Facchini is Full Professor of History of Christianity and Religious Studies at the University of Bologna. Several times she has been Fellow at the Max Weber Center for Advanced Cultural and Social Studies at the University of Erfurt. She studied in Bologna, specializing in Oxford and Jerusalem. She holds a PhD in Jewish Studies from the University of Turin. In 2015, she was one of the keynote speakers at the XXI IAHR World Congress. She is working on two projects: Religious Diversity & Urbanity: A Historical Journey (pursued part-time at the Max-Weber-Kolleg in Erfurt), and Questioning God? Jewish and Christian Theologies after Auschwitz (Maimonides Centre for Jewish Skepticism, Hamburg). Maria  Chiara  Giorda  is Associate Professor of History of Religions in the Department of Humanities Studies at Roma Tre University in Rome, Italy. She is the co-editor of the book Manuale di Scienze della religione (Handbook of Religious Sciences, 2019) with G. Filoramo and N. Spineto

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and her interests are in religious diversity in public space, geography of religions, and history of monasticism. Mahdi  Hasanzadeh is an associate professor in the Department of Comparative Religions and Mysticism and serves as the Vice Dean for Research and Education at the Theology Faculty, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Iran. His scholarly work mainly includes theories of religion, Iranian religions of the pre-Islamic period, and comparative mysticism. Bar Kribus  is a researcher at the Center for Religious Studies of the Ruhr University, Bochum. He specializes in Late Antique and medieval Ethiopian archaeology and the history and material culture of the Betä Ǝsraʾel (Ethiopian Jews). He recently finished his PhD at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem on the topic of Betä Ǝsraʾel monasticism and monasteries, and was a member of the ERC JewsEast project. As part of his PhD research, he led, together with Sophia Dege-Müller, an archaeological survey of Betä Ǝsraʾel monasteries in Ethiopia. He holds a Minerva fellowship and is conducting research on the archaeological and geographical aspects of Betä Ǝsraʾel political autonomy in the Səmen Mountains and the Betä Ǝsraʾel–Solomonic wars. Nimrod  Luz serves as the Head of Research Authority at Kinneret College on the Sea of Galilee and is a faculty member at both Land of Israel Studies and Behavioral Studies Departments. He is a cultural-­ political geographer specializing in religion, food, and landscape theories. His interdisciplinary research and interests are the multiple and reflexive relations among society, culture (politics), and the built environment, with a special focus on the Middle East, both past and present. His publications involve a wide variety of themes, including cities and urban theory, religion and the politics of sacred landscapes, anthropology of food, and comparative analysis of religious landscapes. His current research focuses on the infrastructures of urban religiocity in Acre, Israel. Przemyslaw  Marciniak is Professor of Byzantine Literature at the University of Silesia in Katowice, Poland. He works on twelfth-century Byzantine literature, Byzantine humour, and performativity, as well as on the cultural history of animals in Byzantium. He has taught and held research positions in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Sweden, and the United States. He has published extensively on Byzantine satire and the reception of Byzantium in literature.

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Francesco Massa  is an assistant professor in the Department of History at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland. His research interests include history of ancient religions and the religious interactions in the Roman Empire. He is the author of Tra la vigna e la croce. Dioniso nei discorsi letterari e figurativi cristiani (2014); he recently edited with N. Belayche, Mystery Cults in Visual Representation in Graeco-Roman Antiquity (2021). Carla Noce  is Associate Professor of Christian History in the Department of Humanities at Roma Tre University, Italy. Her recent publications include S. A. Robbe & C. Noce, Translating Eusebius’ “Church History” in the West and in the East: Rufinus and his contemporary Syriac colleague, in M.  Conterno & M.  Mazzola (Eds), Intercultural Exchange in Late Antique Historiography, (2019); C.  Noce (translation and commentary) Origenis. In Leviticum Homiliae (I–VII). (2020); C. Noce, La veste del sacerdotecristianofraspuntiesegetici ed esigenzeascetiche. Un’indaginesul punto di vista di Girolamo, a partiredallaletteraallaromana Fabiola, in I. Schaaf (Ed.), Hieronymus Romanus. Studies on Jerome and Rome on the Occasion of the 1600th Anniversary of his Death (2021). Her main scientific interests are Origen, editions, and translations of ancient Christian texts, gender relations, and early Syriac Christianity. Luca Patrizi  teaches Islamic Studies at the University of Turin. His main research areas are the history of Islam in the context of the history of religions, and Islamic Esotericism. He studied at the Universities of Turin, Aix-en-Provence, and the University of Naples “Orientale”, and has worked at the University of Geneva, Sorbonne Paris, and Bonn. His recent publications include “‘A gemstone among the stones’: the symbolism of precious stones in Islam and its relation with language”, Historia Religionum 10, 2018; “The metaphor of the Divine Banquet and the origin of the notion of Adab”, In Knowledge and Education in Classical Islam, edited by S. Günther, Brill 2019. Evelyn  Reuter is a teaching assistant in the Department of Religious Studies at the Universities of Bremen, and in the Department for Slavistics and Caucasiology at the University of Jena, Germany. She is the author of Die Mehrdeutigkeit geteilter religiöser Orte. Eine ethnographische Fallstudie zum Kloster Sveti Naum in Ohrid (Mazedonien) (The Ambiguity of Shared Religious Places. An Ethnographic Case Study on the Monastery SvetiNaum in Ohrid (Macedonia) (2021)). Her research interests include shared religious places, religious contacts, religious minorities, Sufi orders, pilgrimages, and post-socialist transformation in Southeastern Europe.

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Jörg  Rüpke  studied at the Universities of Bonn, Lancaster (UK), and Tübingen before teaching at the University of Constance (1994–1995) and the University of Potsdam (Classical Philology, 1995–1999). Since 1999, he has held various positions at the University of Erfurt, including Chair of Comparative Religion, Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy, and interim president of the university. Since 2008, he has served as Co-director for the Research Group, “Religious Individualization in Historical Perspective”. A recipient of the Prix Gay-Lussac-Humboldt in 2008 and a 2009 Fellow of the Humanity Council at Princeton University, he has been a guest lecturer at the Sorbonne and Stanford University, as well as a visiting professor to the Collège de France, Aarhus University, and the University of Chicago.

List of Figures

Fig. 2.1

Fig. 2.2 Fig. 2.3 Fig. 4.1 Fig. 8.1 Fig. 8.2

Fig. 8.3 Fig. 8.4

Multireligious landscape of Jerusalem—early eighth century. I wish to thank Mrs. Nava Mosco for her wonderful translation of my thoughts into a legible figure. The idea follows that of Grabar in The Shape of the Holy: Early Islamic Jerusalem (Princeton, 1996) Cambrai Map of Jerusalem 1150 (http://allaboutjerusalem. com/gallery-­image/cambrai-­map-­jerusalem-­1150/279) The church of the holy Sepulchre and the two flanking minarets ca. 1910 (probably by a photographer named Watson) Panel of the Yakto mosaic (Photo © Dick Osseman) The Sveti Naum monastery attracts many visitors because of its religious and historical meaning as well as its location. This image used with permission of Evelyn Reuter (2018) In red boxes added by the author, the map shows the visited places of the multilocal field research. The author annotated this map based upon data from Google. Map data © 2019, Google/Additional Content Partner The vessels for the blessing of water are prepared in the early morning of July 3rd. This image used with permission of Evelyn Reuter (2018) The entrance of the monasterial complex was erected by the church with a table for orientation on the right; in the background are the wooden souvenir booths. This image used with permission of Evelyn Reuter (2016)

38 42 43 80 156

157 163

170

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List of Figures

Fig. 8.5 Fig. 9.1 Fig. 9.2 Fig. 9.3 Fig. 9.4 Fig. 9.5 Fig. 9.6 Fig. 10.1

Fig. 10.2

Fig. 10.3

Locals visiting the annual fair on the evening before the summer feast day. This image used with permission of Evelyn Reuter (2016) 172 The interreligious complex: The Orthodox skete (middle), the synagogue (left), and the mosque (right). This image used with permission of Ioan Cozma (May 2020) 184 The Orthodox Skete of St. John the Baptist. This image used with permission of Ioan Cozma (May 2020) 186 The synagogue. This image used with permission of Ioan Cozma (May 2020) 188 The mosque. This image used with permission of Ioan Cozma (May 2020) 190 The Harmony Gate. This image used with permission of Ioan Cozma (May 2020) 191 The former headquarters of the IEC. This image used with permission of Ioan Cozma (May 2020) 192 The Project. Credits: Cultural Project: Maria Chiara Giorda, Luca Bossi, Daniele Campobenedetto. Architectural Project: Daniele Campobenedetto and Caterina Barioglio. Rendering: Equoatelier216 The city of Turin (north-western Italy) has a long history of religious diversity, much of which is driven by migrations and today, the city faces unprecedented religious diversification. In order to cope with religious spatial needs, the city council issued a call for proposals to provide the town with a multi-faith space dedicated to local minorities. The project for a Casa delle religioni was chosen in 2016. A three-year participative process involved twenty religious organizations in the shared definition of needs, practices, and intentions with regard to the common use of space. Credits: Cultural Project: Maria Chiara Giorda, Luca Bossi, Daniele Campobenedetto. Architectural Project: Daniele Campobenedetto and Caterina Barioglio. Rendering: Equoatelier217 A former industrial space, on the outskirts of the city, is chosen as a shelter for a shared space among different religions. A big hall is divided into four main spaces: two wooden cabins are the home for an orthodox chapel and a little mosque, while the remaining spaces are devoted to other religious activities carried out for communities that are not in need of dedicated spaces, and a library. These partitions however are not fixed. The spatial distribution of the hall can be changed according to different needs of the

  List of Figures 

Figs. 10.4 and 10.5

Fig. 10.6 Fig. 11.1 Fig. 11.2 Fig. 11.3 Fig. 11.4 Fig. 11.5 Fig. 12.1 Fig. 12.2 Fig. 12.3

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communities over daily and weekly time. Credits: Cultural Project: Maria Chiara Giorda, Luca Bossi, Daniele Campobenedetto. Architectural Project: Daniele Campobenedetto and Caterina Barioglio. Rendering: Equoatelier218 1—The basic spatial configuration sees the two wooden cabins dedicated to orthodox (red) and Islam (green) worship. At the same time, the other spaces (blue) are devoted to free activities and other forms of prayer. 2—On Fridays or when the Muslim community needs more space, the mosque cabin can be opened, and the common ground (blue) can be temporarily devoted to Muslim religious activities. 3—On Sundays, the common ground can be transformed into an extension of the Romanian Orthodox chapel, hosting activities parallel to the function in the chapel. 4—On special occasions (conferences, festivals), the two wooden cabins can be open and become an extension of the common ground. In these cases, a portion of both the cabins remains permanently devoted to worship activities. Credits: Cultural Project: Maria Chiara Giorda, Luca Bossi, Daniele Campobenedetto. Architectural Project: Daniele Campobenedetto and Caterina Barioglio. Rendering: Equoatelier219 Network of Actors 222 Gertraudenstrasse, © Kuehn Malvezzi, Visualization: Davide Abbonacci, Kuehn Malvezzi 233 Floor plan of the first floor. © Kuehn Malvezzi 242 Positive Emotions toward the House of One (chart by Therese Mager) 248 Negative Emotions toward the House of One (chart by Therese Mager) 249 Most common emotions toward the House of One (chart by Therese Mager) 250 The regions formerly inhabited by the Betä Ǝsraʾel, map by Bar Kribus 256 The Sǝmen Mountains and surrounding regions, map by Bar Kribus258 Yared’s foot being pierced by Gäbrä Mäsqäl’s staff and the three heavenly birds sitting in the tree above Yared. Ms. Qäranyo Medḫane Aläm, EAP 423-1-10, fol. 1v, © British Library Board, Endangered Archives Programme, courtesy of Mersha Alehegne Mengistie, https://eap.bl.uk/archive-­file/ EAP432-­1-­10 262

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List of Figures

Fig. 12.4 Fig. 12.5 Fig. 12.6 Fig. 14.1 Fig. 14.2

Christian monastic and ecclesiastical centers in which St. Yared is venerated, map by Bar Kribus Sites associated with St. Yared, map by Bar Kribus Sites dedicated to St. Yared and Betä Ǝsraʾel strongholds mentioned in Susǝnyos’ chronicle, map by Bar Kribus The Pavilion© Rasool Akbari & Mahdi Hasanzadeh, July 2018 The Pavilion and the Seven Gardens of Faiths © GlaubensGarten (2017b)

263 270 273 308 309

CHAPTER 1

Geographies of Encounter: The Making and Unmaking of Multi-Religious Spaces—An Introduction Marian Burchardt and Maria Chiara Giorda

This book explores forms of multi-religious cohabitation and the spatial arrangements that underpin and shape them.1 We thus follow the premise that relationships between people belonging to different religious communities and the social interactions that sustain them produce and occur in and through spaces, the nature of which has a powerful influence on socialities across the boundaries of religious difference, enabling some 1  We wish to thank Nimrod Luz for very valuable comments on an earlier iteration of this text.

M. Burchardt (*) Institute of Sociology, Leipzig University, Leipzig, Germany e-mail: [email protected] M. C. Giorda Department of Humanistic Studies, Roma Tre University, Rome, Italy e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 M. Burchardt, M. C. Giorda (eds.), Geographies of Encounter, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82525-6_1

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socialities while discouraging others. The social and the spatial are therefore interdependent. While displaying some degree of religious differentiation, in many societies in early human history religion was strongly socially embedded and therefore not prone to schisms and splits.2 This changed with the religious innovations of the so-called ‘Axial Age’ (Eisenstadt, 1982; Jaspers, 1949) and became more pronounced with the growing intensity of human mobility and migration (see Rüpke, in this volume). Whereas it is surely true that many subsequent social formations have been, to varying degrees, religiously plural, this pluralism has not always been a defining feature of their social dynamics and historical development. In this book, by contrast, we are interested in social and spatial scenarios in which religious multiplicity is particularly salient and socially consequential. Our interest in multi-religious spaces is driven by a range of empirical observations. First, there has been surge in public debates and disputes across the world, in particular around iconic multi-religious places or places of multi-religious heritage. Recent debates have centred, among other issues, on the Turkish government’s decision to reconvert the world-­ famous Hagia Sophia (Ayasofya-iKebir Cami-i Şerifi) from a secular museum into a Sunni mosque, after it had been an Eastern Orthodox Christian cathedral (and for a short period a Catholic shrine) from its foundation until 1453. Similar debates have surrounded the efforts made by the Catholic Church to cleanse the Mosque-Cathedral of Cordoba from its Islamic heritage (Astor et al., 2019) and on the ongoing conflicts over Jerusalem’s Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount (Luz, this volume). In the shadow of these well-known debates, numerous multi-religious practices occur that rarely attract international scholarly attention. In the early nineties, an interreligious complex at Vulcana-Băi was the main project of the International Ecumenical Centre, a non-governmental organization of the laity and clerics of different religions founded in Romania with the purpose to promote religious pluralism, ecumenical dialogue and deeper mutual understanding among various religions (Cozma, this volume). In North Macedonia, both Orthodox Christians and Muslims visit

2  In line with Rüpke (in this volume), we acknowledge the difficulties involved in using the term ‘religion’ in discussions about premodern periods. As Attali and Massa (in this volume) argue with regard to late Antioch, for instance, rather than having religious identities, people were adherents of one or several cults. Thus, while perhaps not being religiously plural, many settings in Mediterranean antiquity displayed a plurality of cults.

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the SvetiNaum Monastery in order to venerate a Christian saint and an Islamic missionary at the same site (Reuter, this volume). At the same time, an increasing number of constructions of multi-faith centres have been established by design, which are meant to promote interreligious encounters and multiculturalism (Crompton, 2013). Prominent examples include the ‘Houses of Religions’ in Bern and Turin (Bossi & Giorda, this volume) and Berlin’s iconic ‘House of One’ (Burchardt, this volume). Such elite-driven projects have emerged against the backdrop of ongoing nationalist mobilizations that often reinforce social fragmentation and the marginalization of religious minorities. These are outcomes of the notion that interreligious dialogue and tolerance are pivotal for convivial coexistence in the religiously super diverse cities of contemporary societies (Burchardt & Becci, 2016). Importantly, there has also been increasing interest in the different historical configurations of multi-­ religious spaces and the forms of sociality they enabled. Cultivated in transnational intellectual debates, this interest is often driven by the belief that historical models of multi-religious cohabitation, such as those captured by the term convivencia, may offer solutions for contemporary conflicts (Hartman, 2017; Wolf, 2009).3 While remaining agnostic on this latter point, we suggest that historical research is particularly suitable for elucidating the social and political changes that have prompted the emergence of such spaces in the first place, as well as their endurance. Over the last few decades, scholarly attention and public sensibilities towards issues of religious pluralism and diversity have increased persistently. Especially since the end of the Cold War, worldwide religious revivals and fundamentalisms have buttressed the role of religion as an identity category, a marker of cultural difference and a platform on which to make claims to collective power and citizenship (Almond et al., 2003; Buruma, 2010; Juergensmeyer, 1993). Among liberals, this has led to increasing concerns about peaceful interreligious tolerance and stimulated new forms of interreligious dialogue (Griera et  al., 2018). Yet, what political and philosophical debates about religious pluralism and tolerance (Brown, 2009; Honneth, 1992; Nussbaum, 2012; Taylor & Gutmann, 1997) tend to hide is the fact that, as encounters among people, multi-religious encounters are always embedded in particular spatial arrangements, taking 3  There is an intense and sophisticated debate about how peaceful and convivial interreligious relationships in Al-Andalus actually were. Catlos (2018) highlights the fact that interreligious harmony in Al-Andalus was more a matter of convenience than conviction.

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place at certain sites that are part of particular spatial surroundings. Spaces are marked by relationships between centres and peripheries, crisscrossed or enveloped by boundaries of different sorts, made habitable through infrastructures and architectures, and rendered legible through maps and significations. By virtue of all of this, they indelibly structure social life. For this reason, we suggest that spatial arrangements have a deep impact on and coevolve with multi-religious cohabitations. By spatial arrangements we understand the territorial and non-­territorial configurations that intentionally or unintentionally emerge from sustained social interactions, and which may have multiple scales of representation. Such spatial arrangements are the outcomes of practices of imagination, symbolization and institutionalization: they can result from the religious visions and political utopias of elites and religious virtuosi, from divergent forms of governmentality or from the everyday religious routines of ordinary people, through dynamic practice. Focusing on interactions between different religious groups and traditions, we conceptualize three types of spatial arrangement and explore how they operate as geographies of encounter, for example, as multi-­ religious cities, multi-religious places and multi-religious landscapes. Geographically, this volume centres on regions spanning Central Europe, the Mediterranean and North Africa, which historically have been sites of highly significant encounters among the Abrahamic religions, as well as other traditions. Composed of thirteen case studies authored by a variety of scholars ranging from historians to sociologists, geographers and anthropologists, we demonstrate the multiple ways in which geographies of interreligious encounters and forms of multi-religious cohabitation have changed throughout history as an outcome of their embeddedness in different frameworks of political organization (e.g., kingdoms, empires, city-states, nation states), shifting religious ideologies and changing forms of human mobility. Multi-religious spaces are localities on different scales which have been established, owned, inhabited and used by different religious groups in earlier historical periods, or are jointly used by them as such in the present. Furthermore, they are claimed by two or more communities of different religious traditions. Hence, they are material manifestations of religious encounters, plural religious histories and bodies of heritage illustrating often controversial interreligious relationships. Yet importantly, the patterns of religious use, spatial organization and ideological significance in these multi-religious spaces challenge some of the theoretical assumptions

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and empirical findings of studies on religion and space, thus constituting an exciting and promising field of research. In this book, we explore the conditions which shape the organization of multi-religious spaces, the political stakes of the diverse actors involved in them, and the consequences of particular spatial arrangements and everyday practices used by populations and societies more generally. As just mentioned, multi-religious spaces have turned into highly politicized symbols of the quality of social coexistence in diverse societies. Indeed, societies’ abilities to manage them in just and consensual ways are often viewed as an indication of their capacities to achieve (or preserve) social harmony, peace and political stability (Barkey, 2014). Multi-religious spaces are thus symbols of both failed and successful coexistence, while the immense symbolic value which they carry typically hinges upon the complex politics of collective memory and social imagination that are linked to them. Broadly, the shape of these politics has to do with the question of ownership (of land or buildings) and the different ideological stakes of the actors involved. If multi-religious spaces are currently inhabited, owned and run in a domineering or exclusivist fashion by hegemonic groups, nationalist elites and social groups tend to fashion them as testimonies of historical victories and religious supremacy. Conversely, former religious adherents or owners view them with nostalgia, regret over the loss of their former glory and power, and sometimes as symbols of their unjust treatment by majority societies.4 If multi-religious spaces are dominated by minority religions, nationalist elites often frame these spaces as a blow to their national pride. As symbols of unjust historical defeats, such places remain as stains on the image of the nation that more or less constantly provide the conditions for tension or self-victimization in public discourses.5 While the political significance of multi-religious spaces in religiously diverse societies is beyond dispute, relatively little is known about the social, political and religious dynamics that shape them as sites of symbolic

4  Post-imperial and postcolonial nostalgias are central elements in the affective politics surrounding iconic religious sites that have been taken over by new rulers after conquest. With regard to Al-Andalus, see Hirschkind (2020). 5  Importantly, it is not necessarily the religious majority that is responsible for intolerance of minorities: more important is the question of who is hegemonic. For example, in Bahrain and Abu Dhabi a small fraction of Sunnis dominate the Shiites who are the overwhelming majority.

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and political power and of everyday religious rituals. This volume addresses these questions head-on by focusing on the following set of questions: (1) What are the reasons that particular spaces (places of worship, cities and landscapes) become sites of multi-religious histories, encounters and engagements? We are interested in how factors such as, for instance, a location in a frontier zone, the repeated shifting of territorial and political borders or the dynamics of religious schism favour the emergence of multi-religious spaces. (2) What are the concrete political meanings of multi-religious spaces (and of patterns of cohabitation, ownership and religious use) for political rulers, elites and nation states? How do multi-religious spaces acquire these meanings, and what are the practices that produce them? (3) What are the forms of everyday organization in multi-religious spaces, including their management, spatial division and access for different constituencies? What are the forces that shape these forms? And what is their role in facilitating coexistence or conflict among religious communities and the surrounding populations? (4) What are the broader social and political consequences of particular arrangements and forms of organization in multi-religious spaces? Do different arrangements have the power to steer political debates and the nexus of religion and nationhood in particular directions? Providing answers to these questions, we seek to intervene in two thriving bodies of scholarly literature and to create analytical bridges between them: first, the conceptual discussion of the relationships between religion, place and space that takes its cues from the ‘spatial turn’ in the social sciences broadly, and in the study of religion in particular; and second, anthropological studies of what are mostly called shared or mixed sacred places.6 While this second body of literature has offered immensely valuable insights into one type of multi-religious space, we suggest that much can be gained from an analytical approach that compares different types and that looks at how these are related to one another. In addition, much of this literature centres on the sharing of sacred sites in (early) modern 6  Regarding spatial approaches to the study of religion, see Chidester and Linenthal (1995), Knott (2005) and Tweed (2009); on shared sacred spaces, see the volumes edited by Albera and Couroucli (2012), Barkan and Barkey (2014), Bowman (2012) and Hayden et al. (2016).

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empires (especially the Habsburg, Ottoman, British and French colonial empires, including the Indian sub-continent), and the ways these sites have come under pressure through processes of nation-building and state formation. Earlier historical periods are still often left out. In addressing multi-religious spaces in the ancient Roman world, Late Antiquity, medieval Byzantium and Ethiopia, we seek to enrich the debate by incorporating insights from research on these periods into this volume. In conceptual terms, we suggest that studies of shared sacred sites do not always fully capitalize on existing theories of religious space and the history of religions. Conversely, theories of religion and space have tended to neglect multi-religious spaces as paradigmatic scenarios. It thus seems that synthesizing the insights from both fields of investigation opens up new analytical vistas that may be fruitful for the analysis of both historical and contemporary cases. Conversing with existing work, we now develop our conceptual framework in greater detail.

From Shared Sacred Sites to Multi-Religious Spaces In many ways, research on late medieval and modern empires has proved to be an immensely fruitful starting point for exploring the rise and fall of multi-religious sites. European colonial intrusions into the Americas, Asia and Africa typically went hand in hand with the expansion of Christian missions and proselytism, introducing a host of new spatial formats (for Africa, see Burchardt, 2020). However, as communities of Christian converts often maintained time-honoured ritual practices, especially those linked to the worship of ancestors, places of worship were often marked by syncretism or multi-religious devotions (Comaroff & Comaroff, 1991; Stewart, 1999; Watanabe, 1990). By contrast, in the Mediterranean region the Byzantine, Seljuk, Mamluk and Ottoman empires and the Islamic Caliphate were more explicitly ‘multiconfessional political constructs, and were culturally less homogenous than their Western counterparts’ (Couroucli, 2012, p.  2). In the Ottoman Empire, religious pluralism was regulated through the millet system as a form of indirect rule in which communities were integrated into the state through their own religious authorities and hierarchies (Barkan & Barkey, 2014). As Reuter (this volume) shows with reference to an Orthodox monastery in North Macedonia, which has been visited by Muslims since the period in which the region was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire, peaceful sharing and religious coexistence was possible

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thanks to this political system, with long-term consequences reaching up to the present day (Bryant, 2016). The legal and political privileges accorded to different ethno-religious groups—or relegations, that is, the lack of them—were closely associated with patterns of spatial segregation and cohabitation (Couroucli, 2012, p. 3). Yet importantly, as Barkey (2014, p. 41) has prominently argued, by virtue of their mode of political and territorial organization, empires appear more open to religious pluralism than modern territorial nation states whose global rise almost always entailed powerful shifts towards ethno-religious homogenization (Wimmer, 2002).7 Post-reconquista Spain is a case in point (Casanova, 2019). However, such contrasts are blurred by the fact that, as Marciniak (in this volume) argues, in antiquity too political changes such as the Emperor Constantine’s decision to turn old Byzantium into Constantinople brought with it strong tendencies towards religious homogenization. In the medieval eastern Mediterranean world, interreligious marriages and the formation of military or trade alliances across religious groups were important elements that promoted cohabitation since antiquity. Later, as Barkey (2014, p. 49) writes, in Seljuk spaces Christian churches were often located in close proximity to the Seljuk palaces to ensure that Christian delegations to the Sultan had places to pray. At the same time, a whole landscape of shared sacred sites emerged in the context of Ottoman imperial expansion, from the conversion of Christian places of worship into Islamic sites, but with Christians being able to maintain some marginal ritual space (Barkey, p.  50),8 to Muslims visiting sanctuaries dedicated to Christian saints in search of healing and well-being (Couroucli, 7  Significantly, under Islamic rule even privileged religious minorities such as Christians and Jews were accepted only as long as they acknowledged that they were inferior to Islam and Muslim communities. 8  Drawing on Hasluck’s account of the Islamization of the Balkans (1929), Couroucli (2012, p. 7) writes:

Many monasteries built around sanctuaries, which used to form networks of Christianity in the countryside, lost their monks and became dwelling places for dervishes, holy men belonging to the religion of the new lords (Hasluck & Hasluck, 1929, 521). These isolated places continued to be visited by their local populations, as they still fulfilled important functions: people kept going there to seek healing, pray for good harvest, or celebrate the changing of seasons.

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2012, p. 4), and especially the ways in which saintly figures were appropriated, claimed and venerated by Christians, Jews, Muslims and others. As Barkey (2014, p.  56) further suggested regarding Ottoman lands: ‘(Dervish) lodges were usually built at the tomb of the founder of the order who came to be seen to have saintly powers, by Christians and Muslims alike, although often under different names.’ Such appropriations of saints are inevitably the stuff of legends and myths in which the miracles performed by these saints are narrated, and the narratives are passed down from generation to generation. A case in point is the veneration of St. Yared in the Ethiopian mountains, worshipped by both the Betä Ǝsraʾel and the Ethiopian Orthodox religious traditions (Kribus & Dege-Müller, this volume). The potential overlap in this case is demonstrated by the proximity of the sites and the narratives shared by the two communities. Despite this closeness, however, none of the known descriptions of each group’s holy sites mentions the presence of the sites of the other group, thus keeping a physical and spiritual separation. In particular, the religious conversions of saints made it likely that more than one religious identity was projected on to them. Not only are distinct religious lineages thus entangled in the stories of saints and saint worship, they also enable the sites at which they are worshipped to become places of multi-religious pilgrimages such as the Elijah cave in Haifa (Bar, 2018). However, one of the main contributions of our volume is to show how the dynamics around multi-religious spaces in modern empires and nation-­ states on which much of the existing literature focuses follows up on some distinct features of multi-religious encounters in earlier periods in the Mediterranean region. This especially concerns the transition from paganism to Christianity in antiquity. In many cases, the establishment of Christian churches, shrines and monasteries occurred through the re-­ utilization and sacralization of pagan places.9 In late antique Egypt, there a complex network of pilgrimages with an overlapping geography was shared by Coptic Christians and Muslims. Monasteries and churches were built in the same place or very close to pagan temples, as in the case of the Church of Evangelists in Menouthis, where the iatromantic cult of Isis Kyra and the practices of incubation, which were shared by pagans and

9  We emphasize that the narratives in Christian literature are not always confirmed by archaeological sources and documentary evidence.

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Christians, were still attested during the fifth century (Monaca, 2017).10 In our volume, Attali and Massa shed light on Daphne, the famous suburb of the ancient Antioch, where a temple of Apollo, a synagogue and the tomb of the martyred Bishop Babylas coexisted in the second half of the fourth century. In the urban space of antique Alexandria (Haas, 1997; McKenzie, 2007) too, pagans, Jews, Christians and, among them, different groups, from Gnostics to Monophysites, either Orthodox, schismatics or heretics,11 lived together in the same urban space. However, relationships among these groups were often antagonistic. Following Stroumsa (2003), we suggest that there are reasons to doubt the myth of Alexandria’s multiculturalism as primarily based on mutual exchanges, influences and good relationships among groups. The destruction of the Serapeum Temple by Christians in AD 392 confirmed the symbolic conversion of the city into a Christian space, with a monopolization of the topography engendered by Christian martyria and churches (Hahn et al., 2008; Massa, 2017). This also marked the formal Christianization of the religious cityscape. Often, the competition between religious cultures or confessions that crystallized at these sites involved different levels of conflict and violence, as well as struggles for power among different authorities, caught as different groups were between ‘love and hate’, as the study of Sofia Torallas Tovar (2017) shows with reference to the Dionysus cult in Hellenistic–Jewish literature. Later on, the same destiny of conversion and repurposing was shared by Christian sites, which were transformed into other religions’ places: some of the Coptic monasteries or shrines survived, while others were converted and used by Muslims (Mayeur-Jaouen, 2005), creating a complex network of pilgrimages with an overlapping geography shared by both Coptic Christians and Muslims. One of the most intriguing yet hitherto understudied cases is the ‘Virgin Tree’, where it is believed that the Holy Family stopped in their flight into Egypt, located in El Matareya, a suburb of Cairo (Halikowski Smith, 2008). In his contribution to this volume, Patrizi demonstrates how the Virgin Tree already appeared as a sacred site in Late Antique and medieval Christian literature and is present in the accounts of travellers and pilgrims. Throughout the centuries, this site was frequented and became an object of contestation and competition among 10  Canopus and Menouthis, situated twenty kilometers to the north-east of Alexandria, had been one of the most famous pagan sacred sites in Egypt, with Isis and Serapis temples. 11  With regard to the limits of this traditional terminology, see Arcari (2017, p. 10).

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Christians, Muslims and Jews. However, with the construction of a church and a mosque nearby this holy natural was turned into an edifice and became, at the beginning of the twentieth century, a pilgrimage site for European Catholics. This example draws attention to the issue of interreligious Marian places (Meinardus, 1996; Stadler, 2019), important examples of religious and geopolitical histories of sharing and competition since the advent of Islam. In addition to being sites where interfaith activities and sharing took place, Marian places (i.e., monasteries, apparitions, miracle shrines) have also been locations for claims and counterclaims by different religious groups (Maunder, 2019). Several aspects that are central to understanding multi-religious spaces stand out. First, the emergence and transformation of multi-religious spaces were often direct outcomes of imperial or other political-territorial expansions and of the shifting of frontiers and borders, which went along with human mobility and the establishment of new urban political centres. The Ottoman conquest of Constantinople and its subsequent Islamization is one paradigmatic event in this regard. In general, demographic changes caused by imperial expansion strongly contributed to both the rise and eventual fall, or demise, of multi-religious urban spaces. Later on, the rise to power of the Ottomans in the Balkans prompted a gradual process of religious conversion that stretched over several centuries. Especially in urban centres, churches were converted into mosques and new mosques were built, while the building of Christian churches as places of worship of politically subordinated populations was either forbidden or tightly controlled (Hayden et al., 2016). The first Umayyad caliph Muawiyya started building his palace and mosque within the main cathedral of Damascus and then ousted the Christians and transformed the cathedral into an Islamic compound. Significantly, rededications of politically significant and highly symbolic sacred places from one deity to another, or from one religion to another, have been common practice in the Hellenistic world and the eastern Mediterranean region in general from late antiquity onwards. The successive rededications of Athens’ Parthenon, built in the fifth century BCE under political rulers of different religious affiliations, is arguably the most prominent illustration of this (Ousterhout, 2005; see also Hayden et al., 2016, p. 12). Second, and by contrast, shared sacred places typically emerged close to frontier zones and borders, in areas far from urban centres, and often outside towns and villages (Couroucli, 2012, p. 6). Moreover, as well as being far from cities, they were also typically placed on the margins of religious

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authorities and institutions. While this afforded them greater flexibility in accommodating divergent religious interests, multiple uses were rarely managed in an egalitarian fashion but were subjected to power relations, constraints and hierarchical forms of access to sites. This resonates with Weber’s classic observations regarding the differences between religious peripheries and political centres where charisma was routinized and religious and political powers were much less open to relinquishing their authority and privileged positions. Third, the veneration of saints and holy figures contributed to shaping the religious significations of natural environments such as the rivers, forests and mountains in which these saints dwelled and acted. Such sacred sites are then often linked to one another, narratively through myths and stories, as well as materially and practically through pilgrimages, thereby giving rise to multi-religious landscapes (Eade & Katić, 2014). In Late Antique Egypt, for instance, Christian monks began occupying the ancient tombs of the pharaonic epoch, which they turned into cells and monasteries (O’Connell, 2007), some of them survived, while others were converted again and used by Muslims (Mayeur-Jaouen, 2005). This created complex networks of pilgrimages with an overlapping geography shared by Coptic Christians and Muslims. In the same area, the urban spaces of Alexandria (Arcari, 2017; Stroumsa, 2003) were characterized by reciprocal influences between urban topography, urbanization, religious diversity and fragmentation, often driven by competition among religious groups. The organization and development of urban spaces as religious spaces, mixed religious sites and multi-religious landscapes thus followed distinct but historically closely related trajectories. One of the most intriguing yet most contested issues in the debate on multi-religious places has to do with the forms and quality of interreligious relations that these places and their management reveal the social conditions that shape them and suitable explanations. Whereas some scholars foreground conflict, tension and contestation as dominant features of multi-religious places that shape cohabitation, others highlight interreligious sharing, mixing and peaceful coexistence: ‘grounds for sharing, occasions for conflict’ (Bowman, 2016). Across the world, disputes around the ownership and control of sacred places are pervasive, begging the question, as Hassner (2003, p. 3) suggested, how and why they are ‘conducive to mobilization’. As elements that make the sacred tangible, Hassner argued, sacred places differ with regard to how central they are within the spiritual landscape of religious groups, and how exclusive access

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to them is understood and monitored. The more central and exclusive sacred places are for a religious community, the more they appear as indivisible. He therefore concluded that ‘coherent monolithic spaces that cannot be subdivided, they have clearly defined and inflexible boundaries, and they are unique sites for which no material or spiritual substitute is available’ (Hassner, 2003, p. 13). Such arguments have been refuted by anthropologists (Bowman, 2012), religious studies scholars (Bigelow, 2010) and sociologists (Barkey, 2014, p. 45) for both empirical and theoretical reasons. On the empirical level, critics argued that the existence, richness and diversity of practices of sharing at sacred sites demonstrate that conflict-based models are too static and unable to account for the dynamic historical changes that shared sacred places undergo. They also stressed that there are indeed numerous cases that betray peaceful management and the efficiency of tools of conflict management (Barkan & Barkey, 2014, p. 16), which, however, often go unnoticed. One of the reasons for this is that theories of conflict over sacred spaces presumably remain tied to essentialist understandings of religious identity, in which identity is given, coherent and more or less immutable, and that practices of mixing or sharing sacred space violate that coherence. Against this view, Bowman (2012, p.  4) has eloquently suggested: Diverse interpretations of the significance of the same objects and actions are means of enabling groups whose religious conceptions and practices would seem incommensurate to gather reverentially around the same site, while mimicry, imitation, disavowal and avoidance are core strategies of mixing the nominally incommensurate in and around the same place.

The question is, of course, how stable such arrangements of mixing are and how to account for possible breakdowns. Developing a highly elaborated understanding of the role of power, Robert Hayden et al. (2016) have argued that communities that live intermingled and that differentiate themselves in religious terms compete for dominance for which the control of important religious sites is a central symbol. Here, mutual tolerance is not about embracing otherness but about ‘antagonistic’ (Hayden et al., 2016, p.  11) endurance, enabling peaceful coexistence in a context of competing interests. While the equal sharing of sites is possible when several groups are subordinated to a larger external power, the more general scenario is one in which the social order at sacred sites is guaranteed through the dominance of one group over others. The developments at

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the Babri Mosque/Ram Temple in Ayodhya in India are a case in point: violence occurs when this dominance is threatened, transformations of power relations among groups typically resulting in the transformation of sacred places (Hayden et al., 2016, p. 11). As this brief description of these approaches reveals, the central concern is the divergent understandings of tolerance that are thought to underlie different forms of cohabitation, or to be revealed through them, of which peace or conflict appear as dominant outcomes. While surely significant as yardsticks for adjudicating the quality of interreligious relations, we suggest there is a wider range of modalities of encounter and cohabitation in multi-religious spaces and their construction that escapes attention in this literature; modalities such as, for instance, the contemporary ‘touristification’ and fashioning of sacred sites as heritage (Reuter, this volume), the construction of multi-religious places as sites of mutual theological learning (Burchardt, this volume), conflict between divine powers (Massa, this volume) or multi-religious pilgrimages (Albera, 2012). Moreover, while paying close attention to spatial arrangements at sacred places this literature often betrays a limited understanding of wider and other forms of spatial organization to which sacred places are linked, such as cities, landscapes and other territorial forms. In addition, we push for a deeper awareness to the co-constitutive processes of the spatial and the social within sacred places and their environs. We agree with Hayden’s rendition of certain sacred places as ‘markers of prominence’ (2016, p. 3) in cities and beyond and with his emphasis on ‘the physical qualities of religious structures: centrality in a city, settlement or even region, and perceptibility (e.g., height, mass, color, sound projection)’ (italics in the original). However, how do urban centres impinge upon forms of cohabitation as multi-religious spaces of a particular kind? How do multi-­religious landscapes emerge through practices of interpretation, signification and construction, or through the placing of multi-religious sites in webs of meaning and territorial space? We suggest that the answers to these questions require further engagements with conceptualizations of space (Burchardt, 2019).

What Is Multi-Religious Space? One dominant line of thinking in human geography as the primary field of spatial analysis is to distinguish spaces and places, with spaces being abstract and exterior and places being concrete and inhabited: in other words,

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spaces are made meaningful through interpretation and appropriation as places. Places are thus seen to have phenomenological and experiential qualities that spaces do not (Cresswell, 2004, p.  7; see also Appadurai, 1996). This distinction, itself initially developed in existentialist philosophy, has proved to be highly fruitful in the study of religion. Many scholars have demonstrated how religious practices rely on and produce separations between sacred and profane realms, how sacred realms require particular safeguards against pollution and how ritual as an elementary religious action is itself inherently spatial, typically involving directions and cardinal points, the drawing of boundaries, the definition of cosmological centres and peripheries and so on (Chidester & Linenthal, 1995; see also Eliade, 1959). While not denying the value of this distinction, in this volume our main interest is in different types of spatial arrangements. We view places as one variant of these, chiefly because this allows us to compare how the spatial organization of multi-religious places relates to that of other spatial arrangements such as cities and landscapes. We consider space as a larger environment that is socially constructed, reproduced and transformed. Informed by actor-centred sociological theorizations, we suggest that space comprises the physical ecology that actors accomplish in corporeal co-presence and that allows them to produce shared situations (Goffman, 1963), as well as networks, flows and bounded territories (Castells, 1996). Following Löw (2001, p. 172), we assume that routinized spatial practices crystallize in spatial forms that subsequently constrain these practices as structures. In addition, space is established by placing people and objects— through material practices or imaginations—and shaping these elements into an interrelated ensemble. Finally, we suggest that in historical reality different types of spaces, or ‘spatial arrangements’, are interwoven and interlaced and that multi-religious spaces offer a supreme lens for viewing not only interreligious encounters but also this interlacing of spaces. Using this conceptualization, we seek to contribute to the large body of literature on religion and space that has emerged since the 1990s, but we also depart from it in several ways (cf. Kong & Woods, 2016). The basic understanding in this literature is that religion and space are mutually shaped. On the one hand, spatial processes shape religious identities, forms of belonging, religious aspirations and practices (Burchardt & Becci, 2013; van der Veer, 2013). Chiefly, space affects religion by casting religious communities and their forms of sociality within particular spatial regimes, thus contributing to the territorialization of religious categories

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(Hervieu-Léger, 2002). On the other hand, spatial processes are themselves shaped by religion (Burchardt & Westendorp, 2018). Religious traditions, including above all the dominant religions, have often left durable spatial and architectural imprints, which in turn have major impacts on societies’ definitions of their cultural identities and self-understandings in relation to the kingdoms, empires, nation states or cities in which they are embedded and to the different populations inhabiting them. Rarely, however, have multi-religious spaces been explicitly addressed and explored in these studies. Multi-religious spaces are spaces that have been co-constructed by different religious communities in historical processes. The concrete historical shape of particular spatial arrangements is, in our view, an outcome of both the spatial strategies of religious communities (Becci et al., 2017) and the spatial regime in which they operate, that is, the power-laden hierarchies that are shaped by both public (e.g., secular) and religious authorities (Barkey, 2014) and which define access, ownership and the use of space and champion certain types of practices within them.

Conceptualizing Religion It is clear that a comparative analysis of multi-religious spaces spanning periods from antiquity to the present has to wrestle with serious issues regarding the definition and conceptualization of religion. The question of how to best to define religion is the subject of a lively and ongoing interdisciplinary debate involving scholars of religious studies, historians and sociologists, who have developed various phenomenological, structuralist and cognitivist positions (Ambasciano, 2018; Jensen, 2014; Smith, 2004). One major question in the debate is whether, as a historical phenomenon, the term ‘religion’ is only meaningfully applicable to certain periods, geographical regions and cultural contexts. Some scholars argue that, because of its embeddedness in post-Roman Christian theological thinking, its ability to capture phenomena outside the Christian world is highly limited (Fitzgerald, 2003). While for our purposes there is no need to take a strong position in this debate, we do maintain that the term enables useful comparisons to be made within a diachronic frame and that it allows us to identify similarities and differences in the ways in which people have conceived of gods, practices and embodiments (Freiberger, 2019; Kleine & Wohlrab-Sahr, 2020). We are broadly inspired by Riesebrodt conceptualization of religion,

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which is inspired by practice theory. Riesebrodt (2010, p.  74) suggests that religion ‘is a complex of practices based on the premise of the existence of superhuman powers’.12 These powers can be personified or impersonal and are usually invisible. The notion of religious practices refers to efforts to establish contact with and access to these powers through culturally established means. Furthermore, Riesebrodt suggests that such practices of contact and access are played out in different forms or types, in particular symbolic interaction (e.g., prayer, sacrifices, vows or divination), magical manipulation, temporary fusion (e.g., mystical ecstasy) or self-empowerment and illumination. All of these practices, which Riesebrodt terms ‘interventionist’, capture aspects that are traditionally seen as constituting a cult or liturgy. We also agree with the suggestion that the adjective ‘religious’, rather than ‘sacred’, should be mobilized. In line with Rüpke (2020, pp. 16–17; see also Gasparini et al., 2020), we use the concepts of ‘lived religion’, ‘ancient lived religion’ and ‘religion in the making’ to stress the fluidity and dynamics of any religious process. We suggest that these terms and definitions are particularly useful for understandings and theorizations of multi-religious spaces for two reasons. First, they capture and highlight aspects of practice, such as intervention, regulation and imagination, it being particularly through practices that spaces emerge and are sustained, and, put simply, spatialized. Second, they enable us to identify religious traditions as clusters of such practices that are shaped through historical processes, acquire some degree of stability and continuity are organized through core symbols, and bind followers who self-identify as belonging to such a tradition. This aspect allows us to conceptualize the multiplicity of religions that is part of our concept of ‘multi-religious spaces’ and which can be distinguished, for instance, from complexity and variation with certain religious traditions.

Geographies of Encounter: Comparing Multi-­Religious Cities, Places and Landscapes as Spatial Arrangement Bearing in mind the conceptualization of religious space, as well as the caveats regarding the definition of religion, we now point out the analytical purchase of our suggestion that different types of multi-religious spaces  For a critical discussion of Riesebrodt’s approach, see also Rüpke (2021).

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should be compared with one another. At the outset, we recognize that multi-religious cities, places and landscapes are, of course, not neatly separable categories. Cites and landscapes emerge as networks or places, which in turn acquire their form and meaning by being made recognizable from within the ecologies that surround them. What renders multi-religious cities, places and landscapes comparable is nevertheless the fact that they are spatial arrangements that humans have produced on the basis of their conceptualization of the sacred and whose material features facilitate the ways in which different religious groups interact with one another. It is in this way that, over long stretches of history, these spatio-material arrangements have formed geographies of encounter. First, multi-religious relations are often deeply shaped by spatial arrangements with regard to how the territorial boundaries within a given setting are drawn, whether these boundaries are permeable and how they are policed. In multi-religious places, as has often been observed (Bowman, 2012), spaces for the ritual practices of different groups can be either separated physically or shared. In particular, today’s touristified multi-religious sites such as the SvetNaum Monastery in Northern Macedonia are characterized by multiple forms of religious mixing, as Reuter demonstrates in her analysis (this volume). Sites such as Berlin’s House of One or the inter-­ religious complex at in rural Romania (comprising three places of worship: an Orthodox church, a synagogue and a mosque, a site that has become a place of memory and not just history) are multi-religious spaces by design in which separate and shared ritual practices follow meticulous choreographies for which the design itself provides the spatial bedrock. In other words, contrary to historically developing multi-religious sites, these places are designed to enable particular interactions and to discourage others. Multi-religious cities are strikingly similar in this regard, as they display a variable degree of religious segregation13 or mixing with regard to the residences of urban dwellers and their places of worship, as well as the marking of public spaces within cities through ritual. Just how profound the traces of ritual in the lived city can be is demonstrated in Attali and Massa’s chapter on the Antioch of antiquity, where the transfer of the dead body of the Christian martyr Babylas to the suburb of Daphne was an act of decisive ritual competition that turned Daphne into a Christian space. 13  The Jewish ghetto is, of course, one of the most pronounced forms of religious segregation.

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Here, just as in Marciniak’s description (this volume) of Byzantine Constantinople and Luz’s account of Jerusalem’s religious history in this volume, it becomes clear that the form of interreligious encounters and the visibility of religious differences in urban spaces are closely related to historical events and the geopolitics of wars, changes of political power or the religious affiliations of rulers. Significantly, the case of cities also reveals that geographies of interreligious encounters are not tied or limited to interactions around places of worship. As Facchini’s account of religious diversity in early modern port cities such as Trieste and Odessa shows (this volume), encounters outside sacred places in the context of routine everyday activities (e.g., around commerce and governance) may have much greater social and political salience. At least at certain historical periods, these encounters turned these cities into cosmopolitan terrains. Whereas at one point in history or another in Jerusalem, Rome or Constantinople control over sacred sites became hallmarks of power and hegemony, Trieste and Odessa are strikingly different in this regard. From a historical perspective, exploring the entwining of politics and religion during the nineteenth century, Facchini sheds light on the hybridity between interactions and cohabitation among minorities, as well as on the conflicts and differences created by new ideologies such as nationalism. One important element of multi-religious cities is that they can be spaces of the ordinary, routine encounters of adherents of different religions, encounters in which the significance of religious affiliations may indeed potentially recede into the background of mutual perceptions. Most multi-religious places of worship, by contrast, are sites of extraordinary encounters. They are mainly visited because of their extraordinary religious value, because of the miracles one may hope for by making offerings to saints whose spirit dwells within them, because of the relief of the pain of body and soul that religious devotions at these sites promise and because of the perceived importance of intentional encounters for fostering peace and tolerance, but also because of their ‘centrality’ (Hassner, 2003, p.  3) as sacred sites within religious traditions. It seems that this extraordinariness also plays into the intensity of disputes and the detailed regimentation of behaviour in pursuing them. And in this sense, we could well suggest that Jerusalem as a whole one is large multi-religious place, rather than ‘merely’ a multi-religious city, and that this is, as Luz (in this volume) argues, what constitutes its uniqueness. By taking into consideration a longer period, in his chapter about Rome (this volume), Rüpke tries to identify the possibilities and dangers related

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to situations and places of ‘cohabitation’ based on monumental architecture, religious practices and rituals. What emerges is a spatial intersectionality of competing religious organizations, which forges different collective religious identities. As networks of natural sites that are produced through acts of religious signification, multi-religious landscapes are similarly extraordinary in that people visit them on pilgrimages and other types of spiritual journey. As comparatively open spatial arrangements beyond the human density of urban agglomerations, they appear less tightly controlled. Although our volume contains only a limited number of studies of multi-religious landscapes, some of their fascinating features are becoming clear. Patrizi’s chapter here on the devotions of Jews, Christians and Muslims at sites associated with biblical narratives shows in great clarity how it is both the mythical narrative in a long diachronic development in the sacred land of Egypt and the religious practices at these sites that connect them and turn them into sacred landscapes. As the stories of Moses and other biblical figures or saints acquired significance for other religious groups, such as St. Yared in Kribus and Dege-Müller’s chapter on the veneration of Orthodox Christian and Jewish saints in northern Ethiopia, this sacred landscape eventually became a multi-religious but fragmented landscape, one whose spiritual significance was renewed and revitalized through religious scholarship in subsequent historical periods. Religious virtuosi of different kinds have continuously re-imagined biblical events, re-signified the sites where they supposedly happened and thus contributed to creating the multi-religious landscapes that religious practitioners have visited and where they encountered one another. The case of the Gardens of Faith, which Akbari and Hasanzadeh discuss in their chapter here, points to the ways in which the idea of spiritual significations of nature is re-appropriated in the contemporary period, where natural environments created by humans are fashioned as sites of encounter and dialogue. Chiefly, it is because of their differences as spatial arrangements that multi-religious cities, places and landscapes vary with regard to the kinds of (external and internal) boundaries that define them, as well as regulations of access and forms of control. Multi-religious cities and landscapes can rarely be controlled, owned and managed to the same degree as multi-­ religious places, as a result of which they often seem prone to contingency, innovation and religious creativity. However, even singular sacred sites that appear to symbolize, on the surface, only one particular tradition may

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propel multi-religious histories. The Temple of Jerusalem which represented for a long time a place of sharing, ‘a site of multi-religious histories, encounters and engagements’ as Noce affirms in her chapter, can be considered an archetypical model. Being the pivotal place for Judaism and its political and social life, it continued to be important after its destruction for different religious groups such as Jesus’ followers, Jewish groups and Gentiles. While we do not suggest that every space is a multi-religious space, our book clearly emphasizes the tremendous significance that the interplay between spatial arrangements and the multiple religious practices that shape them has for the emergence of geographies of encounter. Focusing on multi-religious spaces as the fulcrum of diverse social relationships and patterns of interaction, we have also sought to contribute to a better understanding of the long history of multi-religious relationships and the materializations of religious creativity it is built upon.

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PART I

Multi-Religious Cities

CHAPTER 2

Unholy Religious Encounters and the Development of Jerusalem’s Urban Landscape: Between Particularism and Exceptionalism Nimrod Luz

No other town has caused such continuous waves of killing, rape and unholy misery over the centuries as this holy city. —(Arthur Koestler)

Introduction As I embark on this chapter which aims to explore the development of religious materiality in Jerusalem as both a crucial factor of urban development at large and as an explanatory mechanism in its highly contested geographies of encounters, I find myself at an impasse and more than usually hesitant. In recent years, urban scholars are challenged by the

N. Luz (*) Department of Land of Israel Studies, Kinneret College on the Sea of Galilee, Jordan Valley, Israel e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 M. Burchardt, M. C. Giorda (eds.), Geographies of Encounter, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82525-6_2

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realization that so far, a global comparative theorization of cities has failed to arrive. Surely, one may question if indeed such a project is at all possible under what Peck astutely labeled “cities beyond compare” (2015). However, he does offer us a way out by suggesting the following insight: “beyond the one-way journeys toward deconstruction and cases-in-­ exception, there is a growing need for more round trips between positional analysis and relational theorizing” (2015, p. 179). This ambiguity notwithstanding, I want to explore in this chapter what is arguably the world’s most unique city: Jerusalem. No place has inspired human passion for as long and as deeply as this miniscule city, which until the late nineteenth century was confined to its less-than-one-square-mile intramural space. One would be hard-pressed to find a city that can parallel its rich, tumultuous and flamboyant history. Surely Jerusalem’s iconicity and uniqueness justify concerns about whether it can serve as an “example,” indeed as a paradigmatic case which can be studied as a point of departure for thinking critically about geographies of religious encounters. That being said, Yiftachel (2016) promotes Jerusalem as an “Aleph,” a metaphor for “a place of all places”; a city that presents a rare opportunity to “prize open” a complex metropolitan area and allows one to go beyond the debilitating fortification of theoretical and epistemological positions. Further still, Boano advances Jerusalem as a paradigm for understanding “whatever urbanism” (2016). This approach allows for “statements and discursive practices to be gathered in a new intelligible ensemble in a new problematic context” (Agamben, 2009, p.  18). In other words, Boano suggests that its singularity need not stand in the way of comparing it with other singularities, but rather, it can serve as a trajectory for understanding other urban singularities. Taking Jerusalem’s religious-sacred landscape and landmarks as my point of departure, I explore the development of geographies of encounters through a longue durée approach. Against legions of scholarly works that delineate the city’s history and present religious conflicts and the development of a landscape of religious intolerance as the main problems of the city and therefore engage in offering “solutions,” I want to reverse the argument and suggest that these very conflicts and iconic religious landmarks, as well as the spatializations of encounters that have ensued, are the generators of the city’s uniqueness and the fundamental reason why it has become an Aleph, a place of all places. I would also argue that

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in order to understand the reasons behind periods of contestation, intolerance and mutual disregard, and—most pertinent to this book project—the different types of religious geographies of encounters, we need to pay close attention to the micro and macro political conditions. While Hassner’s argument (2009, pp. 31–33) that sanctity cannot be shared and therefore multi-sacred sites are bound to be conflictual is surely valid in contemporary Jerusalem, sharing the sacra was more of a common feature throughout the city’s past. How did this unique religious landscape, then, come about? Under which conditions in the city’s geopolitics could religious groups accommodate each other’s sacrality, and what caused contestations and conflicts? Here I will use sacred landmarks and the development of a multireligious landscape as my entry points to discuss the convoluted urban history of religious interactions and the development of geographies of encounters. My aim is to offer a meta-historical analysis of both changes in the sacred landscape and changes in the sociopolitical relations between contesting communities in Jerusalem. I will describe and analyze these changes from the dawn of Jerusalem as a capital and sacred center to the present. In view of the city’s rich history, I will be chiefly focusing on critical conjunctures and main events over this long stretch of time. This chapter focuses on sacred materialities, that is, icons, landmarks and religious materialities, as the main protagonists in the development of Jerusalem’s geographies of encounters. I start by building an argument around the contested nature of the sacred places, since this will contribute to a better understanding of the inherent—and at times unavoidable—conflictual nature of sacred landscapes. This chapter then chronologically follows the construction of the sacred centers of the Abrahamic religions and the nature of religious encounters that followed among the different players. This will be complemented by a discussion of how these geographies changed under the growing influence of the modernist-cum-nationalist project which arrived at the gates of the city during the late nineteenth century and became crucial as the Israeli– Palestinian conflict escalated. By way of conclusion, I will reiterate my overarching argument about the nature of this multireligious space and the ways it has operated in different historical periods. I will point to the critical junctures that are often shaped by changing forms of political organization and their territorialization.

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The Contested Nature of Sacred Places In a paper titled, “The Holiness of Jerusalem: Asset or Burden?” Karen Armstrong (1998) discusses the misfortunes that have befallen Jerusalem when its holiness was poorly managed. The worst atrocities in the history of Jerusalem have occurred when people have put the desire to possess the holy city and gain access to its great sanctity ahead of the paramount duty of social justice and respect for the rights of others (p.  15). Armstrong opts for a moral ground and seems to forget or ignore the inherent contested nature of sacred sites. Her observation seems even more remote from reality if one is reminded of Koestler’s astute observation, quoted at the beginning of this chapter, on the discrepancy between the city’s image as the city of peace and the actual reality therein. Armstrong is surely not alone in misrepresenting (or misunderstanding) the important role of materialities of sacred sites/landscapes in shaping and dictating human behavior and social interactions. Geographers dealing with religion have long pointed to the presence of conflict and contestation involved in the production of sacred sites (Chivallon, 2001; Kong, 1993a, 1993b, 2001; Naylor & Ryan, 2002). Indeed, the word “production,” when applied to the allegedly transcendent outward quality of the spatiality of sacred sites, immediately grounds sacred places and locates them within the realm of everyday life. Chidester and Linenthal (1995) present us with an understanding of the multivalence of sacred sites and their inherent contested nature. They claim that “a sacred place is not merely discovered, or founded, or constructed; it is claimed, owned, and operated by people advancing specific interest” (p. 5). Ivakhiv (2006) argued that conflicts, competitions and contestations are inherent to sacred places simply because they are inescapably spatial. Therefore, becoming a sacred place involves a process of production but is also inescapably linked to a cultural-­ political contestation regarding the multiplicity of meanings assigned to the place. The conflict is not just over the production, Chidester and Linenthal continue to argue, but also over the “symbolic surpluses that are abundantly available for appropriation” (p. 6). Sacred places become contested first and foremost because they are places; that is, they are spatial. But it goes deeper than that, as place is fundamental in any exercise of power (Foucault, 1980, p. 63) and as such places are by their very nature political entities or at least politicized through various human agencies. They are a complex web of relations, domination and subordination, solidarities and cooperation (Massey, 1993). At the same time, place is

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inexorably linked with controversies, conflicts, struggles over control and debates (as well as more physical contestations) over meaning and symbolism. Being a “web of signification” inevitably transforms place into a site where that significance and its “true” nature are up for grabs for those in—or in search of—power (Lay & Olds, 1988). Places are spatial metaphors through which people and peoples can represent themselves and thus concretize their ideology as well as religious principles and prowess. Sacred places, sacred landscapes and, surely, sacred materialities make for an intriguing example of the sociopolitical and constructed character of place. Eade and Sallnow (1991) focus our attention on the highly contested nature of the sacred: “The power of a shrine, therefore, derives in large part from its character almost as a religious void, a ritual space capable of accommodating diverse meanings and practices” (p.  15). Sacred sites are arenas where resources are transformed into a surplus of meaning. They are heavily invested with symbolism, emotions and mystification. This also explains why sacred sites become locations for competing discourses within and among religious groups. Too much is at stake and there is too much to lose for contesting groups or influential actors. Taking over and controlling the sacred involves various forms of politics (van der Leeuw, 1933/1986). Thus, the sacred is always to be found intertwined with political power, agency and rather profane1 social forces. This is all the more apparent in the case examined here, Jerusalem’s religious landscapes and sacred landmarks. In what follows, and against the understanding I have established thus far, I will narrate the development of this landscape and the growth of iconic landmarks for different religious groups. The emergence of this materiality and particularly the conflicts that have ensued will serve to better elucidate the emergence of Jerusalem’s urban landscape and indeed the unholy encounters amongst the various competing groups.

Shrouded in Myth: Constructing Multireligious Sacred Materialities The production of a sacred site necessitates a foundational myth or indeed the construction of a mythical layer. Jerusalem’s sacred places are certainly no exception. However, the uniqueness of Jerusalem, it would seem, is 1  Indeed, the use of the term “profane” here should be understood as turning Eliade’s concept of the “nature of the sacred” on its head.

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that it features, in very close proximity, such foundational myths of pivotal sacred hotspots (Eliadean axis mundi at its finest) of no less than three (rival)religious groups. This proximity, I argue, is greatly responsible for the interdependence and mutual influences among the various players therein. Put simply, the emergence of a Jewish sacred site (Temple Mount) was greatly responsible for the naissance of its Christian counter center, followed and echoed later by an Islamic interpretation of the sanctity of Jerusalem. Once these sacred materialities were in place, they became crucial factors in urban developments and in an array of social and spatial encounters. It is noteworthy that Jerusalem’s evolution as such an important locus sanctus within three monotheistic traditions follows a similar path in each of them—that of a pendulum motion from controversial beginning to different forms of rejection, to total embrace of the foundational myth. It is also rather ironic that the most condensed holy city in the world holds such an unassuming geography. Urshalimu, Shalem or Jebus, as it was called prior to becoming the Israelite capital, was never more than a lesser settlement confined to a barren hill of circa sixty square dunums for the better part of its first four millennia (Maeir, 2000). It was certainly not on par with contemporary established Israelite urban centers such as Hebron or Bethel. So how and why did this unlikely candidate come to play such a pivotal role in religious history and among various belief systems? The simple answer is that its lack of prior “Israelite” history and its tribal geopolitical neutrality suited the Davidic dynasty’s ambitions to consolidate the Israelite confederation under its rule. A crucial component of this project was to enhance Jerusalem’s political centrality by establishing it and its temple as the ultimate and exclusive site for the Israelites. As the sacred is indeed an empty signifier (Durkheim, 1915) and its surplus meaning is up for grabs, establishing Jebus as the City of David and constructing a temple therein were indeed efficient steps in this direction. The sacred center that was built on the hill above former Jebus, now The City of David, was the outcome of a political necessity and prerogative of the royal house (Smith, 1987). The concerted efforts by the Davidic dynasty to transform Jerusalem into a political-cum-religious capital were accepted neither quickly nor without contest by a variety of disgruntled political adversaries, who opposed the production process of sacralizing Jerusalem. This was manifested, for example, in the construction of rival religious centers by the first king of the northern Kingdom of Israel, which seceded following a revolt against the Davidic dynasty and its Judean kingdom:

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And Jeroboam said in his heart, Now shall the kingdom return to the house of David: If this people go up to do sacrifice in the house of the Lord at Jerusalem, then shall the heart of this people turn again unto their lord, even unto Rehoboam king of Judah, and they shall kill me, and go again to Rehoboam king of Judah. (Kings, 12, pp. 26–27)

Jeroboam felt compelled to respond to the religious materialities constructed in Jerusalem by his political rivals. However, this was but one (minor) setback in the protracted and meandering process which ultimately transformed Jerusalem and its temple into the most significant political, religious and symbolic site for the Jewish people. This process is well attested in situating the rather vague biblical directive regarding pilgrimage to “wherever the lord will command” to the temple in Jerusalem: Three times a year all your men must appear before the Lord your God at the place he will choose: at the Festival of Unleavened Bread, the Festival of Weeks and the Festival of Tabernacles. No one should appear before the Lord empty-handed: Each of you must bring a gift in proportion to the way the Lord your God has blessed you. (Deuteronomy, 16, pp. 16–17)

Hand in hand with the ascendancy of the Davidic traditions and the durability of the Judean kingdom (until its demise in 586 BCE), Jerusalem and its religious center (Solomon’s Temple) surmounted and shunned all other existing pilgrimage centers and plausible destinations for the three Jewish annual pilgrimage festivals. The continuation and persistency of rituals therein elevated Jerusalem and its temple to their special status and were conducive to their growing importance (Smith, 1987). These shifts notwithstanding, the dramatic physical/material changes brought forth by a gargantuan Herodian building project are what transformed the temple into a distinct compound and a separate mountain within the city (Eliav, 2005). This new materiality, which made the temple and its “mountain” into a bounded compound, was largely responsible for the growing use of the term Temple Mount: that which is the main frame of reference for the site among Jews to the present. The demise of Jewish autonomy, symbolized mainly by the destruction of this sacred site in 70 CE by the Romans, transformed this physical earthly compound into the most meaningful sacred geography for Jewish communities worldwide. While the Jewish temple in Jerusalem was, at the end of the day, built at an arbitrary location based on political needs, the Christian

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understanding rested on religious narratives that connected the city and its temple to meaningful events in the Passion of Jesus. Therefore, Christianity from its onset was tied to Jerusalem’s sacred biography, history and religious materiality, and connected mostly to its sacred center, the Temple Mount. Put simply, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre could ultimately not have been built anywhere but in Jerusalem (Smith, 1987). However, much like in Judaism, Jerusalem’s revered status (as part of the holy land) in Christian theology and practice was in flux for centuries and knew fundamental changes ranging from total rejection to full embracement (Wilken, 1992). The initial Christian attitude to Jerusalem, as reflected in the New Testament, was that the holy land and Jerusalem were to be avoided and rejected as they disallowed Jesus’s messages and served as the location for his crucifixion (Prawer, 1987). Earthly Jerusalem was destined to make way for and be replaced by a heavenly Jerusalem, as suggested in the book of Revelation: “And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband” (21, p. 2). However, the lure of the land and the yearning for a concrete and direct connection to the landscapes upon which Jesus lived and walked proved to be too tempting to be ignored. By the fourth century CE, it was none other than the Roman emperor Constantine who stood at the forefront of this transformation and was heavily invested in the construction of sacred places throughout the holy land. Surely, the inauguration of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in 324 CE was the apex of these endeavors (Ashkenazy, 2009). This transformation, which completely altered Jerusalem’s religious landscape, was too dramatic and tempting to be ignored by leading Christian theologians, who until then had stood firmly against pilgrimages and visitations of the holy land. One notable case in point was historian and bishop Eusebius of Caesarea (d. 340 CE), who in his “Life of Constantine” failed to maintain his famously reserved (and usually negative) approach to pilgrimage to Jerusalem against the might of this new materiality, constructed by the emperor in the holy city: “Perhaps this was that strange and new Jerusalem, proclaimed by the oracles of the prophets to which long passages prophesying by the aid of the divine spirit make countless allusions in song” (cited in Peters, 1985, pp. 132–134). This exegetical interpretation was designed to praise Constantine for his building project in Jerusalem, which transformed the city into a major pilgrimage site. The Temple Mount was left in ruins to commemorate Israelite sin and punishment. This Constantinian initiative was but one of

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many new Christian compounds constructed in Jerusalem from the fourth century onward. By the late sixth century CE, Jerusalem’s landscape hoarded a plethora of Christian compounds as demonstrated in the mosaic map of Madaba (Donner, 1992). This Christian landscape (hagio-­ geography) and heavily saturated religious materiality confronted the third religion that was about the enter the scene in the early- to mid-seventh century CE: Islam. By then, many of the traditions previously assigned in Jewish theology to the Temple Mount were redirected toward the new holy Christian mountain that was constructed in Jerusalem in the form of Golgotha and the compounds surrounding it (Bitton-Ashkelony, 2005, pp. 59–61). Islam arrived at the gates of Jerusalem in the 630  s  CE (Gil, 1987). However, the city had already received a special status in Islam by then as it served as the first direction of the prayers (qibla) for the young Muslim community while still in its embryonic phase in the city of Madinah (Rubin, 2008a). The changes brought forth by the new rulers and religion in the city were slow to arrive. Muslim rulers were bound by strict conditions, as stipulated in the peace treaty (“Amān”) signed with the people of Jerusalem, which prevented them, among other things, from confiscating non-Muslim religious buildings. If we are to believe the testimony of a Christian pilgrim by the name of Arculfus who visited the city circa 679 CE, a rudimentary mosque was constructed on the platform of the ruined Temple Mount shortly after the conquest (Creswell, 1969, pp. 33–34). This location is rather intriguing for several reasons. Firstly, it set a precedent which would be followed by later Muslim rulers, who constructed the Muslim religious center therein. Secondly, it suggests that from its earliest encounters in Jerusalem, Islam preferred the old Jewish mountain to the newly constructed Christian one. Thirdly and most importantly, as well attested in early Islamic traditions, the initial Islamic attachment to Jerusalem was the already well-established Jewish sanctity. This sets the proper background for understanding the flamboyant undertaking of the Umayyad caliph ‘Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan, which transformed the deserted Jewish mountain into an impressive Islamic compound consisting initially of an administrative center to its south, an expansive Friday mosque (later to be known as al-Aqsa) and an exquisite concentric shrine named the Dome of the Rock. It should be noted that the rock in question was the Jewish mythologized Stone of Foundation from which, as traditions have it, creation began, and which served as the site of Isaac’s sacrifice and numerous other Jewish traditions (Smith, 1987, p. 84). This

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Fig. 2.1  Multireligious landscape of Jerusalem—early eighth century. I wish to thank Mrs. Nava Mosco for her wonderful translation of my thoughts into a legible figure. The idea follows that of Grabar in The Shape of the Holy: Early Islamic Jerusalem (Princeton, 1996)

was part of a concerted effort made by the Umayyads to exalt both the religious and political status of Jerusalem (Elad, 1995). However, the Umayyads’ initial intent to elevate Jerusalem’s sacred role in Islam against Mecca (which was at the time in the hands of a political rival) was short-­ lived, and thus alternative myths began to circulate regarding this new religious materiality. The most prominent one, which today is largely accepted by Muslims worldwide, connects the compound to the Prophet’s night journey and ascendance to heaven (Isra’ and Mi’raj, respectively) (Luz, 2004).2 The map presents the main religious centers in Jerusalem during the Early Muslim Period consisting of The Holy Sepulcher as the Christian epicenter and the Haram al-Sharif as the Muslim one (Fig. 2.1). Thus far I have outlined the construction of the multireligious landscape of Jerusalem, and the importance assigned to the city’s sacred centers by their respective communities. With the arrival of Islam in the city 2  However, it is noteworthy to acknowledge different interpretations, such as Rubin, R. (2008b). “Muhammad’s night journey (Isra’) to al-Masjid al-Aqsa. Aspects of the earliest origins of the Islamic sanctity of Jerusalem.” (Al-Qantara, 29(1), pp. 147–164)).

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and the lifting of a long-standing Roman order forbidding Jews from residing in Jerusalem (Levy-Rubin, 2009), a new era began during which, for the first time, the three religions were compelled to live in and share this complex, multireligious urban space. In what follows, I will discuss significant encounters ranging from manageable coexistence to intolerance and hostile encounters. It was precisely this unique religious urban geography, my argument goes, that heavily influenced these encounters, enabling and enacting them.

Raptures, Intolerance and Coexistence in Pre-Modern Jerusalem Among the changes brought forth by the Islamic conquest of Jerusalem was the re-emergence of a Jewish population therein after a hiatus of circa 600 years (Gil, 1992). This change also manifested itself spatially in the form of a Jewish neighborhood, most likely south of the Temple Mount (by then an Islamic compound). What I find rather telling is the way that the neighborhood was depicted by Jewish contemporaries, as “facing the Temple” or “opposite God’s shrine” (Gil, 1987, p. 140). Apparently, the ruined temple not only loomed large in Jewish collective memory and imagination but also shaped the community’s urban conduct. However, the Jews were usually lacking in urban prowess, and thus their residence in the city was generally dictated by the whims and wants of the more significant Muslim and Christian populations. Since about 700 AD, the Muslim residents of the city have shown a recurring tendency to reside as close as possible to the Haram al-Sharif (Luz, 2014). The main Christian communities congregated, by and large, around their sacred center, the Holy Sepulchre. Two notable exceptions were the Armenian and Syrian communities, who clustered around their main centers—the covenant of St. James and St. Mark, respectively—without relinquishing their right of access to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (Tsimhony, 1984). Residential patterns and preferences were dictated, to a large extent, by religious affiliation, and, more importantly, by the two opposing sacred centers serving as centripetal forces for their respective communities. Fluctuations have certainly occurred overtime, mostly in accordance with political changes as, for example, during the Crusaders’ rule over Jerusalem. And yet, the urban-cum-spatial religious pattern which initially emerged throughout the Early Muslim Period (638–1099), during which Jerusalem became for

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the first time in its history a multireligious city, can still be seen in the contemporary urban landscape. During the first centuries of Islamic rule in Jerusalem, non-Muslim sects were, by and large, tolerated and handled under their legal status as dhimmis: non-Muslims under protection of Muslim law. This attitude originated in Muhammad’s time, as manifested in the early construction of the Islamic Umma as a religious-political machination which entails and accepts other monotheistic perceptions as legitimate parts within it (Cohen, 2013). This attitude and leniency toward expressions of religious freedom on the part of the dhimmis were ill-regarded by al-Muqaddasi, a native of the city who supplied the following lamentation in his tenth-­ century chronicle: [Muslim] Learned men are few and the Christians are numerous and they lack manners when in public places. … Schools are empty and there are no classes given. The Christians and the Jews have the upper hand and the mosque is void of congregations and no ulama (Islamic religious scholars) are to be found therein. (al-Muqaddasi, 1906, p. 167)

His displeasure aside, this description asserts that even after three hundred years of Islamic rule, religious freedom of non-Muslims was maintained in Jerusalem. Surely, this does not mean to suggest that there were no hostile encounters. One such notable case occurred in 966 CE, when Jerusalem was under the rule of the Ikhshidids, an Egyptian-based dynasty. The Ikhshid governor of the city instigated anti-Christian riots, during which the Holy Sepulchre was pillaged by a local mob and later set ablaze, inflicting grave damage to its dome (Gil, 1981). Another case in point took place around 1009 CE under the Fatimid caliph al-Hakim, who ordered the demolition of this church, the heart of the Christian presence in Jerusalem. The compound was severely damaged and in dire need of a full-scale renovation—a project which was only completed in 1048 with funding from the Byzantine emperor Constantinos Monomachos (Gil, 1992). A dramatic change swept the city on July 15, 1099, when the Frankish army breached the city wall and entered Jerusalem. This marked the onset of a major demographic change, which in this case resulted from relentless and indiscriminate carnage that annihilated most of the city’s former population (William of Tyre, 1976, p.  20). Apparently, in the zealot Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, no room was found in the holy city for

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non-­Christians. Furthermore, an edict issued by the Latin king barred both Muslims and Jews from residing in Jerusalem (Prawer, 1991, p. 30). Shortly after this conquest, the sacred Muslim sites atop the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif were confiscated and transformed into Christian sites. The al-Aqsa Mosque first became the King’s quarters and later hosted the Order of the Templars, while the Dome of the Rock served as a church. This is not merely a case of encroachment, but rather a symbolic appropriation and deliberate erasure of the former Islamic presence in the city. This is clearly depicted in the twelfth-century Cambrai map, which is an invaluable source regarding the unique geography of religious (un) encounters in the Crusaders’ Jerusalem. Map of Cambrai is a unique visual text highlighting the general structure of Jerusalem and the most iconic landmark during the Crusaders’ period. Of particular importance to the current discussion are the encroachments on Islamic sacred sites atop al-Haram al-Sharif (Fig. 2.2). In the right-hand corner of the diamond-shaped Jerusalem, one may see an iconic representation of al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock—featuring, however, their new given names: Templum Solomonis ) the first temple, according to the Crusaders’ interpretation) and Templum Domini (the “Lord’s temple,” meaning the second temple). This utter contempt and disregard for Islamic heritage in the city may help understand why, when Islam returned to Jerusalem following the decisive victory of Salah al-Din at the Horns of Hittin (1187), it came back with a vengeance (France, 2015). Under Salah al-Din the mountain was “purified” of former Christian symbols and presences, and a decree was issued forbidding Christians (Jews were already restricted) from entering the compound under penalty of death. For the first time in the city’s history, Christian buildings were confiscated by an Islamic ruler. Salah al-Din targeted a few religious buildings in the vicinity of the Holy Sepulchre and turned them into Islamic endowments (Frenkel, 1992, 1999). During the Mamluk period in Jerusalem (1260–1517), the animosity between the religious communities was apparent, and growing infringements and hostile actions on the part of the Muslim community against dhimmis became more of a common feature (Luz, 2013). This manifested itself spatially in the changing landscape of the city, which on the one hand witnessed more Islamic iconic landmarks and on the other hand saw the confiscating, targeting and demolishing of religious buildings of both Christian and Jewish communities (Strauss, 1950). A highly visible case in

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Fig. 2.2  Cambrai Map of Jerusalem 1150 (http://allaboutjerusalem.com/ gallery-­image/cambrai-­map-­jerusalem-­1150/279)

point was the fifteenth-century CE addition of two minarets to existing Muslim compounds located on both sides of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (Walls, 1976). This photograph compliments Fabri’s narration and critical reading of the Muslim-Mamluk compounds flanking and overshadowing the most

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Fig. 2.3  The church of the holy Sepulchre and the two flanking minarets ca. 1910 (probably by a photographer named Watson)

important Christian landmark in Jerusalem. This materiality speaks volumes about the processes of religious encounters in the later Muslim periods in the city (Fig. 2.3). Felix Fabri, a Dominican monk who visited Jerusalem during the latter years of the Mamluk Sultanate (1480s), provides us with a rich and highly semiotic reading of the city (Fabri, 1897). He bemoans these minarets and the compounds that were constructed on both sides of the Holy Sepulchre adjacent to the Order of St. John of Jerusalem’s (the Hospitallers) complex: “From these towers they shout all day and night as is the custom of their ‘cursed religion’ ” and “they engage in such activities with the utmost disrespect to the Crucified and as an insult to Christendom” (p. 8, p. 395). Fabri’s cynicism comes in response to his grasp of Christianity’s inferior position in Jerusalem during the late fifteenth century, and as a reaction to the growing intolerance on the part of the local Muslim community. Indeed, hand in hand with the demographic growth of the urban Muslim

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community, one could discern growing intolerance and encroachment on dhimmis’ religious institutions (Luz, 2004). The arrival of the Ottoman Empire in sixteenth-century Jerusalem surely did not mitigate the animosity among religious groups in the city, and yet it had a calming effect on the geographies of these encounters due to the implementation of the millet system. This term refers to an organizing mechanism which allowed the Ottoman regime and its rulers to efficiently organize the highly diverse empire’s population into ethno-­religious communities and to delegate power to trusted intermediaries and community leaders (Barkey & Gavrilis, 2016). This policy was implemented in Jerusalem from the early sixteenth century onward. However, interfaith and intercommunal conflicts were still very much in vogue. During the formative years of the Ottoman rule of Jerusalem, a few incidents revolving around control over sacred sites were registered (Cohen, 1996). Nonetheless, these incidents were not part of an Ottoman policy, but rather (as Cohen suggests) outcome of pressures exerted on the Ottoman authorities mostly by the local Muslim community (1996). Beginning with the reign of Sultan Suleiman (1520–1565), the Ottoman Empire was seeking allies among European powers according to its changing political needs. Thus, international developments and changing geopolitics as well as the internal needs of the Sublime Port in Istanbul were time and again manifested in Jerusalem, mostly in the growing influence of external European-cum-Christian powers (Bowman, 2012). As the Ottoman Empire neared its demise, more concessions were made to appease European powers, which translated into the preservation of religious freedom of and access to sacred sites for non-Muslims in Jerusalem (Cust, 1929). The Imperial Firman (sultanic decree) of 1852 reaffirming the rights of Christian communities over their holy places in Jerusalem is surely the most obvious case in point (Zander, 1971). The Jewish community enjoyed less external support but still managed in 1840 to obtain a firman that, against local Muslim pressures, allowed the continuation of Jewish rituals by the Western Wall under strict conditions, as stipulated in what follows: “Therefore the Jews must not be enabled to carry out the paving, and they must be cautioned against raising their voices and displaying their books and that all that may be permitted them is to pay visits to it as of old” (cited in Reiter, 2017, p. 13). During the four centuries of Ottoman rule in Jerusalem, the Ottomans were constantly negotiating between different forces—from the local religious communities confined within the millet system to international

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powers—to be able to manage the sanctity of Jerusalem and its sui generis hagio-geography. This is commonly known as the Status Quo which, in its Jerusalemite context, suggests the continuation of religious practices of the various faiths and sects under Ottoman rule and freedom of access to their sacred sites (Berkovitz, 2000, pp. 14–22; Guinn, 2006, pp. 21–26). Once the millet system was terminated with the end of the Ottoman Empire and the winds of modernization—mostly in the form of national awakening—began to blow in Jerusalem, the delicate Status Quo became less and less manageable and the situation spiraled out of control. While most hostile encounters during the better part of the Ottoman rule were between local Muslim and Christian sects—between the opposing poles of the Haram al-Sharif compound and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre— from the late nineteenth century to the present, the Haram al-Sharif/ Temple Mount compound became the main bone of religious contention between another pair of religious rivals who now saw themselves as national groups: Israelis and Palestinians.

Nationalizing the Sacred, Sacralizing the Nation: Urban Religious Encounters Under the Yoke of Nationalism As early as 1905, Negib Azoury, a Christian-Maronite intellectual and an unabashed supporter of Arab nationalism, summed up rather harshly the future of the region against the awakening of the Arab and Jewish national movements: Two important phenomena, of the same nature and yet opposed, which have still not attracted anyone’s attention are emerging at this moment in Asiatic Turkey. These are the awakening of the Arab nation and the quiet effort of the Jews to reconstitute the ancient kingdom of Israel on a very large scale. These two movements are destined to fight each other endlessly until one overcomes the other. The fate of the entire world hinges on the final result of this struggle between these two peoples representing two contrary. principles (1905, p. v)

In retrospect, Azoury’s ominous prediction is certainly justified, judging the events that have transpired in Jerusalem and its sacred centers under modernity. During the British Mandate (1920–1948), the sacred Jewish/ Islamic center was mobilized as a religious-national icon by both

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Palestinians and Zionists. This certainly contributed to the quelling of the lingering concern among European powers and Christian denominations regarding the status of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Geographies of religious encounters in Jerusalem were about to change dramatically in the modern era under the yoke of nationalism. I have already discussed the inherently contested nature of sacred places and how they are always in the process of becoming (Pred, 1984). Starting in the late nineteenth century, the age-old battle between Jews and Muslims over control and ownership of the religious and sacred ground of the Temple Mount/al-Haram al-Sharif gradually transformed into a national contestation. In response, numerous agents began producing tailored histories of the place in order to accommodate the views, convictions and (most importantly) goals of the present (Luz, 2014). Invoking the past of places and constructing specific memories about them is precisely what enabled stakeholders to call for the building of a desired future (Massey, 1995). As both parties were promoting the holy basin in Jerusalem as their nation’s “rock of foundation,” tensions mounted and, shortly after the British assumed command over the city, uncontrollable (yet not unexpected) violence erupted by the Western Wall in the summer of 1929. The ensuing period of riots and massacres that engulfed the Mandate for Palestine following the incidents by the Wall was rightly defined by Cohen as “year zero” of the national conflict (2015). This marked a major watershed in the history of the city, the religious encounters within it and, indeed, the entire region. Since then, time and time again, the sacred geography of Jerusalem (and specifically Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount) is found at the foreground of the national conflict. Both sides promote their “own” mythology of the site, not only as religiously paramount but also as synonymous to their nation. As of the 1967 War, Israel is in direct control of the entire city, including its sacred places in the Old City. A new urban geography of encounters began to unfold as Israel became heavily engaged in what Lustic defines as the fetish of Jerusalem (2008). The sacred and its spatial manifestations have played a pivotal role in this process, which aims to bolster the status of Jerusalem as a solely Israeli capital. One notable example was the demolition of a twelfth-century Islamic endowment (waqf)— in this instance, the Maghribi neighborhood—to clear the area for the construction of the Western Wall Plaza, just a few days after Israel assumed control over the city (Cohen-Hattab & Bar, 2018). Since its construction,

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this plaza has served as a central gathering place for a plethora of religious and nationalist functions. Against the Jewish-Israeli mobilization of the sacred place and the construction of a highly semiotic set of rituals that aims to validate Jewish/Israeli ownership, a mirror project of radicalization is taking place among Islamic Palestinian groups (Zilberman, 2001). A case in point is article fourteen in the charter of Hamas (the IslamicPalestinian liberation movement) that fuses Palestinian nationalism and Islam through Jerusalem and its Islamic sacred center: “Palestine is an Islamic endowment which has the first of the two kiblas (direction of the prayer, i.e. Jerusalem), the third of the holy (Islamic) sanctuaries, and the point of departure for Muhammad’s night journey to the seven heavens” (Hamas, 1988). The struggle over the mountain is carried out in both tangible (urban planning, demonstrations, prayers and rituals) and intangible (producing a certain ideology, religious rulings and new understandings of the past of the place) ways. The radicalization of religious groups on both sides and their reconceptualization of the site are weighing heavily on urban political geography as well as daily encounters within it (Luz, 2014; Ramon, 2001). An innovative, and hitherto forbidden, understanding among radical Jewish groups and politicians regarding the construction of a third temple atop the mountain is met with parallel radicalization among Islamic-Palestinians that vehemently denies Jewish rights at the site and produces it daily as a location of political resistance to Israeli occupation (Luz, 2004). During the last round of negotiations to find a solution to the conflict, it was President Bill Clinton who suggested, as part of the second Camp David summit, the following urban plan, which envisages the city as both entities’ divided capital and accordingly addresses the hotspot of the sacred: Regarding the Haram/Temple Mount, I believe that the gaps are not related to practical administration but to the symbolic issues of sovereignty and to finding a way to accord respect to the religious beliefs of both sides. … 1- Palestinian sovereignty over the Haram, and Israeli sovereignty over a) the Western Wall and the space sacred to Judaism of which it is a part; b) the Western Wall and the Holy of Holies of which it is a part … 2- Palestinian sovereignty over the Haram and Israeli sovereignty over the Western Wall and shared functional sovereignty over the issue of excavation under the Haram and behind the Wall such that mutual consent would be requested before any excavation can take place. (Clinton, 2000)

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The Clinton parameters, as they came to be known, were yet another unsuccessful attempt in a string of international proposals aiming to separate the political from the religious in Jerusalem.3 The site proved to be indivisible for both parties. While discussing the indivisibility of sacred sites, Barkan and Barkey seem to describe the events about to unfold in Jerusalem following the failed summit: “the indivisibility of a site is often raised by politicians and others who focus on the topic with a particulars goal … to explain a political failure, to escalate a conflict or to rally nationalist support” (2015, p. 16). As a pre-emptive step to ensure the complete annihilation of the Clinton initiative, Ariel Sharon, member of the Knesset (MK) and later Israeli prime minister, paid a well-publicized visit to the compound on September 28, 2000. Sharon was exploiting the iconicity of the site among his supporters to gain political cachet. This visit, coupled with Yasser Arafat’s recognition that he might restore his international standing through an uprising, paved the way for the bloodiest encounter between the two sides. Between 2001 and 2005, formal military attacks and informal daily resistance raged throughout the land in what was aptly named the Al-Aqsa Intifada. The sacred Jewish/Islamic compound in Jerusalem proved to be impervious to the notion that a kind of post-­ Westphalian phase, wherein the parties had already overcome the constraints of their respective mythologies, religious conflicts and conflicting memories, was dawning (Ben Ami, 2006, p. 270). Sacralizing the nation and nationalizing the sacred, as it so happened in Jerusalem, have considerably altered the city’s geographies of encounters among different religious-­cum-national groups.

Concluding Remarks This chapter set out to explore religious encounters and their changing geographies in Jerusalem within a longue durée approach. Taking the city’s religious-sacred landscape and landmarks as my point of departure, I explored the development of geographies of encounters as they unfolded in different politico-historical settings. My overarching argument was that the urban religious landscape and its iconic religious landmarks in particular are the generators of the city’s uniqueness and the fundamental reason why it has become an Aleph, a place of all places. I also argued that in 3  It would be futile to address the numerous studies exploring these issues in Jerusalem. As part of its standing as an Aleph, the city has received ample scholarly attention.

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order to understand the reasons behind periods of contestation, intolerance and mutual disregard, as well as the different types of religious geographies of encounters, we need to pay close attention to the micro and macro political conditions. It is the very conflictual nature of sacred places and their capacity to contain and, in exchange, invoke and produce ample meanings that, throughout the different eras, dictated the nature of religious and later religious-national encounters. Religious landscapes and landmarks served, therefore, as points of reference along the bumpy road to elucidate the tumultuous history of religious encounters. Scholar David Harvey is known for promoting the idea that the city, particularly in its modernistic phase, is nothing short of a platform constructed to enable the maximization of accumulating capital (1985). In Jerusalem, since its early appearance on the world stage, it seems that the ultimate commodity to be traded is sanctity. Starting with early mythification processes among the Israelites and ending with the latest monotheistic addition in the form of Islam, its religious centers have become the most influential and consistently relevant anchors of the city’s growth. Their canonical status—and I am mostly centering my analysis around the three pivotal centers—has been mobilized both internally and externally by different leaders and regimes to strengthen their own status and to reinforce their claims to the city. Since the seventh century CE, these three religious groups have shared Jerusalem’s landscape with varying degrees of contestation, intolerance and cooperation. Eruptions of violence among these groups have occurred mostly around these centers which have dictated, among other things, the desired places of residents and the demographics of the city. Undoubtedly, there have been violent encounters among the groups which emerged bottom up, as might have happened in any other urban center. However, the apparatuses and organizing mechanisms which more often than not have dictated the very nature of religious encounters in the city as well as its geography have mostly been political— indeed, a top-down process. More precisely, this process involves the political mobilization of the sacred in order to advance short- or long-­ term goals and to harness Jerusalem’s sanctity to promote varying political agendas. By reversing the traditional framing of the city’s religious past as a problem that necessitates solving and instead treating this past as an asset that merits scholarly attention, I have demonstrated that this unique urban environment owes its sui generis status to those very religious centers. It is indeed these geographies of religious (and surely political at times) encounters that have bestowed Jerusalem with its unique global standing.

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It is the encounters among the different centers that have shaped and dictated its urban development, particularly within the intramural historical city. This is particularly true in the current age and against the backdrop of nationalism, which has transformed Jerusalem and its age-old religious centers into national landmarks. In drawing toward the end of this chapter, I want to reiterate my initial musings on the validity of learning from Jerusalem, given its iconic and unique urban status. The following insight from Peck serves as a fine reference point: “beyond the one-way journeys toward deconstruction and cases-in-exception, there is a growing need for more round trips between positional analysis and relational theorizing” (2015, p. 179). My analysis is concerned with the empirical and, at times, singular and isolated events which conjointly created this riveting, complex and highly conflictual urban landscape. Nonetheless, I wholeheartedly agree with Yiftachel’s approach to the city as an Aleph, which infers that its uniqueness notwithstanding, one can still engage with it to explore beyond the incapacitating fortification of theoretical and epistemological positions (2016). Its singularity, as Boano (2016) pushes us to acknowledge, may well be used to explore other singularities and other urban religious encounters. Between its particularism and exceptionalism, there exists a city which struggles to accommodate its different groups and find a way to contain its sanctity while constantly confronting the political utilization of its contested nature.

References Agamben, G. (2009). The Signature of all Things: On Methods. Zone Books. Al-Muqaddasi, M. (1906). The Best Divisions in the Knowledge of the Regions. Brill. [Arabic]. Armstrong, K. (1998). The Holiness of Jerusalem: Asset or burden? Journal of Palestine Studies, 27(3), 5–19. Ashkenazy, J. (2009). The Mother of all Churches: The Church of Jerusalem from Its Onset to the Muslim Conquest. YadIzhak Ben-Zvi Publications. [Hebrew]. Azoury, N. (1905). Le reveil de la nation Arabe dans l’Asie Turque. Plon-­ nourrit et cie. Barkan, E., & Barkey, K. (Eds.). (2015). Choreographies of Shared Sacred Sites. Religion, Politics, and Conflict Resolution. Columbia University Press. Barkey, K., & Gavrilis, G. (2016). The Ottoman Millet System: Non-Territorial Autonomy and Its Contemporary Legacy. Ethnopolitics, 15(1), 24–42. Ben Ami, S. (2006). Scars of War, Wounds of Peace: The Israeli-Arab Tragedy. Oxford University Press.

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Berkovitz, S. (2000). The Battle for the Holy Places: The Struggle over Jerusalem and the Holy Sites in Israel, Judea, Samaria and Gaza District. Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies and HedArzi. [Hebrew]. Bitton-Ashkelony, A. (2005). Encountering the Sacred. The Debate on Christian Pilgrimage in Late Antiquity. University of California Press. Boano, C. (2016). Jerusalem as a Paradigm. City, 20(3), 455–471. Bowman, G. (Ed.). (2012). Sharing the Sacra. The Politics and Paradigmatics of Intercommunal Relations Around Holy Places. Berghahn Books. Chidester, D., & Linenthal, E.  T. (1995). American Sacred Space. Indiana University Press. Chivallon, C. (2001). Religion as Space for the Expression of Caribbean Identity in the United Kingdom. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 19(4), 461–483. Cohen, A. (1996). The Ottoman Approach to Christians and Christianity in Sixteenth-Century Jerusalem. Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations, 7(2), 205–212. Cohen, H. (2015). Year Zero of the Arab-Israeli Conflict 1929. Brandeis University Press. Cohen, M. (2013). Islamic Policy Toward Jews from the Prophet Muhammad to the Pact of ‘Umar’. In A.  Medded & B.  Stora (Eds.), A History of Jewish-­ Muslim Relations: From the Origins to the Present Day (pp. 58–77). Princeton University Press. Cohen-Hattab, K., & Bar, D. (2018). From Wailing to Rebirth: The Development of the Western Wall as a National Israeli Symbol after the Six-Day War. Contemporary Jewry, 38(2), 281–300. Creswell, K. A. C. (1969). Early Islamic Architecture. Clarendon Press. Cust, L. G. A. (1929). The Status Quo in the Holy Places. n.d. Donner, H. (1992). The Madaba Mosaic: An Introductory Guide. Kok Pharos. Durkheim, E. (1915). The Elementary Form of Religious Life. Allen & Unwin. Eade, J., & Sallnow, J.M. (Eds). (1991).Contesting the Sacred. Routledge. Economic Corporation Foundation. (2000, December 23). The Clinton Parameters. Clinton Proposal on Israeli-Palestinian Peace. https://ecf.org.il/ media_items/568 Elad, A. (1995). Medieval Jerusalem and Islamic Worship: Holy Place, Ceremonies, Pilgrimage. Brill. Eliav, Y. Z. (2005). God’s Mountain. The Temple Mount in Time, Place and Memory. Johns Hopkins University Press. Fabri, F. (1897). The Book of the Wanderings of Brother Felix Fabri (A.  Stewart Trans.). Palestine Pilgrims’ Text Society (Vols. 7–10). Foucault, M. (1980). Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972-1977. Pantheon Books. France, J. (2015). Great Battles. Hattin. Oxford University Press.

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Frenkel, Y. (1992). The Establishment of the Waaf Khangah al-Sallahiya by Sallah ad-Din. Cathedra, 65, 21–36. [Hebrew]. Frenkel, Y. (1999). Political and Social Aspects of Islamic Religious Endowments (awqāf): Saladin in Cairo (1169-73) and Jerusalem (1187-93). Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 62(I), 1–20. Gil, M. (1981). The Sixty Years War. Shalem, 3, 1–55. Gil, M. (1987). Political History of Jersualem in the Early Islamic Period. In J. Prawer (Ed.), The History of Jerusalem. The Early Islamic Period (pp. 1–31). Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi Publications. [Hebrew]. Gil, M. (1992). A History of Palestine 634-1099. Cambridge University Press. Guinn, D. E. (2006). Protecting Jerusalem’s Holy Sites. A Strategy for Negotiating a Sacred Peace. Cambridge University Press. Hamas, (1988). The Covenant of the Islamic Resistance Movement HAMAS. http:// www.oxfor dislamicstudies.com/ar ticle/book/islam-­9 780195174 304-­chapter-­66 Harvey, D. (1985). The Urbanization of Capital: Studies in the History and Theory of Capitalist Urbanization. John Hopkins University Press. Hassner, R. (2009). War on Sacred Ground. Cornell University Press. Ivakhiv, A. (2006). Toward a Geography of ‘Religion’: On the Spatial Dimension of Significance. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 96(1), 169–175. Kong, L. (1993a). Ideological Hegemony and the Political Symbolism of Religious Buildings in Singapore. Southern Asian Journal of Social Sciences, 20(1), 18–42. Kong, L. (1993b). Negotiating Conception of Sacred Space: A Case Study of Religious Building in Singapore. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 18, 342–358. Kong, L. (2001). Mapping ‘New’ Geographies of Religion: Politics and Poetics in Modernity. Progress in Human Geography, 25, 211–233. Lay, D., & Olds, K. (1988). Landscape as Spectacle: World’s Fairs and the Culture of Heroic Consumption. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 6, 191–212. Levy-Rubin, M. (2009). Where the Jews Prohibited from Settling in Jerusalem Following the Arab Conquest? The Authenticity of al-Tabari’s Jerusalem Surrender Agreement. Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam, 26, 63–82. Lustic, I. (2008). Yerushalayim, al-Quds, and the Wizard of Oz: The Problem of ‘Jerusalem’after Camp David II and the Aqsa Intifada. In T.  Mayer & S. A. Mourad (Eds.), Jerusalem. Idea and Reality (pp. 283–302). Routledge. Luz, N. (2004). Al-Haram Al-Sharif in the Arab-Palestinian Public Discourse in Israel: Identity, Collective Memory and Social Construction. Floersheimer Institute for Policy Study, Achva Press. [Hebrew]. Luz, N. (2013). Islam, Culture and the ‘Others’: Landscape of Religious (In)tolerance in Jerusalem 638-1517. Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam, 40, 301–334.

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Luz, N. (2014). Reading Mamluk Cities: Culture and the Urban Landscape. Cities and Urbanism of the Pre-Modern Middle East. Cambridge Studies in Islamic Civilization. Cambridge University Press. Maeir, A. (2000). Jerusalem Before King David: An Archeological Survey from Protohistoric Times to End of the Iron Age. In S. Achituv & A. Mazar (Eds.), The History of Jerusalem. The Biblical Period (pp. 33–65). Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi Publications. [Hebrew]. Massey, D. (1993). Power-Geometry and a Progressive Sense of Place. In J. Bird, B.  Curtis, T.  Putnam, & G.  Robertson (Eds.), Mapping the Futures: Local Cultures, Global Change (pp. 60–70). Routledge. Massey, D. (1995). Places and Their Pasts. History Workshop Journal, 39, 182–192. Naylor, S., & Ryan, J. R. (2002). The Mosque in the Suburb: Negotiating Religion and Ethnicity in South London. Social and Cultural Geography, 3(1), 39–39. Of Tyre, W. (1976). A History of Deeds beyond the Sea. Octagon Books. Peck, J. (2015). Cities Beyond Compare? Regional Studies: The Journal of the Regional Studies Association, 49(1–2), 160–182. Peters, E.  E. (1985). Jerusalem: The Holy City in the Eyes of Chronicles, Visitors, Pilgrims and Prophets from the Day of Abraham to the Beginnings of Modern Times. Princeton University Press. Prawer, J. (1987). Jerusalem in the Christian Perspective of the Early Middle Ages. In J. Prawer (Ed.), The History of Jerusalem. The Early Islamic Period (638-1099) (pp. 249–282). Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi Publications. [Hebrew]. Prawer, J. (1991). Political History of Crusader and Ayyubid Jerusalem. In J. Prawer & H. Ben-Shammai (Eds.), The History of Jerusalem. The Crusaders and Ayyubids (1099-1250) (pp.  1–28). Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi Publications. [Hebrew]. Pred, A. (1984). Place as Historically Contingent Process: Structuration and the Time-Geography of Becoming Places. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 74(2), 279–297. Ramon, A. (2001). Beyond the Western Wall: The Attitude Towards Temple Mount from the State of Israel and Jewish Society. In Y. Reiter (Ed.), Sovereignty of God and Man: Sanctity and Political Centrality on theTemple Mount (pp. 113–142). The Jerusalem Institute for the Study of Israel. [Hebrew]. Reiter, Y. (2017). Contested Holy Places in Israel-Palestine. Sharing and Conflict Resolution. Routledge. Rubin, U. (2008a). Between Arabia and the Holy Land: A Mecca-Jerusalem Axis of Sanctity. Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam, 34, 345–362. Rubin, U. (2008b). Muhammad’s Night Journey (isra’) to al-Masjid al-Aqsa: Aspects of the Earliest Origins of the Islamic Sancity of Jerusalem. Al-Qantara, 29(1), 147–165. Smith, J.  Z. (1987). To Take Place: Toward Theory in Ritual. The Chicago University Press.

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CHAPTER 3

Ancient Rome: The Shrinking and Growth of Religious Diversity in a Cosmopolitan City Jörg Rüpke

Introduction A look back at the long history of religion in the city of Rome, from the early Iron Age to Late Antiquity (from the sixth or fifth century BCE to the fourth century CE), invites scholars to discuss the limits of the concept of multi-religious spaces and geographies of encounter. This chapter does not argue for dropping them, but for being aware of the presuppositions implied in the concept. The methodological stance taken is not to remove the period from consideration, as the actors within that period had a clear concept neither of religion nor of religious diversity. In contrast, it first recommends that we sketch a concept of “religion” that allows fruitful application even to such periods or cultural contexts. Given the importance of mediatization of religion for its visibility, and the feelings, thoughts, and actions triggered by this materiality of religion (Knott et al., 2016; Meyer, 2008; Raja & Rüpke, 2015), I will historicize the use of

J. Rüpke (*) Max Weber Centre for Advanced Cultural and Social Studies, University of Erfurt, Erfurt, Germany e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 M. Burchardt, M. C. Giorda (eds.), Geographies of Encounter, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82525-6_3

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such media for the emergence and consequences of religion in the city of Rome. Purely on that basis, a further history is reconstructed—the history of a diversity felt or performed as religious at the same place. It is Rome as an imperial city (Terrenato, 2015) that invites its selection as a prototype of such developments. At the same time, the late ancient developments reconstructed here demonstrate that the level of diversity reached and reflected is no teleological aim of the history of religion, but a contingent constellation that might also recede.

The Visibility of Religion and Religious Diversity Although religion is “embedded” (embeddedness) from the domestic sphere into comprehensive political or military contexts of action, the ancient cultures of the Mediterranean nonetheless developed terminological and ritual strategies to sacralize profane things and—if we adopt Roman (i.e. Latin) terminology—to clearly distinguish property transferred to a god (a plot of land, a consecration gift, a sacrificial animal) as sacrum from profanum (literally, “beyond the temple”). As a rule, political functionaries were clearly distinguished from priests (sacerdotes), both conceptually and by various rules—even if, for example, a prosopographical analysis shows that they came from the same social stratum or were even identical and accumulated or successively passed through offices. Here, of course, many priests in Greek and Roman cities, who often exercised their offices part-time, displayed clear differences from the full-time priests of ancient Near Eastern or Jerusalem temples. Both the separation often carried out with high symbolic expenditure and the everyday blurring of this border must be kept in mind when applying the term “religion” to antiquity. If these are some indications that it is a reasonable strategy to look for “religion” as a distinct category of actions and thoughts, spatial and material aspects need even greater attention. Like any other cultural practice, religious communication is a spatio-temporal practice; it is located in space and time and engages with space and time (Rüpke, 2020, pp.  47–51). “Appropriation” is one way to describe this engagement, which is not just a passive usage, as Michel De Certeau (2007) has insisted. The use of a particular space is preceded by a selection; it involves recognizing and accepting the character of spaces as defined by previous, common or prescribed usage, but may also involve modifying this space through performance and thus changing the future memory of the place. Even religious “traditions” are not simply given, but need permanent reproduction and

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are modified by the micro (and sometimes revolutionary) modifications of the users. This is central for any dynamic view of religion, as will be shown in the chronological sketch below. Such appropriation relates to space as much as time; usage of both can be flexible. It can be ephemeral (to use a temporal metaphor). Usage can also be rhythmical or permanent. Given its problem to address the not-­ unquestionably given—to transform the unavailable transcendent into an available—religious communication tends to be massively mediatized, to be “material religion.” Tools for and in communication (i.e. media) might be more or less, temporarily or permanently associated with religious communication, and thus “sacralized.” As such, spaces might be contested, and invisibly or illegally occupied, by different religious or non-religious agents. Open, accessible space (not always centrally administrated and in “public” ownership) might be fought over or occasionally ceded. “Place-making” offers a different perspective on such processes, likewise metaphorically applicable to something like “calendar-making,” that is, organizing and qualifying time differently, too. Thus, the mental maps, the “feeling-at-home,” and the patterns of actual usage correlating with the experience of a certain atmosphere and an emotional relation to places, above all attachment to places, are stressed. Identifiable relationships, clear marks, or even ownership are central. Religious practices and signs can serve as tools for this, but more relevant are processes of grouping and the formation of networks or even closer organizations. Small shrines or blind alleys, a neighborhood, or a widely visible sanctuary could be the result of such place-making, sometimes sacralized, sometimes not. Cohabitation is thus shaped by contingent practices, not religious identities. For now, we must however focus on large-scale architecture. The combination of monumental temple building with clear demarcation and striking façades, with the inward-looking function of accommodating essentially anthropomorphic images of gods, seems to have arrived in Rome from Egypt via Greece. Religious sites were not restricted to that. The focus of the divine on the marked-out temple area went hand in hand with the uncontrollable appearance of the divine in omens, natural events, and unregulated and ritually designed epiphanies. The controversies arising from that constellation formed a setting for religious encounters and conflicts beyond partisan lines. Temples and images in particular were, on the one hand, artistic products, valuable in terms of material, which could advertise the influence, wealth, and dominion of the deities’ clients (Cifani, 2018). The production of images of gods was the matized in pictures and

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texts; in many cases, the artists were known. The worshipped cult image served as a pattern for (often miniaturized) votive offerings, and was a tribute to the deity, but it was also a possible honoring of humans: phenotypically, images of humans and gods could hardly be distinguished. Thus, was it ever more important to argue about to whom which pictures belonged (Rüpke, 2006). The image of the gods, on the other hand, was also a preferred place of epiphany for gods, making their difference in the polytheistic systems of antiquity tangible only through names and images (Gladigow, 1975; Uehlinger, 2008). At the same time, images of gods did not guarantee the presence of the deity; an unprocessed tree trunk might trigger more religious reverence in certain contexts. Authenticity of such representations was created through stories attributing a celestial origin to some of these images; they were said to have fallen from the sky. Here the construction of the divine in ancient religions presupposed complete appropriation and producibility. The unavailable, surprising divine presence was thus preserved. It is surprising for later observers to see how often very different gods and very different conceptions of the divine were enacted and even medially present in ancient sanctuaries, starting from images of deities different from a supposed divine owner or founder through different practices of praying or donating; in addition, many temples offered space not only for different individuals and families, but also to various religious groups using the same infrastructure for cooking and feasting (Galli, 2013; Rieger, 2017, 2018). With the spread of writing, two further media forms gained in importance. Written norms blossomed first within cults. Detailed inscriptions regulated the cult of a sanctuary, providing information about rituals to be performed and costs, but also prohibitions and sanctions (Robertson, 2010). In addition to these widespread texts, in Athens at the end of the fifth century there were overarching representations, synopses of religious obligations of a place as we know them from the so-called sacrificial calendars of Greek dementia (Dow & Healey, 1965; Parker, 1987). In Rome, in the course of the third century BCE, another calendar documenting the days of the market and the courts seems to have established itself, and was only supplemented in a second phase at the beginning of the second century by religious information (such as victims on anniversaries of temple foundations) (Rüpke, 2011a). Even myths—tales of the gods and their dealings with people—can only be grasped where texts are preserved through the medium of writing. Myths started to configure a shared (if often contested and controversial)

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memory, which formulated political claims and social norms, but also more precise images of the divine. Efforts to systematize narratives, narrative variants, and an abundance of names, which in individual cases may also have originated from cultic contexts, accrued across local borders. Antiquity subsumed both under the heading of “theology” and exported them with great success. Success was determined not so much by the content as by the form: on the one hand, these were the technically sophisticated and extensive poetic designs which become the subject of school material and comments. On the other hand, these were the translations of narratives into a completely new medium: the drama. Developed from a complex ritual for Dionysus in the sixth century BCE, the drama was professionalized in the fifth in Athens. In comedy and tragedy, it was possible to address daily and non-daily problems of coexistence within a framework of divine intervention. Religion was thus a site of contested issues. Dramatic productions were individual inventions that formally competed with one another. Nevertheless, they were parts of big celebrations, of processions and sacrifices. It must not be concealed that the expansion of the narrative and visual worlds was accompanied from the outset by criticism that defined itself as historiography or philosophy, in contrast to the “credulity” and “lie-­ fulness” of mythical narratives and explanations. Criticism of the cult— from criticism of the images of the gods to criticism of the victim—was an important component, especially of the discourses regarded as philosophical. Nevertheless, the philosophical discourse (often in critical pessimism) shunned radicalization and usually came to a skeptical or quietist justification of traditional religion. Whenever written sources allow us to take a closer look at (certain) ancient cities like Rome, religion appears in a multiplicity of voices and agents, diverse or even opposed; however, these are not along the lines of this or that divinity, cult, or “religion,” but along situational, political, or intellectual lines. In many instances, it is modern interpreters who postulate a religious group or even “religion” behind every different literary voice and author (Rüpke, 2016b, 2018b). The rise of the notion of different “religions” and hence religious plurality as we understand it today is the result of a long development within that ancient urbanistic framework.

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Religion in the City There is no doubt that religion presents itself as a reservoir of actions that accompany everyday life and, especially in individual or family crises— hunger, illness, death—offers instruments for coping with existence. There is no doubt that religion also offers forms of staging domination. However, central to the Greco-Roman development were the shifting forms of connection between religion and rule in the course of urbanization and state formation within broader aristocratic societies. Instead of ancient Near Eastern models of centralized priest apparatuses and selective monumental architecture, we witness the anarchy of individual initiatives for the construction of medium-sized temples with high visibility at strategic points in towns and cities, inside and outside city walls. Sacral buildings and urban identity thus entered into a closer relationship, which was repeatedly updated in processions to these temples (the procession being the central ritual means of involving a larger urban population, at least as spectators); the addition of “games” (featuring athletic competition) and the aforementioned drama made it possible to further increase the rate of participation (Rüpke, 2012a). In Rome, on the one hand, mass rituals like the games were more broadly developed; on the other hand, what was called public religion (publica sacra) often presented itself as a structure of action within the senate aristocracy, which opened fields of competition and distinction but also allowed control. Fields of such competitive religious action were only exceptionally practices of personal piety (as with Scipio Africanus at the beginning of the second century and a growing number of individuals during the first century BCE). Starting at the end of the fourth century, temple building, organization of games, or the occupation of priesthood (which describes the roles of leisure priests rather than part-time priests) (Rüpke, 2005a, pp. 1414–1418) were more prominent; in terms of religious allusions, coinage was finally added at the end of the second century BCE. Divination played a key role. In the planned search or in the acceptance of unforeseen divine signs, the unavailability and alterity of the divine and the contingency of the course of action could be impressively staged. The exploration of the so-called Sibylline Books, for instance, opened up a wide field of ritual innovation in Rome. At the same time, the multi-­ layered process of observation, evaluation, ritual thematization, and political consequences of omens presented itself as a mechanism for sounding

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out consensus in the upper class (Rüpke, 2005a, pp. 1441–1456), which was necessary for rapidly changing nominal incumbents (almost without any administrative apparatus beyond military command). In Rome, therefore, the first-century BCE crisis was displayed in a special way in conflicts over divinatory procedures, especially in the field of auspices—bird watching—which had to accompany every major act of the top magistrates. Under an impression of the enlargement of the world—thanks to the feats of Alexander the Great and the globalization of Mediterranean cultures (which initially appeared as Hellenization, during the imperial period increasingly also known as Romanization)—religion, understood above all as ritual practice, was now increasingly reflected and described as an object of its own by contemporaries, be it for the safeguarding of local traditions or for the development of foreign practices. Historiography and ethnography, as well as (even more so) antiquarianism, devoted themselves to this task, while philosophy concentrated on ontological and ethical questions and reflected “on piety” and “on the nature of the gods.” Again, this process began in the Hellenistic East, in Attica as in Alexandria, but also in Greek Sicily (Euhemeros). In Roman society, with its completely different structure, it was received and adapted only selectively starting in the early second century but was also driven to new systematizations. In the middle of the first century, the oeuvre of Cicero (philosophical theology) and Varro (religious historiography and antiquarian systematics) produced systematized treatises, which remained reference points throughout the following centuries. In the late first century CE, Middle Platonism and finally New Platonism reached fundamentally new positions. More revealing still was the insular character of the systematizations and rationalizations carried out, which as a social impulse did not survive the Augustan Restoration lasting more than half a century (Rüpke, 2012b). Religious diversity did not grow continuously. Religion of an Empire With its centralization of cultural developments and its planned territorial extension (which was to continue expansively for another century), the Augustan epoch was also a transition period in the history of religion (for more details see Galinsky, 2007; Rüpke, 2018a, pp.  183–210). On the one hand, this concerned the appropriation of the religious forms of aristocratic competition for the purposes of monopolized imperial patronage, initially in Rome, but (admittedly always selectively and often with an

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inexplicably long delay) also in the entire Roman Empire. The construction of places of worship, such as for holding great games and extensive rituals, should be mentioned in the first place, the dissemination of the imperial image outside Rome in the second. But this was a key period, perhaps to an even greater extent, in terms of media presence, even “doubling” of religion; that is, the representation of religious ritual action and the consumption of such representations (by viewing, reading, visiting) in other places and on other dates. In the form of splendid inscriptions—one calls to mind the protocols of the Arval brothers in the grove of the DeaDia before the gates of Rome (from about 30  BCE), the protocols of the Quindecimvirisacrisfaciundis about the secular games (17 BCE), but also murals and reliefs (Forum Augusti, Ara Pacis, Res gestae divi Augusti) and the monumental buildings supporting them—a specifically political variant of Augustan religion gradually found a permanent footing, beyond the ephemeral performances of games of victory and triumphs. This doubling was also to be found beyond Roman material (particularly calendars), as the extensive Central Italian inscriptions of the Umbrian ritual inscription of the tabulae Iguvinae and the Etruscan Elogia Tarquiniensia show. It was precisely these detailed calendar inscriptions that enabled an imagination of public Roman rituals in Italy that exceeded all possibilities of local copying. This form of representation of religious practice was itself a performative act and not a guide to real rituals. The emperor offered an ideal projection surface, serving as God as well as a local legitimation resource (for Greece, see Cancik & Hitzl, 2003; Price, 1984). The sacralization of the figure of the emperor himself took place in phases, from the introduction of the cult of Genius Augusti in the city of Rome in 7 BCE to the intensification of the Flavian emperors and broad institutional protection starting in the mid-second century CE. Alongside this visual multiplication came a textual one. The historiography (Dionysius of Halicarnass and Livy) should be mentioned here, but also the poetic depictions and interpretations of rituals by Virgil, Propertius, or Ovid. This discourse, too, was not a Roman invention, but merely opened up urban Roman material for literary exchange, which always remained incomplete, but nevertheless increasingly exhausted the geographical vastness of the empire. In addition to the stories of the victors, the interpretation of the military-political losers (e.g. in the form of the first two Books of Maccabees) or the comparative perspective of Hellenistic Jews—which, like Philon of Alexandria, had described the role of Moses as

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founder of a religion in a similar way to Numa in Roman texts—arrived, or had already arrived, at this point. For these exchanges, people did not need to be present in the capital, but more and more flocked to it, living together in close proximity, with segregation and agglomeration following the logics of service and patronage as well as financial means. Increasingly, newcomers with different backgrounds and a sort of religious identity arrived. With the text collections of Hellenism in Athens, Pergamon, and Alexandria, and the late exposure of late Republican-Augustan literature, it had become possible to speak of one’s own religious tradition, to think of it as detachable from concrete historical and political constellations. Only this created the possibility to export their structures in the form of laws like the Lex coloniae Iuliae Ursonensis (Rüpke, 2011b, pp.  101–120) and to enter into religious comparisons that could create acceptance or justify rejection. Individualization of Religion In order to tell a religious story of the epoch, the focus must be clearly broadened beyond politically controlled development (Rüpke, 2018c). This concerned more than the rapid diffusion, appropriation, and modification of central images from the field of cult restorations and the veneration of rulers in the form of private murals or garden architecture (Zanker, 1987). Probably in the wake of economic and administrative mobility, captivity of war, and the rural exodus, the diversity of religious imagery increased. I deliberately do not use the term cult here, since it suggests an organizational coherence and continuity in the use of religious signs which, as a rule, would not have been given. Both connected with and in addition to these imaginaries came bodies of religious knowledge, which were administered by experts, but also quickly popularized. In close succession, the increasingly exotic imagery of the deities Isis and Sarapis, originally worshipped in Egypt, migrated westward to Italy, as did the divination system of astrology, which met with even greater success after arriving in Italy via Greece in the second century BCE. Astrology as a mass phenomenon of the personalization of time orders is an important indicator of individualization (Fuchs et al., 2019; Rüpke, 2016a). It locates a person in a natural universal order, which at the same time is made compatible with certain cosmologies, for example Jewish or Christian cosmologies (von Stuckrad, 2000). Astrological information already began to appear on individual marble calendars—the epitome of the naturalized

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Roman world—in the Augustan period. As another type of expert knowledge, “magic” presented itself. The use of cursing tablets and amulets became widespread. In addition to addressing individual concerns about health, the attempt to influence events that were to be expected due to the status of those involved in social relationships or legal conflicts is evident here. In the high-risk area of relationships with prostitutes, the lack of traditional rules was replaced by magic (Gordon, 2008; Gordon & Simón, 2010). Such battling with religious instruments was conceptualized as criminal behavior rather than religious diversity, however. In all cases, these were techniques that primarily dealt with problems of the immediate social environment and increasingly imagined a world that was more contingent and less marked by social constraints than had previously been communicable. With different temporal courses and propagation paths, these techniques thus joined the network of Asklepios’ healing sanctuaries, which expanded from Epidauros to the peripheral zones of the Hellenized world and treated diseases as individualized findings that were more than disturbances of a natural social order and generational sequence. Healing procedures and their social topography make statements about the relationship between a person and society (McGuire, 1988, pp. 240–257). Aelius Aristides’ Hieroi Logoi, a multi-book account of a sick person’s dreams, pilgrimages, and encounters with Asklepios, was one of the most important sources of religious individuality from antiquity (Harris & Holmes, 2008; Petridou, 2017; Petsalis-Diomidis & Aristides, 2010). Dreams became important, and manuals for interpretation became widespread (Renberg, 2015). The imperial era experienced the revival and spread of small local oracles (Bendlin, 2006). Contemporary philosophy reflected on the precise position of the individual in the world (oikeiosis) and rendered the soul as well as the self key concepts. Philosophy, not religion, offered a guide to the art of self-observation, a real training (Sellars, 2004). Stoic self-inspection aimed to achieve consistency (Gill, 2008). The development of the idea of an immortal soul had not led to a widespread questioning of traditional religion (Burkert, 2011, pp.  446–448). In this respect, Christian thinking differs just as clearly from the philosophical tradition in its accentuation as Christian practice coincides with it in monastic diaries about one’s own soul movements (Seim & OEkland, 2009). Nevertheless, the metaphor, the topography of the interior, remains complex, and cannot be caught up in a dichotomy of Christian and non-Christian: from Plato to Plotinus, the figure of the demon remained a figure of reflection on the relationship between the

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interior or even the innermost, in which one’s “own” is discovered, to the discovery of the “other” that determines us in our innermost self (Fischer, 2013). For the institutionalization of individuality, the emergence of specific religious communities and thus a new type of religious diversity deserves special interest. A divided or institutionally supported form of one’s own way of life was associated with philosophical schools, or hairesis (Latin: sectae), even into Late Antiquity. Choosing one of them introduced the possibility of taking on a store of knowledge as well as a lifestyle. In the course of the expansion of the empire, its extensive displacement of persons and its delegitimization of local authorities (Ando, 2000, 2008), complexes of religious signs and ritual actions, which might be understood as continuous “cults” in certain places, had become more than just a natural consequence of the reverence of a certain deity. In the intellectual discussion which took place across regions, standards of legitimacy were developed that subjected individual cults to both rational interpretation and measurement against universal standards of humanity. For a growing number of people, religion in this form became a necessary part of their own way of life, which crossed the boundaries of public and private life and offered orientation. The mobility of more intensively organized supporters created the problem of supra-local recognition. This was achieved through approaches to iconographic standardization of the cult image in the case of Mithras, through unusual rituals and Egyptian decorations in the case of Isis, through the exchange of letters and collections of narratives in the case of Christians, and through the attempt to regulate every aspect of life in the case of the rabbinical authors of the Mishna in Palestine. In this way, the political framework of the empire contributed to the process of institutionalization, which was promoted in those religious groups that saw themselves as different from the dominant religious and political structures. It would be reasonable to consider groups rather than individuals, as well as to assume that religious groups were sharply defined or internally homogeneous and that they played the role of the main protagonists in the conflicts of the following centuries. But can groups and religions be used that way? Without a religious notion that would allow the drawing of non-transcendable boundaries between imaginary communities, religions (in the plural) could not be understood. Neither secta and disciplina nor religiones completely fulfilled this function in antiquity. The problem of a plurality that went beyond the traditional dualism of we (our city) and the

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others (of other cities) as entertained by the generation of Cicero in the first century BCE was, however, present. It was a multidimensional plural that included a plurality of religious signs and beliefs as well as times and places. The most important upheaval that occurred between the century before the emergence of Christianity and the fully institutionalized Christianity of the late fourth and fifth centuries was that religion changed its role in society. Only as a result of this radical change in the social role of religion did the problem of diversity, differentiation, and separate groups emerge. Religion and Politics From the first century CE onward, many religious practices had already acquired a fascination with the “knowledge form.” In the vastness of the space, in addition to the transfer of religious specialists (Wedekind, 2012), the media of secondary communication, script, and image were of importance even on the local level—at least to a degree. Images standardized by artisans and their model books rather than by religious experts assured the identity of religious signs in a society that was mostly illiterate. The creation of texts was more important for the tradition, but more difficult to assess in its broad contemporary impact: whether letters intended to establish communication links with specific recipients or tracts of various genres (philosophical dialogues, historiographies, biographies, reminder speeches) addressed to an unspecified audience, ultimately these two types of text hardly differed when they were collected and disseminated in larger networks (Rüpke, 2011b, pp. 133–141). In detail, objects and intentions were very different. The authors of the so-called Second Sophism came from the classical Hellenistic cultural field. In their often extensive late first- and second-century works, Plutarch, Gellius, Lucian, Pausanias, and Athenaeus collected local traditions and situated them in a universalized horizon by referring them implicitly or explicitly to the presence of the Roman Empire. Here, the attempt to preserve Greek tradition and religion under Roman rule or to redefine their role played an important part. In individual cases, religious traditions such as innovations could be subjected to biting criticism (as in Lucian, Elm von der Osten, 2006; Spickermann, 2009). In the same situation, the reaction of cultural “newcomers” could be just the opposite. In the same literary communication space, Philon of Alexandria and Athenagoras of Athens wrote justifications for their

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religious positions, while Apuleius of Madaura defended himself against accusations of magic. Attack and counterattack followed each other closely, as Celsus’ criticism of Christianity and Origen’s answer showed. Where addressees become explicit, it was not on the part of chief priests of an opposing “religion,” but the respective provincial administrators or even the emperor himself: religion came to the attention of the authorities when it seemed to disturb public order. This constellation perfectly characterized Christian martyr acts starting at the end of the second century (Clark, 2004) and established the arena of the amphitheater as a new space for religious encounter. The formation of specific religious groups raised the question of religious authority. The “public cults” of Greek and Roman cities had been determined by a rather diffuse distribution of religious authority among the regularly changing magistrates and a multitude of “honorary” priests. With the increasing importance of religion for lifestyle, the demands and authority of religious specialists were also growing. The priestly medical specialists of the Asklepios shrines have shown this since Hellenistic times. Thanks to a regional epigraphic fashion, the Anatolian “confessional inscriptions” from Lycia and Phrygia reveal the role of priests in the diagnosis and therapy of morally and ritually disturbed relationships with God (Petzl, 1994, 2006). With the growing importance of religious texts, the question of authority arose differently. This applied initially to the authors (Becker & Rüpke, 2019). Upper-class authors or stars of public rhetorical competitions did not need authorization through visions or pseudepigraphic constructions or claims of genealogies, as we can observe them in the field of Judaism and its sectarian formations (Ezra, Enoch, Paulus, John, Hermas). We can observe the tremendous importance that texts had for groups that formed on the cultural margins of the vast space of the Imperium Romanum, in particular Christianity, which was addressed as a Jewish subgroup for at least the first two centuries and which practically without exception preferred the innovation of the “Codex” to the difficult-to-handle scroll (Wallraff, 2013). The production of group identity through joint texts and reading within the framework of differently structured ritual and social structures was accompanied by mistrust of the mechanism on which one’s own success was based: any new text harbored the danger of a new “heresy,” with the potential to gather a following—that is, religious competition.

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As in older literary traditions, the problem of reading the “classics” also arose here. Insofar as cultural, or, more precisely, religious identities were based on old texts, it required techniques of re-reactualization, the attribution of contemporary meaning. The exegetical strategies developed by the Hellenistic philologists in Pergamon and Alexandria, especially the Stoic philosophical techniques of etymologization and allegorization, were used. The coexistence of philological efforts for Homer and the Tenakh, which were translated into Greek in Alexandria, the new seat of the Ptolemies (Septuagint, Rajak, 2009), led to considerable developmental advances in the multicultural and conflict-laden situation of that city. Beyond the boundaries of the text corpora, reading techniques were practiced and theorized, which also opened up a spiritual world behind the letters from old battle descriptions, whether in Ilias or the Pentateuch, and built on it a demanding theology of Hellenistic, Jewish, and later also Christian character (Stefaniw, 2011). In addition to the literary impulse of the destruction of Jerusalem (Stroumsa, 2012), there seems to have been considerable text production and editing in connection with the profiling of various Christ-related groups and the attempt to differentiate Marcion from Jewish tradition, which between 140 and 160 CE led to the creation of numerous texts and the arrangement of some of them in a form later known as the “New Testament” (Vinzent, 2011; Zwierlein, 2009, 2010). Here, as for other religious traditions, Rome became an important organizational center without stopping the productivity of the old East Mediterranean centers: Athens, Antioch, and Alexandria. The Constitutio Antoniniana, issued under Caracalla at the beginning of the third century, turned the majority of the inhabitants of the Roman Empire into Roman citizens and probably also reminded them of their duty to stand up for the community among the gods. The increasing importance of religion, which became more and more tangible here, along with the increasing drawing of boundaries between religiously defined groups, laid the foundation for the growing number and severity of religious conflicts in Late Antiquity. Paradoxically, the increased weight of the individual in religion was not associated with greater freedom of choice in a “market of religions,” but with the compulsion to publicly profess an alleged religious identity (North, 2003, 2010) and to remain in conformity with it. Nevertheless, the model of a struggle between religious groups was lacking. There were two main reasons for this. On the one hand, many religious identities remained partial and situational. When

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visiting the theater, inviting a friend, or communicating with equals in the political arena, traditional social and political identities were more important than religious ones, the latter perhaps not being considered at all. Secondly, one must not underestimate the numerous shared social spaces. The market, the circus, the urban villa, even the above-ground and underground burial places and the sarcophagi, were spaces determined by growing and increasingly complex (yet often divided) pictorial worlds, which were characterized above all by the (cross-religious!) trend toward bodily burial. The catacomb at via Latina as well as the calendar of Furius Filocalus from 354 shows the extent of the shared use of time and the appropriation of history (Rüpke, 2005b). In literary terms, the biblical poems, which were written in the fourth century, were a reference to the epic tradition, above all in the form of Centones—biblical narratives made from half-­ verses of classics, such as that of Faltonia Betitia Proba composed on the basis of Vergil’s Aeneid—and reveal this to those who know how to read them. Moreover, that Bishop Eusebios of Caesarea was already writing and arguing his own church history at the beginning of the fourth century shows the efforts of the increasingly organized religious groups to form their own identities. Eusebios’ biography of Emperor Constantine, that is to say the literary appropriation of the central position of power by a Christian author, demonstrates that such histories were consciously nested in the wider context of the Roman Empire and its different world as it was constructed and lived in by the vast majority. Only through a long, eventful, and repeatedly violent process was this divided world subjected to a hegemonic reinterpretation. The Codex Theodosianus impressively illustrates this process (Noethlichs, 1986, 2001). The conclusion of the Christianization of the administration of the Roman Empire ran parallel to the latter’s fragmentation.

Conclusion Looking back on this chapter, the opportunity has clearly been missed to discuss the diversity of religious practices as invited, supported, or simply witnessed by spatial, architectural, or social constellations in the ancient megacity of Rome. Such a discussion would have provided for a number of instances or patterns in many respects comparable to what has been described in other chapters; Francesco Massa’s preceding chapter, for instance, supplies such an analysis. What has been demonstrated, however, is the heuristic usefulness of the concept of multi-religious spaces if

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combined with a reflection on what religious multiplicity implies in terms of the degree, frequency, and intersectionality of competing religious organizations’ collective religious identities. Without being aware of such differences—that is, without translating variations in religious practices, addressees, or groupings into divergent identities and the habitualization of practices of clothing, eating, and dealing with one’s own body or with authorities—cohabitation of diverse practitioners is not a matter of concern (Maier & Urciuoli, 2020). Well into Late Antiquity, with regard to cemeteries and their own final “dwellings,” people did not care about the religious preferences of their prospective neighbors, as has been postulated by earlier research (Rébillard, 2003; Rébillard & Rüpke, 2015).

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CHAPTER 4

A Pagan Temple, a Martyr Shrine, and a Synagogue in Daphne: Sharing Religious Sites in Fourth Century Antioch Maureen Attali and Francesco Massa

Daphne, Suburb of Antioch Antioch-on-the-Orontes, now known as Antakya in the south of Turkey, has often changed hands in history. The city was founded in 301 BCE by Seleucus I Nicator, one of Alexander the Great’s successors. Following the demise of the Seleucid kingdom, it was ruled by the Armenian king Tigranes II and then by the Parthians. Conquered by the Romans in 64 BCE, it was sporadically occupied by the Palmyrenes and the Sasanians. During the Middle Ages, it was successively held by the Arabs, the

This chapter was written with the support of a research project on “Religious Competition in Late Antiquity,” funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) and hosted by the University of Fribourg (2019–2023) (http://relab.hypotheses.org). M. Attali • F. Massa (*) Department of History, University of Fribourg, Fribourg, Switzerland e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 M. Burchardt, M. C. Giorda (eds.), Geographies of Encounter, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82525-6_4

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Byzantines, the Seljuk Turks, the Crusaders, the Mamelukes, and the Ottomans. As such, Antioch’s history is one of cohabitation, and especially of religious cohabitation. In the twelfth century, Melkite, Jacobite, and Armenian Christians, as well as Muslims and Jews, inhabited the city (Todt, 2004). While such religious identities were well-defined in the Middle Ages, this was not the case during Antiquity. Over the past 30 years, historians have shown how collective identities were not as clear-cut as was previously taken for granted, but rather the result of a long construction process. They were also layered: in addition to their Roman identity, individuals could have an ethnic and a civic one. For the vast majority of the population, religion was not an identity marker during the early Roman Empire; only during Late Antiquity did religious identities progressively develop, mainly following the diffusion of Christianity (Belayche & Mimouni, 2003, 2009). This time period was rife with theological debates and scholarly attempts at defining boundaries between religious groups. Indeed, the typology of religions which distinguishes between pagans, Christians, and Jews, far from being self-evident, was elaborated by mostly Christian authors who, in their polemical writings, attempted to set themselves apart from those they considered Others (Massa, 2017). The reality was much more complex, since originally, there was no such thing as religions, only a plurality of cults. Among the inhabitants of the Empire, some joined multiple cults, while others only participated in one. While these cults had various origins and traditions, they also shared common ground, and some similarities became even more noticeable with time. No group of worshipers could boast completely original theological concepts and ritual practices. As such, many combinations were possible, and people’s religious behaviors and beliefs were not always endorsed by those who claimed religious authority. Antioch was one of the largest cities of the late Roman Empire alongside Rome, Alexandria, and Constantinople. According to a contemporary Antiochian writer, there were 150,000 male citizens in the city in 363 CE (Libanius, Letters, 1137, ed. Foerster, 1922); while it is not possible to precisely assess the total number of inhabitants, it would be in the hundreds of thousands (Downey, 1961, pp. 582–583). Antioch is a privileged setting for historians who study religious coexistence and competition (Sandwell, 2007; Shepardson, 2014; Soler, 2006; Wilken, 1983) as it is a documented microcosm of the multireligious and multicultural later

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Roman Empire. Using the notion of “competition” as a hermeneutic tool (Engels & Van Nuffelen, 2014, pp. 11–12) makes it possible to approach religious interaction in Late Antiquity as a tapestry of discursive strategies—including polemic, reformulation, and diversion—which, together, generated a new conceptual order. Furthermore, this approach sheds light on force and power relations in late antique society as reflected in religious discourse. Antioch had a diverse population: a Christian preacher from the second half of the fourth century (John Chrysostom, Homely on Matthew, 85.4) wrote that there were 100,000 Christians in the city, but we have no way of knowing what proportion of the total population this figure, if accurate, represented. Like anywhere else, religious diversity and competition were visible in the urban space, and one could find temples dedicated to deities from various geographical origins, a growing number of churches belonging to various Christian groups, and at least two Jewish synagogues. Public spaces were decorated with statues of gods and goddesses. At burial sites, where the dead were interred together regardless of their religious affiliations until at least the late fourth century, pagan, Christian, and Jewish ornamentation—as well as funerary inscriptions (generally written in Greek)—could be found together. Several urban locations have been identified as places of both interaction and confrontation (Filipczak, 2017). Among these is the suburb of Daphne (modern Harbiye, Antakya). It was so famous during Late Antiquity that Antioch was sometimes referred to as Antioch-by-Daphne. Daphne is located 9 km southwest of Antioch on the road to the port of Laodicea in Syria, on higher ground than the city center. Our main source regarding Daphne’s religious topography is the renowned rhetorician Libanius. Born in 314 CE, Libanius taught all over the eastern provinces before settling back in Antioch in 354. Himself an adherent of the traditional Greek cults, he welcomed students from many different backgrounds, since religious identity did not affect one’s rhetorical and literary education (Cribiore, 2007). In his Oration in praise for Antioch (Orations, 11), Daphne’s identity is defined by associating a series of architectural elements: the oracular sanctuary of Apollo founded by Seleucus I Nicator, the sanctuary of Zeus, the Olympic stadium, and the theater (Cabouret, 1997; Norris, 1990; Saliou, 2006, 2010). Our chapter aims to show how the traditional topography of Daphne, organized around pagan landmarks, was modified by the implantation of

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both a Christian and a Jewish place of worship, documented in the second half of the fourth century. These more recent religious buildings altered the frequentation patterns of the suburb, providing the perfect stage for religious polemics. As such, visiting Daphne became a defining criterion of religious affiliations. In addition to Libanius, two other writers have left us material on the relationship between these three important religious landmarks in Daphne—the temple of Apollo, the shrine of Babylas, and the synagogue. The first author, John, was born in 347 CE. He was ordained deacon in 381 and became a priest in 386. The eloquence he displayed in his homilies rendered him famous, and from the sixth century onward, he became known as Chrysostom, or “Golden Mouth.” During John Chrysostom’s youth, in the winter of 362/363, the emperor Julian—the second writer on whose accounts we rely—came to stay in Antioch for nine months. Born in 331, Julian was a grandson of the late emperor Constantius Chlorus; he found himself the sole emperor on the death of Constantius II in 361. Julian, who personally knew Libanius, sought to restore the splendor of public cults, after some traditional rituals—mainly animal sacrifice—had been impeded by his Christian predecessors; he also revoked some of the Christians’ privileges.1 As such, he was reviled by Christian authors, who branded him an “apostate” (Gregory of Nazianzus, Discourses, 4.5, ed. Bernardi, 1983) and continued to refute his writings long after his death in 363. From an ancient historian perspective, the existence of three contemporary accounts focusing on one specific place makes for a wealth of material, especially since in this case, the pagan witnesses outnumber the Christians. However, this corpus does have some serious limitations: all of our texts are inherently polemical, and none of them are Jewish. In our attempts to reconstruct historical Daphne and to draw hypotheses on the various patterns of encounters that could have happened there, we cannot complement the available literature with archeological sources. Indeed, in addition to a few inscriptions, the site has yielded a number of mosaic pavements from villas and baths but, among the public buildings, only the theater and the Olympic stadium have been identified. No temple, shrine, or synagogue has ever been found, and archeologists are unable to clarify where exactly those buildings stood in relation to one another.

1

 The actual extent and goals of Julian’s religious policy remain unclear; see Wiemer (2020).

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Apollo and Babylas: A Pagan God Against a Christian Martyr A pagan temple inhabited by its god and a Christian shrine containing the body of a martyr: an important episode of the religious interactions in fourth century Roman Antioch revolves around these religious buildings. From the early 350s to the early 380s CE, in the well-defined space of the suburb of Daphne, the Greek god Apollo and the Christian martyr Babylas cohabited and competed for supremacy over the place. One important piece of information we have is that in 351 or 352, the coffin (larnax) of the Christian martyr Babylas was moved from the cemetery of Antioch to the suburb of Daphne (Rebillard, 2009). The circumstances for the move were favorable, insofar as the emperor at the time was Christian. To provide more context, in the early 350s, the Caesar Constantius Gallus— cousin of Constantius II and half-brother of Julian—entered Antioch (Ammianus Marcellinus, Res gestae, 14.1.1). During his stay in the city, Gallus made a decision that would change Daphne’s religious balance: namely, to have the coffin of the martyr Babylas transported to the suburb of Daphne (John Chrysostom, On Babylas, 67, and later Sozomen, Church History, 5.19.12–13). He probably sought to christianize a space perceived as pagan. Christian tradition remembers Babylas as the mid-third-century bishop of Antioch, who was put to death for daring to forbid an unidentified emperor who had committed a crime from entering the church (Eusebius of Caesarea, Church History, 6.29.4; Schatkin, 1990, pp.  15–19). According to John Chrysostom, the Christian god directly inspired the decision of Caesar Gallus because it was believed that the devil had occupied Daphne, transforming it into a place of perdition for the inhabitants of Antioch. We will later return to the Christian interpretation of the conflict between Apollo and Babylas; for now, it is worth noting that in Daphne, the remains of the Christian martyr were deposited. The precise location is difficult to identify; from John Chrysostom’s text, we know that a martyrion (i.e., a Christian shrine containing the coffin of a martyr) for Babylas was erected in this area, but the author does not give further details. He only suggests that it was a place where worshipers could enter, and that the martyrion could already be seen at the entrance to the suburb (John Chrysostom, On Babylas, 70). Quite likely, the tomb of the martyr had become a meeting place for the Christians of Antioch over the years. The fifth-century Christian historian Sozomen says that Βabylas became

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Apollo’s neighbor at Daphne (Church History, 5.19.14). However, this passage hardly proves that the building was erected within the precinct (temenos) of the temple of Apollo (Mayer & Allen, 2012, p. 96). Even if Caesar Gallus was a Christian, it is difficult to imagine such an intrusion in the early 350s. Instead, it is more likely that the martyrion in Daphne was on the road leading to the sanctuary of Apollo. One panel of the mid-fifth-­ century Yakto mosaic (featuring the topography of the city of Antioch) shows a building labeled as “the workshops of the martyr shrine” (Fig. 4.1). These workshops sometimes surrounded places of worship, as they produced and sold lamps and small objects for devotees. Unfortunately, we do not know whether the martyrion represented in the mosaic corresponds to the martyrion built during the reign of Gallus or whether it is from a later date. Nevertheless, its presence next to the Daphne Olympic Stadium could suggest that the building was in Daphne (Nowakowski, 2017). In any case, about ten years later, in 362/363, the new emperor Julian chose Antioch to prepare for the expedition against the Sasanian Empire. Julian, who had become the head of the Empire after several decades of

Fig. 4.1  Panel of the Yakto mosaic (Photo © Dick Osseman)

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rule by Christian emperors, had a plan to revive traditional cults, and he deemed Antioch a fertile ground for his religious reforms. In late February 363, shortly before leaving to fight the Persians, Julian wrote a speech addressed to the city of Antioch in which he took stock of his frustrated aspirations and the fierce criticism he had suffered from Christians and others. The speech, called the Misopogon (“the enemy of the beard”), is a satirical text in which Julian pretends to call his moral, philosophical, and religious virtues into question in order to attack the customs of the inhabitants of Antioch, depicted as an effeminate people, as succubi of luxury and feasts. Julian’s text questions which deity was in charge at that time in Antioch: the emperor accuses the Christians of having substituted Christ for Zeus, Apollo, and Calliope as protectors of the city (Misopogon, 28.357C, ed. Prato & Marcone, 1987). From the perspective of Julian’s text, the ancient polis was occupied by a new divinity that transformed the city’s identity and reshaped its cultural spaces. This new spatial rearrangement found its focal point in the suburb of Daphne, and more particularly in the presence of the coffin of Babylas near the sanctuary of Apollo. For this reason, Julian decided to drive out “Daphne’s dead body,” that is, the relics of the martyr’s body (Misopogon, 33.361B). The disdain expressed by the use of the term nekros, “dead body,” to talk about Babylas’s body goes beyond the anti-Christian controversy (Torres, 2009). Julian likely owed this idea to Neoplatonism: around 180 CE, for example, the philosopher Celsus mocked Christians for their belief in the resurrection of the body. For him, the body of the dead was only “the hope for worms” (True Discourse, 5.14; see also Theodoret of Cyrus, The Cure of the Greek Maladies, 8.29). Certainly, Julian was opposed to the religion professed by the followers of Christ, the same religion in which he had most probably been raised. However, the presence of Babylas’s remains in Daphne determined first of all the absence of ritual purity, necessary for the correct performance of ritual practices. Besides this ritual issue, from an administrative point of view, the transfer of corpses within the Roman Empire was subject to strict legal regulations: Julian had the right to intervene since, as emperor, he assumed the function of pontifex maximus (Laubry, 2007). In his Res gestae, written at the beginning of the 390s, the Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus, a great admirer of Julian and a member of his entourage, explains the emperor’s intentions and actions to Daphne (22.12.6–13.2). According to Ammianus, Julian’s religious activity in Antioch was expressed by a sort of sacrificial hypertrophy: hundreds of victims were

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slaughtered in honor of the gods, and blood unceasingly covered the city’s altars (Belayche, 2001; Saggioro, 2002). Likewise, Julian gathered many prophets and divination experts around him to look into the future. In his obsessive search for oracular truths, the emperor undertook the project of freeing the spring of Castalia in Daphne (Cabouret, 1994). Ammianus says that the emperor Hadrian had obstructed this spring, which was probably used in the oracular practice of the sanctuary of Apollo. He had in fact learned in that place that he would become emperor and did not want others to seek the same answer. After having freed the spring of Castalia and having invoked the god Apollo, Julian “decided that the bodies which had been buried around, should be moved to another place, under the same ceremonial with which the Athenians had purified the island of Delos” (Res Gestae, 22.12.8). The example of Delos, quoted by Ammianus, refers to two episodes of the Greek classical age: a first purification ceremony on the island of Delos was ordered by Peisistratus, tyrant of Athens, but was repeated a second time during the Peloponnesian War. The purification ceremony in Delos had been carried out by digging up the corpses present on the island and transporting them elsewhere (Herodotus, 1.64.2; Thucydides, 3.104; Diodorus of Sicily; 12.58.6). In Daphne’s case, Ammianus does not mention Christians, nor the body or relics of Babylas. Unlike Julian, who had explicitly said that the problem was the martyr’s corpse, the historian emphasizes that it was dead bodies more generally that contaminated the sacred space of Daphne’s sanctuary and, consequently, made the oracle of Apollo inoperative (Massa, 2018; Raschle, 2014). Whether it was Babylas’s body in particular or the burials that were added to each other near Daphne’s sacred more generally, this presence of human remains spread a miasma, a contagious power, that made divination and ritual practice impossible (Lanfranchi, 2017; Parker, 1996). Neither Julian nor Ammianus specifies the place where Babylas’s body was taken. According to John Chrysostom, as we will see, the coffin was returned to the place where it had been before Gallus moved it, probably in the cemetery of Antioch (On Babylas, 87). During the emperor’s stay in Antioch, on October 23, 362, the Apollonian temple suffered serious damage due to a fire: the roof collapsed, and the statue of Apollo—whose image was inspired by the famous statue of Olympian Zeus by Phidias—was destroyed. Julian’s pain and anger exploded against the Christians, who were accused of being responsible for what had happened. According to Ammianus Marcellinus (Res gestae, 22.13.2), the emperor ordered a more severe investigation than

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usual and imposed the closure of the major church of Antioch. In his Misopogon, Julian complains that the fire was supported by the Christians and is outraged that the civic authorities did not care what happened (33.361B-C). In his text, however, Julian points out that “even before that fire the god had forsaken the temple” (34.361C). Julian’s aim is to take away from Christians the possibility of claiming a victory and to claim that their actions prompted Apollo to leave his home. Without forgetting that Misopogon is a controversial work that takes on the form of a cynical diatribe, the testimonies of Julian and Ammianus Marcellinus unequivocally demonstrate that the sharing of sacred spaces between pagans and Christians was gradually becoming more and more problematic in the city, due to support from Christian emperors. For 15  years following Julian’s death in Mesopotamia, no ancient source returned to the story. Although the emperors who succeeded Julian were Christians, Babylas’s body remained in the cemetery of Antioch. A shift occurred when, perhaps in 378 or 379, John Chrysostom, who returned to the city after a period of solitude and meditation, wrote a long speech, On Babylas. While uncertain, this dating is very probable, since the author does not mention the construction of a new martyrion for Babylas which took place in the early 380s in Qausiyeh, outside the city of Antioch, on the opposite bank of the Orontes River (Mayer, 2010; Mayer & Allen, 2012, pp. 32–49; Schatkin, 1990, pp. 20–22). This means that when John Chrysostom wrote his speech, the relics of Babylas were still in the Antioch cemetery, where Julian had brought them after the exhumation of the corpse in Daphne. We do not know the reasons that motivated the Christian author to resume the controversy around Babylas’s body and evoke the clash with Julian. Certainly, in the phase of political instability that preceded the long reign of Theodosius I (379–395), the Christian authors of the time feared that a new Julian could take power. However, it is more likely that, despite the transfer of the remains of Babylas and the partial destruction of the temple, the sacred space of Daphne remained a place where the conflict between pagans and Christians was expressed in the late 370s. The On Babylas speech was an opportunity to sing the praises of the martyr, a founding notion of ancient Christianity. The text, however, was also an instrument for reaffirming the supremacy of the Christian god over the other powers that inhabited the city of Antioch, as well as all territories of the Empire. In those years, pagan cults were still celebrated and widespread in all of the Roman provinces, and cohabitation between different cults remained a central element of the Empire.

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The limitations that had been imposed on traditional religion, starting with the laws promulgated by the sons of Constantine, had not led to the “twilight of the gods” that is often suggested (Lizzi Testa, 2009; McLynn, 2009). John Chrysostom himself implicitly recognizes the presence and vitality of paganism when he tries to explain why the “satanic laughter” was not yet eradicated from the earth (On Babylas, 13). The central theme of John Chrysostom is the triumph of the power of the Christian god, expressed through his martyr, over the divine pagan world. This triumph was necessary because Babylas was confronted directly, in the same places, as the tutelary deity of Daphne, the god Apollo. This clash came to the fore when Caesar Gallus decided to install Babylas’s coffin in Daphne. The suburb would in fact have been an idyllic place, almost a heavenly space, had the devil not sought to usurp this space and make it a place of perdition. The local demon, Apollo, would have invented a myth for the pagans to gather there and celebrate their orgies and drinking (On Babylas, 69). According to John Chrysostom, Gallus decided to use the power of Babylas’s body in order to limit the shameful forms of pagan rituals that were celebrated in Daphne. The martyr’s body thus became an instrument to mark a territory with the Christian presence and to weaken the vitality of Antiochian paganism. Babylas’s body in Daphne had an even wider effect: it called into question the religious identity of the city because it made it impractical to worship one of the most important deities of Antioch. The relics altered the balance, making the place impure for pagans and therefore interfering with ritual practice. This representation by John Chrysostom highlights another aspect of the interactions between pagans and Christians in the second half of the fourth century. For Antiochian Christians, pagan gods and goddesses existed; they had an identity and a sphere of action; they operated in the world of human beings and modified the territory in which they carried out their activities. The deities of the traditional Roman religions were not an invention: they were demonic beings. Only in this way can one understand the conflict and competition between opposing divine powers that John Chrysostom stages in his text. The presence of Babylas not only produced a change in the pagans who came to Daphne for their shameful ceremonies; it also had the effect of rendering the power of the demon Apollo ineffective. John Chrysostom is clear on this point: Babylas did not immediately drive the demon away from Daphne. Before sending him away, Babylas had to show his power, “dominating” Apollo and making him “silent,” that is, preventing him from prophesying. The Christian

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author states that, at first, the silence of the demon was explained as a consequence of the absence of “sacrifices” (thysiai) and of “worship” (therapeia) (On Babylas, 73–75). With this explanation, John undoubtedly emphasizes that the citizens of Antioch had abandoned paganism, but he also recognizes the importance of orthopraxy for the very existence of a traditional polytheistic cult. Without sacrifice and without worship, the rite could not take place and the relationship between Apollo and his community did not exist. The author concludes that in reality, the cause of the demon’s silence was the presence of Babylas’s relics. At this point John Chrysostom focuses on the then recent event of the reign of Julian (who is never explicitly mentioned by name). After briefly evoking the story of Julian, the author recalls that the emperor assiduously frequented the sanctuary of Daphne, and the excessive nature of his ritual practice is emphasized: the sacrifices made by Julian created “a horrific welter of blood” (On Babylas, 80). Despite this abundance of offerings, Apollo failed to prophesy. At first, the demon did not recognize “the power (dynamis) of the martyr,” inventing as an excuse that “Daphne … is a place filled with the dead” (On Babylas, 81). According to John Chrysostom, the question of corpses and therefore of purity (central in Julian’s version) was only a pretext not to recognize the power of Babylas— all the more so because pagan sanctuaries were full of animal bones (On Babylas, 82). The opposition between Babylas and Apollo is explicitly expressed in terms of a religious competition: Now he has purged of corruption the entire suburb of Daphne, not by his mere physical presence, as then, but by overpowering the invisible by an invisible power. (ἀοράτῳ  δυνάμει  τὴν  ἀόρατον καταγωνιζόμενος) (On Babylas, 90, trans. Lieu, 2011)

Apollo and Babylas were two “invisible powers.” They shared the same nature. In John’s view, what differentiated them was the extent of their power, as Babylas dominated Apollo. The Greek verb chosen to express conflict, katagonizomai, expresses the idea of “winning in a fight,” of “prevailing against someone.” This was a true representation of the competition between two opposing divine powers. Their clash determined, according to the Christian author, a radical change in Daphne’s religious landscape: Apollo, the defeated power, had to leave the field open to Babylas, the representative of another victorious god.

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As we have said, it is difficult to know what the real situation of cultic practices in Daphne was at the end of the 370s. John Chrysostom’s urgency to reopen the debate would seem to indicate that Daphne was still a contested space, despite the removal of Babylas’s body and the partial destruction of the temple of Apollo. A confirmation of this hypothesis is contained in the Christian text, when the Christian author states that the pagans continued in their devotion to Apollo (On Babylas, 100). In the end, the space was not christianized, not even in the following centuries. For this reason, John Chrysostom probably felt the need to emphasize the victory of the Christian divine power from a theological point of view.

Apollo and Matrona: A Pagan and a Jewish Divinatory Incubation Sanctuary in Daphne? Chrysostom also locates a Jewish place of worship in Daphne. He mentions it three times in his writings: twice in his Homilies Against Judaizing Christians (1.6.2–3 and 1.8.1 in PG48, 851–852 and 855, trans. Harkins, 1979, pp. 22–23 and 31–32) and once in his third Homily On Titus (3.2 in PG62, 679.6–11, trans. Schaff, 1976, p. 529), pronounced between 386 and 397 in Antioch (Pradels et al., 2002). The Jewish place of worship in Daphne is inserted into a seemingly well-known typology of religious space by being labeled a “synagogue” (synagogê) and a “sanctuary” (hieron). It is also identified by a toponym, Matrona, which was derived neither from its location nor from the geographical origins of the worshiping community. Chrysostom also describes Matrona as a pit (barathron) and a cave (spelaion) and mentions it while enumerating the defining features of Judaism—or more precisely, of Antiochian Jews—so as to clarify religious boundaries. In forbidding his fellow Christians to visit Jewish places of worship, he groups Matrona together with the synagogue located in the city center of Antioch, but he also distinguishes between the two by stating that Matrona was worse. Most importantly, he claims that people who visited Matrona slept there, a practice that he does not ascribe to the other synagogue. Chrysostom’s wording makes it clear that he interprets this practice as a ritual. In all three passages, he only lists Jewish rituals and ritual spaces and never explicitly forbids social interactions, such as sharing everyday activities with Jews. In the ancient Greek and Roman world, the only known ritual that included sleeping was incubation, that is, the act of

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spending the night inside a sanctuary to experience an inspired dream in answer to a plea. People were looking either for a cure (therapeutic incubation) or for knowledge of the future (divinatory incubation) (Renberg, 2017, pp. 21–30). The nature of the practice alluded to by Chrysostom is currently debated among scholars (Trzcionka, 2007, p. 130), who do not all accept that Matrona functioned as a Jewish incubation sanctuary. In order to weigh in on this issue, one would need to examine what Chrysostom meant before trying to assess the trustworthiness of his testimony. The only clue as to what Chrysostom really wished to convey lies in terminology. Allen Kerkeslager (1998, p.  119) argued that the verb used by Chrysostom, literally “to lie down to sleep beside” (parakatheudein), is never related to incubation in ancient sources. However, this statement is incomplete. Derivatives of the verb katheudein, especially egkatheudein, “to sleep among,” commonly described traditional incubation in Greek sanctuaries during Late Antiquity (see for instance IG 4.951.25). Christian authors (Gregory of Nyssa, Second Encomium on the Forty Martyrs, PG46, 786a), including Chrysostom himself (Three Books to Stagirius, PG47, 426), used this very word to describe either what they interpreted as demonic dream visions or what is commonly referred to as “Christian incubation” in churches and martyr shrines (Renberg, 2017, pp. 745–807). Since no extant Jewish source explicitly confirms that incubation was happening in synagogues during Late Antiquity, one could be tempted to brush off Chrysostom’s polemical words as slander. He would have misleadingly tried to convince his flock that Antiochian Jews had adopted a pagan practice to discredit them. Indeed, Chrysostom explicitly conflates Matrona with the neighboring temple of Apollo and condemns them both equally as “unhallowed” (bebêlon). However, does the fact that the Christian author only speaks disparagingly about the local Jews suffice to maintain that every piece of information he relayed about them is erroneous? In the present state of documentation, such a quick dismissal would be rather careless and even misguided. Literary claims that were traditionally considered fictional have been proven historical; the existence of practices that were never mentioned in any endogenous surviving texts is sometimes evidenced by new material or by credible exogenous testimonies. The vast majority of our knowledge of late ancient Jewish communities is derived from rabbinic literature. Written between 200 CE and 600 CE, it is the largest extant body of texts from a minority in the ancient

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Mediterranean. It is, however, far from exhaustive. The rabbis, who strove to establish a Jewish orthodoxy in accordance with the beliefs and customs of their movement, only gradually asserted their authority. They were not representative of all Jewish communities, who had local traditions. The Jews of Antioch are only mentioned in passing in rabbinic texts; they themselves did not leave any literature, only inscriptions (Brooten, 2000). We have little information about them, other than that the Jewish local community was organized, with an official who had the title of gerousiarch during the fourth century CE (Shepardson, 2015). Additionally, we should consider the circumstances of Chrysostom’s speeches. His whole point was that some church attendees were only “half Christian” (Homilies Against Judaizing Christians, 1.4, PG48, 844), so familiar were they with Jewish rituals. It would be counterproductive for him to make false claims about what happened in Matrona; if his assertions were completely outlandish, he would not be able to deter anyone. Thus, we should not immediately disregard Chrysostom’s words, but, on the contrary, inquire as to the plausibility of Jewish incubation in the eastern province of the Empire. Divinely inspired dreams are commonly found in ancient Jewish tradition, be it in the Hebrew Bible, in Greek Jewish literature, or in rabbinic texts. Some of the reported dreams happened at cult sites: Solomon offered sacrifice in the sanctuary of Gabaon; once he fell asleep, God appeared to him and told him that he would grant his wishes (1 Kings, 3:3–15; 2 Chronicles, 1:2–12). The Jewish historian Josephus, who was himself a priest, claimed at the end of the first century CE that God sent him dreams to let him know about the fate of the Jews and of the Roman Empire (Jewish War, 3.352). While narrating the fictional visit of Alexander the Great in Jerusalem, the same Josephus claimed that the high priest Jaddus had offered a sacrifice asking God for guidance and received an answer in his dream (Jewish Antiquities, 11.327–328). In this passage, our author was drawing heavily on the biblical model; no other Jewish source confirms that incubation in the Jerusalem temple was a common practice during the Hellenistic era and early Roman Empire. However, the Greek author Strabo, who wrote during the Augustan period, also thought that Moses prescribed incubation there: “People who have good dreams should sleep in the sanctuary, not only themselves on their own behalf, but also others for the rest of the people” (Geography, 16.2.35  in Jones, 1930, pp. 282–283).

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The Jerusalem temple was destroyed in 70 CE; by 135 CE, it had definitely ceased to function, as had all other Jewish sacrificial sites. While at least some synagogues had guest chambers where visitors could spend the night (Price, 2010), we have no Jewish account of incubation there. What we do have, however, is a number of rabbinic stories wherein pious Jews, including rabbis, are able to communicate with the dead, sometimes through dreams, and sometimes at their tomb. Students gathered at the tomb of the eighth-century BCE King Hezekiah benefited from his knowledge (Midrah Rabbah on Lamentations, proem 25). Recently deceased people could sometimes speak to the living in their dreams (Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat, 152a-b and Moed katan, 28a). A pious Jew went to sleep in a cemetery and gained knowledge of the future from the spirits of the dead buried there, knowledge from which he then greatly benefited (Babylonian Talmud, Berakhot, 18b). While accidental, this process is reminiscent of the Greek “oracles of the dead” (Ogden, 2001, p. 167). These oracles, who were often located in a cave (Ustinova, 2009, pp. 89–108), were usually associated with the dead in general, but divinatory dreams could also be requested after offering sacrifices and praying at the graves of famous individuals (Renberg, 2017, pp.  323–325). Since sacrifices to the dead are prohibited by the Bible, they never feature in rabbinic tales. Documented cases of Jewish incubation at a grave are of particular interest for Daphne, since a number of textual clues raise the possibility that Matrona was the traditional resting place of famous Jewish figures (Vinson, 1994; Ziadé, 2007). According to two Jewish biblical Apocrypha, an anonymous mother and her seven sons were arrested in Jerusalem by the Seleucid king Antiochus IV and brought to Antioch, where they were tortured and executed (2 Maccabees, 5:21 and 7:1; 4 Maccabees, 8:2). When he returned from Jerusalem to Syria in 166  BCE, Antiochus IV brought his loot to Daphne, where he celebrated a famous festival (Polybius, 31.3.1 quoted by Athenaeus, 5.194c–195f). Ancient Jewish tradition defined Daphne as a place of exile, torture, and death (2 Maccabees, 4:33–34; Jerusalem Talmud, Sanhedrin, 29c; Midrash Rabbah on Lamentations, 2.9; Midrah Rabbah on Numbers, 16.25). The anniversary of the martyrdom of the mother and sons was commemorated annually in at least one Jewish community during the second century CE (4 Maccabees, 1:10), most probably in Antioch and possibly at their grave (4 Maccabees, 17:8–10; see Dupont-Sommer, 1939). Indeed, all extant Christian sources from Antiquity agree that the relics of those martyrs

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were located in Antioch (Jerome, On the Locations and Names of Hebrew Places, s.v. “Modeim”, ed. Klostermann, 1904, p.  133; Augustine, Homilies, 300.6, PL38, 1379; Piacenza Pilgrim, Itinerary, 47.1). Due to the fact that, in some languages, the mother became known as Shamuni (in Syriac) or Ashmunit (in Arabic), the toponym Matrona has been interpreted as a derivation from those names (Bickerman, 1951). While this hypothesis is not entirely convincing from a semantic standpoint, it should be noted that, while Matrona is attested as a personal name, including for Jewish women (Noy & Bloedhorn, 2004, pp. 17–18, pp. 126–127), it is first and foremost a common Latin name meaning “a virtuous married woman.” Such a name seems fitting for a place associated with the memory of a woman who was originally only identified by her maternal status and her exemplary virtue. Contrary to what is commonly written, it was not at all impossible for a Jewish place of worship to be built near or even on a grave in Late Antiquity (Cohen, 1987). While biblical legislation considered tombs to be impure, the Mishna—the earliest rabbinic legal corpus, written circa 200  CE—stipulated that after the completion of a corpse’s desiccation, the remaining bones only transmitted impurity in case of direct contact (Mishna Oholot, 1.8). Several Talmudic texts relate a story located in Lydda (Syria), where Akiva, a prominent rabbi from the second century CE, ruled that bones deposited in a local synagogue did not defile the place (Tosefta Ohalot, 4.2; Jerusalem Talmud, Berakhot, 1.3a; Babylonian Talmud, Nazir, 52a). In the Jewish necropolis of Beth Shearim (Palaestina prima), where many prominent Jews, including rabbis, were buried, a theater-like structure was erected on top of one of the catacombs (Avigad, 1976, pp.  42–65). In the mid-third century CE, the prayer hall of the synagogue in Dura-Europos (Coele Syria) had human bones purposely buried under its threshold (Magness, 2012). Regarding Daphne, the two different words used by Chrysostom may indicate that the Jewish site was in reality a religious complex: while sanctuary (hieron) could refer to a synagogue, these two words were not always synonymous. In a third to first-century BCE Jewish inscription from Egypt (CIJ 2.1433 in Ameling, 2004), the hieron is distinguished from the place of prayer and from the outbuildings. In late antique eastern provinces, hieron could also refer to a Jewish tomb (CIJ 2.758 in Ameling, 2004). Hieron is derived from the adjective hieros which means “hallowed”; however, synagogues were not universally considered as such in the mid-fourth century (Fine, 1996). In fact, just before he mentioned Matrona, Chrysostom purposely referred to

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the Jewish sanctuaries as just “places” (Homilies Against Judaizing Christians, 1.5, 7 and 1, 6, 1, PG48, 851). As such, his insistence on the sacred quality that Matrona held for the Jews may point to a historically and theologically significant site. In addition to the existence of a Jewish tradition of graveside communication with the dead, the divinatory function of the Jewish site may have resulted from the proximity of the oracular sanctuary of Apollo. Since people already came to Daphne hoping to receive knowledge of the future, Jews may have wanted for their own sanctuary to fulfill the same function and to acquire its own fame, in a display of both religious interaction and competition. Indeed, in rabbinic texts, incubation in Greek sanctuaries was considered effective, if wrong (Babylonian Talmud, Avodah Zarah, 55a; see Kalmin, 2006, pp. 228–229); Matrona may have been an attempt at judaizing such a useful ritual. Indeed, the connection between Judaism and Apollo was not unheard of; several magical papyri found in Egypt describe ritual recipes for dream divination which invoke the Greek god under Jewish names (Faraone, 2004). The mother and her seven sons were also venerated by Christians under the name “Maccabean Martyrs.” Chrysostom himself wrote two homilies for their feast in Antioch (PG50, 617–628) and specified that Christians met in the city center on this occasion. The local importance of their cult would explain why Matrona was popular and why Chrysostom did not mention the martyrdom when trying to dissuade his flock from visiting Daphne: he considered this site too Jewish to be successfully christianized. On the contrary, some Antiochian Christians saw a major religious benefit in this spatial cohabitation. Since it was already established in Christianity that martyrs could indeed communicate with people who slept near their relics, the only way for Chrysostom to disparage both the site and the ritual was to equate them with their nearby pagan counterpart. Indeed, deliberate incubation at the grave of martyrs was not universally accepted by Christian theologians at the time (Jerome, Commentary on Isaiah, 18.65.4/5, PL24, 632c–633a); its first mention inside an Antiochian church dates from 514 (Severus of Antioch, Homily, 51), over a century after Chrysostom’s death. When Julian had the corpses removed from Daphne in 362, the relics of the mother and her seven sons may have been transferred closer to the city center. Indeed, Christian sources from after 362 explicitly locate their relics in Kerateion  or Kerataiai (Wright, 1865, pp.  45–56, 1866, pp. 423–432; Malalas, Chronicle, 8.24, PG97, 324), which may have been a predominantly Jewish neighborhood of suburban Antioch (Downey,

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1961, pp.  206, 544), even though there was no spatial segregation in ancient cities. If, over 20 years after Julian’s death in 386, Chrysostom still found it necessary to criticize Matrona, the sanctuary must have retained its ritual power. According to the early sixth-century chronographer John Malalas (Chronicle, 16.6), there was still a synagogue in Daphne in his youth.2 While Malalas is arguably not a very reliable source on historical events, he was from Antioch and still lived there in 507 when, according to him, the local synagogue was attacked. If the site was indeed christianized, as some partially fictional sources imply (Mayer & Allen, 2012, pp. 92–94; Saliou, 2014, pp. 629–661), it may have been in relation to the expulsion of the Jews from Antioch in 610/611 (Mango & Scott, 1997, p. 426).

Daphne and Religious Identities The case study of Daphne in the second half of the fourth century makes it possible to analyze religious transformations in the late Roman Empire. These transformations had an impact on the space of the ancient city, where several religious groups lived. Christian authorities used the martyr Babylas’s body as an instrument to mark Daphne’s religious space. Both Caesar Gallus’s decision to transport the body of Babylas to Daphne in the early 350s and Bishop Meletius’s decision to build a new martyrion in the early 380s show the Christian attempt to control the territory of the city. Faced with a pagan emperor who opposed this christianization of space, John Chrysostom argued that the power of martyrdom, once installed in space, could no longer be removed. The texts of John Chrysostom repeatedly insist on the triumph of Christian divine power in the city of Antioch. Nevertheless, he was aware that the support of the sanctuary of Apollo by the pagans and the synagogue of Matrona by the Jews were forms of resistance to the christianization of space. For the Christian author—and probably for Christian authorities in the city—the problem of spatialization was intrinsically linked to the problem of identity: Daphne’s space was frequented by many individuals who went to the same places. According to the Christian 2  Evagrius Scholasticus, The Ecclesiastical History, 1.13, wrote that the synagogues of Antioch were confiscated in 414, but his claim is disputed. Additionally, in 423, Theodosius II ordered the restoration of illegally occupied synagogues in the eastern provinces; see Codex Theodosianus, 8.24, 8.26 and 10.34.

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authorities, however, those who frequented the shrines of Apollo or Matrona were not Christians. Since the Hellenistic period, the suburb of Daphne has participated in the civic identity of the city of Antioch. In imperial times, the prestige of the Apollo sanctuary reinforced the importance of the place because Daphne attracted many visitors. The project of christianization of this space aimed to expand and maintain Christian influence in the city of Antioch. At first, the construction of a martyrion and the transfer of the relics of Babylas seemed to foster this objective. After Julian’s decision to return the remains of Babylas to the Antioch cemetery, however, the Christians abandoned their initial project. In the early 380s, under Emperor Theodosius I, Bishop Meletius would choose another place to create a new martyrion in honor of Babylas. Nonetheless, the attempt by some Christian faithful to maintain their Antiochian identity by visiting Matrona was delegitimized by ecclesiastical authorities, as the Jewish identity of the place was considered incompatible in a context of religious competition.

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CHAPTER 5

Constantinople as a (Unwilling) Multireligious Space (330–1453) Przemyslaw Marciniak

Introduction Constantinople is an unusual city (or City, as it was simply described). It had many names, from Byzantion to Konstantinoupolis (the city of Constantine) to Istanbul (which, ironically, derives from the Greek phrase eis tin Poli, that is, in the City) (Georgacas, 1948, pp. 366–367). It was founded as a pagan city, and its pagan past was visible and tangible in the pagan monuments scattered across the architectonic landscape. Constantinople subsequently became a Christian city, and, finally, after its Fall to the Turks in 1453, it was transformed into a Muslim metropolis by its new rulers. From a diachronic perspective, Constantinople/ Byzantium is a perfect example of a multi-religious city. However, in each phase, its multi-religious nature and the relationships between the

This text was written during my stay in Vienna funded by the Polish National Agency for Academic Exchange (NAWA). P. Marciniak (*) Institute of Literary Studies, University of Silesia in Katowice, Katowice, Poland e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 M. Burchardt, M. C. Giorda (eds.), Geographies of Encounter, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82525-6_5

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dominant religion and other denominations manifested themselves differently. This chapter focuses on the period up to 1453, that is, before the Ottoman conquest of the City, and, more specifically, on spatial arrangements of its religioscape(s). In understanding what “space” is, this chapter follows the Introduction to this volume by considering “space” as “as a larger environment that is socially constructed, reproduced and transformed” (see Burchardt & Giorda in this volume). In this sense, the entirety of Constantinople as a city can be recognized as a multi-­ religious space. As a nexus-city, where representatives of different ethnic groups met for political or commercial reasons, Constantinople was also, against the will of its rulers, a city of many religions and heresies, from paganism to Christianity to Islam. However, the majority of its population comprised Orthodox Christians. One thing, however, should be made clear. There were no places in Constantinople that were objects of simultaneous devotion of various religions—unless one includes churches converted into mosques after the Fall of the City in 1453 (but even they were not used simultaneously by both the Christians and the Muslims). The lack of multi-faith spaces was partly because Constantinople was a relatively new city compared to Rome or Jerusalem. Consequently, there were no places that could be holy and venerated by more than one faith. There is perhaps one exception to this rule—the legend of the tomb of Abu Ayyub al-­ Ansari, the Companion of the Prophet, who was supposed to have died during the siege of Constantinople in 669. According to a thirteenth-­ century story of Al-Qazwini, Abu Ayyub’s tomb was located by the walls of Constantinople. Al-Qazwini reports that “its soil is venerated by the Byzantines, who go there to pray for rain during times of drought” (El Cheikh, 2004, p. 210). The tomb was miraculously found after the conquest of Constantinople, and a mosque was erected above it by Mehmed II (rebuilt as Eyüp Sultan Camii in the nineteenth century). Understandably, this story is not corroborated by Byzantine sources and remains entirely fictitious. Two terms are crucial for the analysis of the material gathered in this chapter: pragmatic tolerance and antagonistic tolerance. The former was coined recently by Victoria Christman and is defined as “the lived reality of religious coexistence as a practical necessity rather than a commitment to a theoretical or philosophical principle” (Christman, 2015, p.  9). In

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spite of the inherent xenophobic nature of its citizens and imperial families, who strove to eliminate all signs of heresies, Constantinople was, during many periods of its existence, a place of “pragmatic tolerance,” when political or social circumstances called for it. However, this policy could also be reversed, and intolerance, in tandem with persecutions, could be applied (as happened during the Massacre of the Latins in 1182). This pertains especially to all instances of tolerance toward non-Christian religions. As I will demonstrate below, the existence of Muslim prayer places was strictly bound to political circumstances. Conversely, it is telling that there were no (or perhaps, it is better to say that there were almost no) synagogues in Constantinople.1 The Byzantine Jewry was not a power to be reckoned with, and there was no need to appease them by letting them have their own place of worship within the City. The second focal term for this chapter is the concept of “antagonistic tolerance,” understood as “the dominance of one religious community over another, or over others, and of contestations for dominance” (Hayden et al., 2016, p. 29). Religious dominance is marked by control over key sacred sites, which may be transformed and used by the new dominating religion. Therefore, in this chapter, both “pragmatic” and “antagonistic” tolerance are perceived through the lens of spatial arrangements within the City. In the former case, a religious site of a different religion might have been tolerated for practical reasons; in the latter, it might have been transformed to mark the dominance of the new group, thus reconfiguring the Other and the Self opposition. Against this background (and these reservations), this short chapter will survey several instances where the presence of religions other than Christianity and, perhaps more notably, different denominations of Christianity were visibly manifested. Taking into account various denominations of the same religion may stretch the concept underlying the present volume, but in medieval Constantinople, the divide between Orthodoxy and Catholicism was deep and often insurmountable (it is enough to mention the famous, though probably untrue, statement of Lukas Notaras “I would rather see a Turkish turban in the midst of the City than the Latin mitre”).2 1  For a comprehensive selection of laws regarding Jews in the Byzantine Empire, see Linder (1997).  I would like to thank Dr. Saskia Dönitz for her help with the issues regarding Byzantine Jewish culture. 2  On Notaras’ statement see Reinsch (1996, pp. 377–389).

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Antagonistic Tolerance? The Brave New World of the Christian Constantinople On May 11, 330, when Constantine the Great changed old Byzantion/ Byzantium into Constantinople/New Rome, he also started the transformation of his new capital into a Christian city. However, as Mary Balzer has noted, Christian writers’ enthusiastic accounts regarding the architectonic/Christianizing program of the Emperor are not corroborated by archeological testimonies (Balzer, 2013, pp.  55–74). The Patria of Constantinople (a conventional title of a group of texts about the history and monuments of Constantinople, revised sometime in the tenth century) reports with obvious exaggeration: He [=Constantine the Great] also immediately built holy houses, one in the name of Saint Eirene and another of the Apostles. And he destroyed the whole religion of the pagans and built many churches […]. (Berger, 2013, p. 29)

Constantine might have wanted to promote the new religion by incorporating it into the City’s urban fabric and might have transformed some old pagan shrines into Christian churches, following the well-established tradition that a sacred place was seldom desacralized but rather reconsecrated (Armstrong, 1974, p.  14). However, Byzantine culture was permeated with the ancient world’s remnants (after all, its entire education was founded on pagan texts). What is more, the Emperor himself erected pagan statues in the Hippodrome. And although pagan religion gradually disappeared as Christianity became the main and only admissible religion, this does not mean that pagan artifacts, such as statues, were eradicated from the urban landscape of Constantinople. The Parastaseis Syntomoi Chronikai (Brief Historical Notes), a most likely eighth-century work, contains descriptions of ancient statues in Constantinople (Cameron & Herrin, 1984).3 This work’s tone is suspicious toward the ancient statues, which could still have the power to harm, as in the story of one Theodore and his friend Himerios, who visited the Kynegion. There, they saw a statue of Maximian, who had built the Kynegion. As they were looking at the statue, it fell from its pedestal and killed Himmerios. Such stories show 3  The material from the Parastaseis was later incorporated in the second book of the Patria of Constantinople.

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that ancient statues were tangible reminders of a past and a religion that were merely a recollection by the eighth century. The most important difference is that unlike places such as the Parthenon, ancient statues were not directly interwoven into the new religious landscape (that is, they were not appropriated to serve Christianity); they were still a manifestation of the long-defunct Other. However, some pagan monuments gained new meanings, as they were consciously or mistakenly reinterpreted. For instance, Sarah Bassett suggested that what both the Parastaseis (Chap. 5) and Patria (Chap. 2.87) describe as a statue group of Adam and Eve (which was to be found in the Hippodrome) represents one of the labors of Herakles (Bassett, 1991, p. 91). The material dimension of pagan artifacts in the City is almost completely lost to us; we can reconstruct them only through literary testimonies. However, as Liz James has convincingly demonstrated, the Byzantine attitude toward the pagan monuments in Constantinople was very complex and, moreover, that “[t]he clear-cut distinction between ‘pagan’ and ‘Christian’ is rightly becoming increasingly blurred” (James, 1996, p. 13). This does not mean that the old religion peacefully co-existed with the new one but rather that it was, to some extent, absorbed and internalized. In this sense, the absorption by Christianity of monuments, places, and artifacts belonging to pagan religion in Constantinople can be seen as a variation of the “antagonistic tolerance” model, in which pagan sites are not so much transformed as reinterpreted. The pagan—Greek and Roman—past, even if problematic for the new Christian elite, did not come from outside but from within, unlike faiths (and denominations of the same religion) which were perceived as outright dangerous (these included Jews, Muslims, and Western Christians).

The Jewish Absence The so-called Collectio Tripartita (sixth century) describes synagogues as τόποι θρησκείας (places of worship or religion) (Linder, 1997, p. 46) and recognizes their unique status, as it prohibits lodging of the troops in these buildings. However, constructing new synagogues was repeatedly forbidden, and new buildings were to be converted into churches. Consequently, Jewish temples were absent from the urban landscape of Constantinople. Scholars contested the existence in the fifth century of the so-called synagogue in the Copper Market (τὰ Χαλκοπρατεῖα) . However, it is plausible that such a synagogue existed but was confiscated

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and converted into a church under Theodosius II (fifth century) (Panayotov, 2002, pp. 319–334). In the second half of the twelfth century, a Castilian (?) Jew, Benjamin of Tudela, described his visit to Constantinople in his Travels. While lauding Constantinople and its richness and luxury, he says: And the Jews do not live among them [Greeks] because they moved them behind the sea inlet. And the arm of sea of Marmara surrounds them on one side, and they cannot leave other than by sea to trade with the locals. […] And no Jew is allowed to ride a horse other than R. Solomon the Egyptian who is the emperor’s doctor, and thanks to him the Jews’ condition is greatly improving. For their condition is very low and there is much hatred against them, fostered by the tanners who work with leather and who throw their filthy water outside in front of their [Jews] houses and defile the Jewish area. And therefore the Greeks hate the Jews, both good and bad, and oppress them, and beat them in the streets and overwork them. But those Jews are rich and good people, kind and pious and suffer their exile favorably. And the name of the place in which the Jews live is Pera. (Mordechai, 2021, p. 558)

Benjamin predictably does not mention any synagogues in the City, which is understandable considering the existing regulation prohibiting building new synagogues. Nor has he mentioned any such building in Galata, even though there must have been places, probably private ones, when Jews gathered to pray. However, the testimony of the Palaiologan scholar, Maximos Planoudes, suggests that in the thirteenth century, there was a synagogue in the quartier called Vlanga. What makes this testimony even more interesting is Planoudes’ remark that the Jewish temple was situated near the church (ep. 41 & Jacoby, 1968, p. 191). This situation regarding building new synagogues only changed under Ottoman rule when the Jews contributed considerably to the architectural development of Galata/ Pera (Altınöz, 2015, pp. 163–180).

The Latin Empire The Sack of the City in 1204 by the forces of the Fourth Crusade was a catastrophe beyond measure (Angold, 2003; Harris, 2014). The City was conquered and plundered not by infidels but by fellow Christians. An extreme example of the complete barbarism (not that the Byzantines expected anything else from the Latins) was the desecration of the Hagia Sophia, as described by Niketas Choniates (who did not see it himself):

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In addition, in order to remove the pure silver which overlay the railing of the bema, the wondrous pulpit and the gates, as well as that which covered a great many other adornments, all of which were plated with gold, they led to the very sanctuary of the temple itself mules and asses with packsaddles; some of these, unable to keep their feet on the smoothly polished marble floors, slipped and were pierced by knives so that the excrement from the bowels and the spilled blood defiled the sacred floor. Moreover, a certain silly woman laden with sins, an attendant of the Erinyes, the handmaid of demons, the workshop of unspeakable spells and reprehensible charms, waxing wanton against Christ … sat upon the synthronon and intoned a song, and then whirled about and kicked up her heels in dance. (Magoulias, 1984, p. 315)

Truth be told, this passage is laden with so many references to ancient literature and standard insults (the desecration of the holy place by animals, a dancing and singing prostitute) that it may well be Choniates’ amplified way of showing the barbaric behavior of the Latins rather than a truthful account. Still, Choniates underscores the brutality of the conquerors and the fact that they had no respect for the sacred space, which ultimately made them equal to non-Christian barbarians. Be that as it may, the year 1204 marked the first time when the Hagia Sophia was transformed into a place of worship for a different denomination. And although it might have been robbed and desecrated during the conquest, it very quickly became the most important church of the newly created Latin Empire of Constantinople (1204–1261) (Van Tricht, 2011, pp. 84–87).4 This period also saw the first instance when two branches of Christianity— Orthodoxy and Catholicism—were forced to co-exist in the City. In 1206, Innocent III, when replying to a letter from the Latin Patriarch Morosini, confirmed that the Byzantine rite had to be tolerated.5 However, it is unclear whether this meant that both Byzantine/Orthodox and Catholic rite could be performed in the same church; the Orthodox-Catholic coexistence was far from being as harmonious as it was a few centuries later in  Latin emperors continued to be crowned in the church of the Holy Wisdom.  Patrologia Latina 215, col. 964–965: “Educeri quoque de sacrificiorum et aliorum sacramentorum ritu per sedem apostolicam postulasti, utrum debeas Graecos permittere, u tea ut ea exerceant more suo, vel compellere ad ritum potius Latinorum. Ad quod fraternitati tuae breivter breviter respondemus, ut eos tanmdiu in suo ritu sustineas, si per te revocari non possiint, donec super hoc apostolica sedes maturiori consilio aliud duxerit statuendum.” See also Van Tricht (2011, p. 314), where the mission of Legate Benedictus to Thessalonike is mentioned. Benedictus also showed tolerance toward the Byzantine rite. 4 5

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Crete (Maltezou, 1991, pp.  33–35). Moreover, it seems that certain Orthodox churches had been adjusted to the new reality. For instance, the interior of the Hagia Sophia was modified for the purposes of the Latin rite (Müller-Wiener, 1977, p.  89), and the church of Theotokos Chalkoprateia was taken over by the Franks (Müller-Wiener, 1977, p. 77). In addition to that, the crusaders built their own churches, like, for instance, S. Paolo (Müller-Wiener, 1977, p. 79).6 The Latin presence and consequently any contact with Rome were mostly unwelcome, and the dynamics between the representatives of the two denominations were very delicate. Be that as it may, Catholicism was undoubtedly visible in Constantinople until the City was re-conquered by the Byzantines in 1261. The transformation of the Orthodox churches into Catholic ones was the most visible display of the “antagonistic tolerance.” Such a transformation marked the transition of power in Constantinople and underscored the dominance of the new religious group.

Islamic Presence in Constantinople Only the presence of Muslim mosques (or, more precisely, places where Muslim prayers could take place) makes a case for Constantinople as a truly multi-faith space, although it has to be reiterated that space was not created voluntarily or out of goodwill. Recent debates have shifted significantly, bringing new evidence challenging the received opinions on Muslims in Constantinople.7 There is no doubt that Muslims were present in the City—as prisoners of war, merchants, and travelers. Consequently, the Byzantines were evidently aware of various peculiar customs of Islam and—what is even more surprising—seemed to observe them. Perhaps the 6  It is difficult to say today, based on archeological or iconographic evidence, to what extent Frankish occupation made its mark on Constantinople’s architectonic landscape. But even for the earlier centuries, Cyril Mango has speculated that: “[W]e should not rule out the possibility that … in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the various Italian colonies that were established along the Golden Horn—those of the Amalfitans, Venetians, and Pisans— could have put up buildings in their native style. There can be no doubt … that when Galata was ceded to the Genoese in 1303, there sprang up opposite Constantinople a Western town with its palazzi and churches (my emphasis) […]” (Mango, 1985, p. 276). 7  Stephen W. Rainert refers to an opinion expressed by Gustav Grunenbaum, who claimed that “the Byzatine Empire did not tolerate a Muslim organization on its soil.” See Reinert (1998, pp. 125–126).

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most well-known example is a passage from the work of Hārūn b. Yaḥyā, who was a prisoner in Constantinople in the reign of Leo VI.8 He left the following testimony describing the participation of an Arab prisoner in imperial banquets during Christmas: During the feast, the Emperor comes from the church to that assembly, and takes a seat in front of the golden table. It is the Christmas Day. He orders that prisoners should be present and sitting around these tables, … on which amazing amount of the hot and cold food was served. Then the imperial herald said: I swear by the head of the Emperor that in these meals there is no pork at all. Then the food is carried to them in gold and silver plates. (trans. Ramadan, 2009, p. 173)9

There is a marked difference between a gesture of goodwill (that is, accepting the religious customs of captives) and permission to build a place of worship. The first, obviously fictitious, testimony of an Arab officially praying in Constantinople comes from the time of the first Arab siege of Constantinople. According to legend, the already-mentioned Abu Ayyub al-Ansari was the first Muslim ever to pray in Hagia Sophia—he was allowed to do so in exchange for discontinuing the siege (Rettenbacher, 2016, p.  103). However, his prayer was supposed to symbolically foreshadow what was prophesized, that is, the conversion of the Hagia Sophia into a mosque. Later on, Arabic sources from the tenth and eleventh centuries consistently mention that Byzantino-Arabic treatises stipulated which caliphs the khutba (a sermon) preached in Constantinople should mention (Walker, 2012, p. 124). Interestingly—but predictably—the first historical mention of a mosque in Constantinople in a Greek source also appears in the context of war. In the tenth century De administrando imperio, ascribed to Constantine Porphyrogennetos, there is the following passage (in a section on Abbasids):

8  Hārūn b. Yaḥyā is known only from his own account. It was speculated that he was a Christian (which could have influenced his testimony). See https://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopaedia-of-islam-2/harun-b-yahya-SIM_2746 (accessed 22.12.2020). On Hārūn b. Yaḥyā’s travels (as well as other Arabic accounts of Constantinople), see Berger (2002, pp. 179; 191). 9  See also Simeonova (1998, pp. 74–103).

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And Mauias’ [sic] grandson was Masalmas [sic], who made an expedition against Constantinople, and at whose request was built the mosque [magisdion] of the Saracens in the imperial praetorium (Moravcsik, 1967, p. 93).

Although the Greek word μαγίσδιον could refer to a mosque (but also to a synagogue10), Glaire Anderson has convincingly proven that what is meant here is rather a space within the Great Palace in Constantinople (Anderson, 2009, pp. 86–113). This space, called by the Muslim writers the Dar al-Balat,11 came to function, as Anderson has argued, as the place of worship and the City’s designated congregational mosque. In other words, “[…] the buildings used by the Muslim communities in Byzantine Constantinople were not purposely constructed as Islamic monuments (works of architecture with some intrinsic aesthetic, religious, or historical importance to Muslims specifically). The medieval equivalent of today’s ‘storefront’ mosques, the structures used by the Muslims of Constantinople were buildings adapted for Muslim communities, in which they resided, worked and worshiped” (Anderson, 2009, p. 88). Interestingly enough, when the Dar al-Balat (Choniates speaks about “the synagogue of the Saracens”) was destroyed by the population of Constantinople, it does not seem to have been done because of anti-Muslimism hatred (Magoulias, 1984, p. 148). Reinert, in the conclusion of his paper, says that the characteristic attitude of the ruling elite toward “Muslims within” was pragmatically eirenic, “an outstanding instance of οἰκονομία, the tolerance of paradox for the welfare of the community” (Reinert, 1998, p.  148). This is not far away from the “pragmatic tolerance” mentioned earlier. Such (mostly economic) tolerance toward Jews did not include permission to build synagogues. In other words, different political and social circumstances called for different solutions.

10  Lexikon zur byzantinischen Gräzität, ed. E.  Trapp et  al., s.v. (online version accessed December 12, 2020). 11  “The term dar, often translated as ‘palace’, connotes an official function, while balat (pl. ablita) as used in other medieval Arabic texts has imperial connotations.” (Anderson, 2009, p. 87).

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Conclusion Constantinople had never been a place where religions (or even various denominations of the same faith) were meant to co-exist peacefully. In the anonymous twelfth-century satire Timarion, which is partly set in the Underground, one of the deceased, Theodore of Smyrna, explains to the eponymous Timarion: And another thing, don’t be afraid of the judges because they are pagan. For they are genuinely devoted to justice. It is precisely for that reason that they were elevated to the supreme court. They aren’t concerned about religious difference between themselves and the people who come before them. Everyone is allowed to stick to the religion of his choice (ἀνεῖται γὰρ τῷ βουλομένῳ τῆς οἰκείας, ὡς βουλητόν, αἱρέσεως ἔχεσθαι). (Timarion 29) (Baldwin, 1984)

While commenting on this passage, Dimitris Krallis has observed that “[r]eligious tolerance was not part of the official Byzantine ideology” (Krallis, 2013, p.  240). In other words, Theodore’s statement did not translate to the situation in the real world. On the contrary, it seems that it could be uttered only in the carnavalized (in the Bakhtinian sense of this word) story world of satire, where everything is upside down. Theresa Shawcross has recently noted that it is misleading to believe that Byzantium was more enlightened than the West, even if “during certain periods Muslims had their mosques, Jews their synagogues and Catholics their denominational churches within imperial territory” (Shawcross, 2020, pp. 307–308). It is not particularly surprising that a city whose rulers tried to eradicate heterodoxy and were continuously entangled in wars with Muslims could hardly be seen as a multi-faith space. Some buildings could be adapted or converted to serve other religions or other denominations of the same religion (e.g., orthodox churches being converted into catholic ones), but by and large, this was not a widely accepted norm. Patriarch Athanasios I (1289–1293, 1303–1309) penned a letter to Emperor Andronikos II, in which he vehemently protested laws allowing the Jews, Armenians, and Turks to have their places of worship in the City (ep. 41 & Jacoby, 1968, pp. 190–191). Athanasios’ vocabulary is offensive as he speaks about a God-slaying synagogue (41.8: τὴν θεοκτόνον συναγωγὴν) and abominable misteria of the Ismaelites (41. 26: τὰ μυσαρὰ αὐτῶν ἐκφωνοῦσι μυστήρια). However, in Constantinople, there was no

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space and need for other faiths as such tolerance would undermine the Christian-Orthodox policy of Byzantine emperors, which was the most important factor unifying the inhabitants of the empire. Religious homogeneity was achieved in many ways, by the persecution of heretics (Cameron, 2007, pp. 1–24) and by the conversion of non-Orthodox princesses to Orthodoxy and changing their names (e.g., Piroska of Hungary, wife of John II, received the name Irene) (Garland, 1998). The Constantinopolitan religioscape changed with the advent of the Ottoman rulers, whose religious policy was more flexible than that of their Byzantine predecessors. The history of Byzantine Constantinople is basically a history of a Christian-Orthodox city whose rulers tried to maintain the homogeneity of its religious landscape at all costs.

References Altınöz, Ö. (2015). The Urban History of the Ottoman Empire in the Nineteenth Century. An Exemplary Study on Galata’s Jewish Congregations. East Central Europe, 42(2–3), 163–180. Anderson, G. D. (2009). Islamic Spaces and Diplomacy in Constantinople (Tenth to Thirteenth Centuries C.E.). Medieval Encounters, 15(2009), 86–113. Angold, M. (2003). The Fourth Crusade: Event and Context. Routledge. Armstrong, G. T. (1974). Constantine's Churches: Symbol and Structure. Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 33(1), 5–16. Baldwin, B. (1984). Timarion. Wayne University Press. Balzer, M. (2013). Constantine’s Constantinople: A Christian Emperor, a Pagan City. Ezra’s Archives, 3(1), 55–74. Bassett, S.  G. (1991). The Antiquities in the Hippodrome of Constantinople. Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 45, 87–96. Berger, A. (2002). Sightseeing in Constantinople: Arab Travellers, c. 900-1300. In R.  Macrides (Ed.), Travel in the Byzantine World. Papers from the Thirty-­ fourth Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies, Birmingham, April 2000 (pp. 179–191). Ashgate. Berger, A. (2013). Accounts of Medieval Constantinople: The Patria. Dumbarton Oaks. Brill. (n.d.). Hārūn b. Yaḥyā. In Brill Encyclopeadia of Islam, Second Edition. Retrieved December 22, 2020, from https://referenceworks.brillonline.com/ entries/encyclopaedia-­of-­islam-­2/harun-­b-­yahya-­SIM_2746 Cameron, A. (2007). Enforcing Orthodoxy in Byzantium. Studies in Church History, 43, 1–24. Cameron, A. & Herrin, J. (Eds.). (1984). Constantinople in the Early Eighth Century: The Parastaseis Syntomoi Chronikai. Brill.

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Christman, V. (2015). Pragmatic Toleration: The Politics of Religious Heterodoxy in Early Reformation Antwerp, 1515–1555. University of Rochester Press. El Cheikh, N. M. (2004). Byzantium Viewed by the Arabs. Harvard University Press. Garland, L. (1998). Byzantine Empresses. Women and Power in Byzantium AD 527-1204. Routledge. Georgacas, J.  D. (1948). The Names of Constantinople. Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association, 78, 347–367. Harris, J. (2014). Byzantium and the Crusades. Bloomsbury. Hayden, R. M., Erdemir, A., Tanyeri-Erdemir, T., Walker, T. D., Rangachari, D., Aguilar-Moreno, M., López-Hurtado, E., & Bakic-Hayden, M. (2016). Antagonistic Tolerance. Competitive Sharing of Religious Sites and Spaces. Routledge. Jacoby, D. (1968). Les quartiers juifs de Constantinople. Byzantion, 37, 167–227. James, L. (1996). “Pray Not to Fall into Temptation and Be on Your Guard”: Pagan Statues in Christian Constantinople. Gesta, 35(1), 12–20. Krallis, D. (2013). Harmless Satire, Stinging Critique: Notes and Suggestions for Reading the Timarion. In D. Angelov & M. Saxby (Eds.), Power and Subversion in Byzantium (pp. 221–246). Routledge. Linder, A. (1997). The Jews in the Legal Sources of the Early Middle Ages. Wayne State University Press. Magoulias, H. J. (1984). O City of Byzantium. Annals of Niketas Choniates. Wayne State University Press. Maltezou, C. (1991). The Historical and Social Context. In D.  Holton (Ed.), Literature and Society in Renaissance Crete (pp.  17–47). Cambridge University Press. Mango, C. (1985). Byzantine Architecture. Rizzoli. Moravcsik, G. (Ed.). (1967). Constantine Porphyrogennetos. Deadministrandoimperio, Dumbarton Oaks Center for Byzantine Studies. Mordechai, L. (2021). From Benjamin of Tudela’s Travels. In F. Spingou (Ed.), Sources for Byzantine Art History Volume 3: The Visual Culture of Later Byzantium (1081–c.1350) (pp. 553–561). Cambridge University Press. Müller-Wiener, W. (1977). Bildlexikon zur Topographie Istanbuls. Byzantion-­ Konstaninupolis-­Istanbul bis zum Beginn des 17 Jh. E. Wasmuth. Panayotov, A. (2002). The Synagogue in the Copper Market of Constantinople: A Note on the Christian Attitudes Toward Jews in the Fifth Century. Orientalia Christiana Periodica, 68, 319–334. Ramadan, A. (2009). The Treatment of Arab Prisoners of War in Byzantium, 9th-­10th Centuries. Annales Islamologiques, 43, 155–194. Reinert, S. W. (1998). The Muslim Presence in Constantinople, 9th-15th Centuries: Some Preliminary Observations. In H. Ahrweiler & A. E. Laiou (Eds.), Studies on the Internal Diaspora of the Byzantine Empire (pp. 125–150). Dumbarton Oaks Research Library.

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CHAPTER 6

Religious Diversity and the Long Nineteenth Century: Exploring Port Cities Cristiana Facchini

Rustschuk, sul Basso Danubio, dove sono venuto al mondo era per un bambino una città meravigliosa, e quando dico che si trova in Bulgaria ne do un’immagine insufficiente, perché nella stessa Rustschuk vivevano persone di origine diversissima, in un solo giorno si potevano sentire sette otto o lingue. Oltre ai bulgari, che spesso venivano dalla campagna, c’erano molti turchi, che abitavano in un quartiere tutto per loro, che confinava col. quartiere degli “spagnoli”, dove stavamo noi. C’erano greci, albanesi, armeni, zingari. (Canetti, 2004, p. 14)

The City and the Long Nineteenth Century No other age has experienced such a spatial densification of social existence. (Osterhammel, 2014, p. 244) This article is part of the research project ‘Religion and Urbanity: Reciprocal Formations’ funded by the DFG (FOR 2779). C. Facchini (*) Department of History and Cultures, Alma Mater Studiorum – University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 M. Burchardt, M. C. Giorda (eds.), Geographies of Encounter, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82525-6_6

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The city may definitely be conceived as a relevant marker of modern global changes, as it signals different forms and paths to urbanization, whose defining traits shed light on a variety of civilizations. To a great extent, cities experienced significant social changes, and they also failed and disappeared (Smith, 2019; Woolf, 2020). By the second half of the nineteenth century a sociology of cities and related urban conditions had developed, becoming fully institutionalized as a research topic during the following decades, often due to the deep transformations brought about by the rise of industrial capitalism (Sennett, 1969). For many sociologists, reformers and political activists, the industrial metropolis was the quintessential site of modernity, including its ailments and potentials, somewhere new lifestyles and personal ambitions could be nurtured and supported. However, the rapid growth of urban conglomerations in the long nineteenth century was only partially defined by industrialization. “Of all the dynamic changes that the people of the nineteenth century associated with their own era”, writes Christopher Bayly, “industrialization and the rise of the huge, impersonal metropolis were the most striking to them. Very often they perceived a close connection between these two developments, whereas, in reality, much early industrialization took place in the countryside, with large ‘factory cities’ developing only later” (Bayly, 2004, p. 170). Moreover, cities were also transformed by the “political and ideological conflicts over the use of space” that typically characterized the urban landscape of the long nineteenth century, when revolutionary ideals left deep signs in the urban fabric and new notions of “public space” appeared. The economy and politics of modernization played major roles, but the colonization of immense areas such as Africa, Australia and the Americas contributed to intensifying it. Moreover, poverty and famine, combined with the individual desire to attain better social conditions, contributed to the intensification of migratory waves, some of them by seasonal laborers. The arrival of conspicuous numbers of immigrants, especially in the dynamic cities that were developing at such a rapid pace, changed the social fabric of the urban environment, bringing about new challenges, especially when these migrants were not only socially deprived but also alien subjects with different cultures, religions and low levels of literacy. The nineteenth-century city was a place of intense renovation and restyling, a laboratory of socio-political experiments, of intense interactions and conflicts. It was also the shop window of the ideals and shortcomings of a distinctive civilization, a theatrical layout of power and might, not very dissimilar to previous epochs. More than ever, cities became

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uniform and similar in style and function. Furthermore, one should bear in mind that cities became the intense object of literary imagination, to the point that it would not be an exaggeration to see modern fiction, the dissemination of the novel and the rise of urban lifestyles as intrinsically intertwined. Is it possible to claim, as for other periods, that religion is a “cultural technique” capable of marking space through special types of action (rituals) that also apply to the long nineteenth century? Is religion a resource that social actors are willing to deploy as means to define and locate themselves within the modern urban fabric?

Religion and the City, Religion in the City Nineteen-century men and women set out with even greater vigor to sanctify their landscapes. (Bayly, 2004)

The immediate answer to these questions may be positive. And yet this relationship has some distinctive features that may reveal meaningful differences from other historical periods, provided they are appropriately described and analysed. One of the most influential narratives in the study of religion in the long nineteenth century is defined by the concept of secularization in both its technical and its philosophical meanings (Menozzi, 2003; Taylor, 2007; for criticism, see Asad, 2003). A striking difference from other periods, at least as far as Christian and Muslim societies are concerned, is therefore the development of a society where, as already noted, religion is becoming less influential in directing and ruling society, even when it is not openly challenged as a remnant of the past that is perhaps destined to disappear, to be rooted out, and definitely to be reformed. Criticism of religion was an ingrained part of the European intellectual traditions of the Enlightenment, but very rarely did this type of criticism envisage the full eradication of religion, at least not until the Bolshevik revolution. It is also true that some nineteenth-century philosophical systems which were deemed anti-religious inspired many cultural and political projects worldwide. For example, positivism even attempted to become a religion itself, and some scholars have therefore suggested dubbing it an Ersatzreligion, a typical example of nineteenth-century culture (Gentile, 20133). Religious responses to some of the challenges of the nineteenth century may be described using notions such as resilience, adaptation and

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indifference. For example, after 1848 the Catholic Church reacted aggressively and even issued an anti-modern manifesto (Syllabus, 1864) in which it voiced strong criticism of liberal values and lifestyles. However, even though Catholicism found itself under siege (the Kulturkampf and the Breccia of Porta Pia are telling examples of this conflict taking place in the 1870s), it clearly succeeded in reorienting itself by means of different strategies, some of them spatially oriented: examples include the creation of new sites of pilgrimage such as the shrine of Lourdes in France (Harris, 1999), or the cult of Padre Pio in San Giovanni Rotondo (Italy) in the twentieth century (Luzzatto, 2007). Sites of pilgrimage gained prominence from improvements to infrastructural connectivity: wealthier city dwellers and the rising urban bourgeoisie were able to reach Mecca, for example, in greater numbers (Geertz, 1960; Kane, 2016). Similarly, Jerusalem, a quintessential city of pilgrimage, became the destination of numerous religious groups that attempted to take control of it through architectural planning and building projects. Many Christians with different agendas took possession of the city, which became both a pilgrimage site and a tourist destination (Goldhill, 2008; Di Nepi & Marzano, 2013). Jews became increasingly involved in the life of the city, which had been at the heart of their desire for centuries: notable are the neighbourhoods and buildings financed and constructed by Sir Moses Montefiore, the influential Anglo-Jewish philanthropist (Goldhill, 2008; Green, 2012; Lemire, 2017; Sebag Montefiore, 2011). In the nineteenth century, very few intellectuals and politicians could have foreseen that Jews would play any relevant role in determining the fate and role of the city. Another way to look at how religion made use of the urban landscape is to reflect on religious architecture on the one hand and to search for the urban expression of new religious movements, which dotted the social scene of the time, on the other. Indeed, the “secular age” was opened up to new forms of religious entrepreneurship that made great use of the cityscape. Freemasonry, for example, left an indelible mark on many cities. The nineteenth century provides plentiful evidence of temples, lodges and other buildings created by this influential secret sect whose God was conceptualized as the “great architect of the universe.” Swedenborgian churches, Christian Science buildings and headquarters, theosophical societies and followers of the new established Baha’i faith built and owned places of worship that peppered the urban landscape in Europe, the United States and Asia while being at the same time “urban religions” themselves. In using this term I am suggesting that these religious groups were, in

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some instances, the by-product of the rapid pace of urbanization: charismatic leaders created these movements and wisely used the urban environment, and some of them exploited a relatively high degree of religious literacy, often blended with notions of popular psychology, science and oriental tradition. Annie Besant and Madame Blavatsky played a similar role in founding a new religious movement and establishing the Theosophical Society, which attracted many intellectuals and members of the urban bourgeoisie (Pasi, 2012). Another meaningful yet overlooked religious urban phenomenon is the successful branding of oriental religions in the Western hemisphere: for both Buddhism and Hinduism, the urban landscape and its secular environment proved to be of strategic importance. One image of this successful religious urban tale is provided by footage of Mahatma Gandhi’s visit to Europe in the 1930s: in London, he visited the lower east side, a visible working-class quarter, where he was greeted as a national hero (Harris, 2013). This image was the result of the complex role religion played in the British Empire and Europe at large through a combination of many factors, among which were the role of scholars of religion, the encounter with and appropriation of Western concepts and symbols by Asian religious leaders and vice versa, and the use of modern media like the press, cinema and photography to disseminate religious knowledge among a more literate urban population. The path was visible at the end of the century when Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) delivered his speech at the Parliament of World Religions held in Chicago in 1893, where he successfully proclaimed Hinduism to be a great world religion (Facchini, 2017; Harris, 2019). In 1894, he founded the Vedanta Society in New  York, which promoted itself as a worldwide monastic order (Flood, 1996). These religious innovations, which dotted the urban scene in the long nineteenth century, are indicative of how a more positive appreciation of religious diversity, mixed with the rise of modern religious movements, became increasingly embedded in at least some American and European cities. Whether these changes were followed by top-down decisions or were the result of bottom-up practices needs to be explored further. However, this complex religious urban landscape resulted from the implementation of the notion of religious tolerance, which marked much of nineteenth-century political culture, even though it had been applied in different ways and with different results according to chronologies that varied greatly from place to place. Although these policies were introduced in the Western world through the legal principle of the separation

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of church and state, which accordingly was developed in many European countries and the United States, religious pluralism was an invention of neither the West nor the modern world, and even less was it the outcome of a secular worldview. During the nineteenth century, the legal emancipation of different religious groups (Christians of different confessions and Jews) became a goal of many modernizing leaders, slowly being achieved and becoming visible in many countries. The process that led to their legal emancipation was not straightforward, but their improved urban visibility at the end of the nineteenth century seems to indicate the successful integration into the modern society of religious groups that had hitherto been in the interstices and on the margins of the city (for the case of the Jews, see Coenen Snyder, 2013). Although many cities in the nineteenth century hosted and organized a plural society composed of different religious groups, later to be labelled through the legal fiction of “minorities”, in this contribution, as already mentioned, I approach the study of religious pluralism through the lens of the “port city”, a distinctive urban environment that had acquired increasing economic traction and relevance in parallel with the rise of capitalism since the early modern period. Focusing on the port city around the Mediterranean, this article addresses issues related to the management of religious diversity in historical perspective, focusing primarily on the long nineteenth century. My selection of Trieste and Odessa aims to provide some historical examples of multi-religious cities and hopefully to reflect upon the quality of religious interactions in multi-ethnic environments. In doing so, I will try to determine the types of spatial arrangements that were conceived in order to enhance social interactions among the members of different religious groups. Much may be gained from a methodological inquiry that focuses on “lived religious experiences” and that goes beyond the institutionalized type of urban religion that is detectable in multi-ethnic port environments. Furthermore, the port city, as a distinctively dense social space, permits the presence and interactions of religious groups by combining policies of cohabitation and toleration, the visibility of urban architecture and practices of social interaction.

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Port Cities: Hubs of Religious Pluralism? Port cities have often become multi-cultural urban environments, and some of those around the Mediterranean have been characterized by a degree of religious diversity. In this contribution, I will focus particularly on Trieste and Odessa, cities that share both structural similarities and meaningful differences. The selection is not random but is suggested by the actual links between them, given the extensive family networks of various religious groups that supported the circulation of goods, knowledge and people. Generally speaking, the scholarly literature has mostly dwelled on distinctive groups in the city or their connections with their brethren in the diaspora: Greeks, Armenians, Protestants, Jews and the many other ethnic-­religious groups that inhabited the port cities. As for the latter, one should also bear in mind the concept of “port Jews”, introduced and extensively applied in studying different sorts of the Jewish community that specialized in trade, while exploring the relationship with commerce as a potential route to cultural and religious modernization (Cesarani, 2002; Cesarani & Romain, 2006; Dubin, 1999, 2006, 2017; Facchini, 2011a, b; Sorkin, 1999). Other scholars have opted instead for a description of the city as a whole, focusing on its multi-layered religious, ethnic and social fabric in order to unearth the complexities of plural societies caught in the midst of meaningful cultural and political changes (Mazower, 2005; King, 2015; Sifneos, 2017). The most consistent literature on diaspora groups located in port cities has engaged primarily with economic and social history by highlighting the idea that port cities were “cosmopolitan” environments and suggesting that multi-ethnic urban hubs were imbued with the practical and theoretical ability to create and run a relatively tolerant type of society (Driessen, 2005; Jacob, 2006; Subrahmanyam, 2015; Waley, 2009). This idea has been supported by a “mythopoetic posterity”, which, as in the case of Trieste, has insisted upon the qualities of both the imperial Habsburg urban civilization and the local culture as capable of fostering mutual religious tolerance (Ballinger, 2003; Minca, 2009; Waley, 2009). The same can be said of Odessa, whose myth as a uniquely cosmopolitan open city has been reinvigorated since the fall of the Soviet Union as part of a desire to search for a viable past (Herlihy, 2019). Port cities of the eastern Mediterranean under Ottoman sovereignty were characterized by even greater religious diversity. Ethno-religious

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groups were a significant component in the administration of the empire and the management of the economy, ensuring that coastal cities were undeniably multi-religious hubs (Eldem et  al., 1999; Mansel, 2011 [2010]; Miccoli, 2011, 2015). Salonica, Izmir (Smyrne), Alexandria, Aleppo, Istanbul and Beirut belonged to an imperial religious space defined by Islam under Ottoman rule. Modelled after Pera, the urban sector of Istanbul where foreign nationals were allowed through the system of capitulations, some cities in the Levant underwent significant changes in urban form, allowing both Ottoman subjects from different faith communities and European foreigners to develop trade and commerce, thus increasing dense types of connectivity. Unlike earlier periods, some coastal cities were deeply influenced by the Western powers, including Britain, France, Italy and Germany (Isabella & Zanou, 2016; Mansel, 2011 [2010]; Mazower, 2005). These “cosmopolitan” port cities are good laboratories for observing how nationalism and religion played a relevant role in structuring both collective and personal choices among different ethno-religious groups. For the scholar of religion, the multi-ethnic and multi-religious cities of the Mediterranean can shed light on the dynamism of religious modernity and the path of secularization against a broad and complex political and religious background. This helps situate collective religious identities and individual choices, which were indeed available in given urban environments and highlights notions of citizenship and belonging (on the case of the Jews, see Marglin, 2017). What kinds of multi-religious hubs and what types of religious pluralism may be inferred from the study of port cities? Is it possible to uncover different cultural trajectories of distinctive religious groups? And, again, what kinds of roles did religion play in this specific urban context? Did it contribute to creating possibilities of interaction among different groups? Was the urban context capable of enhancing shared religious practices? All these questions deserve a detailed discussion in each case, which cannot be provided in the space of a single article. However, I will suggest some reflections on which further research might be based.

Urban Religious Cohabitation and Non-sacred Spaces Religious cohabitation seems to feature prominently in some areas of the Mediterranean, mostly in those places that belonged to the Byzantine, Muslim and Ottoman Empires. Although one should not shy away from

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other areas characterized historically by religious diversity, like central and east European imperial zones or areas located on confessional borders, scholars have recently focused on the surroundings of the Mediterranean and highlighted some sorts of "sacred sites" as zones of contact and interaction. Such ritual practices, performed in shared sacred spaces, are more likely to be found among Christians and Muslims and are typically not regulated by top-down ideologies or discourses. “Mixed practices are indeed local phenomena organized along margins and interstices” (Albera & Couroucli, 2012, p. 6) that take place at sanctuaries devoted to saints or in proximity to their burial sites. Often these sites are not specifically urban, nor are the shared practices in them regulated by fixed temporalities or liturgical calendars. Sharing religious practices may also be the outcome of a long historical process of adapting to new religious configurations. Multi-religious urban contexts are therefore unlikely to be ideal environments for sharing traditional religious sites of this type, especially when of recent foundation and development, as is the case for Trieste and Odessa. However, these specific urban environments are interesting, as they are showcases of how concretely a secular multi-religious society was regulated, how it grew historically, how it functioned and how it eventually failed. The city itself may be conceived as a dense container of religious interactions that took place in some of its built spaces. Although we may avail ourselves of extensive and thorough research on specific ethno-religious groups in port cities (Jews, Greeks, Armenians, Protestants and many others), it is more difficult to establish the typology of their religious interactions and exchanges within the same city. If we observe the cases of Trieste and Odessa, we can detect certain apparent similarities that deserve to be discussed, along with relevant structural differences. Both cities were indeed the result of top-down plans that were meant to fuel international trade and sustain the Empire’s economic growth. The Habsburgs established Trieste as a free port (portofranco) in 1719, Odessa following suit in 1794 (Apih, 2015; Ara & Magris, 1982; Herlihy, 2019; King, 2015). Both port cities were conceived according to “utilitarian principles”, which were extensively used in the early modern period, especially in Catholic polities (Facchini, 2011b). When the Habsburg monarchy decided to turn Trieste into a free port, it was a relatively small village with a municipal tradition influenced by the Venetian Republic (Ara & Magris, 1982). The common language of the small seaport was a Venetian/Italian dialect known as Triestino, although like other

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port cities around the Mediterranean, Trieste was linguistically pluralistic. Similarly, writes historian Patricia Herlihy (Herlihy, 2019, p. 27), “Odessa was a kind of Esperanto city, or more accurately a tower of Babel, reflecting the dozen of ethnic groups who carved out space within its capacious embrace, each speaking its own language, with Italian becoming the first lingua franca of the seaport”. The port of Trieste attracted mainly Jews, Greeks, Armenians, Serbs/ Illyrians and Protestants, the latter arriving from German-speaking areas and later from Britain. Jews gathered from the Italian states, the Ottoman Empire and Central Europe, the Greeks from former Venetian territories and the Ottoman Empire. Illyrians might also come from central Europe or the Balkans (Dogo, 2009, 2010; Katsiardi-Hering, 2020). They all contributed to developing the economic and civic life of the emporio. Despite the daily use of different vernaculars, ethno-religious groups preserved their liturgical languages while adjusting their religious institutions to the urban setting, thereby attaining urban visibility and honour. This process is already illustrated by a description of the city published in 1824, in which the author celebrates the implementation of the Patents of Tolerance issued by the Habsburgs in the last decades of the eighteenth century, according to which four visible religious communities were organized within the fabric of a city that had been artificially built. These communities are defined as “religiose a-cattoliche” comprising Eastern Greeks, Slavic-Serbians, the Confessio Augustana evangelical community, the confessio elvetica evangelical community, and the Jews (“comunità israelitica”, Agapito, 1824, pp. 136–174). These confessional groups1 ensured the consolidation and formation of religious institutions and the strengthening of a collective identity, while the process of secularization, which would become increasingly visible in the nineteenth century, enhanced new types of subjectivity (Catalan, 2011). In order to grasp how religious pluralism was managed in these cases, we should ask whether the culture of the Enlightenment played any relevant role in defining and addressing this type of urban context. What notions of religious tolerance did the Habsburgs support and actually

1  I use the phrases “confessional group” and “ethno-religious group”, although neither might be accurate: the criterion according to which they were given “patents of toleration” by the Habsburgs is “religion”, which is different from the process of full emancipation (Catalan, 2000).

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apply to their vast territories? How was the notion of religious tolerance enmeshed with those of economic fitness and usefulness? “It has been a long time since the declaration of the free port”, wrote Chief of Police Baron Pier Antonio Pittoni in 1786, “that the populace has been composed of diverse nations and religions, who frequent the city and settle here”. Then he added: Since then the city has united these in business activities, which require knowledge and skills. This traffic in business and knowledge has made the city well-off and rich. The city has witnessed that the non-Catholic can be and is an honest man, that morality is the same, that he has learned the customs of the others, and felt their same needs. Since this brotherly sharing (confratellanza) of knowledge, of customs, and of reciprocally useful needs has rendered the City not only tolerant, but friendly, it has rooted out from the mind an infinity of prejudices, such that compared to other provinces, Trieste can with reason call itself an enlightened populace (un popolo filosofo). (Dorsi, 1989; transl. Dubin, 1999, p. 201)

This idealized description is revealing in many ways: it suggests that religious diversity is appreciated provided it allows the rules of urbanity to be fully displayed. Non-Catholic groups are neither a danger nor examples of anti-social behaviour, but contribute to the real physiognomy of the city, whose core identity depends on the ability to behave as a “popolo filosofo” and perform “confratellanza”. This terminology indicates a change of sensibility in respect of the culture of tolerance, but it also suggests that new conceptions of urban cohabitation were in the making. Furthermore, this description definitely addresses “favoured minorities” (Garruccio, 1997), which were conceived as strategic urban actors endowed with economic abilities. It also explains the Habsburgs’ ethics of urban morality, which was applied in many other areas of the Empire and which contributed, slowly but steadily, to the management of religious and ethnic diversity. All these elements seem to endow the city with the agency, as it is capable of supporting these social interactions. In cities like Trieste and Odessa, ethno-religious groups that were entrusted with commercial and financial expertise constructed much of the city’s infrastructure, in particular that devoted to economic activities: the stock exchange, chambers of commerce and infrastructure for insurance companies. “Up until the second half of the nineteenth century”, writes Catalan of Trieste, “the multireligious cosmopolitan local economic

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elite placed its financial and cultural know-how and its international network of contacts at the disposal of the city”: The place initially dedicated to this discussion and tie sharing of experience was the Stock Exchange, and later the Chamber of Commerce, which was founded in 1855. […] In this context of collaboration for a common goal— the economic development of the city—the respective knowledge of the individuals and minorities became fused and interwoven, transforming itself into the basis for important business ventures such as the creation of insurance companies which still survive today. In the Trieste of the 1830s, the Riunione adriatica di sicurtà and Assicurazionigenerali were formed, and if one studies the names of the founding members it becomes apparent that almost all the cities’ minorities are represented in a conspicuous way, with a prevalence of Jews and Greeks (Catalan, 2011, pp. 88–89)

Religiously mixed commercial contracts, for instance, allowed each group to have their liturgical calendar respected. Such interactions were strengthened with members of Protestant groups, whereas ties with Serbians and Armenians remained rare, due to much stricter rules for the policing of ethnic and religious boundaries (Catalan, 2011). The same can be detected in Odessa, where economic cooperation among different ethno-religious groups was not rare, despite the fact that access to the city was much less regulated than in Trieste. “Minority cultural spaces coexisted, overlapped and intersected with all-Russian cultural space”, claims Sifneos (2017, p. 145). Even the overlapping of religious spaces could be detected, as in the case of the Greek Orthodox Church of the Holy Trinity, which was located in the midst of a Jewish neighbourhood (2019, p. 57). “Much of the city’s physical structure offered possibilities for easy coexistence as individual buildings often hosted households of varying ethnicities. […] In Odessa, ethnic mixing in some quarters was so pervasive that in the late nineteenth century even streets that were named for a specific ethnic group hosted a mix of ethnicities and languages” (Sifneos, 2017, p. 49). Places devoted to worldly activities would provide for dense and reiterated forms of social interaction, but what was specifically religious about them needs to be specified with caution, since no rules for religious and ethnic cohabitation existed in Odessa (Sifneos, 2017, p. 175). Other sites of interaction among members of different religious groups are likely to have been linked to the realm of entertainment. Cafes and

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private houses were places of encounters even in early modern times: in multi-religious port cities like Venice and Livorno, for instance, people of different faiths exchanged opinions, books and ideas, encountering one another in the streets and cafes; even the walled ghettos of many cities were not impermeable to such exchanges, and some shared religious rituals (Facchini, 2011b; Katz, 2017). In the nineteenth century, relationships between religious spaces underwent significant changes for political reasons. In many instances, segregation was removed by the city authorities by means of radical actions (following in the footsteps of the French revolutionaries) or administrative reforms: ghettos were destroyed, redefined, or abandoned when political and economic conditions allowed. New venues for multiple interactions were constructed. Theatres, opera houses, music halls and cinemas often financed and supported by members of ethno-religious groups, offered a type of sociability à la mode, which challenged institutional forms of religious life. Literary salons, like those in Berlin in the early nineteenth century, were ideal places in which to convey criticisms of traditional religious values or to voice plans of religious reform. Urban life supported new forms of individuality, which at times implied voluntary religious conversion or, as in the case of Trieste, increased interreligious marriages, sustained by the possibility, in this instance, of being religionslos (Catalan, 2000). Interpersonal religious relationships that often ended in mixed marriages were not uncommon in the other port cities, particularly among the upper-middle classes of wealthy merchants and industrialists. Moreover, many residential areas consisted of households of mixed ethnicities, as it is exemplified by the fascinating case of the Mikhelsons’ apartments in Evreiskaia Ulitsa 20 (Jewish Street) in Odessa: the seven apartments in this Jewish-owned palace were inhabited by Jews of different backgrounds, with their Christian Orthodox maids and Swiss teachers; by Roman Catholic Italians and their large families, who had been born in the Ottoman Empire; and by a German Lutheran married to a Russian woman (Sifneos, 2017, pp. 49–51). As a container, the household was a microcosm of a plural society which interacted casually on a daily basis, but was also a space of more profound emotional and affective interactions, which are likely to have been reproduced elsewhere. Further research projects aimed at reconstructing histories of extended families across the seaports of the Mediterranean will surely uncover similarly complex collective and individual trajectories, possibly challenging essentialist narratives about religious identities (Baumeister et al., 2020;

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Simoni, 2020). The biographical trajectory of the Jewess Elena Raffalovich, born into an Odessite family of merchants and financiers, is not unique: she left the city of her birth, intermarried into a family of Italian intellectuals and patriots, only to divorce soon afterwards and devote her life to the betterment of children’s education and women’s rights (Salah, 2015). Educational infrastructure provides key sites for the reproduction of religious cultures and the transformation and preservation of different groups’ religious identities, as well as being markers of modernization and religious change. It is against the background of the educational system that professional abilities and literacy are measured: nation states and imperial conglomerations both invested consistently in educational programmes (Gellner, 1983). In port cities ways of increasing literacy were embedded in the very nature and structure of the “port minority”: in Venice and Trieste, but also in Vienna, Greeks and Jews had their own schools, libraries and, in some instances, publishing houses. Education was a valuable form of movable capital that allowed social amelioration and integration into the economic mechanisms of the city. However, in the early modern period, higher education was not easily accessible to all distinctive ethno-religious urban groups because of the confessional nature of many educational institutions. In the nineteenth century, policies promoting a more inclusive education were supported by liberal reforms, which aimed at modernizing society and thus creating productive subjects, as well as sustaining the formation of a stratified bourgeoisie and middle class with a distinctive Bildung. As well as subsidizing professional schooling, the Habsburg Empire implemented a significant number of reforms that were meant to forge an enlightened class of religious leaders and administrators. This is particularly visible in the case of the Jews. Modern rabbinical seminaries were established in the Empire, the first one in Padua (1829), to be followed by others in cities with significant Jewish populations. The same happened in other European countries and the United States, and to other religious groups, including Catholics, whether a consistent minority or the major local group. Modern educational institutions lived side by side with traditional ones, which endorsed different conceptions of religious traditions and values. It is safe to say that in some cases urban life permitted a certain amount of pluralism within the same religious group, often giving rise to a dichotomy between conservative and liberal lifestyles. Control over education became a matter of concern for many ethno-religious groups, including as

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a way of either modernizing and enhancing upward social mobility, or of exerting control over their members. In many Mediterranean port cities, for example, French institutions and culture became increasingly attractive, being reflected in the presence of many cultural magazines and periodicals, or of organizations which offered schooling and philanthropic assistance. Moreover, public schools from the gymnasium to the academies and universities were spaces that encouraged encounters and mingling between children of different religious groups, while fuelling the process of assimilation to the culture of the majority, or at least to common civic values. Testimonies of ethnic and religious interaction in public schools in Odessa are reported in autobiographical narratives and fictional works: Vladimir Jabotinsky, who was to become an important Zionist leader and cosmopolitan intellectual, attended the Gymnasium Richelieu, while Lev Trotsky enrolled in a German Lutheran school (Sifneos, 2017, p.  160). In Trieste, public schools became more attractive after 1868, when the hegemony of the Catholic Church was curtailed, thereby attracting children from religious groups that were traditionally perceived as hostile, such as the Jews (Catalan, 2000, pp. 155–177). The opening up of spaces and venues of acculturation, which included theatres, reading cabinets, cultural associations and academies, played different and contradictory roles: if on the one hand, it transformed these cities into spaces of religious interaction and reform, into laboratories of plausible religious dialogue, literary modernism and cosmopolitan subjectivities, on the other hand, it never fully managed to prevent the nurturing of conflict, whether ethnic or religious. Moreover, one should stress that cosmopolitan port cities were also gateways to nationalism for each distinctive ethno-religious community, as the examples of the Greeks, Italians, Slovenes, Jews, Bulgarians and Polesall show.

Final Remarks In some instances, and especially when looking at Odessa and Trieste, it could be argued that one common feature that made both cities relatively “cosmopolitan” for a certain period of time was an initial agreement to build a civic and economic enterprise based on elites of foreigners who agreed to cooperate and who shared, at least implicitly, the values whereby commerce fosters toleration (Hirschman, 1977). According to Catalan, in Trieste, the city’s "lukewarm sense of religion" made religious cohabitation a viable project, at least until the last quarter of the nineteenth

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century, when the city became a hotbed of nationalist aspirations (Catalan, 2011). The absence of a strong Catholic aristocracy and the inability of the Church to define the main traits of the city might have played an important role, at least until the great economic crisis of the 1870s. The same may have been true of Odessa, at least while it remained a free port (1857). However, despite its vitality and dynamism, the city never fully controlled its violent ethno-religious outbursts: anti-Jewish pogroms, first led by Greeks and then by Russians and Ukrainians, had an almost calendrical cadence: 1821, 1849, 1859, 1871 (Vassilikou, 2002), followed by 1881 and 1905 (Klier & Lambroza, 1992). The city was a dramatic space in which violence was unleashed. It is undeniable that religious pluralism underwent significant changes and transformations in the period under scrutiny: it could well be stated that in some instances each community of faith witnessed processes of differentiation and change; port cities were at once sites of opportunities and social mobility, but also of class differentiation and conflict. The city itself was a space in which religious diversity, often intermingled with ethnicity, was performed and to some extent praised, and yet not always sustained by a coherent and defined culture of encounter and interaction. The nineteenth century is particularly interesting because policies of modernization seemed to offer novel theories of religious cohabitation, creating at the same time a more hybrid and fluid society where forms of religious interaction seemed to multiply and become differentiated beyond official religious sites. Yet, these multiple possibilities, which were enhanced by the port city, were at the same time challenged by the rise of new ideologies such as nationalism, which seemed to restrict these premises by articulating alternative types of horizontal and cross-religious sociability.

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Quest. Issues in Contemporary Jewish History. Journal of Fondazione CDEC, 2. https://doi.org/10.48248/issn.2037-­741X/768 Facchini, C. (2017). Narrating, Visualizing, Performing, and Feeling a Religion: On Representations of Judaism. In C. Bochinger, J. Rüpke, & E. Begemann (Eds.), Dynamics of Religion: Past and Present (pp. 273–296). De Gruyter. Flood, G. (1996). An Introduction to Hinduism. Cambridge University Press. Garruccio, R. (1997). Il comportamento economico delle minoranze in prospettiva storica: una prospettiva metodologica. Archivi ed imprese, 16, 231–244. Geertz, C. (1960). The Religion of Java. University of Chicago Press. Gellner, E. (1983). Nations and Nationalism. Cornell University Press. Gentile, E. (20133). Le religioni della politica:fra democrazia e totalitarismi. Laterza. Goldhill, S. (2008). Jerusalem: City of Longing. The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Green, A. (2012). Moses Montefiore: Jewish Liberator, Imperial Hero. Cambridge University Press. Harris, R. (1999). Lourdes: Body and Spirit in the Secular Age. Allen Lane. Harris, R. (2013). Rolland, Gandhi and Madeleine Slade: Spiritual politics, France and the Wider World. French History, 27(4), 579–599. Harris, R. (2019). Vivekananda, Sarah Farmer, and Global Spiritual Transformations in the Fin de Siècle. Journal of Global History, 14(2), 179–198. Herlihy, P. (2019). Odessa Recollected: the Port and the People. Academic Studies Press. Hirschman, A. O. (1977). The Passions and the Interests. Princeton University Press. Isabella, M., & Zanou, K. (2016). Mediterranean Diasporas: Politics and Ideas in the Long Nineteenth Century. Bloomsbury. Jacob, M. (2006). Strangers Nowhere in the World: the Rise of Cosmopolitanism in Early Modern Europe. University of Pennsylvania Press. Kane, E. (2016). Russian Hajj: Empire and the Pilgrimage to Mecca. Cornell University Press. Katsiardi-Hering, O. (2020). Diaspora and Self-Representation: The Case Study of Greek People’s Identity. Fifteenth-Nineteenth Centuries. In C. Ferrini (Ed.), Human Diversity in Context. EUT Edizioni Università di Trieste. Katz, D. (2017). The Jewish Ghetto and Visual Imagination of Early Modern Venice. Cambridge University Press. King, C. (2015). Odessa: Genius and Death in a City of Dreams. W.W.  Norton & Company. Klier, J.  D. & Lambroza, S. (Eds.). (1992). Pogroms: Anti-Jewish Violence in Modern Russian History. Cambridge University Press. Lemire, V. (2017). Jerusalem 1900: The Holy City in the Age of Possibilities. University of Chicago Press [French edition 2013]. Luzzatto, S. (2007). Padre Pio:miracoli e politica nell’Italia del Novecento. Einaudi. Mansel, P. (2011 [2010]). Levant: Splendor and Catastrophe in the Mediterranean. Yale University Press.

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Marglin, J. M. (2017). Across Legal Lines: Jews and Muslims in Modern Morocco. Yale University Press. Mazower, M. (2005). Salonica: City of Ghosts. Christians, Muslims, and Jews, 1430-1950. Vintage. Menozzi, D. (2003). Chiesa cattolica e secolarizzazione. Einaudi. Miccoli, D. (2011). Moving Histories: The Jews and Modernity in Alexandria, 1881-1919. In C. Facchini (Ed.), Modernity and the Cities of the Jews. Quest. Issues in Contemporary Jewish History. Journal of Fondazione CDEC, 2. https:// doi.org/10.48248/issn.2037-­741X/733 Miccoli, D. (2015). Histories of the Jews of Egypt: An Imagined Bourgeoisie, 1880s-1950s. Routledge. Minca, C. (2009). ‘Trieste nazione’ and Its Geographies of Absence. Social and Cultural Geography, 10(3), 255–277. Osterhammel, J. (2014). The Transformation of the World: A Global History of the Nineteenth Century. Princeton University Press. Pasi, M. (2012). Theosophy and Anthroposophy in Italy During the First Half of the Twentieth Century. Theosophical History, 16(2), 81–118. Salah, A. (2015). From Odessa to Florence: Elena Comparetti Raffalovich. A Jewish Russian Woman in Nineteenth Century Italy. In T. Catalan & C. Facchini (Eds.), Portrait of Italian Jewish Life (1800s-1930s). Quest. Issues in Contemporary Jewish History. Journal of Fondazione CDEC, 8. https://doi. org/10.48248/issn.2037-­741X/742 Sebag Montefiore, S. (2011). Jerusalem: The Biography. Weidenfeld & Nicholson. Sennett, R. (Ed.). (1969). Classic Essays on the Culture of Cities. Meredith Corporation. Sifneos, E. (2017). Imperial Odessa: People, Spaces, Identity. Brill. Simoni, M. (2020). The Morenos Between Family and Nation. In M. Baumeister, P.  Lenhard, & R.  Nattermann (Eds.), Rethinking the age of emancipation (pp. 85–104). Berghahn. Smith, M. L. (2019). Cities: The First 6,000 Years. Viking. Sorkin, D. (1999). The Port Jew: Notes Toward a Social Type. Journal of Jewish Studies, 50(1), 87–97. Subrahmanyam, S. (2015). The Hidden Face of Surat: Reflection of Cosmopolitan Indian Ocean Centre, 1540-1750. Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 61(1-2), 205–255. Taylor, C. (2007). A Secular Age. Harvard University Press. Vassilikou, M. (2002). Greeks and Jews in Salonika and Odessa: Inter-Ethnic Relations in Cosmopolitan Port Cities. In D. Cesarani (Ed.), Port Jews:J ewish Communities in Cosmopolitan Maritime Trading Centres, 1550-1950 (pp. 155–172). Routledge. Waley, P. (2009). Introducing Trieste. A Cosmopolitan City? Social and Cultural Geography, 10(3), 243–256. Woolf, G. (2020). The Life and Death of Ancient Cities. Oxford University Press.

PART II

Multi-Religious Places

CHAPTER 7

Cohabiting in an Imaginary Space: Ancient Jewish and Christian Representations of the Temple and the Tabernacle Carla Noce

Introduction The chapter shows how, in different ways and in particular historical periods, the Temple of Jerusalem represented a special place of sharing and exchange between different ethnic and religious groups. The period to be considered here starts from the first attestations of the Jesus movement and stops at the threshold of the so-called Constantinian turn, that is, the time when Jerusalem began to be perceived as the centre of the Christian Holy Land, with a focus on the second to third centuries—a decisive historical moment in the definition of Christianity and Judaism as two distinct identities. In relation to the questions raised in the introduction, the chapter aims to explain in particular the reasons for the Temple area, including Temple Mount, becoming a site of multi-religious histories, encounters and

C. Noce (*) Department of Humanistic Studies, Roma Tre University, Rome, Italy e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 M. Burchardt, M. C. Giorda (eds.), Geographies of Encounter, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82525-6_7

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engagements before and after the destruction of the Temple by Titus in AD 70. Furthermore, it also shows how the Temple represented an ideal pattern shared by Jews and Christians of various backgrounds and that it deeply influenced the ways in which they conceived sacred spaces. The interactions of Jesus’ followers, other Jewish groups and Gentiles with the Temple will be described before and after its destruction in AD 70 and will be considered from different perspectives. First, I shall highlight how the Temple represented a place of exchange and interaction for groups and individuals because of its enormous capacity for attraction. It will then be shown how this attractiveness was exercised in different forms even after the destruction of the Temple, as its ruins continued to be visited by pilgrims, and its memory was still being celebrated, even after the suppression of the Bar Kochba revolt in 135, when, according to Dio Cassius (69, 12, 1), Hadrian would have built a temple dedicated to Jupiter in place of the destroyed temple or, more likely, would have placed his own statue there (Bazzana, 2010). Second, the role played by this Temple in shared Jewish and Christian imagery will be described. These images are sometimes identical, at other times distinct, indicating a demand for the ideal appropriation of the site. It can be said that this ideal temple was reshaped by Jews and followers of Jesus thanks partly to their recourse to conceptions of the temple in Greco-Roman culture. The distinct images that emerge are better understood if they are placed against the background of a wider debate involving different groups within both Judaism and Christianity. The Temple, or rather the different temple images, inspired the reorganization of Jewish and pagan sacred spaces and representations of communities and individuals, often designated as temples. Christians and Jews often developed parallel discourses on the Temple by projecting onto this powerful symbol the changes, both material and spiritual, that they were experiencing. In this sense, it can be said that the various Christian and Jewish groups cohabited an imaginary Temple that they themselves had created but that each claimed exclusively for itself.

Different Ways of ‘Templization’ The destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem by Titus in AD 70 involved consequences of enormous scope and wide range, among which were the end of the sacrificial practice, the disappearance of the priestly class,

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and the acceleration of an already ongoing process of radically transforming the Judaic religion, which, as Stroumsa affirms, was modernized by shifting the accent to the interiorization and spiritualization of worship (Stroumsa, 2005, pp.  115–144). In accordance with several critical views on blood sacrifice, which had emerged in Greco-Roman philosophy and in some sectors of Judaism, the Judaic religion developed new forms of sacrifice and priesthood. Prayers and interior worship replaced sacrifices, while authority was transferred from the priests to the rabbis, who performed a wide range of activities, most of which usually fell within the priest’s competence (Berger, 1998; Boyarin, 2004; Fraade, 1999). Spatially, there was a process of la démocratisation et l’éclatement spatial du cult juif, which, previously performed exclusively in the Temple of Jerusalem, notwithstanding the existence of other temples in the diaspora, could now be practised virtually anywhere, dwelling in the private spheres of the family and individual. The divine presence (shekhina) was shifted from its natural location to halakha, the divine law, and the believer could perform the daily sacrifice by studying the Law and by observing practices that were in conformity with it (Stroumsa, 2005, pp.  118–120). The Temple of Jerusalem, the sacrifice and the priesthood therefore underwent a profound rethink and redefinition and were still playing a fundamental symbolic role. Christianity, which acquired its identity from Judaism through a complex and elaborate process (Boyarin, 2004; Dunn, 20062), including the appropriation of the Judaic heritage and its main institutions, also developed a new interpretation of sacrifice by means of typological and allegorical exegesis (Daly, 1978, 1982) of both the Temple and the Priesthood, starting in the second to third centuries. Scholars have long stressed the decisive nature of this time period from many points of view. The definition of a canon, the establishment of an ecclesiastical hierarchy and the economic achievement of the communities, which by then had become the owners of a number of properties (cult spaces and cemeteries) and of their own funds (a cash box for the necessities of the most indigent, fed by collections), and therefore gradually became more and more visible in society (Faivre, 1992; Fiocchi, 2002; Schöllgen, 1998; Stewart, 2015; White, 1996–1997). This was a very lively and exploratory period, one in which a certain number of Christian intellectuals, by means of often sophisticated rhetoric, tried to emphasize the continuity with Ancient Israel, while others suggested instead a clear break, which, in Marcion’s

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case1 meant a rejection of the Hebrew Scriptures and a feeling of alienation from the God who had inspired them (Gianotto & Nicolotti, 2019; Klinghardt, 2015; Lieu, 2015; Vinzent, 2014; von Harnack, 1924). The Christian claim to represent verus Israel2 (Filoramo & Gianotto, 2001; Gianotto, 2012; Simon, 1964; Skarsaune & Hvalvik, 2007) pervaded all the exegetical literature of the period and legitimated very different readings of the Law, as well as of sacrificial and priestly activity. The Temple became the subject of the manifold and articulated speculations since it permitted reflections on several interconnected levels. Finally, it allowed the place of the faithful’s encounter with God and the place that Christians occupy in the world to be located more precisely. These issues become even more important when they are contextualized in a historical phase of important changes in the Christian gaterings, which are now more and more performed in particular arrangements exclusively devoted to worship and catechesis, located inside buildings or in spaces specifically built for liturgical functions (Balcon-Berry et  al., 2012; Kilde, 2008; Krautheimer, 1965; White, 1997 [1996]). It is, in short, the phase of a transition from domestic worship within private dwellings to the birth of the so-called domus ecclesiae. This term does not actually appear before Eusebius, but it was a reality that, contrary to what is often suggested by criticism, largely survived the establishment of the basilicas (Sessa, 2009), thus implying the existence already of a clearly identifiable Christian sacred space. The progressive separation and reorganization of spaces find an interesting correlation with the gradual process of the professionalization of the clergy and its separation from the faithful (Schöllgen, 1998). From the end of the second century onwards, the 1  Marcion, a native of Pontus, was active in the second century. His doctrine, which held that the Old Testament God, conceived as essentially just, and the God preached by Jesus, defined as good, were irreconcilable, was considered heretical. To this theological conception was added an important reflection on the writings that were considered inspired and which, according to the description given by his opponents, Marcion identified as a reduced form of the Gospel of Luke and some Pauline letters, but involving the total exclusion of the Hebrew Scriptures. More recent criticism has highlighted the fundamental role Marcion played in the formation of the Christian canon, while some studies have suggested that Marcion’s Gospel is not a simple reduction of Luke’s, but a text in its own right, the result of the reworking of a source also common to Luke, or even a writing that predates Luke himself. 2  The expression is a reference to the famous study by Marcel Simon, which can be found in the references, and relates to the motif, widespread in the early Christian apologetic literature, that the true covenant belongs solely to Christians, who represent the true Israel.

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bishop and presbyters were regularly described as sacerdotes (Cattaneo, 1997; Stewart, 2015), ministering at the altar within a sacred arrangement that could be defined as a Christian temple. Other interpretations of the Old Testament priest figure—attested, for example, by Clement of Alexandria, Origen and a number of Gnostic writings—preferred instead to identify the high priest with the perfect believer or with his soul, thus conceiving a completely ‘spiritualized’ vision of the Temple or, as Fine (1997, p. 32) has proposed, enacting a ‘templization’, an imitatio templi, a phenomenon that could actually act on several levels at once. This process of transferring a terminology originally linked with worship to non-cultic spheres led to the sacralization of these same spaces and places, assimilating them to the sacred space par excellence, the Temple of Jerusalem.

The Holy Place from Titus to Constantine Before the destruction of the Second Temple by Titus in AD 70, the city of Jerusalem was renowned for its extraordinary fame, both inside and outside Palestine. It was inextricably linked to the splendour of its Temple, which stood majestically above the city, situated on a hill that was gradually destined to become, in the sources, the Temple Mount, endowed with its own strong symbolic significance (Ego et al., 1999; Eliav, 2005). Pliny describes it as ‘by far the most famous city, not of Judæa only, but of the East’ (Nat. hist. 5.70: longe clarissima urbium orientis, non Iudaeae modo), while Flavius Josephus insists on the correspondences between the one Temple, the one altar, the one people and the one God (Ant. 4.200). Its plan was very particular, divided into a series of concentric precincts, as is well explained by the following passage from Flavius Josephus. He describes the Temple according to the form given to it by Herod, which reproduced the same tripartite structure as the Temple of Solomon: It had four surrounding courts, each with its special statutory restrictions. The outer court was open to all, foreigners included; women during their impurity were alone refused admission. To the second court all Jews were admitted and, when uncontaminated by any defilement, their wives; to the third male Jews, if clean and purified; to the fourth the priests in their priestly vestments. (Contra Apionem II, 103–104)

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Although non-Jews were forbidden to enter the sacred precincts on pain of death, non-Jews had free access to the Courts of the Gentiles, where there were also various storage facilities (Lundquist, 2008, p. 110). It is clear that this outer court represented an interesting place of interaction between Jews and non-Jews of both sexes. The landscape of Jerusalem underwent a radical change after the destruction of the Second Temple in AD 70. Jerusalem, where the ruins of the Temple were nevertheless left intact, continued to be the destination of Jewish pilgrimages, albeit in a more sporadic and limited form than at the time the Temple was active. As has been demonstrated, the Temple, far from disappearing from Jewish memory, increasingly asserted itself as a symbolic place around which new ideological representations were organized and constructed (Eliav, 2005, pp.  188–236; Regev, 2019, pp. 303–313). Another decisive date in the architectonic reshaping of the city was the Bar Kochba revolt of AD 132–135. On the site of the Temple, according to Dio Cassius, as mentioned above, Hadrian would have erected a new temple to Jupiter: since other ancient sources do not mention the presence of such a temple, some critics are now convinced that a statue erected in honour of Hadrian was placed on the site of the Temple, while the temple of Jupiter, as recorded by some witnesses, would have been built in the western part of the city.3 The revolt itself has been interpreted as a response, by various sectors of Judaism, to Hadrian’s religious policy, who here, as in other eastern regions, would have introduced foreign cults and foreign population, transforming Jerusalem, as he actually did, into a colony, and choosing ‘to emphasize the integrative value of multifaceted identities’ (Bazzana, 2010, p.  101). In Hadrian’s plans, there would even have been a project to rebuild the temple, but at the same time, the emperor would have demanded that the Jews renounce their most important mark of identity, namely circumcision. It was the conflict between different tendencies within Judaism that culminated in the revolt, with dramatic consequences for the Jewish population, interpreted conventionally as their being expelled from ever setting foot on Jerusalem’s soil again.

3  Hier. In Is. 1,2,9; for a detailed analysis of all the sources in this regard, see Bazzana (2010), which also has rich bibliographical references and provides a critical presentation of the main scholarly perspectives

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Recent criticism, however, has shown that this ban should not be understood as making it completely and continuously impossible for Jews to visit the Holy City: pilgrimages continued to be directed to it, as archaeological evidence and some literary testimonies have shown. Among these is that of a pilgrim from Bordeaux who went to Jerusalem around 330, an eyewitness to a celebration held at the site of the temple ruins, in which some Jewish worshippers are described anointing a perforated stone with oil (Itinerarium Burdigalense 591:4–6: for further sources; Eliav, 2005, pp. 190–195). Eliav, reviewing the various rabbinical sources, has drawn an articulate portrait of the changes in the Judaic perception of the Temple in the years following its destruction. The rabbinical literature introduced, increasingly insistently, the term ‘Temple Mount’, which was represented as a sacred space distinct from the Temple itself, an earthly and concrete place that stood alongside and in some cases took the place of the destroyed Temple. As a sacred place, one could not enter it without observing certain rules, just as in the case of the Temple, and although its status as a sacred place was a recent fact, the rabbis projected its existence backwards, into their historical memory. Turning to the Temple attendance of Jesus and his followers, Jesus himself, according to St John’s Gospel, frequented the Temple (John 2.13; 5.1; 7.10; 11.55), while according to Luke, his immediate disciples continued to do so (Luke 24:53; Acts 2:46; 3:11; 5:12, 42). However, the relationship between Jesus and the Temple was marked by deep tensions, culminating in the episode of the overturning of the money-changers’ tables on the Temple Esplanade. This event is recorded by all four canonical gospels (Matthew 21:12–13; Mark 11:15–17; Luke 19:45–46; John 2:14–17) and must be interpreted as an expression of violent reaction to the corrupt and money-grubbing priestly class, rather than as an attack on the Temple—a line of thought shared by various sectors of Judaism. Wardle (2010) has successfully highlighted how the early Christians developed a polemical attitude towards the priestly leadership, similar to that generated by other groups, by employing similar strategies. In particular, he has shown how different groups that for various reasons were in conflict with the Jerusalem priestly class expressed their dissent through the construction of an alternative temple, whether a concrete temple, as in the case of the temples of the Samaritans on Mount Gerizim and of the Jews in the diaspora, in Leontopolis and Elephantine, or an idea of a temple, as embodied in the community of Qumran, which represented itself as a temple. The followers of Jesus, in fact, would also soon appropriate the

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Temple of Jerusalem in different ways, both before and after its destruction. The Pauline image of 1 Corinthians 3:16–17 was an early case of this: ‘Do you not know that you are God’s Temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s Temple, God will destroy him. For holy is the Temple of God, which you are’ (Wardle, 2010, pp. 166–226). As regards the physical relationship Christians had with the reality of the Temple and its ruins, there is very little information before the large-­ scale Christianization of the city and the monumentalization of the holy places pertaining Jesus’ life by Constantine. Wilken, in his detailed study of the emergence of the concept of the Holy Land among the early Christians, reports as the first evidence of pilgrimages, dating back to the third century, the journey of a certain Alexander, a native of Asia Minor, to Jerusalem ‘to pray and seek the holy places’ (Eus, h.e. 6.11.2 quoted by Wilken, 1992, p. 84). A slightly later example is Firmilianus, who returned from Cappadocia to Palestine ‘in search of holy places’ (Hier. Vir ill. 54, quoted by Wilken, 1992, p. 84). In fact, as in the case of Meliton of Sardis in the second century and Origen in the third, these were not pilgrimages in the true sense of the term, but rather journeys aimed at satisfying the desire to discover the places of the Scriptures as a whole, and not only those linked to the life of Jesus. On the Christian side, the perception of the places of Jesus’ earthly life as holy places, as part of a Holy Land, only began to emerge in the fourth century. Wilken has successfully identified in the figure of Eusebius ‘a new Ezekiel’, who, even before Constantine built sacred Christian buildings in Jerusalem, had provided in his Onomasticon—alongside a dictionary of names and places, all translated from Hebrew into Greek—a map of ancient Judea and a plan of ancient Jerusalem with its Temple: Yet, like Ezekiel eight centuries earlier, Eusebius set some of the foundation stones in place. Ezekiel had written ‘This is the Law of the Temple; the whole territory round about upon the top of the mountain shall be most holy’ (Ezek 43:12). In his description of the discovery of the tomb of Christ and the building of the Church of the Anastasis (IV.C.n.d.r.) Eusebius gave the land a centre, a holy place and sacred edifice, that made this land venerable and marked it off from all others. (Wilken, 1992, p. 100)

Constantine’s impressive architectural project, with its monumentalization of the main sites of Jesus’ life, naturally moved the centre of Jerusalem from the east, where the Temple was located, to the area near the centre

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of the new Roman colony, where the Anastasis now stood: in Eusebius’ words, the new Jerusalem was juxtaposed to the old one, while the new basilica was defined as a ‘great house of prayer and holy Temple’ (l.C. 916) that was evidently aimed to take the place of the ruined Temple. Eusebius can affirm, not without a triumphalist tone, that Christians flocked from all parts to be able to stand on the Mount of Olives and admire from above the devastation of the Temple Mount, where the glory of God had once dwelled (Dem. Ev. 6.18; 288d.). The ruins of the Temple therefore appear to Christian pilgrims as tangible and reassuring proof that they are now the chosen people in whom God has taken up residence. Little by little, therefore, a sacred landscape emerges, a Christian Holy Land that also includes the Jewish sacred topography but views it from a different perspective. That top-down gaze at the ruins of the Temple must also have embraced the Jewish pilgrims who went there to mourn the destruction of the Temple and to pray to God for its reconstruction. Before the conversion of Jerusalem into a Christian holy city, however, the Temple, although in ruins, continued to represent the undisputed ideal centre of the city, and its legacy became the subject of conflict between various religious groups. Many people continued to go to its ruins to mourn them, like the Jewish pilgrims, or to find in those crumbling stones a confirmation of their faith, as some Christians did, at least as they testified in their writings. However, the perception of space changed, and the Temple Mount began to assert itself more and more as a sacred place in addition to the Temple and in part as replacing it, while in the Christian world the need to appropriate both the Temple and the Temple Mount slowly began to emerge.

Churches and Synagogues as New Temples In a comprehensive study of the impact of the destruction of Jerusalem and the Second Temple in the first three centuries of the Christian era, Döpp (1998, pp. 304–309) has identified a considerable number of similarities in the way Christians and Jews ‘grieved’ over the destruction of the Temple and tried to continue living without it. I shall use some of his points in conducting an analysis of the main representations of the Temple in the second and third centuries. A first important and inevitable phenomenon is the renunciation of the customary sacrificial practice, which was replaced by a series of other activities, mainly centred on the word, but not only. These involved reciting

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the sacrificial precepts in the synagogue service and the Eucharistic worship of Christian assemblies, understood as remembrance and sacrifice, as well as prayers, different ascetic practices, charitable works and study of the Scriptures. The concept of sacrifice, therefore, seemed to expand to include several realities, as well as the positions of those who officiate at this sacrifice, whether rabbi, bishop/priest, or teacher, which become more complex. The synagogues gradually began to be perceived more and more as Temples and to be charged with greater religious significance (Fine, 1997), but also the spaces in which the assemblies of Jesus’ followers took place—which, moreover, in the early days often coincided with the synagogues themselves—are subject to radical changes over time. Osiek and MacDonald have pointed out how the first domestic realities of the movement of Jesus were meeting sites situated between the public and private spheres, in open and multi-functional spaces, in which worship, hospitality, patronage, education, communication, social services, evangelization and missionary activity all took place (Osiek & MacDonald, 2006, p. 30). In addition, these were living spaces populated by men, women, children and slaves, with guiding figures but without rigidly fixed hierarchies, and hubs for communities that gathered to share communal meals in a triclinium, the hall that most likely represented the heart of community life (Kilde, 2008, pp. 18–23). Over time, these sites were replaced by arrangements that were originally designed exclusively for worship by larger numbers of people, buildings either built from scratch or adapted. Kilde clearly describes this material transformation and its impact on the early Christians’ perceptions of space: Although some distinctions in power had certainly existed in earlier Christian gatherings—particularly among patrons, honoured teachers, and ordinary guests—it was not until the emergence of the domus ecclesiae that they were fully inscribed into the spatial arrangement of the religious space itself. Thus, with the domus ecclesiae, Christian space began to function to delineate and maintain distinctions of power and influence among Christians and became a crucial factor in the institutionalization of and maintenance of these new religious offices. By the middle of the third century, ordination, a process through which an individual took on the knowledge, role, and power of the clergy, became closely associated with the space reserved for the clergy. When Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, referred to the clerical dais as a tribunal, ‘the sacred and venerated congestum of the clergy’, stating that

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to ‘ascend the platform’ indicated ordination, the place itself had become a metonym for the power and authority of the clergy. (Kilde, 2008, p. 26)

This new space, with its boundaries and demarcations, is very reminiscent of the Temple, with its concentrically structured separate precincts. In the Syriac Didascalia, an early third-century ecclesiastical order that has undergone changes over time (Stewart-Sykes, 2009), the place that the clergy and the faithful should occupy in the Church is indicated precisely: the presbyters should stand in the part of the house facing east, all around the bishop’s seat, while the laity should stand on the other side of the building. Closest to the presbyters and bishop are the men, then there are the women, but a distinction is also made according to age and the category (couples with children, girls, widows) to which they belong (Did. syr. 2.57). Similar arrangements must have been envisaged more or less everywhere, in accordance with the definition of an ecclesiastical hierarchy that had become increasingly professional and distinct from the laity, in which the bishop and priest are now commonly represented as the authentic successors of the Jewish priests. This sacerdotalization of the ecclesiastical leadership was mirrored by analogous sanctification of the sacred spaces, which were also assimilated to the Temple. The relationship between the clergy and sacred spaces, and especially between the bishops and buildings of worship, in fact becomes increasingly close in third-century sources, as Stewart has demonstrated (Stewart, 2015), although the author sometimes tends to interpret univocally in spatial and material sense texts that parallel church and Temple primarily in a metaphorical sense. However, it remains indisputable that, by considering this new perception of Christian space, one can understand better the emphasis of the sources on the church as a space delimited by limina that the bishop must preserve, especially from sinners ((Tert. Pud. 4, 5 quoted by Stewart, 2015, pp.  40–42). It was a place where the Christian bishop performs the ministry of the Jewish high priest, feeling honoured to serve in the presence of God, just as the deacon is grateful to be permitted to offer in the holy of holies (Trad.Ap. 4; 8 quoted by Stewart, 2015, pp. 65–66); it is the tabernacle of the Temple, where the priest unceasingly performs his ministry (Did.syr. 2, 57, 7). The tabernacle in particular offered considerable inspiration to different groups of early Christians. Margaret Barker, in a chapter entitled ‘The Temple roots of the Christian Liturgy’, points out how, in the liturgical setting:

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The altar in the Christian sanctuary corresponded not to the incense altar of the Temple, nor to the great altar of sacrifice, which had been outside in the Temple court. It corresponded to the ark with its two Cherubim in the holy of holies, beyond the veil in the desert tabernacle, and in some traditions, drawing a curtain to screen the holy place is still a part of the liturgy. […] In one sense, then, every church was a new Temple, and the places where Christians worshipped were consciously modelled not on the synagogues, but on the Temple. […] When Christians deliberately adopted the ways of the Temple, it was the first Temple, with its royal cult of the Anointed One and the eternal covenant that shaped their world view and their liturgy … the proportions of the Anastasis show that it replicated those of the Temple, with the edicule as the holy of holies … using the tomb of Christ as the new ark in the Christian holy of holies. (Barker, 2003, pp. 96–97)

This interpretation is consistent with the constant Christian claim to embody verus Israel. Similarly, in synagogues in the diaspora, as well as in Palestine, the Torah Shrine, which is normally the place where the Bible scrolls are kept, is placed in the wall facing Jerusalem and is associated, in the pictorial representation, with the ark of the covenant, whose mobile nature conforms to the very spirit that should animate the synagogue: … the Torah Shrine may normally be identified as the receptacle or repository for biblical scrolls, and is very often depicted in Jewish art as consisting of a wooden box ('aron) with cubby-holes for the rolled scrolls. Many scholars understand the interior component to be portable and removable. Hence the designation'aron ha-qodesh, Holy Ark. In this respect the Torah Shrine or Ark of Law resembles in some ways the Ark of the Covenant, which before the first Temple was a symbol of God's movable presence; hence Nathan's prophecy (2 Samuel 7:4–7) against building a Temple—it would compromise the principle of portability or movability, which is the essence of the idea of a synagogue. Synagogues can be located wherever like-minded people gather to acknowledge God. (Meyers, 2005, p. 191)

The synagogue therefore simultaneously claims a link with the Ark and the Temple. The similarities between Christian places of worship and synagogues are absolutely evident in Dura Europos, where both places of worship are adaptations of previous domestic structures presenting structural and stylistic similarities, so as to suggest that the two distinct pictorial cycles may be the product of the same workshop, which might also have

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been responsible for other iconographic programs in other places of worship in the city (Jensen, 2005).

The Temple as a Community and as an Individual In addition to the templization of spaces, other forms of templization are recorded, both within Christianity and Judaism, which interpret the true Temple as a community, as an individual (body/soul), in addition to the frequent references to the dialectic between the heavenly and earthly Temples. We have already noted Jesus’s critical attitude towards the priestly class that was responsible for the management of the Temple and consequently, albeit in a more moderate form, towards the Temple itself. A similar attitude has been attributed to Stephen (Acts 6, 13–14), who is said to have affirmed that ‘the Most High does not dwell in buildings made by human hands’ (Acts 7, 48), and to Paul, who is accused of preaching against the Temple and profaning it (Acts 21, 28). This relationship with the Temple also appears to have been accompanied by a tendency to relativize and interiorize the rules of purity (Lettieri, 2014, pp. 89–101), which found their ultimate meaning in the sacredness of the Temple itself. Paul, in particular, was the first to develop the image of the community as a true Temple (1 Corinthians 3:16–17; 2 Corinthians 6:16–18; Galatians 2:9), which was also widespread in the Qumran group (e.g., 1QS 8:7–8; 1QH 6:25–29; 7:8–9 quoted by Wardle, 2010, p. 206), thus placing in the Church, as an assembly of believers, the authentic presence of God. In the Apostle’s application of Templar terminology to the community of believers in Jesus, Wardle sees an attitude of open hostility towards Jerusalem’s priestly establishment. The image recurs in different New Testament writings (Ephesians 2, 19–22; 1 Peter 2, 4–10; Revelation 3, 7–13), but starting with Paul himself it also includes other variants, such as the identification of the Temple with the single believer (1 Corinthians 6, 19) or with Jesus (John 2, 19–22, where the prediction of the destruction of the Temple by Jesus is explicitly referred to the ‘Temple of his body’ by the evangelist). The scholar therefore reveals a constant terminological choice as a common feature of these metaphorical uses of the Temple by the first followers of Jesus: In speaking of the church as a Temple, early Christian texts consistently use the word naós as opposed to hierón. Traditionally, naós described the place

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where the deity dwelt, the Temple proper, while hierón is a more elastic term that encapsulates the Temple precincts as well as the sanctuary itself. Though the two terms had become somewhat interchangeable in the Greek of the first century C.E., the Septuagint’s retention of the earlier distinctions appears to have influenced the New Testament writers. In describing themselves as the naós of God, the early Christians were claiming that their community now served as the distinct dwelling place of the God of Israel. (Wardle, 2010, p. 207)

This interpretative line, combined with the affirmation of the impossibility of circumscribing God within a place, characterized the reflection and exegetical developments of a robust tradition within early Christianity. Thus, the passage from Isaiah 66:1: ‘Thus says the Lord: the heavens are my throne, the earth the footstool of my feet. What house could you build for me? In what place shall I dwell? dwell’ was often used to criticize the Jews’ attachment to the Temple in Jerusalem, proposing, by contrast, a spiritual form of worship (Wilken, 1992, p. 52). Clement of Alexandria, Origen and the Valentinian Gnostics4 wrote the most sophisticated exegeses of the Temple and Tabernacle in the early centuries. For Clement, the perfect Christian—that is, the true Gnostic— does not honour God in a place or in a special Temple, nor on the occasion of specific feasts, but everywhere and throughout his life, unceasingly (Strom. VII. 7, 35 3. 5). Referring to a long philosophical tradition, which was critical of material sacrifice and worship, which were considered absurd, Clement repeats the doctrine of the uncircumscribability of God (Strom. V, 73, 1–77, 2), whose true dwelling cannot reside elsewhere than in the Gnostic (Strom. VII, 5, 28, 1 and 29, 4–5). The crucial text from which the allegorical exegesis of the tabernacle departs is the Epistle to the Hebrews, which identifies in the tabernacle a figure of the heavenly sanctuary (Hebrews 8, 2), not made by human hands (Hebrews 9, 11), where Christ, the high priest according to the order of Melchizedek, celebrates a heavenly liturgy in which he is both 4  The Valentinians, who were mainly active between the second and third centuries, represent one of the most important Christian Gnostic movements and owe their name to Valentine, their teacher. According to their vision, salvation is achieved through knowledge of one’s own celestial origin and is only fully attainable by people of a spiritual nature, the Gnostics, while the rest of humanity is destined to ruin or to a very reduced form of salvation. When Clement Alexandrinus speaks of the true Gnostic, he is referring to the perfect believer, who, however, is not predetermined by nature.

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priest and victim (Hebrews 9, 12). In the Judaeo-Hellenistic literature and in various Christian authors, the Judaic idea of the Temple, built according to a heavenly model (Exodus 25:9), is superimposed on the Hellenistic motif of the cosmos as the true Temple of God: for Philo, therefore, the tabernacle is the image of the universe and, as such, the place where God and his powers are manifested (Spec. Leg. 1, 66; QE 2, 51; Heb. 132, 133; Det. 160; Somn.1, 185–188: cf. Le Boulluec & Sandevoirs, 1989, p. 250). If, for the author, the heavenly Temple is the world of ideas, the earthly Temple is instead a symbol of spiritual and ethical realities that often coincides with the human soul itself (Somn. 1.215; Cher.100; Immut. 134–135; Sobr. 62–64; Praem. 123: cf. Le Boulluec & Sandevoirs, 1989, p. 250). The spiritual sacrifice is consummated within the soul, a sacrifice that man achieves by offering his virtues and, in this way, progressing towards the contemplation of God. Philo, as is well known, lived before the destruction of the Temple and never argued against the Temple or sacrifice (Calabi, 2001; Vian, 1996). However, he consistently proposed a symbolic and internalized interpretation of the sacrifice and tabernacle, profoundly influencing subsequent Christian allegorical exegesis. This Christian allegorical exegesis, which also included the motif of the eternal or heavenly tabernacle (Luke 16:9 and 2 Corinthians 5:2), a symbol of the body destined for resurrection (e.g., Origen, Cels. 5, 19; HNm 17:4), particularly identified the tabernacle with the soul and the church, as a place in which it was possible to achieve some form of visio Dei after undergoing a necessary purification (Orig. HEx 9; HEx 13: cf. Noce, 2002). The face-to-face vision is, of course, always referred to the dimension of the heavenly tabernacle, which can be understood in both an individual and ecclesiastical sense.

Concluding Remarks The destruction of the Temple by Titus in AD 70 had significant consequences, which touched on various aspects of Jewish life, first of all the need for a reorientation in space. The loss of the centre around which the whole religious, social and political life of Israel had been organized for a long time created a profound wound, but at the same time, it was an opportunity for the rebirth and reinvention of the Jewish religion around new centres and spaces. The first followers of Jesus were part of this process of transformation, to which they gradually developed their own responses. The shock produced by such a notable and disorienting event

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generated constructive reactions, which in many cases did no more than carry forward previously established conceptions, which called for the internalization of sacrificial practice, the priesthood and the Temple. Jews and Christians proceeded along these lines in an entirely symmetrical manner, associating sacrifice increasingly with prayer, the study of the Torah and exegetical and didactic activity. For Jesus’ first believers, the progressive transfer of religious functions to the synagogue initially corresponded to a certain sacralization of domestic spaces as multifunctional meeting places, where community meals, worship, catechesis and the organization of charity took place. Then, from the second to third centuries, a proper definition of sacred spaces emerged with the introduction of demarcation lines marking the distinction between clergy and laity and mapping out a hierarchy within the clergy. A similar process of templization of the synagogues took place in the Judaic sphere under many aspects, with an increasingly accentuated self-­ representation of the rabbis as the true heirs of the Old Testament priesthood, of which they assumed several functions. Around the same time, Christians began to define their leaders as priests, as unique ministers of worship, but also as those responsible for teaching, exegesis and the administration of Church property. The Temple continued to remain a point of reference and an inspirational motif for both groups in the different articulations that characterized them, and although we are often unable to reconstruct precisely the ways in which these different religious realities met and clashed, the uncovering of so many parallels and the polemical tone of the various exegeses and affirmations suggests, at least in certain areas, the existence of an intense dialectic between the different communities. Just consider the Syriac community mentioned in the text of the Didascalia, which was characterized by the strong presence of converts from Judaism and by its constant relations with the interpretative proposals of the Law made in the rabbinical schools, as well as the relations that Clement of Alexandria and Origen cultivated with Jewish communities, whose boundaries were more porous than we would normally think. Often the same individuals might attend a Christian assembly and synagogue and even the procession of a Greco-Roman deity, becoming themselves ‘multifaith places’, as well as a path for the transmission and communication of ideas and representations that were increasingly shared. One eloquent image of this fluidity of boundaries and interconnections between sacred spaces is Dura Europos, where several cult buildings have

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been excavated, including the synagogue, the domus ecclesiae, a mithraeum and various other temples dedicated to pagan deities, such as Zeus, Artemis, Adonis, as well as Semitic deities such as Bel and Atargatis. The same craftsmen probably worked in many of them. The Temple, the ruins of which became the destination of visits by Christians and Jews motivated by opposing spirits, became for both groups an archetypal image that they needed to appropriate in order to reinforce their respective identities and legitimize themselves externally and internally. Its structure, its measurements and the liturgy celebrated in it were studied in order to be replicated in an ideal Temple, which Jews and Christians built by mixing elements of the first and second Temples with Greek philosophical concepts, such as the idea of the cosmos as the true Temple of God. This idea was developed in both the exegetical sphere, in Judaeo-­ Hellenistic and Christian texts, and in the iconographic sphere, as Goodenough pointed out a while ago, identifying traces of this conception in various levels of detail of the pictorial cycle of the Dura Europos synagogue (Goodenough, 1935, pp. 96–120; Goodenough & Neusner, 1988, pp. 161–168). The Temple thus became a perfect paradigm of religious interaction and, therefore, a ‘multifaith’ place, we might say an ideal one, even before its material reality became an object of contention through various redefinitions of the sacred landscape.

References Balcon-Berry, S., Barette, F., Caillet, J.  P., & Sandron, D. (2012). Des Domus Ecclesiae aux palais épiscopaux: Actes du Colloque tenu à Autun du 26 au 28 novembre 2009. Brepols. Barker, M. (2003). The Great High Priest: The Temple Roots of Christian Liturgy. T & T Clark. Bazzana, G. B. (2010). The Bar Kokhba Revolt and Hadrian’s Religious Policy. In M. Rizzi (Ed.), Hadrian and the Christians (pp. 85–101). Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co.. Berger, M. S. (1998). Rabbinic Authority. Oxford University Press. Boyarin, D. (2004). Border Lines: The Partition of Judaeo-Christianity. University of Pennsylvania Press. Calabi, F. (2001). I sacrifici e la loro funzione conoscitiva in Filone di Alessandria. Annali di Storia dell’Esegesi, 18(1), 101–127. Cattaneo, E. (Ed.). (1997). I ministeri nella Chiesa antica: testi patristici dei primi tre secoli. Edizioni Paoline.

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Daly, R. (1978). Christian Sacrifice: The Judaeo-Christian Background before Origen. Catholic University of America Press. Daly, R. (1982). Sacrificial Soteriology in Origen’s Homilies on Leviticus. Studia Patristica, 17(2), 872–878. Döpp, H.  M. (1998). Die Deutung der Zerstörung Jerusalems und des Zweiten Tempels im Jahre 70 in den ersten drei Jahrhunderten n. Chr. Francke Verlag. Dunn, J. D. G. (20062). The Partings of the Ways Between Christianity and Judaism and Their Significance for the Character of Christianity. SCM. Ego, B., Lange, A., & Pilhofer, P. (Eds.). (1999). Gemeinde ohneTempel/ Community Without Temple. Zur Substituierung und Transformation des Jerusalemer Tempels und seines Kults im Alten Testament, antiken Judentum und frühen Christentum (WUNT 118). Mohr Siebeck. Eliav, Y.  Z. (2005). God's Mountain: The Temple Mount in Time, Place, and Memory. Johns Hopkins University Press. Faivre, A. (1992). Ordonner la fraternité: pouvoir de innover et retour à l’ordre dans l’égliseancienne. Éditions du Cerf. Filoramo, G., & Gianotto, C. (2001). VerusIsrael. Nuove prospettive sul giudeocristianesimo: Atti del Colloquio (Torino, 4-5 novembre 1999). Claudiana. Fine, S. (1997). This Holy Place: On the Sanctity of the Synagogue During the Greco Roman Period. University of Notre Dame Press. Fiocchi, N. V. (2002). Origine e sviluppo delle catacombe romane. In V. F. Nicolai, F.  Bisconti, & D.  Mazzoleni (Eds.), Le catacombe cristiane di Roma:origini, sviluppo, apparati decorativi, documentazione epigrafica (pp.  9-69). Schnell & Steiner. Fraade, S. (1999). Shifting from Priestly to Non- Priestly Legal Authority: A Comparison of the Damascus Document and the Midrash Sifra. Dead Sea Discoveries, 6(2), 109–125. Gianotto, C. (Ed.). (2012). Ebrei credenti in Gesù:le testimonianze degli autori antichi. Edizioni Paoline. Gianotto, C., & Nicolotti, A. (2019). Il Vangelo di Marcione. Einaudi. Goodenough, R.  E. (1935). By Light, Light. The Mystic Gospel of Hellenistic Judaism. Yale University Press. Goodenough, R.  E., & Neusner, J. (1988). Jewish Symbols in the Greco-Roman Period (Abridged edition). Princeton University Press. Jensen, R.  J. (2005). The Dura Europos Synagogue, Early-Christian Art, and Religious Life in Dura Europos. In S. Fine (Ed.), Jews, Christians, and Polytheists in the Ancient Synagogue. Cultural Interaction During the Greco-Roman Period (pp. 154–167). Routledge. Kilde, J. (2008). Sacred Power, Sacred Space: An Introduction to Christian Architecture and Worship. Oxford University Press. Klinghardt, M. (2015). Das älteste Evangelium und die Entstehung der kanonischen Evangelien. Francke.

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Krautheimer, R. (1965). Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture. Penguin Books. Le Boulluec, A., & Sandevoirs, P. (1989). La Bibled’Alexandrie LXX.2. L’exode. Cerf. Lettieri, G. (2014). Fuori luogo:topos atopos dal Nuovo Testamento allo Pseudo-­ Dionigi. In D.  Giovannozzi & M.  Veneziani (Eds.), Locus Spatium. XVI Colloquio Internazionale del Lessico Intellettuale Europeo (pp.  81–148). Casa Editrice Leo S. Olschki. Lieu, J. M. (2015). Marcion and the Making of a Heretic: God and Scripture in the Second Century. Cambridge University Press. Lundquist, J. M. (2008). The Temple of Jerusalem: Past, Present, and Future. Praeger. Meyers, E. M. (2005). The Torah Shrine in the Ancient Synagogue: Another Look at the Evidence. In S. Fine (Ed.), Jews, Christians, and Polytheists in the Ancient Synagogue: Cultural Interaction During the Greco-Roman Period (pp. 178–197). Routledge. Noce, C. (2002). Omelia IX.  In M.  Maritano & E. dal Covolo (Eds.), Omelie sull'Esodo:lettura origeniana (pp. 57–73). LAS Roma. Osiek, C., & MacDonald, M. Y. (2006). Il ruolo delle donne nel cristianesimo delle origini:indagine sulle chiese domestiche. Edizioni San Paolo. Regev, E. (2019). The Temple in Early Christianity: Experiencing the Sacred. Yale University Press. Schöllgen, G. (1998). Die Anfänge der Professionalisierung des Klerus und das kirchliche Amt in der syrischen Didaskalie. Aschendorff. Sessa, K. (2009). Domus Ecclesiae: Rethinking a Category of Ante-pacemchristian Space. Journal of Theological Studies, 60(1), 90–108. Simon, M. (1964). Verus Israel: étude sur les relations entre chrétiens et juifs dans l’empireromain (pp. 135–425). E. de Boccard. Skarsaune, O., & Hvalvik, R. (Eds.). (2007). Jewish Believers in Jesus: The Early Centuries. Hendrickson Publishers. Stewart, B.  A. (2015). Priests of My People: Levitical Paradigms for Christian Ministers. Peter Lang. Stewart-Sykes, A. (Ed.). (2009). The Didascaliaapostolorum: An English Version with Introduction and Annotation. Brepols. Stroumsa, G. G. (2005). La fin du sacrifice: Les mutations religieuses de l’Antiquité tardive, préface de John Scheid. Odile Jacob. Vian, G. (1996). Purità e culto nell’esegesi giudaico-ellenistica. Annali di Storia dell’Esegesi, 13(1), 67–84. Vinzent, M. (2014). Marcion and the Dating of the Synoptic Gospels. Peeters Publishers. von Harnack, A. (1924). Marcion: das Evangelium vom fremden Gott: eine Monographie zur Geschichte der Grundlegung der katholischen Kirche. J.C. Hinrichs.

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Wardle, T. (2010). The Jerusalem Temple and Early Christian Identity (WUNT 291). Mohr Siebeck. White, L. M. (1997 [1996]). The Social Origins of Christian Architecture (Vol. 2). Trinity Press. Wilken, R. L. (1992). The Land Called Holy: Palestine in Christian History and Thought. Yale University Press.

CHAPTER 8

Touristification as a Strategy for Peaceful Coexistence: The Case Study of the Sveti Naum Monastery (Macedonia) Evelyn Reuter

Introduction: An Ambiguous Monastery The Sveti Naum monastery, located to the south of Lake Ohrid, is one of the most famous tourist attractions in contemporary North Macedonia (Fig. 8.1). This Orthodox Christian monastery is considered a shared religious place, as Muslims have visited the site since the time of the Ottoman Empire. This monastery has never been an obvious arena of political struggles with respect to the instrumentalizing of religious affiliation against another religious group; even today, both Christians and Muslims can peacefully visit the spot. One reason for this coexistence is the site’s touristification by the socialist regime of Yugoslavia, a trend that has continued under the Orthodox Church since Macedonia’s independence in the 1990s. In former Yugoslavia, the non-religious use of the monastery served to increase its ambiguity. Moreover, the role of religion changed significantly during Macedonia’s post-socialist transformation process.

E. Reuter (*) Friedrich-Schiller-Universität, Jena, Germany © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 M. Burchardt, M. C. Giorda (eds.), Geographies of Encounter, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82525-6_8

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Fig. 8.1  The Sveti Naum monastery attracts many visitors because of its religious and historical meaning as well as its location. This image used with permission of Evelyn Reuter (2018)

This chapter focuses on how various actors currently deal with the heritage of this monastery. Within the framework of this edited book, this question and the perception of the monastery as a shared sacred or multireligious place in terms of practices and religious dimensions will be discussed, with a particular examination of the conditions for shaping these places and the consequences for coexistence on a local and national level. To answer these questions, I collected qualitative research data from a year-long, multilocal field study involving approximately 40 cities and villages—all of which were connected both to the monastery and to each other—in Macedonia, Albania, and Kosovo (Fig. 8.2). These locales are considered to be a network of religious places, as they correspond to the following descriptions: places from which pilgrims and visitors traditionally come; places with other monasteries and churches dedicated to Saint Naum; and places of the Bektashi community, which is said to identify

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Fig. 8.2  In red boxes added by the author, the map shows the visited places of the multilocal field research. The author annotated this map based upon data from Google. Map data © 2019, Google/Additional Content Partner

Naum with a pre-Ottoman figure named Sari Saltuk. During my fieldwork, I participated in and observed several activities, but I also conducted interviews and conversations. Different ethnic and religious groups were included in the sample, as were various positions of characters within their religious hierarchies; the sample involved Macedonians and Albanians, Christians and Muslims, bishops, imams, and laypersons, and international tourists. All in all, I recorded 66 interviews and talks in English (1), Macedonian (40), and Albanian (25) during the field research. Building on these data, I argue further that the religious and secular dimensions of the monastery can merge. Moreover, when the term “secular” is differentiated, the monastery occurs as an ambiguous place. For this purpose, I will illustrate in the following how shared religious places are

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negotiated by referring to the theories of Hayden and Bowman, who lead the current anthropological debate about shared religious places, and Knott, who offers a spatial theory together with five analytical terms. In the main part of this chapter, I will analyze how actors negotiate the meaning of the monastery in relationships. Like the sample of my fieldwork, I examine actors from the most significant categories, which are Christians and Muslims, church and state, and visitors and traders. We will see that the touristification1 of the place is the most acceptable strategy for coexistence.

The Negotiation of Shared Religious Places’ Theory The multifaith sharing of religious places is the most fascinating and provoking aspect of the current theories on shared religious places. This discussion is initiated by Hayden’s article on Antagonistic Tolerance (2002). In this article, he criticizes previous studies because they have not considered the implications of active tolerance. In contrast, he notes a basic tension among societies that he has examined, caused by the majority suppressing minorities. This indicates a subtle power struggle involving passive tolerance rather than open conflict with its high costs. In such cases, the advocacy of conflict-suppressing tolerance allows political elites to stall for time. Considering societies in India and Yugoslavia, Hayden characterizes the actors with respect to their national identities, which are based on religious belonging. Glenn Bowman criticizes Hayden’s approach thoroughly because of its essential understanding of identities (2002). He states that “identities at syncretic shrines can function with relative unfixity” (Bowman, 2002, p. 220) and those identities in border regions are “local products rather than extensions of the hegemonic orthodox discourses of state and sect” (Bowman, 2012, p. 4). Thus, Bowman broadens the perspective on the negotiation of even local identities, indicating several possible alliances that favor peaceful coexistence rather than support the separation conflicts of religious and political elites. A multitude of publications have followed Bowman’s critiques, showing how negotiation processes have changed among such places. Despite the call for a proper definition of identities, ethnographic approaches focus on actors, activities, and the consequences of sharing: 1  “Touristification” is a term from the discipline of geography and “refers to the complex processes of territorial transformation brought about by tourism on a determined geographical space” without any negative or positive connotation (Ojeda & Kieffer, 2020).

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the actors are mostly dichotomously distinguished according to their religious belonging and sociopolitical situation as minority or majority. Regarding both theoretical approaches, political identities in combination with religious identities are the main influencing factors of negotiating a place. While Hayden emphasizes national identities based on religious belonging, Bowman focuses more on local identities to investigate a shared religious place. The consequence of sharing such places is the negotiating of identities. Furthermore, the analyzed case studies are mainly from regions where religious and ethnic-national belongings have developed interdependently. Occasionally, other aspects of identity, such as gender, are considered in studies about shared religious sites (Albera, 2012, p. 232). The semantics of sharing religious places is limited in these approaches to the lowest common denominator of cohabitation due to a focus on visits to religious sites, which are also characterized as pilgrimages due to the religious context. Furthermore, previous approaches have not discussed what a religious place might be. Only buildings of religious communities are considered religious places. In contrast, Knott (2008) points out that spaces and places are produced by people’s behavior and that they are not religious per se. Referring to Lefebvre’s spatial theory, Knott defines space as dynamic because it “is perceived, conceived and lived” (Knott, 2008, p.  1110). Furthermore, she distinguishes between physical and metaphorical spaces and places: “place is that nexus in space in which social relations occur, which may be material or metaphorical and which is necessarily interconnected (with places) and full of power” (Knott, 2005, p. 134).2 However, even metaphorical religious places are “produced by religions, religious groups, and individuals” (Knott, 2005, p. 3). The collective players may be religious institutions or minorities, political parties, or economic organizations. That is why Knott locates the negotiation of places in a field between the camps of religious and secular (Knott, 2005, pp. 125–126). In my opinion, these theories have two terminological deficits. On the one hand, the differentiation between the terms “religious” and “secular” is too imprecise to analyze places because of its bipolarity. Hence, what individuals and groups are doing should be described more precisely. On the other hand, in the research on “shared religious places,” “shared” focuses only on the religious identities of the actors. At the same time, 2  For Knott, metaphorical means giving orientation in the form of cognitive concepts (Knott, 2005, pp. 14–15).

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“sharing” could describe the multiple uses of places which call into question their religious characteristics. In my research area, religious sites were used for various purposes—e.g., as depots, museums, or concerts halls— during the socialist era. These applications point out that there is a non-­ religious or secular potentiality for use of religious places. More specifically, these possibilities can be differentiated with respect to a place’s use in cultural and economic aspects. To eliminate these deficits, I introduce the term “ambiguity” as an analytical category for the distinction of non-religious layers. Ambiguity may be the key category of interpreting the ongoing negotiation process of the Saint Naum monastery.3 “Ambiguity” implies that a place is open for several meanings and interpretations because of what Knott calls “dimensions” and “properties” (Knott, 2008, pp.  1109–1110). Knott defines dimensions as the “physical, social and mental” characteristics of a place, e.g., construction materials, events, conversations about morals. On the other hand, “properties […] include ‘extension’, ‘simultaneity’ and ‘power’” of a place, referring to heritages, connections to other spots, and negotiation processes. In particular, the issue of power negotiations connects Knott’s approach with the discussion of Hayden and Bowman. Furthermore, this constructivist approach can be found in Elazar Barkan and Karen Barkey’s volume, Choreographies of Shared Sacred Sites: Religion, Politics, and Conflict Resolution. In their introduction, they state that sharing is not only about spatial division, but also temporal and functional divisions (2014, p.  16). However, even functional division is a consequence of the ambiguity of places.

Actors in Relationships: The Discursive and Practical Negotiation of Historical Heritage The first idea to investigate the production of a religious place is to look at the religious belongings of the involved actors and their activities with respect to cohabitation. In this case study, the participating religious groups are Christians and Muslims, i.e., Orthodox Christians and Sunni 3  In contrast to the terms “hybridity” (Erne, 2017, pp.  18–31) and “mixing” (Albera, 2008; Bowman, 2010), “ambiguity” does not refer to the merging of several dimensions or areas of social life. “Ambiguity” goes beyond “hybridity” as the state of merging and claims a concept that sees “religion” as a cultural pattern rather than as a cultural factor (Koch, 2007, pp. 21–32).

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Muslims as the main religions, and Catholic Christians as well as the Sufi order of the Bektashis as religious minorities. However, focusing only on the religious identities of participants as they are defined ideally from spiritual leaders has two risks. One is to classify motivations, actions, and attributions of actors within the categories of religious and non-religious or secular. Moreover, such an approach does not consider the actors; consequently, the discursive and practical negotiation of the historical place will be analyzed in favor of theological discussions. To prevent these risks and avoid bias, one must consider all social roles of the players that shape the place. Thus, the ambiguity of the St. Naum monastery can be grasped. In this study, six main actor groups that shape the place can be identified. These groups will be analyzed in three interacting pairs: (1) the aforementioned Christian-Muslim contacts, (2) the mainly historically important link between church and state, and (3) the contemporary interactions of tourists and traders. As will become clear, individual actors can be part of more than one of these groups. By analyzing the overlap between groups and their relationships, the following subchapters will also point out the intermingling of the political, economic, and touristic layers which create the ambiguous characteristics of a monastery seen as a religious place. Furthermore, I go into the history of the monastery to show how the actors use the heritage of the monastery in conceiving their image of the place.4 The structure of these relationships is always asymmetrical and can be compared to a host–guest relationship because of its peaceful cohabitation. Peaceful Contact Between Christians and Muslims The common designation of this shared religious place as “monastery” clearly characterizes it as a Christian-dominated site. Most of the local Christians are Orthodox rather than Catholics. Even the priest of the Catholic Church of Ohrid negated a local Catholic tradition of Naum (Catholic Priest, personal communication, May 31, 2016). In general, the dominant conceiving socioreligious members of the groups are the spiritual leaders. At the monastery, the abbot has been the only monk at the  A broader historical overview of how Christian-Muslim relations changed in the twentieth century can be found in my article, “The Socialist Impact on Christian-Muslim Shared St. Naum Monastery” (Reuter, 2020). 4

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monastery since the 1990s (O. Nektarij, personal communication, July 7, 2016) and represents the Macedonian Orthodox Church (MOC). For him, Naum as a monk is the model for his own position. The main activity is to honor and venerate this saint by keeping Naum’s heritage, celebrating the Orthodox liturgy every Sunday and feast day (especially the feast days of Saint Naum in winter (January fifth) and summer (July third)). The abbot’s view is compatible with the historical fact that the monastery was built by a monk called Naum (Trapp, 1974, p. 166). The regional bishop Pelushi from the neighboring city of Korçë in Albania emphasizes Naum’s character as a local saint (J. Pelushi, personal communication, August 4, 2016). Due to his local connectedness, people of this region feel attracted to Naum as an ideal of Christian life. Naum’s closeness to God is another factor, which becomes visible through miracles. In addition to the liturgy, Pelushi sees “the blessing of the water” as a significant element in the veneration of Naum (Fig. 8.3). The behavior of visitors to the monastery confirms Pelushi’s perspective on water consecration. Furthermore, for Pelushi, the healing power of the consecrated water is the main reason for the visit during feast days. This explanation fits the early characterization of Naum as a healing and miracle-­working saint (Reuter, 2015, pp.  158–160). The legend about how Naum founded his monastery proves his power: Naum healed the daughter of a rich man who gave Naum a piece of his land in thanks, allowing Naum to build his monastery. The local color of several documented variants shows that the basic story is actively passed down through generations (Risteski, 2009, pp. 57–62). In addition, it shows the ongoing awareness of the local people regarding their relationship to Naum and his monastery. The strong connection between Naum and the monastery is also demonstrated by the local expression to go “to Saint Naum,” not “to Saint Naum’s monastery.” In summer, local and foreign Christians visit the monastic complex daily, especially on the saint’s summer feast day, July 3. Contrary to the religious leaders’ wishes, the first goal of these Christians is to reach Naum’s tomb, i.e., the center of the complex. One reason against participating in the liturgy is that it is celebrated every Sunday in every church while visiting the tomb and water consecrations are unique events connected to the saint’s feast. Furthermore, the small church does not have enough space for all visitors and the heat makes breathing difficult. Therefore, remaining throughout the hours-long liturgy can be unbearable. According to people’s activities, praying, lighting candles, and

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Fig. 8.3  The vessels for the blessing of water are prepared in the early morning of July 3rd. This image used with permission of Evelyn Reuter (2018)

making devotional offerings are venerating acts, which can be done every day. Only the individual surrounding of the church with a lamb as a special devotional offering for Naum is an exclusive feast day act. At the same time, visits to the church are not necessarily religiously motivated but can also be undertaken out of curiosity. This might apply to Christian visitors from non-Orthodox Western Europe.

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Moreover, people very often spend more than just a few minutes visiting the tomb and the monastic complex. They spend most of their time on leisure activities, for instance swimming in the lake, dining in a restaurant, or camping on the former military campground. During Saint Naum’s summer feast, there are more possibilities for spending time at the site, such as enjoying the annual feast day fair or buying souvenirs in the permanent wooden booths. The permanent souvenir booths are mainly interesting for non-local visitors. In contrast to the religious actions, religious identity does not play any role in these leisure activities; indeed, Muslim visitors behave similarly. Hence, an important thing which draws people to the site regardless of their religion is the nature around the monastery. During the Ottoman Empire, Muslim officials contributed some architectural details, such as the well next to the church and a columned hall (Grozdanov, 2015, p. 297). They also spent many nights there doing leisure activities because of the site’s unique environment. One of the Ottomans’ stays is documented because of their inattention to the fireplace, which led to a big fire in 1875 (Celakoski, 2004, pp. 53–54). In general, the dedication of the place to a Christian saint and its designation as a “monastery” are not obstacles for local and international Muslim visitors. Muslims relate to the place because of other reasons. For instance, the legend of the pre-Ottoman figure of Sari Saltuk (thirteenth century) (Rohdewald, 2017, pp. 75–77) attracts Muslims to this place. According to Hasluck, who visited the monastery in 1914, local Muslims identified Naum with Sari Saltuk and frequented the tomb in the monastery as Sari Saltuk’s tomb (Hasluck, 1929, p.  70). Furthermore, he noted that not only the Sunni majority but also the Sufi-Order of Bektashis frequented the monastery because of the same legend. Neither group visited the monastery to venerate Saint Naum; rather, they honored Sari Saltuk. The Sunnis and Bektashis are strictly separate from each other with respect to theology and rituals. Consequently, this influenced even their sociopolitical relationship during the long nineteenth century (Kara, 2018, pp. 97–142). Despite these differences, Sari Saltuk is seen by both Sunnis and Bektashis as “their” missionary, because the religious boundaries between the two groups were not as strictly observed at the time of his living (Kristić, 2013, pp. 48–49). Even today within the communities of the Turkish Sunnis from Ohrid and the Sufi-Order of the Bektashis in Albania and Macedonia, the Naum monastery is connected to Sari Saltuk (Turkish Sunni, personal communication, March 4, 2017; Turkish

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Bektashi, personal communication, October 15, 2016). Still, both groups claim that Sari Saltuk was their own religious missionary. They identify Sari Saltuk with Naum and believe that he, not Naum, is buried in the tomb at the monastic church. During interviews, some Muslim interlocutors called the site a “holy place” rather than a “monastery.” A staff member of the museum on the Liga of Prizen (Kosovo) told me that “holy places” in general are not dedicated to any religion (Albanian Staff Member, personal communication, February 21, 2017). Examples from Albania which confirm this hypothesis are the church of St. Antony of Laç and the türbe known as the mausoleum of Abaz Ali at the top of Mount Tomorr. Some türbes in Ohrid are called “holy places” too, though they are not frequented by Christians. A Turkish man from a türbe caretaker family explained why holy places belong to everyone, regardless of their religious tradition: “We are all the same” because there is “only one God” (Turkish man, personal communication, August 7, 2016). A common feature between these places and Naum’s monastery is their healing power, which attracts persons in need. Thus, the healing power is one condition for shaping multireligious spaces. Another striking observation is the absence of Muslim religious leaders in the monastery complex. This may be explained by the Quran-based interpretation of Islam which younger imam generations learned in their studies at a madrasah (Quran school) in Skopje (Macedonia), at universities in the ex-Yugoslavian capitals of Prishtinë (Kosovo) or Sarajevo (Bosnia), or abroad. An imam from Tetovo criticized the previous education by older imams, which focused on the transfer of traditions (Albanian Imam, personal communication, October 22, 2016). In his opinion, the missing academic education in combination with ignorance and pre-­ Islamic conceptions led to the establishment of wrong beliefs and practices. Some statements of conservative Muslims in Ohrid confirm these shifts: according to the opinion of one Turkish woman, Muslims should not go to churches (Turkish woman, personal communication, March 18, 2017). Should one be interested in seeing icons, one could instead consult a book. An almost 60-year-old Albanian money changer said that he started to pray five times a day about 25  years ago (Albanian Money Changer, personal communication, January 19, 2017). Before, he went to “Saint Naum,” where he got help for his vertigo. As a consequence of peaceful cohabitation, a slow but increasing separation with respect to religious belongings might be observed.

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This last statement indicates that there are also Muslims believing in the Christian saint and his power. Roma are said to be particularly religiously flexible (Popovska, 2013, pp. 46–48); thus, some Muslim Roma believe in Naum, which is demonstrated by their presence during the summer feast day. Aside from selling things at the annual fair, they are hired as musicians: they play for people, surrounding the church with a lamb. Formerly, they played on the ǵupana-lawn, which refers to the word ǵupci, meaning “Roma” (Rom Musician, personal communication, July 2, 2016). Nevertheless, even non-Roma Muslims come to the monastery claiming to believe in Naum, as a half-Turkish, half-Albanian man from Bitola suggested: “I believe in everything, which is good” (O.  Aliloski, personal communication, July 1, 2016). Although the interpretations of Christians and Muslims are obviously not always the same, there is no noticeable struggle. Christians have some explanations for the presence of Muslims at “their” place: Muslims visit Christians saints such as Naum because they do not have any saints with healing power. According to Bishop Pelushi, examples of healed Muslims indicate that they have been accepted by Naum; therefore, Christians must accept them as well (J. Pelushi, personal communication, August 4, 2016). Furthermore, he states, the church must not close its doors to anyone because of their religion. This statement may seem like a missionary approach but should instead be interpreted as a deep hospitality toward the acceptance of others. However, Christians have several strategies to include Muslims at the monastery in “their” imagined community and to enable cohabitation, rather than an antagonistic tolerance. Above all, Yugoslavian politics have influenced Christian–Muslim relations at the monastery. First, generally anti-religious policies changed the role of religion from a source of fulfillment of spiritual needs to that of a cultural heritage. Second, due to a 1953 binational agreement, many Muslims from Macedonia (and from elsewhere in former Yugoslavia) emigrated to Turkey between 1953 and 1957 (Clayer & Bougarel, 2017, pp. 133–134). Thus, the number of Muslims at Naum’s monastery started to decrease sustainably around that time.

Administrative Issues Between Church and State According to the theories of Hayden and Bowman, the hospitable atmosphere within the interfaith community at the monastery is not surprising, though they would suggest different interpretations. Both theoretical

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approaches focus on the intermingling of political identities—be they national or local—and religious identities. This case study shows that shared religious places can also be an official political issue in demarcation processes. The Monastery of Saint Naum first became a main state interest during the border demarcations after the Balkan Wars in 1912 and 1913. As one of the last parts to gain independence from the Ottoman Empire, the region known today as the Republic of North Macedonia became part of Serbia and then Yugoslavia. The territory “from Lin to St. Naum” was declared by the international border committee as part of Albania (Balevski, 1984, pp. 125–132). Due to Naum’s contribution to Slavic Christianity and the culture of this region, Serbia interpreted the international decision of “to St. Naum” as exclusive, i.e., that the monastery would be part of Serbia (Grozdanov, 2015, p. 290). After international consideration of the formulation in The Hague, the borderline was again negotiated between Albania and Yugoslavia (Balevski, 1984, pp.  186–214). Finally, Albania left the monastery to Yugoslavia. The argument of Naum’s significance for Slavic rather than for Albanian identity was based on the Ottoman millet system, to which even Hayden’s approach refers. The millet system divided the Ottoman subjects with respect to their religious belonging. The simple differentiation into Muslim and non-Muslim became officially more diverse in combination with the Western European understanding of the nation; finally, religion became one of the main features for nation-building in post-Ottoman countries (Hanioğlu, 2010, pp.  59–64, 75–76; Sundhaussen, 2011, pp. 92–94). Macedonia as part of Serbia was identified with Orthodoxy, while Albania finally chose language as its main identity marker due to its religious heterogeneity. Since these criteria are still significant for the countries’ national identities, the final decision to grant the monastery to Macedonia because of its religion is comprehensible and remains unquestioned to this day. The change of the Yugoslavian political system into a socialist state affected even the concept of the Monastery of Saint Naum. In 1950, the monastery was expropriated by the Yugoslavian state and turned into a cultural-historical monument under the state’s protection (Risteski, 2009, p. 21). Interestingly, even though the expropriation negatively impacted the Orthodox Church, Muslims did not profit from this strategy. Paradoxically, as will become clear, the Macedonian Orthodox Church (MOC) would later benefit from the resulting changes. Under state

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protection, the monastery was turned into a museum for which visitors had to pay an entrance fee. Thus, the monastic life and liturgical ceremonies were no longer possible. An elderly couple from a neighboring village noted that candles were not allowed to be lit in the church to protect the old frescoes, but taking photos was permitted (M.  Krstanoska & N.  Krstanoski, personal communication, July 8, 2016). From 1950 to 1955, some archaeological excavations around and within the church took place to investigate the architectural history of the monastery (Koco, 1958). These activities can all be connected to the ideology of the socialist Yugoslavian regime. For example, the elderly couple, who were teenagers during the excavation, claimed that the excavation commission wanted to destroy the idea of the saint’s audible heartbeat, which can be heard by laying an ear on the tomb (M. Krstanoska & N. Krstanoski, personal communication, July 8, 2016). Furthermore, the committee hoped to find gold by opening Naum’s tomb. Interestingly, the destruction focused not only on the religious aspects of the site, but also on non-­system-­compatible structures in general. During the excavations, even a bell tower built under the Kingdom of Yugoslavia was destroyed (Grozdanov, 2015, p.  291). The previous mayor of the neighboring village noted that the monastery complex was also complemented with a newly built restaurant and military campground (K.  Naumoski, personal communication, July 6, 2016). According to him, further building measures connected the monastery and remote villages with the city of Ohrid, such as the construction of an asphalt road. The monastery was thus transformed into a tourist destination through several innovations. On the one hand, this secularized touristification ignored the multireligious character of the place. On the other hand, the site’s Christian heritage was instrumentalized for this purpose, while its multireligious character was reduced. Despite the touristification of the place, its multireligious character endured throughout the socialist period thanks to an ongoing peaceful cohabitation. In Yugoslavia, anti-religious policies were not too strict, so the original idea of the monastery was remembered and reproduced by the local people. An Orthodox Macedonian from Bitola said that he has brought a lamb to Naum at his monastery every year since 1979 (Macedonian Anonymous, personal communication, July 2, 2016). Even a Sunni Turkish man from Ohrid remembered that he went to the monastery in his childhood during the 1960s (E. Salih, personal communication, June 9, 2016), noting that he once saw a Muslim slaughtering a lamb for

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the sake of the saint. An almost 60-year-old Albanian Bektashi from the village of Resen said that the entire village went to Naum’s monastery for the summer holiday during his childhood and that they considered the place to be “like our monastery” (Albanian Bektashi, personal communication, January 10, 2017). Thus, in the 1980s, the state started to rent the church out for the feast day celebration on July third (Risteski, 2009, p. 24) because the interests and strategies of the diverse actors overlapped. After Macedonia’s independence declaration in 1990, the “denationalization” process led to the return of expropriated religious objects, and the monastery Saint Naum was given back to the Orthodox Church (Grozdanov, 2015, pp. 291–292). Even though objects were supposed to be restituted to the religious communities from which they were taken, the Serbian Orthodox Church (SOC) was not the receiving institution, but rather the MOC. The MOC had separated from the SOC as an autocephalous church, i.e., with its own patriarch, in the 1960s (Alexander, 1979, pp.  249–286). The obvious reason for giving the monastery and other Orthodox objects to the MOC was their supporting function for national identity, a function which the MOC itself gained when Yugoslavian and Macedonian politicians pushed for its initial split from the SOC. After the return of religious objects, the place’s new administrative body continued with the marketing strategy of the former government: the area was encompassed with a wall (Fig. 8.4) and the former stalls were replaced with permanent souvenir booths (Kempgen, 2019, p. 2). Accordingly, the church controlled the touristic development more strictly than the state had. My interlocutors reported further changes over the last years: the ǵupana-lawn remained the fairground until the church banned festive activities due to brawls among drunken attendees (Rom Musician, personal communication, July 2, 2016). A more visible change was the addition of a parking lot in front of the site for visitors and another behind the booths. A souvenir trader interpreted the latter as a thoughtful action to assist those working in the booths (Macedonian Trader, personal communication, July 1, 2018). Compared to other shared religious personages and places, Naum and his monastery are no longer of interest for the state and national identities. As a point of comparison, I observed the Bektashis’ August 2017 pilgrimage festival on Mount Tomorr, where local and national politicians took part in the main celebration. They were offering festive speeches and exchanging gifts with the leader of the Albanian Bektashis. I have not seen

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Fig. 8.4  The entrance of the monasterial complex was erected by the church with a table for orientation on the right; in the background are the wooden souvenir booths. This image used with permission of Evelyn Reuter (2016)

this kind of official involvement of politicians at the Naum monastery. Indeed, the significance of Naum and his monastery for state politics is more a historical than a contemporary issue. However, certain situations among the locals demonstrate the significance of the monastery for their identities. A man from a neighboring village emphasized that Naum had Macedonian origins, drawing a comparison with the Macedonian origins of Alexander the Great and other “Macedonian saints” (M. Krstanoska & N. Krsitanoski, personal communication, July 8, 2016). On the other side of the monastery, in Albania, a Bektashi restaurateur explained that for him, Naum was the patron of his city, Pogradec, because Pogradec was the place where Naum landed after crossing the lake with a small boat (K. Zgjani, personal communication, January 26, 2017). These interpretations from citizens of different

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countries are not necessarily mutually exclusive, but they are not discussed at the monastery which supports this cohabitation. One reason might be the language barrier of the local people, which prevents them from expressing themselves. Thus, visitors from Albania do not play a significant role in negotiating the political meaning of the place. The Synergic Effect of Visiting and Trading The lasting effect of the monastery’s touristification during the socialist era has made it one of the most famous tourist destinations in Macedonia. The monastery has thus become an economic center. Since the touristic and religious motivations of visitors may overlap, even touristic and economic actor groups can be viewed as religiously inspired. Furthermore, the interests of both actor groups coincide on all levels and facilitate the hospitable atmosphere. Touristic and economic actions can be observed throughout the monastic complex, but they already begin outside of the complex. Since only the abbot, the sexton, and the sexton’s wife live permanently within the monastery, all visitors come from outside, i.e., from neighboring villages or cities, Macedonia more generally, or abroad. The main touristic attraction to reach the monastery is crossing the lake from Ohridina big boat. While the boat business is neither economically nor symbolically connected to the monastery, this place is the boats’ main destination. A symbolic connection could be established via either the names of the boats or tour guides who might give information about the saint or the monastery. Instead, the boats’ names, Aleksandrija and Makedonija, refer to national history and identity politics rather than religious issues. If there are tour guides on the boats, they are employed by travel agencies and accompany only one tourist group, not all passengers. More often, guided groups go to the monastery by booking their own bus because they are more mobile and faster than the boats. Aside from these possibilities, there are some local bus companies and taxis, which go to the monastery. Therefore, all drivers profit secondarily from the touristic attractiveness of the monastery. Furthermore, the hosts of private accommodations in Ohrid and its neighboring villages benefit from this famous destination. The economic–touristic connection is most obvious in the outer sphere of the monastic area, where the booths and restaurants are located. The

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souvenirs on offer are mainly non-religious but have a local color, such as traditional pottery, postcards, jewelry made of local lake pearls, and caps and scarfs with national symbols and a “Macedonia” label. In only one booth, icons made of wood and copper are sold. Apart from the icons, all of the souvenirs are targeted toward international tourists. The traders in the booths, much like the service staff in the restaurants, work from April to September and try to earn income for the entire year during this period. Because the hotel and restaurant near the center of the complex are expensive, they are mainly frequented by international guests. Other seasonal touristic offers include tours with small boats to the springs of the Black Drinriver (which flows through the lake) or to smaller churches nearby. These tours are more affordable, even for local tourists. Another touristic and economic occasion is Saint Naum’s summer feast day fair (Fig. 8.5). For the annual fair, traders from all over Macedonia come to the monastery to sell their products, which are neither religious

Fig. 8.5  Locals visiting the annual fair on the evening before the summer feast day. This image used with permission of Evelyn Reuter (2016)

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nor indicative of the local culture. They offer clothes, toys, nuts, sweets, kitchen equipment, shampoos, blankets, and pillows. During this event, local people from Macedonia and from the Albanian border region are the target groups. My Albanian informants told me that they visit the monastery around this time “for fun” and because of the fair. Their purchases imply that the fair is more attractive to them than the saint’s veneration. For international guests, the fair and festive activities are unexpected. A couple from Vienna who stayed in the monastery’s hotel called the event the “Ohrider Wiesn” (Viennese Couple, personal communication, July 4, 2018). This expression refers to annual fairs in southern Germany and Austria, such as the famous Oktoberfest of Munich. The couple had expected a quiet stay in a monastery surrounded by beautiful nature instead of a folk festival. Their guidebook only gave information about two feast days in January and September. In some guidebooks, even this information is missing (von Oppeln, 2018, pp.  134–135); such books might only provide a short historical overview of the monastery and the saint while devoting considerable attention to tips for arrival, accommodation, and restaurants. In addition to the tourists, traders are visitors, too, and they may also be religiously motivated. An Orthodox woman from Bitola sells fashion clothes with her Muslim husband at the fair, and she said: “For example, I do not feel well [before I come to the monastery]. I say to myself: Lele, how will I sell? I am not fine. And these two days I feel pretty good. He [Naum] gives power, he gives everything” (M.  Aliloska, personal communication, July 1, 2016). Thus, a subtle connection between the place and its economic activities can be noted which is also related to the suggested power of the saint. Despite the obvious non-religious touristic and economic elements, the same trends can be found in the center of the monastery with more religious overtones. First of all, in and around the church, there are some touristic-economic features from the place’s post-socialist heritage: visitors still have to pay an entrance fee, and the former museum employee has become a church employee whose job is to sell tickets, religious souvenirs, devotionals, and candles (which still may not be lit in the church). However, as a church employee, he also has new tasks, like reading texts aloud during the liturgy. In order to support the sexton during the summer feast day festivities, employees from other churches and monasteries may be appointed stewards for several tasks: some sell candles and other

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devotional objects, while others look after the lit candles and clean up residual wax; some take care of the mass of entering visitors, and still others take out votive offerings for the saint which are placed on or near his tomb by the visitors. A special business involves the lambs that some visitors bring as gifts for the saint, circling the church three times with them. The church regulates these votive offerings with the help of a group of stewards. The stewards rent out lambs to visitors for circling the church, but they also feed and tend to the returned lambs, taking them from the monastery’s atrium to the compound and bringing a new lamb back for renting out. Finally, the monastery’s administration sells the lambs to local shepherds or gives them to a monastery with a flock of sheep and more monks. Another service that is connected to the lamb circling tradition offers a Roma band, which is traditionally hired by the church’s sexton. On demand, the band accompanies visitors as they circle the church with the lamb. These examples reveal the church itself as an economic sector. The church is connected to the place’s non-religious business: it was involved not only in the construction of the booths and parking lots but also annually rents booths out to traders. Moreover, the non-transparent land tenure of the hotel and the separate restaurant (Female Villager, personal communication, January 27, 2019) suggest the involvement of the church in these businesses. Thus, the church connects political and economic interests with its religious interpretation of the monastery and becomes the most influential actor in this area. By the same token, there is a subtler religious business connected to pilgrimage as a special form of tourism. People who visit Naum for religious reasons come to pray to him, light candles, and bring him votive offerings. In return, they ask for his help with health or family issues. The Orthodox man from Bitola explained that he could ask Naum for anything and he would get it, even money (Macedonian Anonymous, personal communication, July 2, 2016). On the other hand, the Orthodox woman from Bitola said that in general, she would ask God, and not the saint, for help (M.  Aliloska, personal communication, July 1, 2016). Regardless, the act of asking for something while simultaneously giving something to influence the decision or outcome is equivalent to dealing— or transacting—with the saint or with God. Thus, Naum (or God) can be considered a merchant of miracles and other unavailable supernatural goods.

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Conclusion: A Hospitable and Tourism-Based Network Shaping a Monastery This study shows that multireligious spaces are not always highly politicized symbols of social coexistence. The Sveti Naum monastery only served as such a symbol within political systems that did not support the local church. After Macedonia’s independence, when the monastery was returned to the MOC, its significance for national politics decreased and competing heritages were subdued as an emphasis was placed on the touristic potential of the site. Moreover, the monastery lost its political symbolic power as a multireligious place because no Muslim actors made an official counterclaim of ownership over the place. Nonetheless, from the perspective of the MOC and its believers, the religious revitalization of the monastery suggests the dominance of Christian truth over the socialist ideology rather than over the Muslim faith. They rationalize the acceptance of Muslim visitors by perceiving them as faithful or needy. Thus, a couple of actor groups can be identified that produce a religious place. Aside from their categorization as Christians or Muslims, these actors can be broken down into religious leaders and lay people, church and state actors, or tourists and traders. The roles held by individuals visiting the monastery can overlap and change depending on their activities in the outer or inner area of the monastery. In the inner area, activities and motivations are mostly religiously motivated, while in the outer area, touristic and consumer behavior is more present. Furthermore, the relationships among the actors can be described as those of host and guests. Since the independence of Macedonia, the MOC is the main player that aims to shape a highly religious Orthodox place. At the same time, it accepts other actors and benefits from them economically thanks to the site’s renown. The MOC claims to represent the interests of Christian visitors, especially the Orthodox ones. However, even local Orthodox Christians do not correspond to the MOC’s conception of the monastery due to their motivations and participation in leisure activities. At the same time, the Christian Orthodox character of this place—the fact that it is called a monastery and dedicated to Naum—is generally not questioned, excepting a small Muslim community which adheres to the legend of Sari Saltuk. The host–guest relationship can be applied to pairs of actor groups. Christians are the dominant religious group, which accepts the Muslim minority. The traders of the permanent booths and the staff at the

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restaurants, hotels, and churches receive the occasional customers and make a profit. By contrast, the historical relationship between church and state was not hospitable, but competitive. Nevertheless, the monastery has benefited from the state’s touristification and the resulting tourism-­ economy synergy. Finally, the monastery has become involved as its own administrator. The fact that most of the permanent workers at the monastery are Macedonian Christians is a striking fact, which shows the church’s influence. Through the Yugoslavian touristification of the monastery, these differing activities respond to everybody’s expectations for the place, creating a win-win situation for all actors. The visitors share the place by visiting the complex, the church, and the grave, as well as taking part in touristic leisure activities. However, they do not disclose their ideas about the monastery or their motivations for visiting. This ignorance with regard to others’ backgrounds leaves space for interpretations of their behavior. However, most visitors perceive the monastery as a destination for excursions rather than question its religious interpretations. Finally, because of the monastery’s non-religious use in former Yugoslavia, the ambiguity of the place has increased. Even though the number of Muslims at this Christian place has declined, the Sveti Naum monastery has become a tourist destination and an economic center for the locals. Confronting the theories on shared religious places, the monastery plays a rather minor role in the negotiation of political identities on a national level, but for local identities, it is still a significant marker. Although these political, economic, and touristic dimensions are secular, they overlap with the core significance of the monastery as a religious place.

References Albera, D. (2008). “Why Are You Mixing What Cannot Be Mixed?” Shared Devotions in the Monotheisms. History and Anthropology, 19(1), 37–59. Albera, D. (2012). Conclusion. Crossing the Frontiers between the Monotheistic Religions, an Anthropological Approach. In D. Albera & M. Couroucli (Eds.), Sharing Sacred Spaces in the Mediterranean. Christians, Muslims, and Jews at Shrines and Sanctuaries (pp. 219–244). Indiana University Press. Alexander, S. (1979). Church and State in Yugoslavia Since 1945. Cambridge University Press. Balevski, M. (1984). Balkanskitepolitic ̌kipriliki I diplomatskite bitki za manastirot Sveti Naum. Makedonska Kniga.

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Barkan, E., & Barkey, K. (2014). Introduction. In E. Barkan & K. Barkey (Eds.), Choreographies of Shared Sacred Sites. Religion, Politics, and Conflict Resolution (pp. 1–31). Columbia University Press. Bowman, G. W. (2002). Comment. Current Anthropology, 32(2), 219–220. Bowman, G.  W. (2010). Orthodox-Muslim Interactions at ‘Mixed Shrines’ in Macedonia. In C.  M. Hann & H.  Goltz (Eds.), Eastern Christians in Anthropological Perspective (pp. 195–219). University of California Press. Bowman, G. W. (2012). Introduction. Sharing the Sacra. In G. W. Bowman (Ed.), Sharing the Sacra. The Politics and Pragmatics of Intercommunal Relations around Holy Places (pp. 1–9). Berghahn Books. Celakoski, N. (2004). Staritepec ̌atiipredanijata za svetiNaumOhridski. Fakultetotzaturizam i ugostitelstvo/Institut zaistražuvanje na turizmot. Clayer, N., & Bougarel, X. (2017). Europe’s Balkan Muslims. A New History. Hurst & Company. Erne, T. (2017). Hybride Räume der Transzendenz. Wozu wir heute noch Kirchen brauchen. Studien zu einer postsäkularen Theorie des Kirchenbaus. Evangelische Verlagsanstalt. Grozdanov, C. (2015). Sveti Naum Ohridski. Matica. Hanioğlu, M. Ş. (2010). A Brief History of the Late Ottoman Empire. Princeton University Press. Hasluck, F.  W. (1929). Christianity and Islam Under the Sultans. The Clarendon Press. Hayden, R. M. (2002). Antagonistic Tolerance. Competitive Sharing of Religious Sites in South Asia and the Balkans. Current Anthropology, 43(2), 205–231. Kara, C. (2018). Grenzen Überschreitende Derwische. Kulturbeziehungen Des Bektaschi-Ordens, 1826-1925. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Kempgen, S. (2019). Die Säulen in der Klosterkirche von Sveti Naum. Ein Projektbericht zur Digitalisierung des sprachlichen Kulturerbes in Makedonien. In B. Brehmer, A. A. Hansen-Löve, & T. Reuther (Eds.), Wiener Slawistischer Almanach Vol. 83 (pp. 61–79). Peter Lang. Knott, K. (2005). The Location of Religion. A Spatial Analysis. Equinox Publishing. Knott, K. (2008). Spatial Theory and the Study of Religion. Religion Compass, 2(6), 1102–1116. Koch, A. (2007). Körperwissen. Grundlegung einer Religionsaisthetik. Ludwig-­ Maximilians-­Universität München. Koco, D. (1958). Proučuvanja I arheološkiIspituvanjanaCrkvatanaManastirotSv. Naum. Zbornik, 2, 56–80. Kristić, T. (2013). The Ambiguous Politics of ‘Ambiguous Sanctuaries’. F. Hasluck and Historiography on Syncretism and Conversion to Islam in 15th and 16th-­ Century Ottoman Rumeli. In D. Shankland (Ed.), Archaeology, Anthropology and Heritage in the Balkans and Anatolia. The Life and Times of F.W. Hasluck, 1878-1920 (pp. 247–262). The Isis Press.

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Ojeda, O. A., & Kieffer, M. (2020). Touristification. Empty Concept or Element of Analysis in Tourism Geography? Geoforum, 115, 143–145. https://doi. org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2020.06.021 Popovska, D. (2013). Romskatatradicijavosovremenakultura. SAK Stil. Reuter, E. (2015). Im Schatten der Slawenapostel. Funktionen Naums im (trans-) nationalen Erinnerungsdiskurs. In T. Kahl & A. Salamurović (Eds.), Das Erbe der Slawenapostel im 21. Jahrhundert. Nationale und europäische Perspektiven (pp. 151–173). Peter Lang. Reuter, E. (2020). The Socialist Impact on Christian-Muslim Shared St. Naum Monastery. Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe, 40(2), 77–94. Risteski, S. (2009). Č udatanasvetiNaum. Kaneo. Rohdewald, S. (2017). Sarı Saltuk Im Osmanischen Rumelien, Der Rus’ Und Polen-Litauen. Zugänge Zu Einer Transosmanischen Religiösen Erinnerungskultur (14.-20. Jh.). In D.  Hüchtkerand & K.  S. Jobst (Eds.), Heilig. Transkulturelle Verehrungskulte Vom Mittelalter Bis in Die Gegenwart (pp. 67–97). Wallstein Verlag. Sundhaussen, H. (2011). Dorf, Religion und Nation. Über den Wandel vorgestellter Gemeinschaften im Balkanraum. Journal of Modern European History, 9(1), 87–116. Trapp, E. (1974). Die Viten des hl. Naum von Ochrid. Byzantinoslavica, 34, 161–185. von Oppeln, P. (2018). Mazedonien. Unterwegs auf dem südlichen Balkan (6 ed.). Trescher Verlag.

CHAPTER 9

The Interreligious Complex at Vulcana-­Băi in Romania: A Multi-Religious Place Between Idealism and Pragmatism Ioan Cozma

Introduction In this chapter, I trace the history of a multi-religious place that was erected during the 1990s in the Romanian countryside. Initiated and sponsored by private philanthropists and implemented by a non-­ governmental organization, the interreligious complex at Vulcana-Băi— made up of an Orthodox church, a mosque, and a synagogue—emerged in the aftermath of NicolaeCeauşescu’s communist dictatorship and was meant as a gesture toward the future of a new Romania, one in which This article is an updated version of the original, published in Italian in 2019: Il complesso interreligioso di Vulcana-Bai in Romania: un progetto ecumenico in un paese non più secolare, Annali di studi religiosi 20, pp. 123–144. DOI: https://doi.org/10.14598/Annali_studi_relig_20201910

I. Cozma (*) Pontifical Oriental Institute, Rome, Italy e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 M. Burchardt, M. C. Giorda (eds.), Geographies of Encounter, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82525-6_9

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religious communities could coexist peacefully and religion would occupy a prominent position in the emerging post-communist civil society. However, despite these noble intentions, religious sharing at the site only occurred at exceptional moments and in a highly sporadic fashion, and the more this multi-religious place fell into oblivion, the stronger the hierarchical tendencies in its management became. How can we account for the ways in which this site turned into a ruin of interreligious dialogue? Putting this question at the center, this chapter provides important lessons on the conditions under which multi-religious places remain short-lived fantasies and are likely to fail. Religious places that are shared or used alternately, or rhythmically (be they churches or buildings that are regularly or occasionally converted into places of religious service), by two or more religious communities are no longer a novelty in Europe. This has become a more frequent and compelling reality in the last 20  years, due to the growing numbers of migrants from Eastern Europe and Middle Eastern countries in Western Europe. The repurposing of Catholic and Protestant churches, chapels, and sanctuaries into places of worship for Muslims and various other Christian denominations bears witness to different forms of religious coexistence under the sign of interreligious cooperation, in a complex dynamic that ranges from cohabitation to overlapping and substitution (Cozma & Giorda, 2020; Giorda & Longhi, 2019). The repurposing of a secular place or a church building (still in use or deconsecrated) is not a mere appropriation of the place or the territory in terms of politics of property, but a modification of that which, as JörgRüpke has recently shown, “changes the future memory of the place” (Rüpke, 2020, p. 48). In most cases, such a change has further consequences on the space itself, and on its social, material, and symbolic dimensions (Löw, 2016). For instance, one can say that the memory of a shared or multi-­ faith space does not depend exclusively on what it has meant for a specific denomination; the memory is created by the ways in which the social and religious relations that define that space have been preserving and promoting it. Thus, the memory of a religious space is an interconnection between the place (with its history, architectural form, and social relations), its religion, and the power of whoever occupies or appropriates the site. This mutual relation between religion and space shapes religious identities in a specific place (in terms of territorialization) and gives meaning to space (in terms of spatial arrangements).

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Managing the production and transformation of such religious places is often the consequence of the interaction among privileged local religious agents; it is also meant to energize and stimulate relations among religions in a given territory, which inevitably influences not only the religious environment but also the public discourse (Hervieu-Léger, 2002; Knott, 2010). In recent decades, there has been a new type of approach toward the process of producing religious places. This approach goes beyond the ecumenical path, which demonstrates that interreligious relationships are not always the exclusive responsibility of meso-level religious actors. Instead, they can be premeditated and facilitated by social, cultural, economic, and political actors (i.e., people or communities, associations, and public or private institutions). The dynamic of this process is informed by the efforts to promote religious pluralism and intercultural dialogue, in which both the visibility and materiality of interreligious relations play a pivotal role. The visibility and materiality of interreligious relations are demonstrated through new forms of coexistence and sharing. These multi-faith spaces, shared by various denominations, are called by different names, such as multi-faith chapel, interfaith chapel, multi-faith room, meditation room, prayer room, and even recreation room (Bobrowicz, 2018; de Velasco, 2014). These places are usually built and promoted in a top-down logic by public and private actors (i.e., cultural, religious, social, and political institutions) in public spaces (i.e., university campuses, hospitals, prisons, airports, and shopping malls) (Beckford, 1998; Cadge, 2014; Johnson, 2012). However, they are not only a material manifestation of the ideal of cohabitation and sharing of the same place by old and new religions but they are also seen as laboratories for the management of ever-growing religious diversity. Such diversity is not limited to variations within Christianity; it also embraces new concepts of spirituality and new movements derived from other religious traditions (Wilson, 1995). Multi-faith projects also exist under another form—i.e., shared religious places separate from public and religious institutions and emerging as autonomous projects. They are promoted by private initiative, or by independent associations not affiliated or associated with any political or religious organizations. Prominent examples include the following three recent projects (analyzed in this volume by Burchardt and Bossi & Giorda): (1) The “House of One” in Berlin, conceived in 2011 through the initiative of a Christian pastor, a rabbi, and an imam, with the aim of building a shared place of worship for the three monotheistic religions; (2) The “Casa delle  religioni” in Turin, launched in 2017 by the Benvenuti in

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Italia Foundation together with the Interfaith Committee of Turin, aiming to establish a multifunctional house that would include different places of worship for minority religious communities that still have difficulty building their material presence in the public space; and (3) The “Haus der Religionen” in Bern, initiated in 2002 by the association House of Religions–Dialogues of Cultures with the purpose of building a common space for diverse religious communities. Even if the three projects are similar to one another in terms of concept and purpose, only the project in Bern has been successfully completed (its inauguration was on December 14, 2014), while the other sites are still in the planning stages. However, these multi-faith projects were all preceded by a Romanian one—less promoted and totally unknown at the international level. I am referring, of course, to the above-mentioned multi-­ religious place built in the 1990s in the township of Vulcana-Băi, a rural community with a robust tradition in religious life. This project was initiated and promoted by the International Ecumenical Center (henceforth IEC)—a Romanian non-governmental organization—and financed by private sponsors. Specifically, it is an interreligious complex comprising three places of worship—an Orthodox church, a synagogue, and a mosque—and built to be a model of collaboration and cooperation between religions in a country mainly characterized after the fall of communism by the construction of myriad Orthodox churches and monasteries. Focusing on the mechanisms and dynamics of the building and sharing of multi-religious places, this chapter aims to analyze the events surrounding the construction of this interreligious place, the religious and non-­ religious motivations behind it, and the meaning of its position in the religious landscape, as well as to emphasize its role in advocacy, setting an example against religious intolerance and fundamentalism. It also attempts to answer the following questions: What is the utility of creating an interreligious place in an area that did not require it? What are the relations of power or authority among political, social, religious, and economic actors? How are relationships among religions managed (considering the strong Orthodox Christian majority in the country)? Can this place be identified as a place of memory or simply as a historical site? To answer these questions, I employed multiple research methods based on the use and interpretation of primary and secondary sources from various disciplines (i.e., history, religious studies, the literature on multi-religious places, geography of religions), including websites and

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unpublished materials (i.e., emails). I also relied on research using ethnographic tools, such as participant observation and interviews with the main actors involved in the creation and preservation of this multi-religious place. The first part of this chapter presents the history and the architecture of the interreligious complex at Vulcana-Băi, while the second part analyzes its nomenclature and dynamics as well as its (in)visibility in the Romanian religious landscape.

The Interreligious Complex: History and Architecture On January 16, 1991, shortly after the fall of communism in Romania, a non-governmental and non-political organization called the International Ecumenical Center was founded. The founder and promoter of the IEC was Ion Popescu, a former diplomat and former director of the Department of Religious Affairs under the communist regime. The IEC has been defined as a secular, religious, and cultural organization, joining together representatives of civil society and different religions. It touts the promotion of harmony among all religions, with an aim to prevent discrimination and religious fundamentalism, as its core principle (Popescu, 2011). The activities of the IEC have been quite substantial since its foundation: in 1992, the International Academy for the Study of Culture and Religious History was founded; in 1993, the Armonia Doctrine and Mass Media Department was established, which acted as the scientific council of the IEC; and in 1994, the International Bank of Religions was founded with the declared purpose, among other things, to support and promote all activities of the IEC. One of the most important achievements of the IEC is the creation of an interreligious place in Vulcana-Băi, where three places of worship were built in 1997 and 1998—an Orthodox church, a synagogue, and a mosque (Fig. 9.1). The site is known as either “Complexul interreligios (The interreligious complex),” or “Așezămintele interreligioase (The interreligious places).” Vulcana-Băi is a township of about 3000 inhabitants, which comprises three villages: Vulcana-Băi, Vulcana de Sus, and Nicolăești. The township is located in the south-central part of Romania, in Dâmbovit ̦a county in the region of Muntenia, and its inhabitants claim it dates back to the fifteenth century, to the time of Prince Vlad Dracula of Wallachia (Mares,

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Fig. 9.1  The interreligious complex: The Orthodox  skete (middle), the synagogue (left), and the mosque (right). This image used with permission of Ioan Cozma (May 2020)

2014). The area is well known in Romania for its thermal waters, which are rich in minerals like iodine and sulfur. From a religious point of view, according to the last census in 2011, 96.4% of the township’s population belongs to the Orthodox Church (2943 people). Other religious affiliations include members of the Evangelical Church (31 people, 1.01%) and neo-Protestant churches (Adventist Church: 32 people, 1.04%; Baptist Church: 3 people, 0.09%), as well as those who have declared themselves non-believers or who belong to some other form of religion (42 people, 1.3%).1 In the town, there are three Christian places of worship: two Orthodox churches—one in Vulcana-Băi, and the other one in Vulcana de Sus—as well as an Evangelical church in Vulcana-Băi. On the outskirts, there is an Orthodox monastery 1  The data are taken from the website of the National Institute of Statistics, The Population and Housing Census 2011: http://www.recensamantromania.ro/rezultate-2/

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dedicated to the Holy Archangels Michael and Gabriel, also known as “The Bunea Monastery.” It dates from the mid-seventeenth century (Craioveanu, 1886) and is located to the southwest of Vulcana-Băi (c. 2 km) in a lonely place surrounded by forest. Eight monks live there under the spiritual guidance of Abbot Zosima. The interreligious complex sits on a hill south of Vulcana-Băi  and is part of a large IEC project that formerly envisioned the creation of a multi-faith touristic village with a spa complex and even an institute of religious diplomacy to accommodate people of all religions. It was meant to meet the needs of the body (external cures like alleviating suffering by using the mineral waters there) and the needs of the soul (for spiritual remedies). Questioned about the idea of creating of an interreligious space, Popescu stated: The idea for this project came up at the beginning of the ‘90s, during the period of the Yugoslav wars. As we know, in some areas, the armed conflicts had also triggered religious conflicts, especially in Muslim areas. At that time, there were also turbulences in the Arab countries, which I knew very well from those times when I was fulfilling diplomatic missions for the Romanian government. That is why I donated my land in Vulcana-Băi (10 hectares) to the IEC to establish an interreligious space with three monotheistic places of worship. These buildings were intended to be a symbolic testimony of interreligious coexistence, for which Romania has long been a model. In Romania, Christians, Jews, and Muslims have always lived in harmony and have never had religious conflicts. (I. Popescu, personal communication, April 4, 2019)

The geographical orientation and architectural style of the three places of worship correspond to the religious traditions of each religion. Both the Orthodox church and the synagogue are oriented toward the east, where the sacred city of Jerusalem stands, while the mosque is oriented to face the southeast, toward Mecca. On the architectural level, the church features a cross-shaped construction with three apses. It combines the Byzantine and Romanian architectural styles, as follows: the altar in apsidal form, two square towers on the narthex, a square tower on the main nave, and an open porch at the entrance (Fig.  9.2). The inside of the church is frescoed in authentic Byzantine style, and an impressive iconostasis carved in linden wood dominates the altar. The church was constructed in record time—just one year—between 1997 and 1998. The main sponsor of the building was Ion

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Fig. 9.2  The Orthodox Skete of St. John the Baptist. This image used with permission of Ioan Cozma (May 2020)

Popescu, at that time president of the International Bank of Religions and Director of the International Ecumenical Center. Between 1998 and 2001, the legal and canonical status of the church was that of a foundation under the administration of the IEC. For a short period, it was used alternately by the Orthodox parish of Vulcana-Băi for Sunday celebrations (G.  Săvulescu, personal communication, April 3,

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2019). In 2001, the Orthodox Archdiocese of Târgoviște appointed hieromonk Agatanghel to take care of the church and to perform regular liturgical services according to the monastic typikon (V. Drăghicescu, personal communication, April 10, 2019). From 2001 to 2015, the church functioned as an ecclesiastical entity of the Orthodox Deanery of Pucioasa, holding a property title for the worship place and the surrounding land (c. 30,000  m2). Envisioning the possibility of establishing a monastery there, the archdiocese approved the construction around the church of buildings suitable for Orthodox monastic life and practices in 2010, i.e., a large two-­story house with attic and basement. In the following years, in front of the church, a square-shaped altar with a cupola and side arches was built (Agatanghel, personal communication, April 3, 2019). In 2015, Archbishop Niphon of Târgoviște changed the status of the church and the annexed buildings; he established the male skete2 of “St. John the Baptist,” directly subordinated to the diocesan headquarters, and appointed Agatanghel as its first superior. Since its foundation, the only monk in the monastery has been Agatanghel; the other four people living with him are novices (V. Drăghicescu, personal communication, April 10, 2019). According to Agatanghel, the monastery religious services are attended by about 50 people every week, but on the feast day of the skete (August 29), the number of pilgrims reaches around 500 (Agatanghel, personal communication, April 3, 2019). It should be emphasized that the monastery is missing from the webpage of the archdiocese; it is also missing from the web page of the Patriarchate of Romania, and it does not have a website of its own or any social network page (e.g., Facebook and LinkedIn). For this reason, I contacted the Orthodox Deanery of Pucioasa (April 2, 2019), in whose jurisdiction Vulcana-Băi is located, and the archdiocesan chancellery (April 7, 2019), asking for information about the current canonical status of the church and its buildings. The deanery provided us with the contact information of Agatanghel and the parish priest of Vulcana-Băi, George Săvulescu. The archdiocesan chancellery officially answered on April 10, 2019, through its chancellor Victor Drăghicescu. He provided general

2  The Regulation of the Organization of Monastic Life in the Romanian Patriarchate defines the skete as a monastic settlement in which monks or nuns live and follow the same rule and daily order as in a monastery. A skete has legal standing under the canonical administration of a monastery or directly under the diocesan headquarters (art. 6).

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information about the interreligious complex of Vulcana-Băi and about the construction and canonical status of the skete. Turning back to the other structures in the interreligious complex, the synagogue was constructed in a style common in Eastern Europe, with an appearance much like Polish synagogues. It has an elongated nave with a pyramid-shaped façade and 12 arched windows representing the tribes of Israel. On the frontispiece is the Star of David and a quotation from the Torah, and on the top are two stone tablets recalling the Ten Commandments (Fig.  9.3). The synagogue was constructed between

Fig. 9.3  The synagogue. This image used with permission of Ioan Cozma (May 2020)

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1997 and 1998 and was financed by three Israeli businessmen: Zvi Barbiro and the brothers Ruby and Michael Zimmerman (I.  Popescu, personal communication, April 4, 2019). The same architectural simplicity also characterizes the mosque. It is rectangular, with a small cupola in the middle of the nave, arched windows, an arched eastern façade, and a cylindrical minaret with a conical roof and a small balcony (Fig. 9.4). The construction began in the same year as the other buildings and ended in 1998, having as its main sponsor the Saudi businessman Omar Akill and his wife, Leila. As in the case of the Orthodox place, both the mosque and synagogue are absent from any website or social networking pages of the religions represented there. In our interactions, Popescu remembered that after the consecration of the interreligious complex, someone from India proposed to add other places of worship, offering himself to finance the construction of a Sikh temple (a project which was never realized). Regarding the circumstances of financing the construction of the three places of worship, Popescu pointed out: For a long time, I had in mind to build a church, so I offered to finance the construction of the Orthodox church, while for the other two places of worship, I appealed to the people I knew at that time. For the synagogue, I found the Zimmerman brothers from Israel to whom Barbiro was added, while for the construction of the mosque, the Saudi Sheikh Zaid Al-Melekhi—one of the leading investors of the International Bank of Religions—recommended the Akill family from Saudi Arabia. (I. Popescu, personal communication, April 4, 2019)

In spatial terms, both the curative role and the rurality of such an envisioned multi-religious place engage here the broad and complex concept of “multi-religious landscape,” which, beyond rituals and spiritual experience, includes cultural and social practices. Thus, the three places of worship are an essential component of this multi-religious landscape, having the role of creating the “selected sacred position,” which is converted into “new powerfulness” (van der Leeuw, 1986, p. 399). Their production involves interactions between meso-level and grassroots actors, while, as far as the management is concerned, meso-level actors are often dominant.

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Fig. 9.4  The mosque. This image used with permission of Ioan Cozma (May 2020)

At the entrance to the interreligious complex stands a monument with symbols from the three monotheistic religions (the menorah, the cross, and the crescent moon). It is called “Poarta  Armoniei (The Harmony Gate),” and on it is written: “Ecumenismul Religia Sperant ̦ei (Ecumenism: The Religion of Hope)” (Fig. 9.5).

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Fig. 9.5  The Harmony Gate. This image used with permission of Ioan Cozma (May 2020)

The construction of the interreligious complex was preceded by the erection of the IEC headquarters, also known as the “Casa Religiilor (House of Religions),” between 1994 and 1998. It is a two-story building with an attic and is located on Dr. Ion Popescu Street, in the vicinity of the three worship places (Fig. 9.6). With the inauguration of the new headquarters, the IEC moved all of its offices from Bucharest to Vulcana-­Băi. Moreover, the headquarters were used for meetings and other national and international interreligious activities organized by the IEC. The headquarters of the IEC and the three places of worship were consecrated on August 28 and 29, 1998: the synagogue was consecrated first on Friday, August 28 by Rabbi Joseph Wasserman; on August 29, on the feast day of the Beheading of St. John the Baptist, the church was consecrated by five Romanian Orthodox bishops; and afterward, everyone participated in the ceremony of the mosque consecration, which was performed by the muftis from Bucharest and Constant ̦a (Agatanghel,

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Fig. 9.6  The former headquarters of the IEC. This image used with permission of Ioan Cozma (May 2020)

personal communication, April 3, 2019). This event was attended by Romanian state authorities and an impressive number of Orthodox priests and faithful from the surrounding towns. They were joined by a group of Jews from Bucharest, together with Rabbi Rafael Shaffer and Rabbi Joseph Wasserman of the Jewish community of Romanian origin in Israel. Also in attendance was a group of Romanian Muslims led by Imam Resul Marem from the Mosque of Constant ̦a, Imam Ismet Halil from the Mosque of Mangalia, and Imam Osman Aziz Besir from the Muslim community of Bucharest. The inauguration was also attended by Massimiliano Mizzi, General Delegate for Ecumenism and Interreligious Dialogue of the Order of Friars Minor Conventual from Assisi, and Mohinder Singh, the representative of the Sikh community of New Delhi, India (Corbu, 1999). The Orthodox Patriarch Diodorus of Jerusalem sent important relics for the Orthodox worship place: the relics of the saints John the Baptist, Tarachus, Andronicus, and Panaghion. The Patriarch also sent stones from different sacred places—most of them shared religious places, i.e.,

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the Tomb of Lazarus  in Bethany, the House of Joseph and Mary in Nazareth, the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron, the Tomb of David on Mount Zion, the Cave of John the Baptist, and the House of the apostles Peter and Andrew in Betsaida, as well as stones from Mount Sinai, from the place where Moses received the two tablets with the Ten Commandments from God (Corbu, 1999). For the synagogue, Rabbi Joseph Wasserman brought a  menorah, tablets with the Ten Commandments, and religious objects and books from Israel. From Saudi Arabia, the mosque received tablets with quotations from the Koran, prayer carpets, and various objects of worship (Golea, 2014). Soon after the consecration, the interreligious complex was visited by representatives of the Palestinian Authority: Sheikh  Ekrima  Sa’id Sabri (Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and Palestine, and president of the Supreme Islamic Council), Ibrahim Hama Kandalaft (deputy minister of cults of the Palestinian National Authority and director of the Department for Christian communities), and Handan Riyad Yasser (secretary of the Grand Mufti). Among the many personalities who visited the interreligious complex was William Swing, bishop of the US Episcopal Church and president and founder of the United Religions Initiative. In his speech, Swing called the interreligious complex of Vulcana-Băi “a small European Jerusalem” and “an oasis of ecumenism and hope” (Corbu, 1999, p. 68). Since the interreligious complex’s early days, a clear asymmetry in the use of the different religious spaces has become apparent. In his communication with me, Agatanghel emphasized that the relics of saints given to the Orthodox site are displayed for veneration inside the church, while all other gifts, including those given to the IEC, are currently in his custody. Still, there are plans to construct a museum dedicated to the interreligious complex within the skete. According to this same testimony, the skete also holds the keys of the synagogue and the mosque. Besides Romanian pilgrims, foreign tourists (mainly from Belgium, Germany, and France) visit the interreligious complex every year. Especially during the summer, groups of Muslims from Bucharest also visit, together with their imams, and perform ritual prayers in the mosque. Until 2002, the synagogue was often used on Saturdays and some feast days by a group of Jews coming from Bucharest with their rabbi; now, however, there are no celebrations, only individual prayers (Agatanghel, personal communication, April 3, 2019). In the last interview he gave to me, in 2019, Popescu recalled that the last ecumenical prayer in the three places of worship was on August 29,

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2018—the twentieth anniversary of the inauguration of the interreligious complex. The event was hosted by the skete and was attended by the leaders of the Jewish and Muslim communities from Romania (I.  Popescu, personal communication, April 4, 2019).

An Interreligious (Un)fair Competition Since its beginning, the project of Vulcana-Băi has been coined by its promotors as an “interreligious complex” or an “interreligious place,” expressions that are absent from both the terminology and the literature about multi-religious places. The word “interreligious” is particularly used within the field of theological studies to express ecumenical dialogue, which means the commitment of two or more religions to conversing about issues of religious significance (Dunbar, 1998). Nevertheless, the interreligious complex of Vulcana-Băi was not built as a place of interreligious dialogue or doctrinal mediation in a theological or ecumenical sense, and it is not the product of such a dialogue. From a theoretical point of view, it has been promoted as a heuristic model of how the dialogue between religions beyond the classical path could be led, i.e., a dialogue through religious places, or places of worship. In this instance, the expression “interreligious complex” is a simple statement of intent rather than a technical concept. It might be understood in its broader sense as a space of encounter for religions that embeds the spatial concepts of place sharing and multi-religious place, and less those of interreligious commitment and theological dialogue. Through its structure and purpose, it is, in fact, a multi-religious place for non-quotidian, extraordinary use, linked with nature, whose definitory element is the spatial proximity of religions. Taking into consideration the circumstances that led to its creation, one can say that it is an artificial religious space, designed to be emblematic rather than pragmatic. Indeed, in the literature about religious space, some authors point out that the performance of ritual and religious activities through which a place can be sacralized have an essential role in the process of production of a religious place (Chidester, 2016; Giorda, 2013). The institutionalization and canonical subordination of the Orthodox place (which occurred when the church and the surrounding land became ecclesiastical goods) and its transformation into a monastic entity seem to cast a shadow over the project, in terms of both its utility and its functionality. From the interviews, one can easily see an attempt to confessionalize

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the interreligious complex in favor of the Orthodox church, exclusively. This can be seen as a formal separation of the Orthodox place from the other two, and as a consequence, a deviation from the purpose for which the site was designed. Even though all three places of worship passed through the formal process of religious consecration in 1998, only the monastic settlement has had a continuous presence, while the other two places of worship have already begun to deteriorate. Although the IEC is still formally active, it has not received, in reality, any economic support or sponsorship after the bankruptcy of the International Bank of Religions in 2000, nor following the events that led to the incarceration of its promoter and director, Ion Popescu. The synagogue and the mosque have so far received little attention from their believers and religious authorities. Moreover, the interreligious complex is no longer among the City Hall of Vulcana-Băi’s list of touristic must-see places. There is no interest from the Orthodox religious actors to promote and ensure the preservation of the buildings belonging to the other religions. This situation has also been confirmed by Agatanghel who, during his interview, did not seem to want to be associated with places other than his monastic site. He stated: “I am only in charge of the monastery. I am not the administrator or curator of the other places of worship; no one takes care of them. Ask Dr. Popescu; he is in charge of them. We have the monastery, which owns both the monastic buildings and the surrounding land. I have the keysto the other buildings indeed, but I don’t go there with those who want to visit the mosque or the synagogue” (Agatanghel, personal communication, April 3, 2019). Although the place is visited during the year, the concept of “pilgrimage” can be applied only to the Orthodox place, which, beyond liturgical celebrations, is still attractive for pilgrims who come for sacred relics of various saints and for some objects and souvenirs from sacred places of Christianity. As for the other two places of worship, they might instead enter the broader category of religious tourist attractions (Aulet & Vidal, 2018). In the Romanian Orthodox church, the pilgrimage has multiple spiritual meanings, being promoted mostly at the parish level. Romanians are generally very devoted and obedient to Church authorities, and they also have a great reverence for monastics. That is why monasteries are a principal place of pilgrimage, regardless of whether they are ancient or contemporary (Puscașu, 2014). Orthodox pilgrims visit monasteries with specific spiritual purposes and fulfillments in mind (e.g., thanksgiving, as a way of penitence, asking for God’s help, and the healing of soul and body)

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and less for the materiality of the place or its historical, cultural, and religious meanings (i.e., landscape, position, architectural form, religious symbolisms, cultural, social, historical, and religious importance)—considerations to which ordinary tourists give priority. However, material objects like sacred relics, miracle-working icons, and others (e.g., healing spring waters, blessed oil) are often used by monasteries as a means to attract pilgrims but also “as vehicles to draw non-believers into the faith” (Eade, 2019, p. 89). In many cases, the monastery as a pilgrimage place works as a therapeutic landscape, seen by pilgrims as a “space of healing,” to quote Wilbert Gesler (1992, 2003). As for the objectives of the creation of this interreligious space, most of my informants expressed the opinion that the interreligious complex remained an ideal, a contrasting project, a tourist destination with little ecumenical and interreligious relevance. In this area, which features an Orthodox Christian majority and a few dozen Protestant Christians, there are no Muslims or Jews. Agatanghel himself emphasized: “The synagogue and the mosque are practically only tourist places, but our Orthodox faithful do not visit them. They come to the monastery” (Agatanghel, personal communication, April 3, 2019). For the parish priest of Vulcana-Băi, FatherSăvulescu, the project was a good economic initiative rather than a religious one, but unfortunately, it did not achieve its objectives. He stated: The inhabitants of Vulcana are generally very tolerant, so they were very receptive to this project. Many people worked as volunteers in the construction of the places of worship, as well as for the IEC headquarters. Everyone hoped that the creation of this interreligious space would also contribute to the economic development of the town, favoring a revitalization of the area. There was talk at that time about the construction of a healthspa resort with a treatment complex that would promote our mineral waters, rich in iodine and sulfur like those in Italy. Everyone was very enthusiastic! Currently, very few people come to visit the interreligious places. The monastery is still active, but only one monk lives there, and occasionally some novices. The other building shave already started to deteriorate. In my opinion, this project is a failure. (G. Săvulescu, personal communication, April 3, 2019)

On the other hand, Popescu stated in his interview that the project of the interreligious complex, despite the current formal inactivity of the IEC, had achieved a very important objective, since it demonstrates that ecumenism and interreligious dialogue can also be promoted through

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places of worship. In his opinion, the interreligious complex of Vulcana-­ Băi could be remembered as a model not only for their solution of religious conflicts but also for those cases in which minority religious communities do not have their own places of worship. It should also be remembered that at the time when the interreligious complex was built, the Romanian Patriarchate was involved in significant disputes with the Romanian Greek-Catholic Church. This conflict concerned the restitution of Greek-Catholic churches and monasteries confiscated in 1948 (soon after the suppression of the Greek-Catholic Church in Romania) and transformed into Orthodox places of worship. After many court trials and local dialogue meetings, the Orthodox Church restituted just a few churches to the Greek-Catholic Church (which was reinstated in December 1989), but it still denies both the restitution of the other churches and the alternate use of the same place of worship by two communities. However, in some cases, in order to bring peace, the solution found was to build a new church for a community that did not have one (Cozma, 2012). Many of these new churches were built with governmental money in a top-down fashion. By contrast, as Popescu emphasized many times during our interviews, the interreligious complex—which was built exclusively via private initiative and with private funds—might also be a good example of how to resolve conflicts between religious organizations, especially in those cases where negotiations have failed, or have been insufficient to bring peace among inhabitants. By this, he meant the involvement of private sponsors and non-governmental associations in finding financial solutions to build places of worship. The interreligious project has triggered some negative reactions within Orthodoxy in Romania, especially from monks who have condemned the ecumenical activities of the IEC and called the project of Vulcana-Băi “an aberrant complex” (Moldoveanu, 2008, p.  31), “the work of the Antichrist,” and “an attack on the integrity of the Orthodoxy” (Orthoshoc, 2009). Moreover, these same critics believe that the cessation of activities at the IEC, the closing of the Bank and the Academy, and the deterioration of the synagogue and mosque are significant testimonies to the victory of “the Orthodoxy’s Christ” against those who worship “ecumenism’s god” (Manole, n.d.). Although the Romanian Patriarchate is officially open to ecumenical and interreligious dialogue, in the monastic environment, there is an anti-­ ecumenical attitude, since ecumenism is seen by some monastics and believers as a new heresy, called the “pan-heresy” (Popovich, 1994,

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p. 169). In fact, these relations are less promoted at the parish and monastic level. Within the Romanian Orthodox Church, one can see a nationalistic tendency to identify Romanians with the Orthodoxy and to consider that other religions do not belong to Romanian religious and cultural heritage (Stan & Turcescu, 2007). Such a nationalistic approach, which is quite widespread at both parish and monastic level, according to Lucian Boia, “is liable, in the end, to offend or marginalize Romanians of other confessions” (Boia, 2001, p. 231). It should also be emphasized that certain websites maintained by Orthodox fundamentalists,3 besides hosting particularly radical ideas, are also repositories for conspiracy theories. For example, the project of a large mosque in Bucharest, financed by the Turkish government and approved by the Romanian government in 2015, has encountered significant opposition from the radical Orthodox faithful and, even though Islam is recognized by the Romanian Law of Religious Cults, such a project has never materialized (Tateo, 2019). According to the State Secretariat for Religious Affairs,4 the Islamic community has 81 mosques for 64,337 people (as per the last National Census in 2011), 67 of which are located in the province of Dobrogea where large Islamic communities of Turks and Tatars live. In Bucharest, besides the old mosque managed by the Mufti of the Muslim Community of Romania, there are another eight mosques and three Islamic Centers administered by various associations and foundations (i.e., Arabic, Turkish, Jordanian, and Palestinian)5 for about 9037 believers (according to the same census from 2011). The construction of a large mosque for the growing Islamic community in Bucharest and its surrounding area is seen by some Orthodox people as a (re)invasion of the national territory. This fear of being ethnically and religiously substituted by Muslims or Jews—as Giuseppe Tateo (2019) points out—is absolutely unjustified if one takes into consideration the fact that Muslims make up only 0.3% of the population of Romania, while Jews account for even less (0.01%, or 3519 believers). As far as the utility of the interreligious complex is concerned, it is quite different from contemporary projects of this type, such as those aforementioned (i.e., Bern, Berlin, and Turin). It is much closer, as an idea, to 3  www.mirem.ro; www.orthoshoc.wordpress.com; www.stranaortodoxa.wordpress.com; www.miscareapentruaparareaortodoxiei.wordepress.com 4  http://culte.gov.ro/?page_id=770 5  http://shakuka.blogspot.com/p/ghid-moschei.html

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another contemporary interreligious complex called the “Temple of All Religions,” built by the architect Ildar  Khanov in Staroye  Arakchino (Tatarstan) in Russia. Khanov’s project is a unique architectural complex, started in 1994 but not yet finished, consisting of a massive building with domes, minarets, and towers representing the 12 great religions of the world, but divided inside according to the architectural requirements of each religion. His idea was not to unite all religions into one religion, since, according to his words, “all religions have their own history and cultural needs,” but rather “to group them together, to offer them a place of encounter and communication” (Photin, 2015). Therefore, like Khanov’s vision, the interreligious complex of Vulcana-Băi has been conceived as a space of cultural memory and has a symbolic value rather than a pragmatic one, since it was built in an area that, from a demographic and religious point of view (i.e., in a Christian majority zone without Muslim or Jewish people living nearby), did not require it to fulfill pressing spiritual needs.

Conclusion The interreligious complex of Vulcana-Băi is a religious place which, in its production, reflects a multi-level effort. A non-governmental organization planned the construction and management of this interreligious complex, available to everyone. Recently, as far as the Orthodox place of worship is concerned, the management of the IEC has been substituted by the local Orthodox authority—that is, the Orthodox Archdiocese of Târgoviște. However, the construction of the three places of worship was managed through the financial support of private actors, without the help or mediation of either religious or state authorities. Moreover, in the bottom-up dynamics of this place, people from Vulcana-Băi volunteered to participate in its construction. The terminology used to describe the site (i.e., interreligious complex, interreligious place) indicates the intended purpose and typology of this multi-religious place: a place of spatial encounter among religions, shared by three places of worship belonging to the three main monotheistic religions. As is apparent from the interviews I conducted, the intention of its initiator and promoter was to build an emblematic shared place of prayer as a vanguard of a larger project that envisioned the construction of an interreligious holiday village designed to attract people from all religions.

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Within this larger project, the role of the three places of worship was primarily to respond to the spiritual needs of tourists and visitors as well as to stand as a material, a palpable sign of cohabitation and collaboration between religions. As Popescu emphasized many times, the interreligious complex was not meant to be a place of theological dialogue or promotion and affirmation of the doctrinal identities of the religions represented there, but rather a space for extraordinary use created to be remembered and to facilitate learning about others through the places of worship. The bankruptcy of the International Bank of Religions led to an end for all activities of the IEC in terms of management and ownership of the project; therefore, the interreligious complex lost its initial purpose and utility, becoming merely a religious monument, or a historical site. One should not ignore the interference of the Romanian Orthodox Church authorities in the affairs of this interreligious complex; it forced the separation of the Orthodox place from the other two, disrupting the politics of ownership as well as the site’s original purpose. One can recognize here the religious supremacy of the Orthodoxy, translated in terms of a confessional nationalistic reclaiming of the Romanian religious space, which ultimately cannot be associated with any religion other than “the ancestors’ faith”—i.e., the Orthodoxy. Despite its functional fragility, caused by its location in a remote area in the countryside and also in part by the relationships and dynamics imposed by religious actors (especially Orthodox ones), and even though it now has diminished utility, the interreligious complex remains emblematic as the first ex novo multi-religious space built in Romania to promote the peaceful coexistence of religions, and, moreover, the first multi-religious project in all of Europe. (Indeed, the next multi-religious project to emerge on the continent—the House of Religions in Bern—was launched only in 2002.) From this perspective, if we remember it as a genuine project in an interreligious and touristic village, the interreligious complex might not be considered a total failure; it is rather an unfinished, or, at least, a pending project, insufficiently promoted and undercut by economic, religious, and even political issues. On the other hand, the lack of success of this project demonstrates that a multi-religious place built and managed exclusively through private philanthropists cannot function without the constant support of religious communities that recognize themselves in such a place and contribute to it; it is also of cardinal importance to take into consideration historical, social, and cultural peculiarities of the territory or space. Therefore, a

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multi-religious place may be marketed as a necessity but, in the end, not upheld as one. This is one of the reasons that local collective memory refers to this site as a private affair and the religious institutions represented there do not appropriate it as a shared place of prayer or dialogue between religions, but as a place for extraordinary use.

References Aulet, S., & Vidal, D. (2018). Tourism and Religion: Sacred Spaces as Transmitters of Heritage Values. Church, Communication and Culture, 3(3), 237–259. Beckford, J. A. (1998). Religion in Prison: Equal Rites in a Multi-Faith Society. Cambridge University Press. Bobrowicz, N. R. (2018). Multi-Faith Spaces Uncover Secular Premises Behind the Multi-Faith Paradigm. Religion, 9(37), 2–8. Boia, L. (2001). History and Myth in Romanian Consciousness. Central European University Press. Cadge, W. (2014). Négocier les differences religieuses dans les organisations laïques: l’exemple des chapelles d’hôpitaux. Social Compass, 61(2), 178–194. Chidester, D. (2016). Space. In M. Stausberg (Ed.), In the Oxford Handbook of the Study of Religion (pp. 329–339). Oxford University Press. Corbu, R. (1999). Sub semnul curcubeului. Eurobit. Cozma, I. (2012). I beni temporali nei rapporti tra ortodossi e greco-cattolici in Romania. Pontificio Istituto Orientale (Kanonika 18). Cozma, I., & Giorda, M. C. (2020). Sostituire, condividere, costruire: le parrocchie ortodosse romene nel tortuoso cammino del riconoscimento. Religioni e Società, 35(96), 25–32. Craioveanu, G. (1886). Iconografia bisericii ortodoxe. Relfexiuni asupra a doua icoane de la Manastirea Bunea. Biserica Ortodoxa Romana, 10(3), 172–184. de Velasco, F. D. (2014). Multi-belief/Multi-faith Spaces: Theoretical Proposals for a Neutral and Operational Design. RECODE Online Working Paper. https:// www.recode.info/wp-­content/uploads/2014/01/FINAL-­26-­D%C3%ADez-­ de-­Velasco_fin.pdf Dunbar, S. D. (1998). The Place of Interreligious Dialogue in the Academic Study of Religion. Journal of Ecumenical Studies, 35(3–4), 455–470. Eade, J. (2019). Moving, Crossing and Dwelling: Christianity and Place Pilgrimage. Historia Religionum, 11, 79–98. Gesler, W.  M. (1992). Therapeutic Landscapes: Medical Issues in Light of the New Cultural Geography. Social Science & Medicine, 34(7), 735–746. Gesler, W. M. (2003). Healing Places. Rowman & Littlefield. Giorda, M. C. (2013). Monasteri, paesaggio e territorio. Le relazioni geografiche dello spazio sacro. Humanitas, 68(6), 929–936.

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Giorda, M. C., & Longhi, A. (2019). Religioni e spazi ibdridi nella città contemporanea: profili di metodo e di storiogragia. Atti e Rassegna Tecnica della Società degli ingegneri e degli architetti in Torino, 2, 108–116. Golea, S. (2014, March 6). Aici este “Ierusalimul” din Dimbovita. Libertatea. https://www.libertatea.ro/stiri/aici-­e ste-­i erusalimul-­d in-­d ambovita-­ foto-­996910#galerie Hervieu-Léger, D. (2002). Space and Religion: New Approaches to Religious Spatiality in Modernity. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 26(1), 99–105. Institutul National de Statistică. (2011). Recensământul Populat ̦iei și al locuint ̦elor. Rezultate definitive 2011: Tab. 13 – Populat ̦ia stabilă după religie. http://www. recensamantromania.ro/rezultate-­2/ Johnson, K. (2012). The Multi-Faith Center: Practical Considerations for an Important Campus Facility. Planning for Higher Education, 41(1), 298–309. Knott, L. (2010). Religion, Space, and Place. The Spatial Turn in Research on Religion. Religion and Society: Advances in Research, 1, 29–34. Löw, M. (2016). The Sociology of Space: Materiality, Social Structure, and Action. Palgrave. Manole, S. (n.d.). Vulcana-Băi sau monumentul Marelui Arhitect. https://www. mirem.ro/pdf/pacateleecumenismului.pdf Mares, D. G. (2014). Vulcana Ba ̆i 558, Sat Domnesc: 1456-1462. Vulcana Băi. Moldoveanu, V. (2008). Ecumenismul în întreba ̆ri și răspunsuri pe înt ̦elesul tuturor. Vicovia. Orthoshoc. (2009, December 18). Monumentele monstruoase de la Vulcan Baĭ și lepădarea de Ortodoxie a lui Daniel Ciobotea. https://orthoshoc.wordpress. com/tag/daniel-­ciobotea/. Photin, M. (2015, July 9). A Universal Temple for all Religions in Kazan. Le Journal International. https://www.lejournalinternational.fr/A-­universal-­ Temple-­for-­all-­religions-­in-­Kazan_a3025.html Popescu, I. (2011, September 1). Centrul Internat ̦ional Ecumenic cu complexul său inter-religiosdelaVulcana-Băi. ACUM. http://www.vulcanabai.ro/ SiteNou/documente/Ziar/REVISTA%20ACUM%20NR.%20008.pdf Popovich, J. (1994). Orthodox Faith and Life in Christ. Institute for Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies. Puscașu, V. (2014). Religious Tourism or Pilgrimage? European Journal of Science and Theology, 11(3), 131–142. Rüpke, J. (2020). Urban Religion: A Historical Approach to Urban Growth and Religious Change. De Gruyter. Shakuka. (n.d.). Moschei in București. http://shakuka.blogspot.com/p/ghid-­ moschei.html Stan, L., & Turcescu, L. (2007). Religion and Politics in Pos-Communist Romania. Oxford University Press.

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StranaOrtodoxa. (2019, June 30). Moscheeșisinagogăîncurteaman̆ as̆ tiriiortodoxe din VulcanaBăi!! Pan-ereziaecumenista.̆ https://stranaortodoxa.wordpress. com/2019/06/30/moschee-­si-­sinagoga-­in-­curtea-­manastirii-­ortodoxe-­din-­ vulcana-­bai/ Tateo, G. (2019). Croci contro la moschea: profanazione e riconversione di uno spazio indivisibile. Annali di Studi Religiosi, 20, 105–121. van der Leeuw, G. (1986). Religion in Essence and Manifestation. Princeton University Press. Wilson, B. R. (1995). Religious Toleration & Religious Diversity. The Institute for the Study of American Religion.

CHAPTER 10

The “Casa delle religioni” of Turin: A Multi-­Level Project Between Religious and Secular Luca Bossi and Maria Chiara Giorda

Introduction In the framework of this volume, the Casa delle religioni in Turin, Italy, is an excellent example of a multi-religious place. Designed in 2016, it has yet to be realized.1 Plans for the Casa delle religioni involve a 300 m2 room located in one of the three wings of a 4000 m2 post-industrial building 1  This work is an updated version of the article La Casa delle religioni di Torino: tra inclusione ed esclusione, published by the authors in “Annali di Studi Religiosi,” 20–2019, FBK Press, Trento, pp. 145–171. Although almost two years have passed since the most recent publication in Italian, the Casa delle religioni project has not moved forward.

L. Bossi (*) Department of Cultures, Politics and Society, University of Turin, Turin, Italy e-mail: [email protected] M. C. Giorda Department of Humanistic Studies, Roma Tre University, Rome, Italy e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 M. Burchardt, M. C. Giorda (eds.), Geographies of Encounter, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82525-6_10

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called the “Ex-Incet”. Beginning in the late nineteenth century, the Incet was an electrical cable factory; following its closure in 1968, the building was abandoned. The site’s requalification started in 2009 as part of a municipal set of strategies for generating and promoting innovative activities. The planned Casa delle religioni is a multi-level project in which bottom-­up, meso-level, and top-down dynamics coexist. Bottom-up dynamics refer to issues and needs promoted by believers and members of local religious groups. By contrast, top-down strategies are the choices of the public administration and other decision makers who deal with cultural diversity and social integration. Between these two groups of actors, we identify a third set of stakeholders: meso-level actors who are both religious and secular, and who have either directly participated in the elaboration of the project and the design of the place or who have been involved in discussion about the place because they work in the Ex-Incet area. In this work, we focus on the meso and macrolevels, including internal relations (i.e., among different public/political institutions or among different religious/secular organizations) and external relations (i.e., between meso and macro levels).2 In the urban space of Turin, considered a kind of laboratory for religious pluralism and governance (Becci et  al., 2016), the history of this multi-religious place illustrates several key dynamics: (1) the composition of the religious diversity in the city; (2) the relationships among religious groups and between religious groups and political and cultural institutions; and (3) the location in the urban space of religious groups. The Casa delle religioni is the expression of the request and need for space articulated by religious groups living in Turin. As we will explain in the next section, many minorities lack proper worship places; the Casa delle religioni could thus be the answer to this problem. In our analysis of the coexistence of religious groups in the same place, our argument is that there are two different logics of social control and material organization of the space—one religious, one secular—that are 2  Covid-19 health restrictions and social distancing measures have forced us to forgo interviewing a sample of believers belonging to the different religious organizations involved in the project.

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driven by two distinct sets of actors. The first group of stakeholders are the so-called meso-level actors who are directly involved in the Casa delle religioni, that is, the representatives of religious groups and a local think-tank that has been working as a mediator and manager. The second is a group of actors who are indirectly involved in discussions about the place, residing either in the same wing or in other sections of the Ex-Incet building— that is, the secular neighbors of the Casa delle religioni. These secular actors include a foundation which has been the assignee of this wing of the Ex-Incet building. Interestingly, political institutions have supported this second group over the first one. Referring to the dichotomy used by Lily Kong (2001), we can distinguish two approaches to space: the “poetics” linked to the religious, and the “politics” of religion, connected with the contestation of space. The Casa delle religioni allows us to analyze the complexity of relationships between religion and space by accentuating representation, recognition, and contestation (Kong, 2010a, 2010b). Through analysis of the spatial dynamics among the actors that have shaped the design and the failure of this project, this place offers a privileged vantage point for observing the relationships among religious groups, secular groups, and their positioning in the space (Tse, 2014). This research is based on a plurality of sources and the application of different investigation techniques, including documentary study, semi-­ structured interviews with participants, and institutional, religious, and private representatives (initiated in 2017). Participant observation was carried out by the authors, who are members of the thinktank involved in the project. The process of elaboration and construction of the project consisted of institutional meetings, working groups, participatory meetings, joint meetings of the committee of promoters, and public presentations on the initiative.3 Despite our attempts to deepen the research, no updates have been recorded. Our requests for follow-up and the resolution of obstacles or constraints via email have not received answers.4 3  Thanks to her experience in the design of prayer rooms, multi-religious and otherwise— particularly in the Turin area—Giorda was initially engaged as a consultant. The results of this first study phase were published in a dossier by M.  Giorda, D.  Campobenedetto, S.  Hejazi, and M.  Robiglio (2016). See: http://benvenutiinitalia.it/wpcontent/ uploads/2012/03/House_of_one_multifaith_spaces_2016.pdf 4  For this reason, the contents reported in this article are to be considered up to date as of December 2020. The authors plan to dedicate future publications to the discussion of other relevant dimensions, as well as to updating the in-progress process.

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The first section of this chapter introduces the Turin case, illustrating the main characteristics of local ethno-religious diversity and describing the paths of emergence, enhancement, and governance of religious plurality by local institutions. The second section presents the history of the Casa delle religioni of Turin as a multi-level project between bottom-up initiatives and top-down institutional projects. The third section focuses on the two logics—the religious and the secular—shedding light on their differences. We argue that meso-level actors have been particularly influential in shaping the spatial dynamics and the envisaged forms of cohabitation in this place. In our conclusions, we will highlight the results of the two logics, also referring to religious and secular perspectives.

Religious Diversity and Pluralistic Policies in Turin Among the Italian cities, Turin boasts the most remarkable laboratory for the management of religious diversity. In the last twenty years, the city government has spearheaded a process for governing this diversity. Both public and private initiatives have promoted the development of cultural events, meetings, and representations that have brought religions to a prominent position in urban space. The following examples illustrate the plurality of projects promoted by political and cultural institutions and involving religious groups. Meanwhile, religious actors are themselves active stakeholders and promoters in urbanization processes (Rüpke, 2020) since they have informed and affected urban policies and strategies. The 2006 Olympic games were a watershed in the local history of the governance of religious diversity. The global event led to the founding of an Interfaith Committee chaired by the former mayor of the city (1993–2001) and a prominent figure of Turin’s culture and politics.5 Organized in collaboration with the Intercultural Centre of the City (Fabretti et al., 2018), the committee is made up of representatives from the eight confessions considered most important in terms of number of adherents in the city: Buddhism (Italian Buddhist Union), Catholicism (Holy See), Evangelism (Federation of Evangelical Churches in Italy), Hinduism (Italian Hindu Union), Islam (represented by a converted Italian who was officially disconnected from organizations, originally designated by a national Islamic association), Judaism (Union of Italian 5  http : //www. int er cu lt u r at o r in o .it /ap p r o fo n d i me nti / c omi ta to- i nte r f e di della-citta-di-torino/

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Jewish Communities), Mormonism (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints), and Orthodoxy (Romanian Orthodox Diocese of Italy— Patriarchate of Romania).6 The Orthodox Church is the only confession represented by a person with a migration background. The Interfaith Committee is rather symbolic today, participating in the organization of events rather than tackling and coordinating the everyday problems and needs of the religious groups. Belonging to this institutional board provides visibility and recognition, even in an interfaith competition. It strengthens contacts and relationships, opening paths to new social, political, or cultural capitals. Since 2017, the committee has accepted two members from the Buddhist association Soka Gakkai and the Baha’i faith as an audience, following a logic of broader representation of urban religious diversity. It is interesting to note how inclusion and exclusion have always been the result of top-down decisions. In 2006, the decision-maker was the municipality, and the enlargement was managed by members of the Interfaith Committee. In this same vein of public recognition and policy enhancement for religious diversity, since 2016, the Department for Integration of the City of Turin has involved the Islamic centers of the city in a permanent board, signing a “Pact of sharing” to promote coexistence, mutual respect, and public understanding about Islam.7 In addition to these two spaces of representation, coordination, and mediation, Turin is a relevant case for its experience in the field of common governance of public services provisions for religious minorities. This is the case in the agreements on cemeteries’ governance related to religious diversity8 as well as spiritual assistance in prisons and hospitals.9

 It should be noted that the committee does not have any non-religious people within it.  See: www.islamtorino.it/firma-del-patto-di-condivisione-tra-citta-di-torino-e-centriislamici/ 8  As Omenetto (2020) notes, the city of Turin is home to four active cemeteries, two of which provide burials for religions other than the Roman Catholic confession. They are the so-called Monumental Cemetery (Cimitero Monumentale) and the Park Cemetery (Cimitero Parco). The Monumental Cemetery offers a Jewish and an Evangelical field, as well as a section dedicated to cremation, complete with a cremation oven and a farewell room. At the Cimitero Parco, one can find burial areas destined for members of the Baha’i, Evangelical, Muslim, and Orthodox faiths. 9   See the project, “Cure delle Spirito”: https://www.cittadellasalute.to.it/index. php?option=com_content&view=ar ticle&id=3888:progetto-qla-cura-dellospiritoq&catid=309:assistenza-spirituale&Itemid=199 6 7

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In this framework of religious pluralism, wherein religions have acquired visibility, as well as social and local institutional recognition, Turin is also the Italian city with the highest number of multi-religious places. It should be emphasized that the first multi-religious place in Italy, namely the “Room of Silence,” was erected in the San Giovanni Molinette hospital, one of the city’s most significant health sites. As of today, Turin hosts the highest concentration of rooms of silence or prayer in public buildings10: after the first one was built, other multi-religious and silence rooms were opened throughout hospitals in the city, along with a multi-religious space in the city’s airport.11 As far as the projects and design for these multi-religious places are concerned, the city government has not been the main actor (as it was for the Interfaith Committee and the Board of Islam). On the contrary, they were conceived by the hospitals and the airport: multi-religious and silence rooms were configured as a pragmatic, organizational solution to meet the needs of an increasingly religiously diverse range of employees and users. Replacing or appearing alongside the existing Catholic or ecumenical Christian chapels, these places represent a functional response to contexts in which people from different backgrounds are forced into a waiting state (and, in the hospital setting, into conditions of concern, suffering, or pain). Beyond their role as a concrete response to the need for spiritual support, they serve as spaces for religion and spirituality in public contexts and are one of the ways in which the urban religious field is grafted onto the wider social space of the city. Recognized as a guarantor of the rights and needs expressed by the multiple belongings that make up the religious diversity of Turin, the Interfaith Committee has been involved in designing all of the city’s silence/multi-religious rooms, together with religious representatives and invited scholars. Notwithstanding this special attention to religious diversity and the multiplication of related projects, as in almost all Italian cities, Turin suffers from a chronic shortage of places destined for religious services. The existing sites were defined in 1991, during the designing phase of the new city master plan, and again ‘in 1995, the approval of which, in my opinion,  In this regard, see: https://www.stanzadelsilenzio.it/  In Turin, there are multi-religious places in the buildings of the Giovanni BattistaMolinette, Mauriziano, Regina Margherita, and Giovanni Bosco hospitals. Sandro Pertini airport in Turin-Caselle hosts an area dedicated to prayer: the boarding gates offer employees and waiting travelers a “multi-faith room,” a musallah, and an ecumenical Christian chapel. 10 11

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just recognized what already existed’12 without providing new areas. This happened when religious diversity in Italy was not yet a public or political topic, and existing minorities were invisible to the public. As a result of the legislative changes that have occurred since 1929, non-Catholic religious organizations in Italy can today be divided into four overarching categories, as follows: those with an Agreement (Intesa) with the state (art. 8, paragraph 3 of the Italian Constitution); those who have obtained a state recognition of legal personality (through the law of 24 June 1929 n. 1159—the so-called “admitted cults”); those established according to their statute (art. 8, paragraph 2 of the Constitution), concerning the different forms of association provided for in the civil code; and, finally, the unregistered, informal religious groups. Thus, the Italian religious field has evolved into a pyramidal structure, at the top of which are organizations with Intesa; at the national level, 12 confessions belong to this category (https://presidenza.governo.it/USRI/confessioni/ intese_indice.html#2). These agreements include legal obligations for the parties and give access, among other things, to public financing through “8 × 1000” fundraising (Botti, 2014; Folliero, 2010; Giorda & Vanolo, 2019). Excluding the Catholic Church (Enriore, 1995; Zito, 2013), we estimate that there are approximately 10 organizations in Turin with the Intesa for 22 public places of worship. Among them are seven Evangelical churches, six Buddhist centers, four Pentecostal churches, three places belonging to other Christian denominations, a synagogue, and an Orthodox church housed in a former Catholic building. Eight religious organizations in Turin refer to the legislation on “admitted cults,” the second level of state acknowledgment for religions, for at least 16 places of worship, including seven Orthodox churches (mostly Romanian), six churches of the Revival movement, and Theosophical, Hindu, and Baha’i centers. Finally, some 112 religious organizations belong to the category of generic associations, without legal recognition by the state, for at least 108 places of worship in the city. Among them, there are an estimated 44 Pentecostal churches (of which 16 are African, eight Latin American, and two Romanian), 18 mosques, nine churches of the Revival movement, five Orthodox churches, four marginal or dissident Catholic churches, three Evangelical churches, three Theosophical centers and as many Buddhist 12   Department of Urban Planning, Private Construction Department, interview #27/13-12-2017.

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centers, and 19 places belonging to other religious congregations and minor spiritual groups (plus others that are not detectable). The picture that emerges from this rough map is that while Catholicism and religions with Intesa have adequate religious places, all others suffer from a lack of space. Local institutions do not provide a precise administration of the attribution of places to religious organizations,13 leaving the research to the initiative of religious groups. However, finding a map of available urban lands and spaces can be a very complex undertaking, and almost impossible for those actors lacking capital and professional skills. At the same time, non-legally recognized organizations cannot apply for local public funds destined for places of worship,14 nor do they have access to broader state-supported fundraising for religious organizations (Bossi, 2020). They opt for converting and refurbishing existing spaces to establish their own bottom-up places of worship. According to each group’s spending capacity, apartments, garages, cinemas, theatres, discotheques, and newspaper buildings have been converted to accommodate the faithbased communities’ religious needs. For legal, socioeconomic, and political reasons, these places of worship have been relegated to urban invisibility (Bossi, 2018, 2019; Burchardt & Griera, 2020; Chiodelli, 2015). For the Catholic Church, on the other hand, the material possibility of finding a location is quite simple: one recent example, situated in the city’s vast post-industrial area, was renewed through a residential urbanization project called “Spina 3.” While an extensive peripheral area of the decayed industrial districts was being revived, a large area was set aside for Catholic religious services. There, since 2006, approximatively 12,000  m2 have been occupied by the new co-cathedral of the Holy Face of Jesus. Designed by the internationally renowned architect Mario Botta, built in two years, and completed on the occasion of the Olympic games, the site represents 13  To illustrate, here is an excerpt from an interview with the Private Building Department (ibidem): “There was no direction […] the master plan, I repeat—enjoying this flexibility— has never created a real bottleneck, and therefore more or less everyone has adjusted. [If someone then arrives asking to settle in a neighborhood, which areas are available?] They must look for them. [Starting from the master plan maps?] It is easier for them to first go andfind a place according to their budget. That is, it is quite the opposite: we are not able to govern it from above, we only verify that it is not in conflict starting from below.” 14  Significantly, the application form to request the regional contribution makes explicit reference to funds “in favor of the church […] located in Turin in…,” and thus formally excludes non-Christian buildings. See: http://www.comune.torino.it/luoghidi-culto/moduli/mod_1_istanza.pdf

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the first Roman Catholic church “of the new millennium” in Turin and is one of the most striking examples of symbolic and material place-making (Löw, 2016). Although this peripheral area is widely inhabited and frequented by individuals and families from diverse cultural, ethnic, national, and religious backgrounds, and despite the lack of places of worship for minority religions, the largest space available to the city was allocated to a church of the Catholic diocese. Paradoxically, a few dozen meters away, on the other side of the road, about 35,000 Muslim residents gather outdoors in a public park for their collective prayer twice a year. To protect themselves from sun and rain, they find shelter under the metal arches of a former industrial warehouse, recently recovered as part of a project to enhance the city’s industrial heritage (Giorda & Longhi, 2019).

The Urban History of the Casa delle religioni The Ex-Incet building is located about two kilometers from the co-­ cathedral of the Holy Face of Jesus. This area contains both old and new condominium housing, a large shopping center, a private museum dedicated to contemporary arts, and a historic nightspot, a landmark of the city’s music scene, housed in the rooms of an abandoned school. Here and there, the continuity of structures that have been recovered or extended over large areas is broken up by the buildings and warehouses—still in a state of abandonment—wedged between them, bearing witness to the industrial past and the prolonged oblivion of a suburban, popular, and multiethnic district. This area is now in a process of renewal and gentrification. As mentioned above, the conversion of the Ex-Incet building started in 2009. In 2015, the first 1400 m2 wing became the so-called “Open Incet,” or the Open Innovation lab of the city, headquartering different start-ups, cooperatives, and enterprises. The management and organization of this wing were attributed, through a public tender, to a group coordinated by a foundation that works on social politics, urban regeneration, innovation, and social entrepreneurship. The wing’s interior was completely revamped and upgraded to house offices, meeting rooms, business services, and a broad spectrum of activities. The municipality sold the second wing to an

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entrepreneur in 2016, who transformed the 2000  m2 space into a food hall, including a pub, a cocktail bar, and some lofts.15 The third wing of the building, which is reserved for the Casa delle religioni, was acquired through a public call in 2016 by the same foundation that manages the first wing. The idea of a place for minorities was initially promoted by two public administrators who, despite their mutual commitment to inclusion policies and diversity governance, could not accompany the project due to political changes in the city government. The public call was devised as a partial response to the lack of suitable places of worship for religious minorities in the city. On this matter, it provided the possibility of presenting a specific project for the 300 m2 hall, meant for “the practice of worship by the city’s minority religious denominations while promoting a culture of integration.”16 The religious denominations could use this space for their activities (following an alternating schedule), paying only utilities. The call provided an alternative to leaving the hall to be managed by the municipality. The winning proposal included a project developed by a local thinktank. Its partnership in the network of the Casa delle religioni was endorsed by the Intercultural Centre, the Interfaith Committee, and some religious organizations—first and foremost an Islamic association that was very active in the area. The 300 m2 space was sublicensed by the foundation to the thinktank. In collaboration with the Intercultural Centre of the City of Turin and the Interfaith Committee, the thinktank was also entrusted with bringing together and coordinating religious groups through a set of special participatory regulations. In the absence of a list of religious organizations and bodies, in order to make participation open, the working group exploited formal and informal channels of acquaintances. The networks built up over time by the three parties triggered a process of involvement through word of mouth and horizontal dissemination. Meetings to present the project and its details, the collection of feedback, and different modalities of expressing interest launched a participatory process (Bobbio, 2005) in 2017 to define roles, functions, sub-projects and, of course, rental and management costs of the place.

 See: http://www.edit-to.com  For the whole documentation, see: http://www.comune.torino.it/bandi/20151229_ exincet/# (In Italian). 15 16

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The first phase of the project was the formation of a group of promoters (including both religious and cultural actors) who played a fundamental role in helping the religious, cultural, and ethnic representatives involved in the project to get to know each other. At the same time, this phase offered a series of opportunities for reflection, during which common goals emerged and developed from individual aspirations. At the end of the phase, 40 promoters established a first rule of inclusion (and, of course, exclusion): they called for the opening of the project to all religious and non-religious communities, associations, groups, and bodies interested in experimenting with good practices and innovative actions in the fields of i) knowledge, recognition, and religious and cultural freedom; ii) intercultural and interreligious dialogue and cohesion; iii) the fight against discrimination and prejudice; and iv) the prevention of violent radicalism. After introducing this first criterion for the selection of partners, the working group immediately drew attention to the project’s two main characteristics. First, the material and symbolic value of the place—in addition to guaranteeing the physical space for meetings, sociality, and the practice of worship—would offer a platform for visibility, potentially contributing to the construction of a collective imagery of urban religious diversity. Second, the institutional context, the interreligious initiative, and the ambitious project would encourage the participation of a range of parties, driven by different desires and goals—from religious groups seeking a place for prayer (to whom the tender sought to respond) to ethnic associations eager to have a place equipped for their cultural meetings and entertainment, and from institutionalized religious organizations to more informal groups. Among the different attitudes, the need for participation, representation and visibility also brought in historical minorities—primarily Jews and Waldensians—who do not need any more places of worship, thus confirming their willingness to enter into dialogue and recognize new minorities, while at the same time preserving their role as legitimate actors in the institutionally constituted religious network. Conversely, Muslim and Orthodox communities’ interests and needs have also emerged as they have shown their economic willingness to set up their places in the worship hall, equipped with furnishings and sacred objects (see Figs.  10.1, 10.2, 10.3, 5, and 6). They are the two minority confessions with the most members in Turin and the greatest need for religious places, particularly in that area of the city (Bossi & Giorda, 2017). The Orthodox Church

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Fig. 10.1  The Project. Credits: Cultural Project: Maria Chiara Giorda, Luca Bossi, Daniele Campobenedetto. Architectural Project: Daniele Campobenedetto and Caterina Barioglio. Rendering: Equoatelier

is represented by the Romanian Orthodox Deanery of Turin, whose dean was also, until January 2020, a member of the Interfaith Committee. The church’s location in the historical city center and the fact that many Romanians live near the Ex-Incet have been push factors in Orthodox involvement in the project, with local representatives aiming to acquire a new worship place. With regard to the Islamic community, one of the most active of the 17 Islamic associations in the city inspired the thinktank’s participation in the 2016 call for tenders. Managing the organization of two mosques in neighboring urban quadrants, the community is now looking for a space in a neighborhood that still lacks a place for religious practices. Throughout the second phase of the project, these two groups in particular collaborated with an architectural studio to define essential criteria and needs for both worship and exchange. The materiality of the place was shaped according to the urban religious aspirations of the groups (Burchardt & Höhne, 2015; Burchardt & Westdendorp, 2018). The project envisages the use of full-height movable walls, which would allow the tracing of variable geometries according to the guest groups’ different needs.

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Fig. 10.2  The city of Turin (north-western Italy) has a long history of religious diversity, much of which is driven by migrations and today, the city faces unprecedented religious diversification. In order to cope with religious spatial needs, the city council issued a call for proposals to provide the town with a multi-faith space dedicated to local minorities. The project for a Casa delle religioni was chosen in 2016. A three-year participative process involved twenty religious organizations in the shared definition of needs, practices, and intentions with regard to the common use of space. Credits: Cultural Project: Maria Chiara Giorda, Luca Bossi, Daniele Campobenedetto. Architectural Project: Daniele Campobenedetto and Caterina Barioglio. Rendering: Equoatelier

The other religious, cultural, and ethnic groups decided to create a large central shared space, used on a rotational basis, sharing the economic and organizational burdens. Over the years, the majority denomination (Catholic Christianity) and historical minorities have maintained a marginal

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Fig. 10.3  A former industrial space, on the outskirts of the city, is chosen as a shelter for a shared space among different religions. A big hall is divided into four main spaces: two wooden cabins are the home for an orthodox chapel and a little mosque, while the remaining spaces are devoted to other religious activities carried out for communities that are not in need of dedicated spaces, and a library. These partitions however are not fixed. The spatial distribution of the hall can be changed according to different needs of the communities over daily and weekly time. Credits: Cultural Project: Maria Chiara Giorda, Luca Bossi, Daniele Campobenedetto. Architectural Project: Daniele Campobenedetto and Caterina Barioglio. Rendering: Equoatelier

role. Beneficiaries of a symbolic space in the worship hall, they have mainly been involved in intercultural activities and interreligious dialogue. The sharing of the place is the main feature of the project, simultaneously its rule and its goal; so far, its implementation has not been

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Figs. 10.4 and 10.5  1—The basic spatial configuration sees the two wooden cabins dedicated to orthodox (red) and Islam (green) worship. At the same time, the other spaces (blue) are devoted to free activities and other forms of prayer. 2—On Fridays or when the Muslim community needs more space, the mosque cabin can be opened, and the common ground (blue) can be temporarily devoted to Muslim religious activities. 3—On Sundays, the common ground can be transformed into an extension of the Romanian Orthodox chapel, hosting activities parallel to the function in the chapel. 4—On special occasions (conferences, festivals), the two wooden cabins can be open and become an extension of the common ground. In these cases, a portion of both the cabins remains permanently devoted to worship activities. Credits: Cultural Project: Maria Chiara Giorda, Luca Bossi, Daniele Campobenedetto. Architectural Project: Daniele Campobenedetto and Caterina Barioglio. Rendering: Equoatelier

questioned by any of the promoters, nor has it been taken for granted. In order to build concrete possibilities of concurrence and coexistence between religious and cultural differences in the same room, the participants have had to undertake two separate activities: on the one hand, the

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design of the place and methods of adaptation and use, and on the other, the conception and application of the formal rules of the place. The main activity of the promoting group was to organize the future management of modular and adaptable premises for worship with a calendar-­based rotation: a place of spirituality, a place of rest and meeting, designed to ensure the activity of worship for communities and groups but which, as per the intent of the promoters, could also be used for the organization of interreligious and intercultural events. The practices of self-­ management and coordination by the involved parties would range from the preparation, furnishing, and maintenance of the room (i.e., cleaning, administration) to the surveillance of the premises, with a fixed daily presence or assignment of the keys to contact personnel and regular review meetings. After an initial feasibility study, the participatory process led to the drafting of a statute, through which the parties adopted a code of self-­ regulation for community use and public enjoyment. Regardless of the formal rules, the statute was based on common principles such as the recognition of diversity, sharing, respect for human dignity, and secularity. The secularity principle in particular was understood as a way to keep institutions equidistant from every religious expression, in the freedom of spiritual expression guaranteed to the affiliates and in observance of the constitutionally defined limits. This was not meant as a neutralization of the religious expression itself, but rather as a positive action of political and public institutions which must offer each religion fairness of recognition and treatment. Once the recognition and admission procedures had been identified, the promoters equipped themselves with an instrument of self-­government in the form of a council. The council is a representative body made up of seven members, including four guarantors identified and appointed by religious representatives, based on the quality and quantity of their participation in the project; the remaining three guarantors, on the other hand, are appointed by the secular members of the civil society and the institutions (i.e., the thinktank, the Intercultural Centre, and the Interfaith Committee). Despite the long and complex networking and planning phases, the site’s construction has been stopped by constraints and obstacles imposed by some meso-level actors (non-religious groups) as well as the lack of intervention by the final commissioner, the municipal government.

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Two Logics Related to the Place: A Conciliation of Needs, a Clash of Interests From the perspective of the first religious logic related to the place, the meso-level actors involved directly in the Casa delle religioni are the representatives of the 40 promoters (religious and cultural groups), the Interfaith Committee, the Intercultural Centre, and the local thinktank (which in turn has involved the architectural studio). While being open to a broader number of religious groups and characterized by a principle of accessibility and equality for any religious and spiritual expression, over time, the project has seen the emergence of roles, parties, and representations, as well as (conversely) the eclipse or progressive repositioning of others. Each religious group has taken on a specific position in the shared planning proceedings. As the project’s contours have become less blurred and the opportunities and burdens more clearly defined, the representatives have had to assess the tangible investment possibilities in the complex balancing of the constraints of spatial sharing and each group’s specific needs and ideas. Amid all of these groups, the mediation has taken on the complex character of a dense network of relationships. Representatives of religious groups have quickly found themselves having to manage a web of vertical internal relations with their hierarchical superiors—involving the pertinent organizational requirements—as well as with their communities of believers, which are  the “lenders” of the initiative and, moreover, the actual beneficiaries of their work. Other relations include those with the representatives of the other adhering groups. Cooperation or neutral tolerance best characterize both intra- and interreligious relations in this case study. The divide between the majority and minorities and their respective enjeux has been continuously rethought in terms of acceptance and compromise. The subdivision of the place into sections and responsibilities emerged from a shared mediation between the building’s material limits and each religious organization’s needs and possibilities. Below (Fig. 10.6), we outline the network of actors directly and indirectly involved in the Casa delle religioni. They form three distinct subfields: the secular field of public and political institutions; the religious field of believers and their communities; and a mixed field, made up of

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Fig. 10.6  Network of Actors

private, religious, and secular organizations.17 This is the middle level at the core of the project. Together, they make up the broader field of cooperation and power relations that has characterized the Casa delle religioni of Turin. Their roles, organizational nature, and top/middle/bottom positioning are highlighted. Relations have been more complicated among actors who are indirectly involved in discussion about the place because they occupy the same wing or nearby sections of the Ex-Incet building (or the surrounding urban redevelopment area)—that is, the secular neighbors of the Casa delle religioni. Among them are meso-level actors such as the foundation which was the assignee of this wing of the Ex-Incet building, as well as start-ups, social innovation companies, and enterprises of the ex-Incet—including the food hall staff. The local political institutions’ attitude has supported this second logic. 17  By their nature, mission, and involvement, the Interfaith Committee and the Intercultural Centre occupy a hybrid position between public/political institutions and secular/religious organizations. In fact, they are the only two public institutions that have concretely supported the project.

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In the midst of this complicated network of relationships in which religious and secular approaches coexist, public and private interests have decelerated permissions and construction, and brought the project to a standstill. Misunderstandings, followed by conflicts, were generated by the need of the people working there to entrust others with the management—and running costs—of a building renovated with public funds but equipped by private actors offering services in the area. Planning for a building that could host recreation places for residents, offices for start-­ ups and cooperatives, exhibition and congress rooms, and a place for prayer, meetings, and cultural activities presented a formidable creative challenge. One of the most problematic issues relates to the possibility that the Casa delle religioni will become not only a cultural place, but also a place of worship (as this was the object of the call for tenders). In the planning stages, the religious, cultural, and ethnic groups managed to reach an agreement on the activities to be carried out, as suggested by the statute and regulations. While other social, economic, and cultural players in and around the building were in favor of an acceptance of cultural and intercultural activities, there was a shared rejection of purely religious activities. These secular organizations progressively realized that a multi-religious place would not be an empty and passive space nor an artistic installation, but rather a space that would witness people’s tangible daily presence. Thus, regardless of the symbolic, aesthetic, and architectural apparatus, a sense of alarm grew among people working in the area, a fear of “other bodies” that were an expression of marginal social groups—of foreign origin and low or medium-low social extraction—in search of a space of recognition, comfort, and witness. As became evident during our meetings and interviews, some of the actors working in that neighborhood were worried that the gathering of people (in particular immigrants) for cultural practices could be an obstacle for business and commercial activities. In view of these private actors belonging to for-profit organizations, Orthodox Christians and Muslims gathering for prayers and activities would have caused discomfort to the upper-class customers they were targeting. Amid a wave of Islamophobic attitudes and a widespread perception of mosques as dangerous places, what matters is the fact that a minority place of worship—most often an Islamic one—can devalue an area, constituting a point of attraction for anti-gentrification agents, since, in the view of economic stakeholders, Muslims can scare off customers. Still, some European case studies have

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demonstrated the opposite (Brandt et al., 2014; Mazumdar & Mazumdar, 2013, pp. 234–235); this could be considered a missed opportunity for “ethnic packaging” (Hackworth & Rekers, 2005), an expression which has been mobilized for a “type of gentrification in which migrant or minority communities are formally celebrated in order to ‘brand’ cities, or specific neighbourhoods” (Giglioli, 2017, p. 750), with the aim of attracting private capital, tourism, and bourgeois residents. Faced with this development, the different for-profit and business-­ oriented parties operating in the Ex-Incet reacted negatively. In their opinion, there could be no possibility of an effective shared management between their organizations and a place of worship, in view of their different missions and visions. The conflict then focused on the distinction between cultural or religious activities, with the former seen as compatible with business and commercial enterprises and the latter not. In the face of these slowdowns and the resulting tensions, the ambiguity between the processes (those generated from the top, and those triggered from the middle and bottom, in a multi-level perspective) caused a considerable deceleration, effectively preventing the project from being carried out to date. In the last months of 2019 and throughout 2020, different events changed the situation from an organizational perspective, some of them related to or strengthened by the Covid-19 lockdown. First of all, the foundation renounced the leadership of the group of start-up companies, cooperatives, and enterprises hosted in a second lot of the building.18 Second, due to the death in January 2020 of the Romanian Orthodox dean, a charismatic leader and one of the most important religious representatives involved in the project, a progressive disaffection toward the project began to substitute the initial enthusiasm of the involved religious communities. In addition to this loss, one could say that a wave of distrust about the project took hold among the religious organizations and communities following the withdrawal of the municipal government (which we will discuss below). Consequently, the project has ceased to be a priority for the Interfaith Committee, and the various religious leaders have invested their time and resources in other programs. 18  As of November 2020, this has not yet gone into effect, but the situation remains in a state of immobilization since many activities have beenstopped during the pandemic. See Scarpone S., Edit, la resa di Aurora “Non si riesce a tagliare neanche l’erba”, La Stampa, 22 luglio 2020, p. 3.

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The most important aspect of this process has been the progressive withdrawal of political institutions. As we have stated, the promoter of the project idea in 2016—beyond the practical proposition that was formulated during these years—was the city government, which sought to advance policies that would support pluralism and guarantee both religious and secular interests. Political institutions have since gone from being the promoters of the idea of a 300 m2 room for minorities, to ineffective mediators of the parties, to an obstacle due to an internal disagreement between technical-­ administrative agents and political stakeholders. Further inability to reach an agreement has occurred between various municipal departments expressing very different interests, from the department working for rights and integration to that of innovation to that of trade. After numerous meetings, a change of responsibilities, and the fruitless efforts promoted by the president of the Interfaith Committee to directly involve a city councilor and the mayor, a straightforward tactic of “institutional ghosting”19 was put into action and performed by all political stakeholders, who systematically avoided any discussion or dialogue related to the issue of the “Casa delle religioni.” During the last six months of our research, the authors of this chapter tried several times to contact city administration representatives to collect their opinions, ask questions about the project timeline, inquire about difficulties and strategies, and ask for feedback on our writing. As happened with requests presented by the Interfaith Committee, the city administration never replied, or simply passed on the responsibility of a reply from the political to the bureaucratic level. Even though the project has never officially been canceled, public institutions have stopped replying to the multiple emails and meeting requests coming from the involved actors. Their interest was primarily in the proper functioning of the whole building and the area, but they have never officially declared their position. As the owner of the building and main contractor of the project, the city administration’s disengagement has played a crucial role.

19  According to the Cambridge Dictionary, ghosting is “a way of ending a relationship with someone suddenly by stopping all communication with them.” See: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/it/dizionario/inglese/ghosting

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Conclusive Thoughts As the analysis of the two logics—the religious and the secular—demonstrate, our final argument is that the relationships among the meso-level actors related directly to the place were successful, since the involved religious groups agreed on their requirements, internal distribution, and cultural and religious activities. The thinktank established meaningful relations with all of the other actors; its responsibility in the participative process translated into a crucial role and a central positioning in the actors-­ field, as an essential node of relationships among the different subjects involved. In terms of the quality of relations, the project has allowed a close collaboration among different religious groups and the Interfaith Committee, the Intercultural Centre of Turin, and the thinktank. The results of these relations can partly be seen in the activities that have been planned, some of which are still active (such as the end-of-life information desk, located at the Intercultural Centre). The multi-level model is an example of successful sharing. Complex relations have been established between the thinktank and the foundation, the official licensee and manager of the building, which have mediated various parties’ requests and interests with regard to the complex. However, meso-level actors not directly involved in the project (the neighbors of the Casa delle religioni), the perceived incompatibility of secular and religious activities, and conflicting interests and ideas on space management have led to continuous slowdowns, culminating in the project’s current stagnation. Moreover, one could say that the project’s slowdown has been due to the incoherent positions of political parties and public institutions and the bureaucratic process of technical departments. Continuous impediments and institutional “ghosting” have continued to play a pivotal role in the project’s failure even at the moment of our writing. This absence has affected and even exacerbated the conflict between religious and secular interests, for which the mediation of the thinktank was not sufficient. As discussed in this chapter, the Casa delle religioni project is an example of a religious cohabitation hub wherein religious communities have their own place of worship, furnished according to their needs (Salitsky, 2019). It is also a multi-level project in which different forms of action and mediation have followed one after the other in different phases, originated by a political decision and carried out by a private non-profit

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organization in collaboration with religious and secular actors. In this project, one can find the four dimensions of religious space which Burchardt and Griera explore in their recent study on “doing religious space,” that is, spatiality, materiality, rituality, and governmentality (Burchardt & Griera, 2020). Insofar as religious groups have agreed on procedures, economic issues, and architectural planning activities, the clash between religious and secular (both political and economic) interests seems, at this point, unconcealable. The ghosting behavior exhibited by political authorities has widely contributed to the failure of this inclusive project. The city has neglected its commitment, both as the formal client of the project and the neutral, institutional actor called to mediate between religious and secular (as well as common and private) interests. In a national and local context marked by de jure and de facto inequalities, the public and political institutions’ role is crucial, both in promoting pluralistic, inclusive policies and in ensuring a fair balance of interests. What remains today is an empty space in a building that has not become a pole of social innovation, as was promised; on the contrary, it is a urban waste (Blaustein, 2011; Koolhaas, 2006). As recent debates show, this failed project is a missed opportunity for lay and religious mediators who have played a crucial role in recent years; the only goal they have achieved is a more reliable network among them. From a material perspective, the Casa delle religioni is in a way an invisible failure, as it is quite impossible to perceive the emptiness of the 300 m2 room in a half-empty building.

References Becci, I., Burchardt, M., & Giorda, M. (2016). Religious Super-Diversity and Spatial Strategies in Two European Cities. Current Sociology, 65(1). Blaustein, J. (2011). Urban Media Lab: Waste. New School University. Bobbio, L. (2005). La democrazia deliberativa nella pratica. Stato e Mercato, Rivista quadrimestale, 67–88. Bossi, L. (2018). Trovare spazio in città. L’insediamento dell’ortodossia a Torino. In AA.  VV., Ortodossia romena a Torino. I Quaderni della Fondazione Benvenuti in Italia, 13, 110–130. Bossi, L. (2019). Le moschee: spazio della violenza o luogo della comunità? In M. Bombardieri, M. Giorda, & S. Hejazi (Eds.), Capire l’islam: mito o realtà? (pp. 237–264). Morcelliana. Bossi, L. (2020). Le minoranze e la città. Regimi urbani e dinamiche spaziali d’insediamento delle religioni a Torino, Mondi Migranti, Franco Angeli, 117–133.

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Bossi, L., & Giorda, M. (Eds.). (2017). Islam a Torino, I Quaderni della Fondazione Benvenuti in Italia. https://benvenutiinitalia.it/wp-­content/ uploads/2011/09/Scarica-­il-­quinto-­quaderno-­della-­Fondazione-­1.pdf Botti, F. (2014). Edifici di culto e loro pertinenze, consumo del territorio e spending review, Stato, Chiese e Pluralismo Confessionale, Rivista telematica, 27, from https://doi.org/10.13130/1971-­8543/4301 Brandt, S., Maennig, W., & Richter, F. (2014). Do Houses of Worship Affect Housing Prices? Evidence from Germany. Growth and Change, 45(4), 549–570. Burchardt, M., & Höhne, S. (2015). The Infrastructure of Diversity: Materiality and Culture in Urban Space – An Introduction. New Diversities, 17(2), 1–13. Burchardt, M., & Westdendorp, M. (2018). The Im-materiality of Urban Religion: Towards an Ethnography of Urban Religious Aspirations. Culture and Religion, 19(2), 160–176. Burchardt, M., & Griera, M. (2020). Doing Religious Space in the Mediterranean City: Towards a Historical Sociology of Urban Religion. Religion and Urbanity Online, Begemann, E., Rau, & Rüpke, J. (Eds.).https://doi.org/10.1515/ urbrel.13215539 Chiodelli, F. (2015). Religion and the City: A Review on Muslim Spatiality in Italian Cities. Cities, 44, 19–28. Department of Urban Planning, Private Construction Division, Personal Interview #27/13-12-2017. Enriore, M. (1995). Siamo andati per chiese sessant’anni - 1935/1995. Opera diocesana preservazione della fede Torino-Chiese. Fabretti, V., Giorda, M., & Griera, M. (2018). Initiativesinterreligieuseset gouvernancelocale: les cas de Barcelone et de Turin. Social Compass, 65(3), 312–318. Folliero, M. C. (2010). Enti religiosi e non pro fi t tra welfare state e welfare community: la transizione. Giappichelli. Giglioli, I. (2017). From ‘a Frontier Land’ to ‘a Piece of North Africa in Italy’: The Changing Politics of ‘Tunisianness’ in Mazara del Vallo, Sicily. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 41(5), 749–766. Giorda, M., Campobenedetto, D., Hejazi, S., & Robiglio, M. (2016). Una casa delle religioni, a study implemented by the Benvenuti in Italia Foundation and Homers. Compagnia di Sanpaolo. Giorda, M., & Longhi, A. (2019). Religioni e spazi ibridi nella città contemporanea: profili di metodo e di storiografia. Atti e Rassegna Tecnica della Società degli Ingegneri e degli Architetti in Torino 152, 73(2), 108–116. Giorda, M., & Vanolo, A. (2019). Religious Diversity and Inter-Faith Competition: The Politics of Camouflage in Italian Cities. Territory, Politics, Governance, 6, 362–380. Hackworth, J., & Rekers, J. (2005). Ethnic Packaging and Gentrification: The Case of Four Neighborhoods in Toronto. Urban Affairs Review, 41(2), 211–236.

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Kong, L. (2001). Mapping ‘New’ Geographies of Religion: Politics and Poetics in Modernity. Progress in Human Geo., 25(2), 211–233. Kong, L. (2010a). Cutting Through the Postsecular City: A Spatial Interrogation. In A. Molendijk, J. Beaumont, & C. Jedan (Eds.), Exploring the Postsecular: The Religious, the Political, the Urban (pp. 19–38). Brill. Kong, L. (2010b). Religion, Space, and Place. The Spatial Turn in Research on Religion. Religion and Society: Advances in Research, 1(1), 29–34. Koolhaas, R. (2006). Junkspace. MIT Press. Löw, M. (2016). The Sociology of Space. Materiality, Social Structures, and Action. Palgrave Macmillan. Mazumdar, S., & Mazumdar, S. (2013). Planning, Design, and Religion: America’s Changing Urban Landscape. Journal of Architectural and Planning Research, 30(3), 221–243. Omenetto, S. (2020). Migrazioni e (dis)continuità spaziale nella morte. La gestione delle salme tra nuove e vecchie territorialità. Tau Editrice. Rüpke, J. (2020). Urban Religion. A Historical Approach to Urban Growth and Religious Change. de Gruyter. Salitsky, E. (2019). Multifaith Sanctuary Tour  - Trip Synopsis and Reflections [Unpublished Report]. Scarpone, S. (2020, July 22). Edit, la resa di Aurora. “Non si riesce a tagliare neanche l’erba”, La Stampa. https://www.lastampa.it/topnews/ edizioni-­locali/torino/2020/07/22/news/edit-­la-­r esa-­di-­aurora-­non-­si-­ riesce-­neanche-­a-­far-­tagliare-­l-­erba-­1.39111881 Tse, J. K. H. (2014). Grounded Theologies: ‘Religion’ and the ‘Secular’ in Human Geography. Progress in Human Geography, 38(2), 201–220. Zito, C. (2013). Casa tra le case. Architettura di chiese a Torino durante l’episcopato del cardinale Michele Pellegrino (1965-1977). Effatà Editrice.

CHAPTER 11

Multi-Religious Places by Design: Space, Materiality, and Media in Berlin’s House of One Marian Burchardt

Introduction1 Drawing on an analysis of the multi-religious architectural project called “House of One,” which is currently being realized in the center of Berlin, this chapter explores the spatial dynamics surrounding what I call multi-­ religious places by design. Over the last twenty years, there has been a massive proliferation of such places, which include generic places of worship that are open to followers of diverse religions and are built within administrative buildings (e.g., universities and parliaments), shopping malls, 1  I acknowledge and  am  very grateful for  the  contributions of  Therese Mager, Johanna Häring, and  Amelie Blaser to  the  research on  which this chapter is based.  The chapter is a revised and expanded version of a text was originally published under the title “Designing Interreligious Encounters: Space, Materiality, and  Media in  Berlin’s House of  One” in Material Religion: The Journal of Objects, Art and Belief.

M. Burchardt (*) Institute of Sociology, Leipzig University, Leipzig, Germany e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 M. Burchardt, M. C. Giorda (eds.), Geographies of Encounter, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82525-6_11

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hospitals, and hubs of public infrastructure (e.g., airports and train stations), but also buildings specifically dedicated to multi-religious uses (see Cozma as well as Bossi and Giorda in this volume).2 Scholars of architecture and cultural heritage have emphasized how buildings and monuments are “symbolic condensations” (Alexander, 2010, p. 11) that give tangible shape to otherwise abstract ideas of tolerance and multiculturalism. Against this background, this chapter asks: How are liberal notions of tolerance, religious sharing, and diversity addressed and translated in the medium of architecture? What accounts for architectural and design choices and how are they perceived by urban audiences? How do iconic multi-religious buildings facilitate the formation of urban, national, and transnational publics in which understandings of shared sacred space and its legitimacy are negotiated? And how are competing notions of multi-­ religious coexistence inscribed in such buildings and reworked through media discourses? My argument is that the spatial dynamics through which such multi-­ religious places by design come into being and have effects involve three distinct processes: design, eventization, and mediatization. Each of these processes grounds contemporary multi-religious places in particular spatial scales: while design processes lead to particular localized material forms, which enable and constrain future uses and give concrete shape to places, these places acquire social significance through events such as shared devotions, interreligious prayers for peace, and so on. Organized at these sites, such events render multi-religious places visible to urban audiences and afford them prominence in urban space. Subsequently, visual imagery and textual messages of these events begin to circulate via digital media and flow through transnational virtual spaces, whereby they are able to affect audiences worldwide. Each of these processes makes contemporary multi-religious places by design different from their historical predecessors, which many chapters of this volume discuss, while also reverberating with some of their features, and each of them comes with its own contestations. The House of One, currently under construction in Berlin’s central district of Mitte, claims to be the world’s first mosque-synagogue-church but is indeed one in a whole series of multi-religious places that have

2  On these generic places, which are often designed as “rooms of silence,” see Crompton (2013) and Nagel (2017).

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Fig. 11.1  Gertraudenstrasse, © Kuehn Malvezzi, Visualization: Davide Abbonacci, Kuehn Malvezzi

emerged from civil society-driven interreligious initiatives (Fig.  11.1).3 What justifies such far-reaching claims about the House of One is that unlike other projects of this kind, it comes with and is largely driven by its spectacular architectural design. This design turns it into a case of “iconic architecture” (Sklair, 2010), which, as a “global travelling idea” (Balke et al., 2018, p. 997), has come to dominate the urban landscapes and aesthetic codes of global cities and has also, by virtue of articulating  On the different organizational dynamics behind multi-religious initiatives, see the chapter by Bossi and Giorda in this volume. 3

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identities, turned into a powerful resource in struggles over power in the city. While thus far mainly used to capture the global prestige attached to flagship architectural projects in the field of corporate (e.g., banks) or cultural buildings (e.g., the Sydney Opera House), I suggest that the House of One carries the idea of iconic architecture into the field of multi-religious places and interreligious dialogue, thereby affording it hitherto unknown levels of prominence. Importantly, multi-religious places by design are acquiring—and shaped by—spatial dynamics that bear some remarkable similarities to their historical predecessors. The management of iconic sacred centers such as the Temple Mount in Jerusalem (see Luz in this volume), the Hagia Sofia in Istanbul, or the Mosque Cathedral of Cordoba (see Astor et  al., 2019; Griera et al., 2019) always animated religious passions and inspired political controversy in faraway places, operating as they did as symbols of political triumph or interreligious tolerance at transregional spatial scales. In that sense, their significance was never limited to those who owned, managed, and visited these sites. Instead, they became objects of geopolitical contention. Similarly, although exhibited today through virtual communication infrastructures, projects such as the House of One are objects of contention in transnational public spheres in which diverse audiences evaluate them. Processes of mediatization, which the coronavirus pandemic and the attendant shift toward virtual interactions have powerfully reinforced, enable forms of the communicative construction of interreligious relations and multi-religious architecture that reach beyond particular localities and nation-states. As a result, contemporary multi-religious places such as the House of One entwine divergent spatial scales of interreligious relations, linking the spatial design of a multi-religious building with the flow spaces of global media and virtual communication. My argument is that the success and impact of particular communicative constructions—their political traction and cultural resonance—hinge not only upon eventization and mediatization, but also on the potential of the project’s architectural design to achieve iconic status and to affect people.

Conceptualizing Multi-Religious Places by Design I suggest that in order to understand how the spatial arrangements and forms of interreligious cohabitation in multi-religious places by design are mutually shaped, a comparison with their historical predecessors is

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imperative. First, as the scholarship on shared sacred places has aptly demonstrated, mixed religious uses of sacred sites typically emerged through partial conversions of religious buildings in the context of territorial expansions of kingdoms, states, or empires, at geographic frontier zones (Albera & Couroucli, 2012; Barkan & Barkey, 2014; Bowman, 2012; Hayden, 2002). Contemporary multi-religious places by design, by contrast, are constructed at the geographic heart of consolidated nation-states and are often linked to postcolonial migration influxes and new forms of religious pluralism. What defines them is that they are embedded in the discourses of interreligious tolerance and pluralism that, as Walton (2015, p. 107) argues, seek “to fix the meaning of new architectural infrastructures as multiculturalist places.” In this sense, they are not only geographically but also symbolically located at the heart of multicultural nation-states. Second, as Hayden (2002), Hassner (2003), and others have shown, the religious sharing of historically developed multi-religious places is characterized by conflict, cooperation, and “antagonistic tolerance” (Hayden, 2002), and prevailing settlements are deeply reflective of the power relations among the involved religious groups (Luz, 2008). Multi-­ religious places by design, by contrast, almost never exhibit the same level of conflict, chiefly because participants are self-selected and voluntarily agree to engage in sharing (in whatever concrete way) religious space. In contemporary multi-religious places, there are (officially) no winners and losers. Instead of having to accommodate divergent religious interests as an outcome of the rise of new political rulers or military defeat, participants typically begin by agreeing on shared principles on how to divide the space in question and how to cooperate. This also implies that the modalities of cooperation actually precede the establishment of the material religious place and that the latter is an outcome and manifestation of the former. This has further implications: in historically developed multi-religious places, multiple religious uses spring from existing religious interests in particular places because they were sites of hierophany, epiphany, tombs of saints, or dwellings of spirits whose worship was seen to secure health and so on. The sites in which multi-­ religious places by design are constructed typically lack such deep-running spiritual investments and religious needs, which explains why contestations—to the extent that they emerge—follow a different logic. Third, if in historically developed multi-religious places the modalities of interreligious interaction reflect power relations, this also holds true for the spatial arrangements of sharing, that is, dominant groups conceding

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some space to subordinated groups for activities such as the veneration of their saints.4 Again, at least according to official narratives, contemporary multi-religious places create spatial arrangements not on the basis of power hierarchies, but through deliberative decision-making that is inspired by the idea of interreligious dialogue. In fact, as with many other multi-religious places by design, the House of One is officially construed as the material manifestation of interreligious dialogue, as translating immaterial aspirations into material form (Burchardt & Westendorp, 2018). Such dialogue initiatives have become more numerous over the last two decades (Griera & Nagel, 2018) and have turned into platforms for the articulation of new forms of religious governance (Griera, 2012). Especially in the post-9/11 political space, interreligious dialogues have acquired greater political attention, as religious difference is increasingly seen as a factor that may undermine social cohesion and integration, and is discursively problematized as in need of political intervention (Burchardt, 2017). As a consequence, interreligious relations are now viewed as requiring active management. As a field-­ specific expression of the dialogue paradigm, which has spread across diverse institutional domains such as peace-building, ethnic conflict management, and collective trauma work, interreligious dialogues are sites for the negotiation of the boundaries of the religious field and of religious differences, and for the articulation of religious interests vis-à-vis the state—and vice versa. Multi-religious places imbue these functions with public visibility and spatial prominence. However, debates on interreligious dialogue often operate with a number of unspoken assumptions, especially the ideas that interreligious dialogues are per se desirable, that participants engage in them on more or less equal terms, and that they are actually capable of positively affecting interreligious encounters. In this chapter, I also seek to interrogate these assumptions by showing how multi-religious places such as the House of One favor certain religious groups and ideas about interreligious cohabitation and that such prioritizing is inseparable from questions of space. As the next section demonstrates, the Christian history of St. Petri Square, where the House of One is being built, is deeply inscribed in and shapes the debates surrounding it, even those concerning its design. 4  The participation of dominant and subordinated religious groups may follow different spatial strategies (Becci et al., 2017) and is often enabled by particular infrastructural arrangements (see Burchardt & Höhne, 2015).

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The House of One: The Birth of an Idea Claiming to offer the world’s first mosque-church-synagogue, the idea for the building project in Berlin’s central district of Mitte emerged in the context of archaeological excavations that took place between 2007 and 2009 at the site of the former St. Petri church, situated at a square with the same name, which belonged to the local Protestant parish. Archaeologists found the remains of no fewer than five different church buildings. While initially erected in 1230, the church was repeatedly rebuilt due to fires and in order to adapt it to changing aesthetic and architectural tastes. Importantly, the square is one of the founding sites of the city of Berlin; some of the earliest evidence of human settlement in the Berlin area have been found here. During the final days of the Second World War, the church of St. Petri was severely damaged. Almost twenty years later, in 1960, East German political authorities made the decision to tear the building down, demolishing it in 1964. The area of the former church and St. Petri Square were subsequently partially covered by multiple lanes of newly built urban highways, which cut through the former medieval city as per the planning directives of socialist urbanism. Today, St. Petri Square is a site that is surrounded by massive urban regeneration projects, all of which aim to restore Berlin’s former historic center, revamp the area in ways attuned to the dominant urbanist ideology of “critical historical reconstruction” and the attendant bourgeois sensibilities, and make it fit for consumption by global tourist audiences.5 An architectural competition to design the House of One was organized and concluded in September 2012 with the awarding of a contract to a Berlin-based architectural team. Within intellectual circles, the design has widely been perceived as visionary; it was presented at the 2015 Chicago Architecture Biennial and other international events. Formally, the project is run by the so-called Foundation House of One—“House of Prayer and Teaching St. Petri” [Bet- und Lehrhaus St. Petri], which was founded in 2011 as a joint effort between the local parish (representing the Protestant side), the Abraham Geiger College at the University of Potsdam and Jewish Community of Berlin (representing the Jewish side), 5  The House of One is already publicized on the city’s official tourist website, despite the fact that construction activities have not even started. See http://www.visitberlin.de/de/ ort/house-of-one-in-planung

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the Forum for Intercultural Dialogue Hizmet (representing the Muslim side), and the Berlin government. In order to demonstrate their commitment to interreligious activities, the chief representatives of the involved parties organized numerous so-called “Worships for Peace” at the excavation site. Over the last several years, the frequency of interreligious activities at the site has strongly increased, and since 2018 there have been several interreligious meditations and prayers each month. Animated by such performances of interreligious peace, public and political responses to the project were overwhelmingly enthusiastic. Politicians, religious leaders, and other dignitaries hailed the project as a beacon of tolerance in a world of conflict and extolled the efforts of its advocates as visionary. In 2019, for instance, the local newspaper Berliner Abendblatt wrote that the Senator for Culture, Klaus Lederer, called the House of One a “worldwide role model for tolerance, openness, successful dialogue and constructive togetherness of the religions in a plural city.”6 Mobilizing lofty fantasies of peaceful interreligious coexistence, the House of One was thus greeted with almost unanimous public support, inscribed into narratives of Berlin as a cosmopolitan city and thereby turned into a new temple of multiculturalism. However, the project was subjected to repeated criticisms because of the close association of the Islamic partner, the Forum for Intercultural Dialogue, with the influential Turkish preacher Fetullah Gülen and his revivalist Islamic movement. Sections of Berlin’s Jewish community—but also of the Christian public—hold reservations about the Forum Dialogue, as Fetullah Gülen, who is exiled in the U.S., is known to have made anti-­ Semitic comments during the 1990s and endorsed the death penalty for apostates, though he later claimed to have revised these views. More importantly, many Muslims of Turkish origin are critical of Gülen because of his alleged involvement in the attempted military coup of July 15  in 2016. In its aftermath, the Turkish AKP government carried out a massive campaign against presumed members of Gülen’s networks, efforts which also spread into Turkish diaspora communities in Germany. As a result of this campaign, Gülen’s followers were criminalized and stigmatized, and in the eyes of Sunni Muslims, the legitimacy of the Forum Dialogue as the Islamic representative in the House of One was undermined.

6   Author’s own translation, from http://www.abendblatt-berlin.de/2019/03/15/ plaene-fuer-house-of-one-werden-immer-konkreter/

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One central aspect of the project is that it was supposed to be financed mainly through private donations. To that end, a crowd funding campaign was launched in June 2014. Citizens from across the world were invited to donate via the symbolic purchasing of small bricks for €10 each through the project’s online shop and to leave messages to be included in the building, thereby symbolically participating in the construction. However, by the end of 2020, the association was only able to collect €10,550,000, just a fraction of the €48  million needed to complete the project. Campaigners have thus faced continuous difficulties in reaching the “small donors” they chiefly targeted. Yet thanks to the massive contributions of the German federal government and the city government of Berlin of more than €30  million, the realization of the building was able to be secured. According to the official description of the project, the House of One is envisaged as a participatory space that will include wide sections of urban society and will be geared toward situating transparent and public forms of dialogue among religious communities at the center of the secular city. In addition, the organizers have emphasized the importance of “honest” mutual recognition and getting to know one another without glossing over existing differences, as well as the need to develop shared forms of celebrating the history of interreligious relationships in the city. They see the originality of the project in the fact that, while most existing multi-faith spaces have been established following the initiative of state authorities, the House of One is the product of the initiative of the faith communities themselves.

Writing History Ever since its inception, the project has generated massive interest within the media and among cultural and political elites in Germany and abroad (especially in Europe, the U.S., the Muslim world, and Israel). Among Berlin’s population, by contrast, interest in the project has remained modest. Significantly, in the ensuing international debates, the connections between the project, its particular location (in the city of Berlin), and the history and memory of the city were viewed as central to its purpose. Thus, as Rabbi Tovia Ben Chorin explained to the British newspaper The Independent, “We will take Berlin from being the city of wounds to being the city of miracles” (Paterson, 2014). He also told the BBC, “From my Jewish point of view the city where Jewish suffering was planned is now

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the city where a center is being built by the three monotheistic religions which shaped European culture” (Evans, 2014). Imam Kadir Sanci (a representative of the Forum of Intercultural Dialogue) explained to the same media outlet that the House of One is “a sign, a signal to the world that the great majority of Muslims are peaceful and not violent,” adding that it was a place where different cultures could learn from one another. He further insisted, “We want our children to have a future in which diversity is the norm” (Evans, 2014). Protestant Pastor Gregor Hohberg, too, underlined the historical dimension of the project: “[Following the excavations,] we quickly agreed that something visionary and forward-looking should be built on what is the founding site of Berlin” (Hafiz, 2014). Referring to the history of the Cold War and partition, he added that “Berlin is the city of the peaceful fall of the Berlin Wall and the peaceful coexistence of believers from different faiths—they yearn to understand each other” (Hafiz, 2014). He also stressed that the multicultural and multi-religious city of Berlin was precisely the place in which to build such a structure, adding that “Berlin is a city where people come together from all over the world and we want to give a good example of togetherness” (Evans, 2014). The deployment of Cold War tropes in debates about the House of One is as astonishing as it is common. In early July 2016, interfaith activists of the Berlin Forum of Religions organized the first “festival of religions” in Berlin. In his welcome speech, the head of the parliamentary section of Berlin’s governing Social Democrats at the time, Raed Saleh, argued that “only in Berlin is it possible to have such a festival and overcome the differences among the religions. Because Berlin has been able to tear down the wall between the East and West, it is only here that we can tear down the wall between religions. The Berlin Wall divided the city, the country, and the whole world, but we tore it down. So, we can also tear down the wall between religions.”7 I suggest that these historical references point toward the ways in which interreligious dialogue is turned into the discursive paradigm of future peaceful coexistence, and multi-religious places into the sites that afford interreligious dialogue urban visibility and durable material form (see also Burchardt & Becci, 2013). In doing so, multi-religious buildings serve to unite heterogeneous elements into an assemblage of memory in which parts of history—such as Nazi Germany

 Quote taken from the author’s field notes.

7

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and the Cold War—are transmogrified so as to fit with post-1989 and post-9/11 notions of religious difference. In historical perspective, the fact that five different church buildings have existed at St. Petri square undoubtedly renders it a deeply Christian site, a fact that distinguishes the House of One from many other contemporary multi-religious places that are built on secular ground. This Christian character, however, has been thoroughly undone through East German socialist urbanism. The particular historical trajectory of the square and the surrounding urban are continuously mobilized in public debates in order to highlight the uniqueness of the project. Advocates of the projects argue that by building a new sacred building, they are returning something to the square, the city, and its inhabitants that was violently taken from them. In my interviews as well, Christian project participants emphasized the symbolic significance of erecting this building at the founding site of Berlin, but even more the fact that the new sacred building is based on the solidarity and peaceful coexistence among religious communities, as well as between them and urban residents. By enabling interreligious encounters, the House of One is assumed to “give future-­ oriented shape to the interplay of religion and the city—under the changed conditions of our time—at an old and symbolically charged site,” as the advocates stated (Hohberg & Stolte, 2013, p. 3, my translation). In fact, in their historical reflections, the organizers acknowledged that historical religious minorities that emerged through (often forced) migration, such as French Huguenots and Austrian Jews, have been able to inscribe their presence into the urban landscape. Unlike their historical forebears, contemporary minority groups such as Muslims are largely architecturally invisible, and it is this gap that the House of One seeks to address. Temporal notions and (concretely) the promise of architecture to help build a peaceful future are thus central for the ways in which the House of One is discursively placed as a marker of rupture.

Design as a Contentious Process From early on, the advocates of the House of One placed maximum emphasis on their architectural vision, which gave precedence to aural and aesthetic qualities over practical concerns linked to the site’s later usage. In public talks as well as in my interviews with them, Protestant representatives proclaimed the building to be a public sculpture that was meant to offer residents an experience of radical alterity vis-à-vis the building’s

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surrounding post-socialist urban space. In their vision, the building was meant to “breathe transcendence,” a statement which gestures toward the ways that they imagined its osmotic relationship with the secular spaces in its vicinity and the city as a whole. The architectural model that emerged as victorious from the competition involves a building of three floors, made up of a basement floor in which the excavation sites (and thus “history”) remain open for visitors, a ground floor of four separate rooms, and a top floor with open side walls, which the architects describe as an “urban loggia” and where the building overlooks (and reaches out to) the city (Fig. 11.2). The basement floor is meant to exhibit and make tangible the Christian beginnings of Berlin, while the ground floor seeks to give material shape to the idea of the contemporary, religiously diverse city. Religious activities are supposed to take place on the ground floor, with a separate room reserved for each of the participating religious communities in which they can conduct their religious rituals according to their tradition. The fourth room, by contrast, is envisaged as a room of encounter and interreligious learning, a room in which followers of the different religions get together and engage in conversations, exchanging with other sections of urban society. It is only as members of this last category that religious communities other than the organizers are able to use the building.

Fig. 11.2  Floor plan of the first floor. © Kuehn Malvezzi

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Fears of syncretism loomed large from the beginning, and in my conversations with project participants time and again, I was reminded that the project was not about “mixing” divergent religious traditions but that in fact, it allowed Christians, Jews, and Muslims to engage in encounters without having to mix. Whether in anticipation of possible criticism from public actors who perceived the project as advocating “religious mixing” or as a serious theological concern, in the initiators’ discourse, the notion of non-mixing acquired a quasi-doctrinal status that sat somewhat uneasily with the official language of interreligious encounter and openness. Non-­ mixing became the premise and condition upon which participating Christians, Muslims, and Jews saw themselves as ready for an encounter. Strikingly, all of the important architectural features that would later shape the ways in which Christians, Jews, and Muslims would interact in the building and share space in it were already prescribed in the tender documents to the architects who participated in the competition. Thus, the specifications included the building’s height, the basic material (raw brick), the fact that the remains of historical churches be visible throughout several stories, the stipulation that technical demands be minimal and secondary vis-à-vis aesthetic criteria, and a request that the religious traditions be made “recognizable” via the building’s design. Significantly, even the distribution of space among the religious communities was regulated, with parity to be realized not through the equal allocation of floor space, but of the rooms’ volume (to be realized via varying heights). Framing the ways in which the material and the social are entwined in architecture, Thomas Gieryn (2002, p. 41, italics in original) argues that “design is both the planning of material things and the resolution of sometimes competing social interests.” Numerous actors were involved in the design of the House of One, including a board of trustees (involving dignitaries from the Berlin government, the federal government, and high-level cultural institutions), the jury, and a large advisory board of experts in which archeologists, theologians, urban planners, and even public intellectuals and writers such as Navid Kermani had a say in how the building should look. They all assembled around a design that championed sculptural aesthetics and an architectural language of sublimeness over social and practical concerns. However, the competitive nature of the social interests in the building became manifest through a number of criticisms leveled against the design choices when the architectural and design plans were made public. Many of them centered on the notion that the internal design seemed too rigid.

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Thus, in a conversation with me, one activist of Berlin’s Forum of Religions, an interreligious civil society organization, lamented that the design practically disabled everything that interreligious encounters often consist of: “What do we do when we get together? We sit and talk but we also cook together, we bring our families, we paint and we play. This is lived religious diversity, diversity that you can experience by participating in everyday shared activities. But what can you do in the House of One? Nothing of that sort, because there is not even a kitchen.” Importantly, while in political and architectural circles the building’s external design was unanimously acclaimed as path breaking, such views were not always shared by ordinary people. In a group discussion about the House of One conducted in 2020 with Muslims in Berlin, several participants suggested that the building appeared intimidating, strange, and uninviting. In this as in many other conversations, my interlocutors argued that, especially because of the lack of windows and its seemingly massive shape, the design resembled that of a castle. Perceived as dark, closed to the outside, and well-fortified, the building’s model called forth a whole host of associations which sat uneasily with its purported aims and produced various affective dissonances; dissonances between the windowless walls and the notion of transparent dialogue, or between the sealed brick surfaces and the idea that the building would invite Berlin’s citizenry to participate in the conversations it was supposed to house. Another set of concerns was raised by one participant at the House of One Summer Party in 2018 after a presentation: “I am wondering, who are the people—the congregations—behind this idea, which looks to me rather like a utopia? Who are the people in Berlin filling the idea with real life? I don’t even think anyone wants this project, which is only eating up money.”8 If, as Gieryn (2002, p.  42) argues, “the design process is simultaneously the representation of an artifact in graphic, verbal, or numerical form, and the enrollment or enlistment of those allies necessary to move the artifact toward material form,” it also constitutes its own outside. Placed on the outside of the design process and the celebratory public discourse that continuously enhanced the building’s iconicity, ordinary locals sometimes failed to be affected. Others such as longstanding interfaith activists argued that the building was merely about symbolic politics and cheap showmanship instead of engaging the practical question of  The author’s own translation from field notes.

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interreligious conviviality in the city. One Muslim woman from the Intercultural Center Dialogue and Education, an Islamic neighborhood association promoting local encounters, thus noted in a conversation: “The House of One is a great project, I really like it. But it’s not like once you have the building, all the work is done. The work is still there to be done—interreligious engagement is work that we have been doing for all these years, and nobody ever came and asked us about it.”

Eventization and Mediatization As mentioned before, several years before the first brick was to be laid, the House of One began its social life through multiple events organized by its sponsors. Similar “urban religious events” (Bramadat et al., 2021) have multiplied over recent decades and have served to take religion “outside congregations” (Bender et  al., 2012). Drawing on the public nature of urban spaces, religious events performed at sites such as St. Petri square enlist their own face-to-face audiences while at the time creating transnational publics and imagined communities whose participation is enabled through social media. They draw on the established ritual repertoires of religious traditions but also introduce a range of new elements: they typically foreground the aesthetic dimensions of rituals, provide spaces for experiences of re-enchantment, and seek to mobilize adherents from broad, amorphous publics (Pfadenhauer, 2010). According to Griera (2019, p. 35), within the broader field of religious events, interreligious events are often “intended to commemorate traumatic memories, to mourn the victims of violence or disasters,” and serve to perform solidarity and civic togetherness across the lines of religious difference. Among the interreligious events performed at the site of the future House of One, the most regular ones have been those linked to the particular religious holidays of the constituent communities, that is, Jews, Muslims, and Protestants. On these occasions, the representatives have joined the celebrations of these holidays through some shared activity. Another set of events has consisted of commemorations of the violence associated with historical moments, periods, or acts of religious intolerance and racism against certain groups, such as the Holocaust. Participants have also commemorated and paid tribute to the victims of more recent acts of racism and terrorism. Thus, for instance, on November 20, 2020, they honored the victims of recent violent attacks against non-whites, Muslims, and Jews in Germany and the Islamist terror attacks that had

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occurred during that month in Vienna, Paris, Nice, and Dresden. In the preceding year, they commented on the Islamic terrorist attacks against Catholic Christians in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday. In this context, Imam Kadir Sanci suggested: “Sri Lanka may be far away, but this attack is still an attack on all of us. We all live on this one earth. It is therefore all the more important that we unite and unite in love and peace—across all differences.”9 Similarly, in a memorial event for the victims of the right-­ wing terror attack in Christchurch, New Zealand, that same year, Imam Sanci told the audience: In every country, in every city we need places like the House of One, where people of every religion, every ideology come together, meet, exchange. Only in this way can we hold together against any terror, no matter from which direction it may come.10

Almost all of these activities (religious holidays and commemorations) involve interreligious prayers, which are—as the participants never tire of emphasizing—not joint prayers in the narrow sense of the word, but moments in which all participants (Jews, Muslims, and Christians) pray according to their own tradition. Concerns over religious mixing and the possibility that the rituals in which members of the House of One engage could be perceived as diluting the purity of each religious tradition are clearly evident here, just as they have shaped the design and spatial organization of the building itself. While some of these rituals have taken place at the site of the archeological excavations at the St. Petri square, others have been held in the nearby church of St. Mary, which belongs to the same parish, and in other churches or religious places around Berlin. Among other things, the organizers presented their project in the stadium of a local soccer club, in theaters, and to the local police force. For several years, shared activities also took place in a temporary pavilion at the construction site, which was built in order to exhibit the design plans and to breathe further life into the project. Importantly, all of these rituals continue their social life in cyberspace, as they are inevitably captured through photographs which are then posted on the House of One’s social media accounts. Especially in times of 9

 https://house-of-one.org/en/news/peace-prayer-sri-lanka  https://house-of-one.org/en/news/der-toten-von-christchurch-gedenken

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corona, this coverage is often supplemented and embellished by video messages in which members or supporters offer blessings, greetings, and statements. The House of One’s social media accounts on Twitter and Facebook share, post, and retweet statements from individuals and religious or political institutions. Again, tweeting is often related to events and developments linked to issues of tolerance and violence, such as terrorist attacks.11 Most of the statements express concern and compassion while also showing sympathy or calling upon solutions for multi-religious space, a world of tolerance, and respect. I argue that by retweeting and sharing these statements, participants of the House of One engage in processes of mediatization, which construct the building through communicative means. Significantly, the exposure and participation in debates on the House of One via social media do not seem to decrease people’s affective and emotional involvements with its underlying ideas. Following the views, comments, and evaluations of the project on Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook, I noted that many of them displayed particular emotional qualities. These were variably linked to the goals of the project (and their perceived realizability) or the project’s underlying ideas about interreligious relations, but also to the design itself. Users offered comments such as these: “Miracles in action! I am so happy to read about House of One and look forward to visiting it in future years”; “A heart-warming initiative that will no doubt bring good to the world”; and “The children of Abraham together under one roof at last, nice.”12 Such comments illustrate the particular affective ties and emotional investments in the House of One that people from often geographically distant places developed. While the majority of comments were positive (Fig. 11.3), there was also a variety of negative emotional responses (Fig. 11.4). Most of them were, in one way or another, related to the criticisms of the project described above (Fig. 11.5). The following charts reveal the heterogeneity of emotional qualities that were manifested in people’s comments as well as their numerical distribution. 11  See for example https://twitter.com/House_of_One_DE?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7 Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor April 21, 2019; March 19/20, 2019. 12  In one component of the research project on which this is based, we collected around 1000 social media comments on the House of One and coded them according to their emotional content. I am very grateful to Therese Mager for carrying out this part of the project. The quotes above are taken from this sample.

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Count per Emotional Tag (Positive)

Praise (no other tags)

Need

Peace

Good Idea

Support

Unity

Hope

Love

Inspiration

Progress

Tolerance

Optimism

Gratitude

Respect

Atheist Approval

Blessings

Happiness

Excitement

Pride

Fig. 11.3  Positive Emotions toward the House of One (chart by Therese Mager)

As Fig. 11.3 shows, perceptions that there was a real need for projects such as the House of One, that it would help bring peace to the world, and that it was therefore an ingenious idea to be supported were among the most common emotionally informed responses. It is by paying attention to these highly emotionally charged expressions that we can begin to understand how architectural projects acquire iconic force. I suggest that iconic force rests neither exclusively in the audiences who imbue buildings with cultural meaning, nor primarily in the building itself, but in the relationship between them. As a socio-material energy that is fundamentally relational, iconic force emerges from the ways people attach their vision of interreligious peace to buildings such as the House of One, begin to see them actualized through the building itself, and develop affective ties to it.

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Count per Emotional Tag (Negative)

Distrust

Anreligion

Disapproval (Religious Objecon)

Disapproval (Waste)

Pessimism

Doubt

Exclusion (Religious)

Islamophobia

Disapproval (Gülen Connecon)

Fear (Terrorism)

Exclusion (Sexist)

Dislike

Fear (Conspiracy)

Impaence

Disapproval (Muslim Connecon)

Disapproval (Foreign Funding)

Ansemism

Fig. 11.4  Negative Emotions toward the House of One (chart by Therese Mager)

Conclusions My main aim in this chapter was to elucidate the specificities of what I call multi-religious places by design and to trace the ways in which they fit into the long history of multi-religious spaces, which this volume delineates, highlighting both continuities with their historical predecessors as well as ruptures. While it is clear that historically developed multi-religious spaces, which most chapters in this volume address, also exhibit elements of design processes, their shape is mainly driven by material and spatial adaptations produced by religious actors in contexts of changing power relations. As for instance the changes of the interior of the Hagia Sofia following the Islamic conquest of Constantinople show, design is chiefly re-design. In places such as the House of One, what is redesigned is the square—the immediate urban surrounding—while the multi-religious building is designed from scratch, as it were.

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10 Most Common Emotional Tags (Pos + Neg) 120 100 80

60 40 20 0

Fig. 11.5  Most common emotions toward the House of One (chart by Therese Mager)

In his work on newly constructed multi-religious buildings in Turkey, Jeremy Walton (2015, p. 115) argues that such projects tend to produce reified forms of “diversity.” Indeed, multi-religious buildings such as the House of One, just as the paradigm of interreligious dialogue more broadly, inevitably have to wrestle with the paradox that they, willy-nilly, assert or affirm the religious differences which they seek to overcome. Such places necessarily foreground and favor the religious identities of urban citizens over other identities these same citizens hold. It seems that, as spatial arrangements, multi-religious cities accommodate a much richer array of fluid identifications as in the fleeting, evanescent, and often anonymous encounters that—following Simmel (1903)—characterize urban life, wherein mutual categorizations are always shifting and unstable. By contrast, in multi-religious buildings by design, this fluidity is lost as one type of social category—religion—takes precedence over all others. At the same time, the House of One, despite the inevitable affective dissonances and frictions that emerged during and after the design process, has managed to animate debate and inspire fantasies of peaceful coexistence—not only on the part of believers, but also among those who otherwise remain at the margins of religious life.

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References Albera, D., & Couroucli, M. (Eds.). (2012). Sharing Sacred Spaces in the Mediterranean: Christians, Muslims, and Jews at Shrines and Sanctuaries. Indiana University Press. Alexander, J. C. (2010). Iconic Consciousness: The Material Feeling of Meaning. Thesis Eleven, 103(1), 10–25. Astor, A., Burchardt, M., & Griera, M. (2019). Polarization and the Limits of Politicization: Cordoba’s Mosque-Cathedral and the Politics of Cultural Heritage. Qualitative Sociology, 42(3), 337–360. Balke, J., Reuber, P., & Wood, G. (2018). Iconic Architecture and Place-Specific Neoliberal Governmentality: Insights from Hamburg’s Elbe Philharmonic Hall. Urban Studies, 55(5), 997–1012. Barkan, E., & Barkey, K. (Eds.). (2014). Choreographies of Shared Sacred Sites: Religion, Politics, and Conflict Resolution. Columbia University Press. Becci, I., Burchardt, M., & Giorda, M. (2017). Religious Super-Diversity and Spatial Strategies in Two European Cities. Current Sociology, 65(1), 73–91. Bender, C., Cadge, W., Levitt, P., & Smilde, D. (2012). Introduction. Religion on the Edge: De-Centering and Re-Centering the Sociology of Religion. In C.  Bender, W.  Cadge, P.  Levitt, & D.  Smilde (Eds.), Religion on the Edge: De-Centering and Re-Centering the Sociology of Religion (pp.  1–20). Oxford University Press. Bowman, G. (Ed.). (2012). Sharing the Sacra: The Politics and Pragmatics of Intercommunal Relations around Holy Places. Berghahn Books. Bramadat, P., Griera, M., Burchardt, M., & Martinez-Ariño, J. (Eds.). (2021). Urban Religious Events: Public Spirituality in Contested Spaces. Bloomsbury Publishing. Burchardt, M. (2017). Diversity as Neoliberal Governmentality: Towards a New Sociological Genealogy of Religion. Social Compass, 64(2), 180–193. Burchardt, M., & Becci, I. (2013). Introduction: Religion Takes Place: Producing Urban Locality. In I. Becci, M. Burchardt, & J. Casanova (Eds.), Topographies of Faith (pp. 1–21). Brill. Burchardt, M., & Höhne, S. (2015). The Infrastructures of Diversity: Materiality and Culture in Urban Space–an Introduction. New Diversities, 17(2), 1–13. Burchardt, M., & Westendorp, M. (2018). The Im-Materiality of Urban Religion: Towards an Ethnography of Urban Religious Aspirations. Culture and Religion, 19(2), 160–176. Crompton, A. (2013). The Architecture of Multifaith Spaces: God Leaves the Building. The Journal of Architecture, 18(4), 474–496. Evans, S. (2014, June 22). Berlin House of One: The First Church-Mosque-­ Synagogue? BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-­27872551 Gieryn, T. F. (2002). What Buildings Do. Theory and Society, 31(1), 35–74.

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Griera, M. (2012). Public Policies, Interfaith Associations and Religious Minorities: A New Policy Paradigm? Evidence from the Case of Barcelona. Social Compass, 59(4), 570–587. Griera, M. (2019). Interreligious Events in the Public Space: Performing Togetherness in Times of Religious Pluralism. In M.  Moyaert (Ed.), Interreligious Relations and the Negotiation of Ritual Boundaries (pp. 35–55). Palgrave Macmillan. Griera, M., Burchardt, M., & Astor, A. (2019). European Identities, Heritage, and the Iconic Power of Multi-Religious Buildings: Cordoba’s Mosque Cathedral and Berlin’s House of One. In G. Giordan & A. P. Lynch (Eds.), Volume 10: Interreligious Dialogue (pp. 13–31). Brill. Griera, M., & Nagel, A.-K. (2018). Interreligious Relations and Governance of Religion in Europe: Introduction. Social Compass, 65(3), 301–311. Hafiz, Y. (2014). Berlin Plans ‘House of One’. Huffington Post. https://www. huffpost.com/entry/house-­of-­one-­berlin-­interfaith_n_5489444 Hassner, R. E. (2003). “To Halve and to Hold”: Conflicts over Sacred Space and the Problem of Indivisibility. Security Studies, 12(4), 1–33. Hayden, R. (2002). Antagonistic Tolerance: Competitive Sharing of Religious Sites in South Asia and the Balkans. Current Anthropology, 43(2), 205–231. Hohberg, G., & Stolte, R. (Eds.). (2013). Das Haus der Drei Religionen. Betund Lehrhaus Berlin. Entwürfe für einen Sakralbau von morgen. Dom Publishers. Luz, N. (2008). The Politics of Sacred Places: Palestinian Identity, Collective Memory, and Resistance in the Hassan BekMosque Conflict. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 26(6), 1036–1052. Nagel, A.-K. (2017). Beredtes Schweigen. Wie man Räume der Stille zum Sprechen bringt. In B.  Beinhauer-Köhler, E.  Franke, C.  Frateantonio, & A.  Nagel (Eds.), Religion, Raum und Natur: Religionswissenschaftliche Erkundungen (pp. 153–178). Lit. Paterson, T. (2014, June 8). Welcome to Berlin’s House of One  – A Church, Mosque and Synagogue. Independent. https://www.independent.co.uk/ news/world/europe/welcome-­berlin-­s-­house-­one-­church-­synagogue-­and-­ mosque-­9507002.html Pfadenhauer, M. (2010). The Eventization of Faith as a Marketing Strategy: World Youth Day as an Innovative Response of the Catholic Church to Pluralization. International Journal of Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Marketing, 15(4), 382–394. Simmel, G. (1903). Die Großstädte und das Geistesleben. Petermann. Sklair, L. (2010). Iconic Architecture and the Culture-Ideology of Consumerism. Theory, Culture & Society, 27(5), 135–159. Walton, J. F. (2015). Architectures of Interreligious Tolerance: The Infrastructural Politics of Place and Space in Croatia and Turkey. New Diversities, 17(2), 103–117.

PART III

Multi-Religious Landscapes

CHAPTER 12

The Veneration of St. Yared: A Multireligious Landscape Shared by Ethiopian Orthodox Christians and the Betä Ǝsraʾel (Ethiopian Jews) Sophia Dege-Müller and Bar Kribus

Preface: The Ethiopian Context The Sǝmen Mountains1 in the northern Ethiopian Highlands are home to Christians and Muslims, and in the past were home to a very substantial Betä Ǝsraʾel (Ethiopian Jewish) population.2 This region has a unique history with regard to the Betä Ǝsraʾel: Following the foundation of the Christian 1  The transliteration system of the Encyclopaedia Aethiopica will be used for terms in Ethiopian languages throughout this paper. Modern Ethiopian personal names will appear as they are commonly spelled by the individual in question or appear in publications. 2  The origins and early history of the Betä Ǝsraʾel have been the subject of an intense scholarly debate (for an overview, see Abbink, 1990; Kaplan, 1992, pp. 13–43, 53–78; Quirin, 1992, pp. 7–30). From the late twentieth century, members of this community made Aliyah (immigrated) to Israel. The most significant waves of Aliyah were Operation Moses in 1984 and Operation Solomon 1991. Almost all members of this community now live in Israel.

S. Dege-Müller • B. Kribus (*) Center for Religious Studies, Ruhr University Bochum, Bochum, Germany © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 M. Burchardt, M. C. Giorda (eds.), Geographies of Encounter, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82525-6_12

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Fig. 12.1  The regions formerly inhabited by the Betä Ǝsraʾel, map by Bar Kribus

Solomonic Kingdom in 1270,3 this kingdom expanded into the regions inhabited by the ancestors of the Betä Ǝsraʾel (Fig. 12.1). In a series of wars documented from the fourteenth to the seventeenth centuries, the Betä Ǝsraʾel gradually lost their political autonomy and came under effective Christian Solomonic rule.4 The last region in which the Betä Ǝsraʾel maintained their political autonomy was the Sǝmen Mountains, where they were only definitively subdued by the Solomonic emperor Susǝnyos (1607–1632). As a region in which, for centuries, the Betä Ǝsraʾel were a dominant political force rather than a subdued minority (as they were in the rest of the Ethiopian realm), the Sǝmen Mountains are a fascinating test-case for examining Betä Ǝsraʾel-Christian relations. The Betä Ǝsraʾel and Ethiopian Orthodox Christians,5 in general, shared many cultural and religious 3  The Solomonic dynasty derives its name from its traditional descent from King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba (Kaplan, 2011). 4  For an overview of these wars and references to relevant sources, see Kaplan, 1992, pp. 79–96; Quirin, 1992, pp. 40–88. 5  The national church of Ethiopia, which is today officially known as the Ethiopian Orthodox Täwaḥədo Church, will be referred to here as the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.

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elements.6 When taking account of this shared heritage, as well as the considerable influence that the Betä Ǝsraʾel exercised in the Sǝmen in the past, an examination of localities deemed sacred by these two groups in this region may reveal phenomena unlike those apparent in other regions. The Ethiopian Orthodox Christians and the Betä Ǝsraʾel did not, as a rule, venerate the same local saints or officially worship in the same holy sites.7 In fact, Betä  Ǝsraʾel sacred sites would be considered violated if members from other religious groups entered them.8 This is what makes the case of the holy sites dedicated to Yared in the Sǝmen Mountains so intriguing. As far as is known, this saint is the only local saint venerated by both communities. Both communities preserve similar accounts of this saint’s life and acts. And both communities had holy sites dedicated to him in the same area of the Sǝmen in close proximity to each other. There is a third group, the Kǝmant, who also cherish Yared as one of their saints. Unfortunately, there is no research on this yet, which is why we focus only on the other two groups and discuss the Kǝmant tradition below only in passing. The Sǝmen Mountains (Fig.  12.2) are the highest mountains of Ethiopia. Their highest peak, Ras Dašän, reaches an elevation of 4533 m. The section of these mountains relevant for our study is in the vicinity of Ras Dašän, centering around what we came to call the “Yared Ridge.” Two mountain peaks which form part of this ridge bear names that indicate their association with St. Yared: Abba Yared (4416 m), in the northern part of the ridge, and Qəddus Yared (4442 m), 6.6 km south-east of Abba Yared and 8.6 km north-north-east of Ras Dašän. 6  These elements include religious literature, manuscript tradition, elements of the liturgy, elements in the structure of the religious hierarchy, and the usage of Gəʿəz as a liturgical language (Dege-Müller, 2020; Kaplan, 1990; Shelemay, 1989). 7  The term “local” is used here to refer to saints who were traditionally active in Ethiopia, and whose veneration originated there. While both the Betä Ǝsraʾel and Ethiopian Orthodox Christians share a reverence for Old-Testament holy men and women, and for various other individuals mentioned in religious literature which the two communities have in common (Kaplan, 1992, pp. 73–77; Leslau, 1951), the Betä Ǝsraʾel traditions regarding their monastic holy men do not commonly have precise parallels in the Ethiopian Orthodox tradition (Abbink, 1990, pp. 429–434). 8  According to the Betä  Ǝsraʾel religious tradition, Betä  Ǝsraʾel holy sites can only be accessed by Jews, and only after purification and prayer. Any violation of this is seen as significantly harming the sanctity of the site. From our experience, Betä Ǝsraʾel holy sites can easily be viewed from outside the sanctified area without violating their sanctity. We implore anyone wishing to visit such sites to respect the rules of conduct of the Betä Ǝsraʾel community.

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Fig. 12.2  The Sǝmen Mountains and surrounding regions, map by Bar Kribus

Introduction The holy sites dedicated to Yared in the Sǝmen Mountains have never been examined before. Indeed, the Christian sites related to this saint in this region are not mentioned in scholarly literature, and only brief mentions of the Betä Ǝsraʾel site dedicated to this saint exist.9 The dynamics between the two religious groups in the context of veneration of a shared saint in the same geographic area have never been examined. Due to the twentiethcentury immigration of almost all members of the Betä Ǝsraʾel community to Israel, the Betä Ǝsraʾel no longer reside in Ethiopia, and there is currently no continuous presence of the community in its holy sites. Thus, the multireligious veneration of Yared in the Sǝmen is largely a practice of the past. With an emphasis on traditions referring to the Sǝmen Mountains, this chapter will examine the Yared traditions of both religious communities and attempt to determine the location and nature of the holy sites of both communities dedicated to him in this region. The examination will be 9  An in-depth study of the physical features and an archaeological assessment of the sites will be published by us in the near future (Kribus & Dege-Müller, Forthcoming).

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based on written and oral narrations of Yared’s acts, interviews conducted with members of both religious communities, and information and footage relating to the Christian holy sites available on social media. An overview of the Christian traditions regarding St. Yared’s presence in the Sǝmen and associated sites will be followed by a discussion on the Betä Ǝsraʾel traditions dealing with this saint and the associated holy site of Abba Rid. The Kǝmant traditions will be addressed briefly. Finally, the locations of both sites relative to each other and within the geographic and political context of the Sǝmen will be examined. Based on their location and nature, an attempt will be made to understand the dynamics between the two communities in the context of Yared’s veneration and shed light on the Sǝmen as a multireligious landscape.

Modes of Interaction in Shared Religious Sites Benjamin Kedar (2001, pp. 59–61) distinguishes between three different types of convergence of different religious groups at shared religious sites: (1) a merely spatial convergence—adherents of different religions come to pray at the same place, which all consider holy. While they might encounter each other, there is no common service or intended interaction; (2) “inegalitarian convergence at a religious ceremony”—the service is hosted by one group, but members of other religious groups are allowed to partake, sometimes also creating their own tradition around this; and (3) “egalitarian convergence at a shared religious ceremony”—all religious groups partake with equal rights, praying side-by-side. Kedar implies that ceremonies of the third type do not commonly take place in a compound affiliated with a specific denomination, but rather in a “neutral, open space, under the sky.” A central endeavor in our examination of the veneration of Saint Yared in the Sǝmen is to shed light on the nature of interreligious interaction in the context of this veneration. Specifically, to what extent was there a spatial convergence of adherents of the two communities at specific holy sites? Was there any type of interaction beyond spatial convergence? Did interaction, if indeed it occurred, take place at holy sites commonly affiliated with one of the religious communities? And did the layout of the sites and their locations have an impact on such convergence or interaction? Based on our knowledge of ritual practices of both groups, it can be assumed, for example, that practices based on folk beliefs that transcend religious boundaries and are not derived from the authoritative teachings of a specific religion (such as belief in the miraculous healing properties of holy water) were observed by both groups in the area under discussion (Cf. Hayden, 2002, p. 214).

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One of the questions we hope to answer in preliminary form is that of the impact of the power dynamics between the two groups on the holy sites dedicated to Yared and the dynamics of the two communities within them. Robert Hayden (2002, pp. 205, 207) views competition as a central factor shaping interaction between different groups at shared holy sites. He developed the “concept of competitive sharing to explain how sacred sites that have long been shared by members of differing religious communities […] may come to be seized or destroyed by members of one of them in order to manifest dominance over the other.” While in our case there is no direct evidence of any conflict directly at the sites, interreligious dialogue has certainly played a role in their development, and one may speculate that the political conflict between the Solomonic authorities and Betä Ǝsraʾel leadership had an impact, either direct or indirect, on this process. A key question in understanding this dialogue is the question of the origin of Yared’s veneration in the region. On the one hand, the area in question in the Sǝmen Mountains was a distinctly Betä Ǝsraʾel area and the heart of Betä  Ǝsraʾel autonomy until the seventeenth century. On the other hand, the veneration of Saint Yared in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church is attested far more extensively and from an earlier date than it is in a Betä Ǝsraʾel context. In such a situation, and in the absence of an indication regarding the foundation dates of the different holy sites, it is unclear which holy sites were developed earlier. The questions we are facing are thus, whether the Christian veneration of Yared in the area might have been encouraged by Solomonic rulers, as a manifestation of their subdual of Betä Ǝsraʾel autonomy, or whether Betä Ǝsraʾel veneration of Yared has been encouraged by that of their neighbors. Additionally, if both groups originally shared such sites in “egalitarian convergence,” how did this change with the shifts in political power?

Saint Yared in the Ethiopian Orthodox Tradition Saint, or qəddus, Yared is the most renowned local saint of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. He is famous for composing the traditional religious music of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, which is still used in the liturgy today. The hymnody was traditionally revealed to him in a visionary dream, in which he traveled to heaven, where he was taught the melodies and rhythms. The traditions regarding St. Yared are transmitted both orally and in written form. The textual tradition is not linear but shows a number

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of different variations in the story.10 While there are common features in all of the texts, the small details which appear only in some of the unpublished versions are the most important in the endeavor to trace the traditions regarding this saint’s activities in the Sǝmen Mountains. While the legends situate Yared’s life in the sixth century, there are considerable arguments against this claim (Getatchew Haile, 2017, pp. 269–320; Heldman & Shelemay, 2017). The authenticity of the traditions relating to Yared is beyond the scope of this chapter. Rather, we will focus on the veneration of Yared among the Christian and Betä  Ǝsraʾel population of Ethiopia.

Yared’s Hagiography The common features of Yared’s hagiography state that he was born in Aksum in northern Ethiopia and started training to become a priest at a young age. He found training difficult and could not memorize the scriptures as expected, for which he was punished and maltreated by his teacher. Yared decided to run away, finding rest at a remote location under a tree. There he observed a caterpillar as it struggled to climb up the tree, falling again and again. By the seventh attempt, it succeeded and ate the leaves on the tree. Yared took this as a sign that persistence was important. He returned to his teacher and memorized the scriptures in one day. He became a deacon at the most important church in Aksum; however, his life was full of personal struggles which almost led him to commit murder. God intervened and sent him three birds from Eden which lifted Yared up and brought him to the heavenly Jerusalem. There he heard the divine melodies and harmonious music praising God. When Yared returned to Aksum, he reproduced these melodies in church, attracting the people and the emperor to gather and listen. During one performance, Emperor Gäbrä Mäsqäl was so moved by the heavenly melodies that he struck Yared’s foot with his staff without noticing, and blood started running 10  Getatchew Haile (2017) argues that the texts about Yared cannot be considered a Vita in the classical sense, as the traditions differ too much. Additionally, the quality of the manuscripts themselves is not the best. Manuscript Paris, Bibliothèque  nationale de France, d’Abbadie 227, which was used for the edition by Conti Rossini in 1904, appears to be quite corrupt. This is possibly due to the fact that the manuscript was copied for the French Ethiopisant Antoine d’Abbadie (Heldman & Shelemay, 2017, p. 70). While it was common practice among travelers to commission manuscript copies, these copies did not always yield the best results, as the scribes were not always experts (see Dege-Müller, 2020, p. 26).

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Fig. 12.3  Yared’s foot being pierced by Gäbrä Mäsqäl’s staff and the three heavenly birds sitting in the tree above Yared. Ms. Qäranyo Medḫane Aläm, EAP 423-1-10, fol. 1v, © British Library Board, Endangered Archives Programme, courtesy of Mersha Alehegne Mengistie, https://eap.bl.uk/archive-­file/EAP432-­1-­10

down the floor (Fig. 12.3).11 The Emperor felt ashamed for having injured Yared and promised to fulfil any wish Yared might have. Yared asked for  The iconography of Yared’s foot being pierced by the Emperor (Fig. 12.3) is one of the most frequent ones in Ethiopian artistic depictions of this saint. 11

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permission to leave Aksum and to become a monk, which the Emperor granted. Thus, he moved south into the rough environment of Ṣällämt in the Sǝmen Mountains, where he spent the rest of his life praying, fasting, and teaching the people. He died there—some say that he disappeared— and his gravesite remains unknown.12

Regional Centers of Veneration As stated above, the main center of veneration for Yared is Aksum, in northern Ethiopia. There are, however, several other places with a strong connection to the saint, all farther south in the country (Fig. 12.4). It is surprising that these elements of Yared’s veneration remain rather local, even though some are alluded to in his Vita or in other texts.

Fig. 12.4  Christian monastic and ecclesiastical centers in which St. Yared is venerated, map by Bar Kribus

 Disappearing is a common topos for Ethiopian Saints, monks, and nuns.

12

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A striking example of this is found in the Dərsanä Uraʾel (“Homily of Uriel”). This homily, comprised of monthly readings for the angel Uriel, contains several legends not primarily concerned with this angel. One is the description of a trip on which Yared embarks, together with other saints, in which they visit the monasteries of Ṭ ana Qirqos and Zuramba (Fig.  12.4). The travel account ends with Yared’s arrival in the Səmen Mountains and provides a place name—Däbrä Ḥawi. The text continues, “and from this Däbər [“mountain, monastery”] did Yared disappear from the eyes of the people, and he took his place with the angels in heaven” (Täsfa Mikaʾel Gäbrä Śəllase, 1992/93, p. 262).13 A second source which expands upon the narrative of Yared’s time in the Səmen is the manuscript catalogued as EMML 1844.14 It contains a collection of Vitae, one dedicated to Yared, which relates that he spent his time in the Səmen teaching the local “Agäw people, whose language is different” (Getatchew Haile, 2017, p. 272). This calls for a short excursus. “Agäw” refers both to groups of people living in the northern Ethiopian Highlands and to the languages they spoke (Appleyard, 2003, p.  139). The pre-modern and early modern Betä Ǝsraʾel spoke Agäw languages, and to this day, several Agäw words and phrases are preserved in their prayers. This is very striking as most of the religious texts the Betä  Ǝsraʾel use were written in Gəʾəz, a Semitic language with its own writing system, while Agäw languages are Cushitic, with no indigenous writing system. The Betä  Ǝsraʾel scribes used Gəʾəz script to write Agäw phrases. These Agäw traces are the first indigenous attempts at writing down a Cushitic language (Appleyard, 2003, p. 207; Dege-Müller, 2020, pp. 13–15). This, together with possible cultural similarities between the Betä Ǝsraʾel and other Agäw-speaking groups, raises the possibility that this Vita is a reference to Yared preaching to the Betä Ǝsraʾel or to groups which can be associated with them.

13  A similar brief description is found also in the Tarikä nägäst́ (“History of the kings”), kept at Zuramba (one of the other places visited by the saint), microfilmed as EMML 7619. We extend our thanks to Anaïs Wion for sharing this information with us. The textual similarities of these two texts have also been noticed by Asfaw Tilahun Feleke, who just recently finished his thesis studying this manuscript. Since his thesis is still unpublished, we refer to his elaborations here: https://cfee.hypotheses.org/2639 14  The EMML (Ethiopian Manuscript Microfilm Library) is hosted at the HMML (Hill Museum and Manuscript Library) in St. John’s University, Minnesota.

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The Christian Sites Dedicated to Yared in the High Səmen Several traditions dealing with Yared have been transmitted orally rather than being committed to writing. Due to the regional character of many oral traditions in Ethiopia, the local population of the Səmen serves as the best source of information on the traditions associated with the holy sites dedicated to Yared in this region. Additional sources of information utilized in this study are four Ethiopian TV documentaries about St. Yared, two of them with extensive footage from holy sites in the Səmen dedicated to him.15 There are also some additional Ethiopian Facebook accounts which include photographs from the sites. From what we could gather, the Christian veneration of St. Yared is centered around a cluster of sites, all located around the peak of Qəddus Yared (which reaches an elevation of 4442  m).16 As stated before, it is interesting to note the local character of St. Yared’s veneration in the Səmen Mountains and the relative lack of awareness of this veneration among Ethiopian Christians elsewhere (and even among scholars). We will therefore provide a brief description of the cluster of sites dedicated to St. Yared, starting at the top of the mountain.17 At the peak of Qəddus Yared is the so-called “stone seat” upon which, according to legend, Yared sat for 22 years teaching the people. Another name for this site is Hocho (Hocč̣ ọ̌ [?]).18 The top of this mountain is completely devoid of any vegetation and entirely covered by rocks. The “seat” is a circular stone feature with a depression in the center, lined with stone 15  The first three are films produced for the Ethiopian Orthodox Täwaḥədo Church (EOTC) TV channel on YouTube. Two of them have unfortunately been deleted by now, but luckily one has been reposted several times, which is why we refer only to this repost (uploaded April 2, 2020): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrFu2_GSXKk last accessed October 29, 2020; uploaded March 18, 2020: https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=39ZwyKqiy1U last accessed June 2, 2020. The last film was produced for Ahaz tube on YouTube and uploaded April 12, 2020: https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=p89av9ABXsA last accessed June 2, 2020. 16  We have encountered a similar distribution of several holy sites associated with a monastic center throughout a large valley and the surrounding mountains in Səmen Mänaṭa, a sacred valley of the Betä Ǝsraʾel in the southern part of the Səmen (Dege-Müller and Kribus, Forthcoming; Kribus, 2019, pp. 151–206). 17  For an extensive overview of the sites, their features, and the sources shedding light on them, see Kribus & Dege-Müller, Forthcoming. 18  The etymology of the word Hocč̣ ọ̌  has not been established.

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slabs forming “backrests.” The exterior of this feature is surrounded by standing stones. Halfway down into the valley—at an elevation of about 3700 m—is the most important site of this cluster: Däbrä Ḥ awi, the cave in which Yared lived and finally disappeared. A small modern chapel was built around the cave, attached to the steep cliff, and serves now as the church. The cave itself is in a threefold layout, with one chamber featuring the altar dedicated to two saints, Yared and the female saint Krəstos Śämra.19 A second chamber, called Ǝnənum (“let us sleep”), allegedly still houses the mummified bodies of Yared’s disciples.20 The third chamber of the cave is the site where Yared is traditionally believed to have disappeared and also contains a holy water source (ṣäbäl). In addition to this holy water, there is a traditional belief in the “sacred ash” that accumulates in the cave and which is associated with healing properties. The local monks explained that it was sent from heaven by angels.21 Further down into the valley is the third site of this cluster, at an elevation of 3000 m. It is a more recent and larger monastic settlement called Däbrä Ḥ awi Qəddus Yared. The cliff on which the cave church is located is too steep for a larger monastery, which explains the compound in the valley; moreover, living conditions are more favorable in the valley and allow for agriculture. The settlement is connected to a smaller, modern-­ day village, and next to the houses of the monks and nuns is a circular church. The holy water stream flows through this compound.22 19  We have not yet established the connection between these two saints, or why Krəstos Śämra is also venerated at this site. However, Krəstos Śämra, who flourished in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, is also associated with Ṭ ana Qirqos (like Yared), and her veneration experienced a resurgence in the nineteenth century as new sites were associated with her in very different parts of the country (Nosnitsin, 2007, p. 445a). 20  Mummification is common as a natural phenomenon in the Ethiopian highlands, mostly due to the very low humidity. Here in the high altitude, the low temperatures might also have supported the mummification process. This chamber of the cave is described as pitch black, with a slippery floor, “like walking on ice.” 21  Sacred ash is common in many churches and monasteries, originating from the incense that is burned during mass. In the case of Yared’s cave, it is said to originate on its own. Our informant Abebe Asfaw (May 30, 2020) further narrates a prophecy concerning Yared, according to which there will be a pandemic virus and those who have his ash will be spared from it. 22  Thanks to the detailed landscape shots in the documentaries, Google Earth images, and the information provided by Hans Hurni, we were able to clearly locate the lowest of the sites (13.310108, 38.353765). It appears as the church of “Kiddus Yared” in a section of the updated Simen Mountains map that Prof. Hurni has kindly shared with us.

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While the cave church and monastery compounds are obviously institutionalized sacred spaces, the “seat of Yared” is in the open air, and Kedar’s egalitarian convergence could in theory be possible there. Another option for shared ritual practice would be the holy spring—a phenomenon found in both religious traditions—which is also in the open air, and without any institutionalized restrictions.

Abba Yared in the Betä Ǝsraʾel Tradition The Betä  Ǝsraʾel tradition regarding Abba Yared identifies him as a Betä  Ǝsraʾel holy man and exhibits striking parallels with the Ethiopian Orthodox tradition described above. It should be noted that there is a difference in the terminology used by the two religious communities to describe their holy men and women. Ethiopian Orthodox Christians commonly refer to Yared as Qəddus Yared, Qəddus, or “holy,” employing a title commonly used in Ethiopic languages (Geʿez, Amharic, and Tǝgrǝñña) to refer to saints (Kane, 1990, p. 821). Among the Betä Ǝsraʾel, individuals are not referred to as saints. Rather, the Betä Ǝsraʾel refer to Yared as Abba Yared,23 with Abba (“father” in the above-mentioned Ethiopic languages) being an honorary title commonly used in Ethiopia to refer to monks as well as priests and elderly men. One of the elders of the Betä Ǝsraʾel community, whom we interviewed in the course of this research, provided a narration of the Betä Ǝsraʾel tradition regarding Abba Yared.24 While recalling different places he had heard about in the Səmen Mountains, he mentioned the locality of Abba Rid. When asked (based on Taamrat Emmanuel’s description, referred to below), “This is the mountain with the snow, right?” he answered, “Yes, near it … Abba Rid, Yared … he was a holy man.” When asked if Yared was “the person who wrote the music,” he replied:

23  This was related to us by Abeje Medhanie, a historian and member of the Betä Ǝsraʾel community. 24  Interviewed by Bar Kribus and Tadela Takele, March 14, 2017. In accordance with the norms of ethnographic research, we will maintain the anonymity of our informants to maintain their privacy (with the exception of academics contributing information). Names of historical individuals who are no longer living, as well as names of individuals mentioned in full in scholarly literature, will be mentioned here.

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We say he was Jewish, and the Christians say he was Christian … He went to learn where the mäloksoc ̌c ̌ are [from the mäloksoc ̌c ̌ ].25 He did not succeed at all. Six years he learned, tried, did not succeed. But he became frustrated, he returned to his village. On the way, it rained. He sat under a tree … Now he looks, a worm climbs … climbs, falls, climbs, falls. The seventh time—it climbed and ate. He looked—“Maybe I’ll succeed during the seventh year!” He returned, he learned in a year what he didn’t succeed learning in six years.

To the question, “Is he the one who wrote the zema?” using the Ethiopic term for liturgical music,26 the elder answered affirmatively. He also related that he had heard this account from Qes27 Bǝrhan Baroḵ, a renowned Betä  Ǝsraʾel priest originally from the village of Amba Gwalit southwest of Gondär. The Betä  Ǝsraʾel tradition identifying Yared as a member of the Betä Ǝsraʾel community was related to scholar James Quirin by the same Qes, and was apparently also briefly mentioned to him by another prestigious Betä  Ǝsraʾel priest, Qes Mənase Zeməru.28 On the basis of these accounts, Quirin (1992, p. 25) states: Yared is also remembered, however briefly, in Beta Israel oral traditions. He was said originally to have been a Beta Israel who was a son of Gedewon. One of Yared’s sons was named Israel and other descendants included a line of (Beta Israel) priests in Samen. In these traditions, Yared had been forced to convert to Christianity or be killed at the time of Gabra Masqal’s wars against the Beta Israel.

According to Betä  Ǝsraʾel tradition, prior to their final defeat by the Solomonic Christians, the Betä Ǝsraʾel were ruled by a dynasty of kings by 25  The Betä Ǝsraʾel mäloksočc ̌ have been referred to in scholarly and popular literature as monks. However, due to the Christian connotations of this term, and in recognition that we are dealing with a Betä Ǝsraʾel institution with unique features, we have been asked by the Betä Ǝsraʾel community, now residing in Israel, to use its own terminology in reference to these holy men. Thus, we will use this term here to refer solely to the Betä Ǝsraʾel institution in question). 26  For an overview on this term and its usage, see Damon-Guillot, 2014. It should be noted that this term was used both by the Ethiopian Orthodox and by the Betä  Ǝsraʾel (Shelemay, 1989). 27  The Gəʿəz and Amharic term qes (Kane, 1990, p. 753) is currently used both among the Ethiopian Orthodox and among the Betä Ǝsraʾel to refer to priests. 28  From Quirin’s description it is not clear if Yared himself was mentioned by Qes Mənase, or rather events associated with his life as described in Qes Bǝrhan’s narration.

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the name of Gedewon (Qes Ḥ ädanä Təkuyä, 2011, pp.  71–77; Quirin, 2005). On the basis of this tradition, as well as the mentions of Betä Ǝsraʾel leaders by that name in Ethiopian royal chronicles,29 scholars have suggested that this was a regal name used by the Betä Ǝsraʾel (Quirin, 1992, p. 23). The Gideonite Dynasty is directly associated with the Səmen, since this was the last autonomous region of the Betä Ǝsraʾel and hence under the control of their political leaders longer than other regions. It is remarkable that Yared’s uncle and teacher in the Christian tradition as well as his father in the above-mentioned Betä Ǝsraʾel account are both named Gedewon. Quirin (1992, p. 25), following Getatchew Haile, suggests that the Yared traditions may reflect a historical figure who, against the background of religious strife between supporters of Christianity and Jewish or Judaized groups, left Aksum and joined the ancestors of the Betä Ǝsraʾel in the Səmen.30 He implies that this might be a reason why the name Gedewon became associated with Betä  Ǝsraʾel kingship. Unfortunately, due to the lack of sources dating back to Aksumite times mentioning such events, such an occurrence must remain in the realm of speculation.

The Holy Site of Abba Rid One indication of the impact of the Yared traditions on Betä Ǝsraʾel religious life is the existence of a prestigious Betä Ǝsraʾel holy site dedicated to him, the site of Abba Rid. A few accounts related by members of the Betä Ǝsraʾel community shed light on the nature of this site and, while the 29  This leader is mentioned several times in the chronicles of the Solomonic monarchs Śärṣä Dǝngǝl (1563–1597, Conti Rossini, 1907) and Susǝnyos (1607–1632, Pereira, 1900). 30  This is a reference to a story transmitted in the Christian national epic Kəbrä  nägäst́ (“Glory of the kings”), which served to strengthen the legitimacy of the Solomonic dynasty. Compiled in the fourteenth century and based on earlier material, this composition contains an account of the sixth-century Emperor Kaleb and the power struggle between his two sons after his death: his second-born, Gäbrä Mäsqäl, was given Aksum to rule, while his first-born, Betä Ǝsraʾel, received the newly conquered realm of Ḥ imyar in South Arabia. The two sons waged war, after which Gäbrä Mäsqäl retained his control of Aksum and Betä Ǝsraʾel became a hidden ruler rather than presiding over an earthly realm. Scholars have suggested that this account reflects a possible power struggle between Jewish or Judaized elements and Christian elements, as may be indicated by the meaning of the two names, Gäbrä Mäsqäl (“Servant of the Cross”) and Betä  Ǝsraʾel (“House of Israel”) (Dege-Müller, 2018, pp.  253–254; Getatchew Haile, 1982, pp. 319–320; Kaplan, 1992, p. 39. For the Kəbrä nägäs ́t, see Budge, 1932, p. 227).

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precise location remains unknown, are sufficient to suggest a tentative location: this site has been described as located in the Səmen, near Dǝbǝl, and it is implied that it is near Fälašočcǧ e and Bärǧe. Pilgrims are described as worshiping in the open air.31 The Jewish emissary Haim Nahoum (1908, p. 123), following his visit to various Betä  Ǝsraʾel communities in Ethiopia in 1908, mentioned a community of Betä Ǝsraʾel mäloksoc ̌c ̌ residing at a locality by the name of Abba Yared. The similarity between the names Abba Yared and Abba Rid, and the fact that the site of Abba Rid is associated with Abba Yared, seem to indicate that these two sites are one and the same. The location of the Abba Yared peak near the localities mentioned above in association with Abba Rid (Fig. 12.5) seems to support a hypothesis that the holy site was situated on it. The Qəddus Yared peak, as a known (Christian) center of

Fig. 12.5  Sites associated with St. Yared, map by Bar Kribus 31  See, for example, Qes Asres Yayeh, 1995, pp. 60–61; Qes Ḥ ädanä Təkuyä, 2011, pp. 62, 64; Leslau, 1974, p. 637. For a detailed overview of these sources and the nature of the site of Abba Rid, see Kribus & Dege-Müller, Forthcoming.

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Yared’s veneration, is also in the vicinity of these localities and could therefore theoretically also be the location of this holy site. However, the nature of Betä Ǝsraʾel holy sites makes this scenario, in our opinion, less likely. As a rule, the Betä Ǝsraʾel religious tradition requires that Betä Ǝsraʾel holy sites only be accessed by members of this community or other Jews, and only in a state of severe purity.32 This requirement seems to rule out these sites being shared religious sites of narrow dimensions in Kedar’s sense. The ritual of purification is a week-long process of prayer, ritual baths, and a strict diet consisting mainly of uncooked chickpeas soaked in water. This requirement was respected by the non-Betä Ǝsraʾel inhabitants living near Betä Ǝsraʾel holy sites, as they did not venture to these sites.33 A common belief among the Betä  Ǝsraʾel was that their holy sites were guarded by wild animals that would harm individuals who entered them in an insufficient state of purity.34 Thus, a site which served as a Christian monastery or pilgrimage site would not meet this central requirement, since it would be regularly accessed by Christians. It should be noted, though, that there is indication that non-Betä  Ǝsraʾel individuals could worship at Betä  Ǝsraʾel holy sites in certain cases.35 It stands to reason, however, that such individuals would not enter a sanctified area which was deemed accessible only to the Betä Ǝsraʾel. Thus, if indeed the Betä  Ǝsraʾel and Ethiopian Orthodox sites commemorating Yared were separate but relatively close to one another, this would explain why two peaks in the Səmen are named after Yared—one might have been a Betä  Ǝsraʾel pilgrimage site, and the other was most likely the center of Christian pilgrimages commemorating the same saint.

Saint Yared in the Kǝmant Tradition The veneration of Yared is even present in the tradition of a third group— the Kǝmant—who are a difficult group to study. They are often described in scholarly literature  as a “Pagan-Hebraic” group but have been the

32  For an overview of Betä Ǝsraʾel holy sites and the pilgrimage practices observed in such sites, see Ben-Dor, 1985; Leslau, 1974. 33  This has been frequently told to us by members of the community and their former neighbors (see, for example, Kribus, 2019, pp. 156–167, 229–232). 34  See, for example, Ben-Dor, 1985, p. 47; Kribus, 2019, pp. 163–164. 35  For one such example, see Leslau, 1974, p. 629.

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subject of very little research (Gamst, 1969, p. 6).36 The original Kǝmant religion shows some traces of a common Hebraic influence but otherwise has strong independent features. They have in the past occupied some of the same areas as the Betä Ǝsraʾel, and there are some similarities in the religious practices of the two groups. The Kǝmant believe in a creator-­ God that they call Adera, with Adera being also one of the names for God that we find in Betä Ǝsraʾel prayer (Gamst, 1969, p. 34). Both groups also celebrate the Sabbath on Saturday. The Kǝmant origin myth features the Betä  Ǝsraʾel  as being of a family line related to their own (Gamst, 1969, p. 37). There are some who claim that Yared was in fact from the Kǝmant group. For example, a Kǝmant activist recently stated: St. Yared, who is considered as the father of church melodies, was the priest of the Kemant Higelibona religion. He was kidnapped at mount Aber of the Semien mountains. That place was the one important site of Kemant religious education. The former Kemant name of Yared was Yaren. The Kemants have a Degna (forest temple) in the name of Yaren at Chilga.37

Nowadays, most of the Kǝmant are Orthodox Christians, and their original traditions and religious practices are on the verge of being forgotten. While an updated assessment of the Kǝmant as a group—especially their religious practices—is of the greatest importance, it is beyond the scope of this study. Since the identification of Yared as one of the Kǝmants’ saints and the creator of their liturgical music has not been documented until recently, it may be that this tradition is of relatively recent provenance. Nonetheless, the additional reference to a Kǝmant holy site in the Səmen mountains is intriguing, especially considering the fact that the Səmen is not one of the areas inhabited by this group.

36  The one and only extensive study dedicated to the Kǝmant was prepared by Frederick Gamst in the late 1960s. Nowadays the case of the Kǝmant has been highly politicized and it is very difficult to find any research on them that is not impacted by nationalistic feelings or emotions, which is why we will only mention their reference to Yared here very briefly. 37  Philip Socrates, July 14, 2020, https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=263794938046401. As stated above, this statement was made by a Kǝmant political activist, and should be considered in this context.

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The Effects of War on a Sacred Landscape In the description of the campaigns of Emperor Susǝnyos against the Betä Ǝsraʾel, which appear in his royal chronicle, strongholds used by the Betä Ǝsraʾel are named (Kribus, Forthcoming; Pereira, 1900). Based on similar names appearing in the Simen Mountains map, and others indicated to us by Prof. Hurni, it is possible to pinpoint the general locations of three strongholds dating back to the final years of Betä Ǝsraʾel autonomy (Fig. 12.6).38 The proximity of these strongholds to the sites associated with Yared, and especially to Däbrä Ḥ awi, is notable. If indeed Däbrä Ḥawi existed as an active Christian pilgrimage site of regional importance at the heart of the area governed by the autonomous Betä Ǝsraʾel, and at a time of regular conflicts between the Betä Ǝsraʾel and Christian Solomonic

Fig. 12.6  Sites dedicated to St. Yared and Betä Ǝsraʾel strongholds mentioned in Susǝnyos’ chronicle, map by Bar Kribus 38  For a discussion regarding the locations and characteristics of these strongholds, see Kribus, Forthcoming.

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authorities, it would be an indication of the religious plurality of the area governed by the Betä Ǝsraʾel, and of links between its Christian population and Christians of surrounding regions. It should be noted that the foundation of monasteries and churches was an integral element of Solomonic expansion, and that such institutions played key roles in the Solomonic state as centers of evangelization, administration, religious education, commerce, and welfare (Derat, 2003; Kaplan, 2007, pp. 988–989). Thus, it may be that the consolidation of Solomonic rule in the Səmen Mountains following the demise of Betä Ǝsraʾel autonomy included a strengthening of local Christian sites of worship and the foundation of additional churches and monasteries. Such a process might have had an impact on the Christian sites dedicated to St. Yared in the region, the extent of which is presently unknown. And lastly, assuming that there can be a sacred convergence in spatially restricted areas even in times of war, as “the places of common worship are not correspondingly symbols of peace” (Welteke, 2012, p.  78, our translation),39 and assuming that the area had already served as a multireligious landscape in the seventeenth century, this pluralism could have safeguarded the sites throughout these times of political upheaval. Hayden (2002, p. 218) argues that “avoidance of violent conflict over shared religious space depends not on persuading the members of differing communities to value each other’s differences but on convincing them that the costs of intolerance are too high.” Could we see this as another miracle by Saint Yared?

The Presence of the Religious Other in the Sources Dorothea Welteke (2012, p.  75) describes the same heuristic obstacles that we face when studying the veneration of Yared: references to other religious groups in the religious writings of one group are rather scarce. She adds that the presence or absence of adherents of other religious groups in the texts have implications, as they could reflect a decision not to mention that a certain place is shared with other groups. On the other hand, there might be texts that intentionally mention other religious groups, but at the same time describe the partaking in a hierarchical way— what Kedar (2001, p.  60) came to call “inegalitarian convergence at a religious ceremony.” 39  Also Hayden (2002, p. 206) warns of the wrong assumption that “coexistence is evidence of a positive valorization of pluralism.”

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In our case, it is striking that while both religious communities venerated the same holy man in the same general vicinity, the sources relating to each community examined so far do not mention the veneration of this holy man by the other religious community. The Betä  Ǝsraʾel and the Christians of the Səmen were neighbors, and it is unlikely that they would have been unaware of each other’s holy sites. However, none of the Christian informants we have communicated with so far were aware of the site of Abba Rid. Historian and member of the Betä Ǝsraʾel community Abeje Medhanie related to us that he had not heard of Yared’s cave or stone seat in his conversations with Betä Ǝsraʾel elders. The only possible reference to the religious other we have identified so far is in the Christian manuscript EMML 1844—the reference to Yared instructing people from another group (though these are not explicitly described as the Betä Ǝsraʾel). Thus, interaction between the two communities does not seem to have been a dominant factor in the experience of individuals who transmitted information about the sites, or in the message they were attempting to convey. While such interaction does not seem to play a role in accounts of the holy sites, it may be implied in the traditions regarding the saint in each respective religion: the Ethiopian Orthodox version mentions Yared’s missionary activities among the Agäw of the Səmen, while the Betä  Ǝsraʾel tradition documented by Quirin situates Yared’s acts in the context of military struggles between the Betä  Ǝsraʾel and the Christian Ethiopian state. What is striking in this regard is that the religious and the political sources (the hagiographies and royal chronicles respectively), albeit being written (the political) and adapted (the religious) after the events took place, do not overlap. Moreover, the Solomonic campaigns against the Betä  Ǝsraʾel do not feature at all in the written religious sources under study here.

Conclusions: The Səmen Mountains as a Multireligious Landscape Based on the sources examined, it was possible to identify the general location of the Betä Ǝsraʾel site and the precise locations of the Christian sites dedicated to Yared in the Səmen, and to shed light on the interreligious character of his veneration in this region. Christian veneration of this saint was centered on the monasteries of Däbrä Ḥ awi on the peak of Qəddus

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Yared, while Betä Ǝsraʾel veneration of the saint seems to have been centered around Abba Yared peak. Thus, the two centers of veneration were adjacent to each other. Both sites served as centers of regional pilgrimage, and both communities shared general features of the traditions related to this holy man, each considering him a member of their religious group. The one brief mention of the Kəmant tradition associated with Yared, which also locates parts of the legend in the Səmen Mountains, is unfortunately less tangible, and might be a recent incorporation. These references all show that Yared plays an overall important role in the wider “Hebraic”-Ethiopian mythical landscape, and that his link with the Səmen and the subsequent sanctity of localities in these mountains is a motif which traverses religious boundaries in this region. Multireligious spaces are, as a rule, the product of religious encounters and can reflect or lead to interreligious dialogue and polemics. Hayden (2016) defines a religious landscape as the physical markers of the space in which adherents of a specific religious community interact. Such a space is therefore commonly not limited to a specific site, but rather encompasses several sites of different scopes and nature. He observes that an overlap of religious landscapes of different communities makes the power relations between them manifest in overlapping sites. Thus, in the case of the St. Yared sites in the Səmen, one may wonder: to what extent did the religious landscapes of the Ethiopian Orthodox Christians and the Betä  Ǝsraʾel overlap, so to speak, and what impact would such an overlap have had?40 The potential overlap is demonstrated not only by the proximity of the holy sites of the two communities to each other and the narratives shared by the two communities, but also by the holy sites’ location in what was the heart of the seventeenth-century Betä Ǝsraʾel autonomous region. Despite this proximity, a degree of separation was kept, both physically and in the minds of pilgrims, reflected in the fact that none of the known descriptions of the holy sites from either group mention the presence or the holy sites of the other group. Nevertheless, the existence of holy sites for two communities with such a specific dedication and so close to each other could hardly be a coincidence. The degree to which these sites developed in dialogue with each other will hopefully be determined in future research. Such a dialogue may very well have been linked to the contested nature of the Səmen Mountains emphasized in accounts of the 40  Since we cannot say anything with certainty about the Kəmant tradition here, we will not include them in our considerations.

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Betä  Ǝsraʾel-Solomonic wars. Alternatively, it may be that the Christian Yared sites in the Səmen are a unique case of Christian holy sites which were initially developed or maintained under the patronage or tolerance of Betä Ǝsraʾel authorities, rather than vice versa. Acknowledgments  This chapter was written amidst the Covid-19 pandemic of 2020, forcing us to employ new, digital research methods. Instead of fieldtrips or interviews face to face, we had to find our information online. It was a test that we consider quite successful. In our endeavor to gather information on St. Yared’s monasteries in the Sǝmen Mountains, we could fortunately rely on YouTube videos and photographs on Amharic (Ethiopian) Facebook accounts. We are especially grateful for the personal exchanges we had with our informants through e-mail. We are indebted to Prof. Hans Hurni and his wife Yemisrach Nadew Woreta. Hurni, the former warden of the Sǝmen Mountains National Park, prepared, together with his team, the hiking map used in this region. His wife has visited several of the places under study and kindly viewed our photographs for identification of the sites. We also extend our appreciation to Sisay Sahile, Tadele Molla, Lukas Mauerhofer, Prof. Kay Kaufman Shelemay, Hewan Semon Marye, and Abebe Asfaw, all of whom contributed information about the Christian veneration of St. Yared. We are indebted to Abeje Medhanie for providing us with information on the Betä Ǝsraʾel traditions regarding Abba Yared, to Tadela Takele and Selamawit FsHa for seeking out individuals in the Betä  Ǝsraʾel community with knowledge on this topic and taking part in the subsequent interviews, and to all those in the Betä Ǝsraʾel community who shared with us aspects of the community’s fascinating heritage, including oral traditions relating to Abba Yared. We wish to extend our thanks to the Ethiopian Authority for Research and Conservation of Cultural Heritage (ARCCH) for enabling and supporting our fieldwork in the Sǝmen Mountains. The conclusions and any mistakes in the chapter are, of course, our own. Research for this chapter has been carried out under the auspices of a project funded by the European Research Council (ERC) within the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovative program (grant agreement no. 647467, Consolidator Grant JewsEast). Some aspects of the research leading to this chapter were funded by the Institute of Archaeology, the Center for the Study of Christianity, and the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel School for Advanced Studies in the Humanities at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, as well as by the Ben-Zvi Institute for the Study of Jewish Communities in the East and the Ruth Amiran Fund for Archaeological Research in Eretz-Israel.

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Heldman, M., & Shelemay, K. K. (2017). Concerning Saint Yared. In A. McCollum (Ed.), Studies in Ethiopian languages, literature, and history: Festschrift for Getatchew Haile presented by his friends and colleagues (Aethiopistische Forschungen 83) (pp. 65–93). Harrassowitz Verlag. Kane, T. L. (1990). Amharic-English Dictionary (Vol. 1). Harrassowitz Verlag. Kaplan, S. (1990). Meḥqar ha-sifrūṯ šel Beyṯa Yiśraʾel: Heśegim və-yeʿadim. [The Literature of the Beta Israel: Retrospect and Prospect]. Peʿamim, 41, 90–111. Kaplan, S. (1992). The Beta Israel (Falasha) in Ethiopia: From the Earliest Times to the Twentieth Century. New York University Press. Kaplan, S. (2007). Monasteries. In S. Uhlig (Ed.), Encyclopaedia Aethiopica (Vol. 3, pp. 987–993). Harrassowitz Verlag. Kaplan, S. (2011). Solomonic Dynasty. In S. Uhlig & A. Bausi (Eds.), Encyclopaedia Aethiopica (Vol. 4, pp. 688–690). Harrassowitz Verlag. Kedar, B. Z. (2001). Convergences of Oriental Christian, Muslim and Frankish Worshippers: The Case of Saydnaya. In Y. Hen (Ed.), De Sion exibit lex et verbum domini de Hierusalem. Essays on medieval law, liturgy and literature in honour of Amnon Linder (pp. 59–69). Brepols. Kribus, B. (2019). The Monasteries of the Betä Ǝsraʾel (Ethiopian Jews) [Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation]. Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Kribus, B. (Forthcoming). The Battlefields of the ‘Ten Lost Tribes’ in Ethiopia. Tracing the Geographical Aspects of the Wars Between the Betä Ǝsraʾel (Ethiopian Jews) and the Christian Solomonic Kingdom. Kribus, B., & Dege-Müller, S. (Forthcoming). St. Yared in the Sǝmen Mountains of northern Ethiopia: The Ethiopian Orthodox and Betä Ǝsraʾel (Ethiopian Jewish) religious sites. Afriques. Leslau, W. (1951). Falasha Anthology. Yale University Press. Leslau, W. (1974). Taamrat Emmanuel’s Notes on Falasha Monks and Holy Places. In S.  Lieberman & A.  Hyman (Eds.), Salo Wittmayer Baron Jubilee Volume (pp. 623–637). American Academy for Jewish Research. Nahoum, H. (1908). Mission chez les Falachas d‘Abyssinie. Bulletin de l’Alliance Israélite Universelle, 33, 100–137. Nosnitsin, D. (2007). Krəstos Śämra. In S. Uhlig (Ed.), Encyclopaedia Aethiopica (Vol. 3, pp. 443–445). Harrassowitz Verlag. Pereira, E. (1900). Chronica de Susenyos, rei de Ethiopia (Vol. 2). Imprensa Nacional. Quirin, J. (1992). The Evolution of the Ethiopian Jews. A History of the Beta Israel (Falasha) to 1920. University of Pennsylvania Press. Quirin, J. (2005). Gedewon. In S. Uhlig (Ed.), Encyclopaedia Aethiopica (Vol. 2, p. 730). Harrassowitz Verlag. Shelemay, K.  K. (1989). Music, Ritual, and Falasha History. Michigan State University Press. Welteke, D. (2012). Multireligiöse Loca Sancta und die mächtigen Heiligen der Christen. Der Islam, 88, 73–95.

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Maps Centre for Development and Environment, Institute of Geography, University of Bern. Simen Mountains [map]. Edition 2. 1:100,000. Bern: Stämpfli and Co., 2003.

Facebook Sources [The Qechene Debre Selam Medhanialem and Debre Teguhan Qeddus Gabriel Church Fenota Heywot Sunday School]. (n.d.). In Facebook [Facebook Page]. Retrieved June 2, 2020, from https://www.facebook. com/1620932764891482/photos/pcb.2013802145604540/ 2013802058937882/?type=3&theater Phillip Socrates. (n.d.). In Facebook [Facebook Page]. Retrieved September 14, 2020, from https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=263794938046401

YouTube Videos Ahaz Tube. (2020). ©Ethiopia #AhazTube [Qeddus Yared’s Place Where He Disappeared  – Debre Hawi Qeddus Yared Gedam] [YouTube Video]. Ethiopia. Retrieved June 2, 2020, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p89av9ABXsA Tariku Abera. (2020). [Every Ethiopian Should See It. The Monastery Where Qeddus Yared Is Hidden] [YouTube Video]. Ethiopia. Retrieved June 2, 2020, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39ZwyKqiy1U Teddy Bezabih. (2020). [Debre Hawi Qeddus Yared Monastery: Qeddus Yared Monastery Where He Was Concealed] [YouTube Video]. Ethiopia. Retrieved October 29, 2020, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrFu2_GSXKk

CHAPTER 13

A Shared Holy Landscape: The Reactualization of Egypt’s Sacred History and Geography in Medieval Islamic Thought Luca Patrizi

Introduction The aim of this chapter is to explore the different forms of veneration of the Egyptian holy landscape that have existed down the ages, as they can be considered archetypal in relation to the very notion of ‘geographies of encounter’ that is at the heart of this collection. As the editors have shown in their introduction, multi-religious spaces represent material manifestations of ancestral heritage and narratives, filtered from a religious perspective, into which different religious groups have grafted their own practices. In particular, in this chapter, I will attempt to address one of the main research trajectories proposed by the editors with the aim of identifying

L. Patrizi (*) Department of Humanities, University of Turin, Turin, Italy e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 M. Burchardt, M. C. Giorda (eds.), Geographies of Encounter, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82525-6_13

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the dynamics that allow a particular landscape to develop into a site of multi-religious cohabitation. For a number of religious, historical and geographical reasons, we can consider Egypt a huge, sacred, open-air place shared by different religions. Islamic tradition reached Egyptian soil relatively late in the country’s very long history. It therefore encountered an extremely rich cultural substratum, which it adapted naturally to its own religious conceptions. Some recent studies have provided an effective overview of how Muslim authors have approached the sacred heritage of the pre-Islamic period in general (Calasso, 2020, pp. 61–84). Other studies have engaged in similar analyses in relation to Egypt specifically by focusing, in particular, on the reinterpretation of its pre-Islamic history by certain Muslim authors (Ducène, 2020, 189–221;  Feener, 2017, pp.  23–45; Stephan, 2017, 256–270). However, they have not paid much attention to shared holy places, this being my aim in this chapter. I will first argue that the primary layer of sharing is constituted by the intangible cultural heritage associated with the various denominations that the Egyptian holy landscape has assumed over the centuries. These designations offer valuable information about the longstanding connection between history and sacred geography in the land of Egypt. I will then address the issue of the Egyptian holy landscape and its natural sacred sites, most notably the Nile and the Sinai Peninsula. Specific emphasis will be placed on recognizing that the different religions on Egyptian soil have often shared very similar interpretations and rituals, diachronically as well as synchronically. The last section will be devoted to presenting some notable examples of shared holy places that are connected to both the ancient Egyptian heritage and the sacred histories of Christianity and Islam.

The Egyptian Holy Landscape and Its Denominations The Book of the Conquest of Egypt and the Maghreb (Kitāb futūḥ mis ̣r wa al-maghrib), by the Egyptian traditionalist and historian Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥ akam (m. 871), begins with a saying attributed to ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAmr ibn al-ʿAṣ (m. 685), Companion of the Prophet Muḥammad and an important traditionalist, as well as the son of ʿAmr ibn al-ʿAṣ (m. 664), the Muslim general who conquered Egypt in 640  AD and later became its governor:

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The earth was created in the form of a bird, with the head, the chest, the wings and the tail: the head is Mecca, Medina, and Yemen; the breast is al-Shām (Syria, Lebanon, Palestine) and Miṣr (Egypt); the right wing is ʿIrāq (Mesopotamia), and beyond ʿIrāq a nation (umma) called Wāq (China) and beyond Wāq a nation called Wāq-Wāq (Far East), and beyond nations that only God knows; the left wing is Sindh (Afghanistan and Indus Valley), and beyond Sindh the Hind (India), and beyond the Hind a nation called Nāsak, and beyond Nāsak a nation called Mansak,1 and beyond nations which only God knows; the tail of this dove is where the sun goes down, and the worst part of the bird is the tail. (Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥ akam, 1999, 1–2)

If one tries to imagine its geographical position, the heart of the bird-­ world should be located in the area between Syria and Egypt. It is therefore natural to think of the Sinai Peninsula, which indeed, besides being the actual geographical ‘heart’ of the Old World, is also curiously shaped like it. Egypt is therefore considered to be the centre of the world in medieval Islamic cosmography, as well as being a border between different lands. This central role, which has become evident geographically and historically, and more especially religiously, scientifically and culturally, seems to be foreshadowed by its original names in the ancient forms that appear in the different languages spoken in this land throughout its millennial history. All these denominations are also part of the intangible sacred and cultural heritage of the land of Egypt, shared from the beginning of its history to the present day by its inhabitants. Kemet and Deshret The ancient Egyptians used different words to name their land, among which are Kemet, ‘black land’, a reference to the fertile dark loam deposited by the Nile during the annual floods, and Deshret, ‘red land’, a reference to the surrounding desert. Together with the ancient division between Upper and Lower Egypt, the idea seems to have developed of a territory divided into two lands. From Kemet comes the Coptic word Kı ̄mi and the Greek word Khe ̄mía, from which we obtain the Arabic 1  Although Nāsak is a term unknown to ancient Islamic sources, the people of Mansak, according to the geographical works of Dı ̄nawarı ̄ (d. 896) and Qazwı ̄nı ̄ (d. 1283), descend from Meshech (Muski), son of Yafet (1999). This people lived in the same region as the mysterious people of Gog and Magog, and Magog and Meshech are mentioned together in Genesis 10:2, van Donzel, Ott, EI2.

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al-Kı ̄miyāʾ, from which in turn the modern English word ‘alchemy’ derives (Anawati, 1996, p. 854). Miṣr Another very ancient designation for this land is the Babylonian Hebrew Miṣri or the Biblical dual term Miṣráyim (Hirsch, Muller, Gottheil, JE). The latter term appears in Genesis 10:6, which mentions the sons of Cam, sons of Noah: Kush, Mitzrayim, Phut and Canaan, from which the populations of Ethiopia, Egypt, Libya and Palestine are derived respectively. According to the relevant specialists, the dual form is a reference to the ancient division into two territories (Edzard, 2011, pp.  480–514). The name by which its Christian and Muslim inhabitants define their land until today is the Arabic form Miṣr, pronounced Maṣr. Muslim historians report genealogies similar to biblical ones. According to Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥ akam, the eldest of the sons of Cam, son of Noah (Ḥ ām ibn Nūḥ), was Canaan (Kanʿān), from whom sprang the populations of Sudan and the Horn of Africa (ḥa ̄bash); the second son was Cush (Kūsh), from whom originated the populations of the Indian subcontinent (Sind, Hind); and the third son was Phut (Qūt ̣), from whom the Berber peoples are descended (albarbar). The youngest son was precisely Mitzrayim (Miṣr), son of the peoples of Egypt, the Copts (qibṭ, Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥ akam, 1999, pp. 10–11). According to another version reported by the Egyptian historian, Miṣr was the grandson of Ḥ ām, son of Bayṣar, while the name of one of his sons was Qibt ̣ (Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥ akam, 1999, p. 11). Bayṣar would be the first to have lived in Egypt after the Flood, as he founded the city of Menfi and populated the land with his thirty children (Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥ akam, 1999, p. 12). The word Miṣr is commonly used to indicate both the region and the city of Cairo, also called al-Qa ̄hira, since the time of the Fatimid dynasty (909–1171), from which word, translatable as ‘the Subjugator’ or ‘the Victorious’, is derived the Western name. The first name for the city, used after the Islamic conquest of the so-called Old Cairo, or Miṣr al-qadı ̄ma, carried out by General ʿAmr Ibn al-ʿĀ ṣ in AD 641, was al-Fusṭāṭ, an abbreviation of Mis ̣r al-Fust ̣a ̄ṭ, ‘the city of tents’. In Arabic, the word Mis ̣r, in addition to referring generically to a settlement—a secondary meaning probably of later derivation—has the original meaning of ‘partition, barrier, or thing intervening between two things’ (Lane, 1963,

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1:2719), probably in connection with  the ancient subdivision between Upper and Lower Egypt mentioned earlier. Egypt As for the name by which Egypt is known in Western culture, it derives from the Latin word Aegyptos, which in turn derives from the Greek Aígyptos. The Greek adjective aigýpti comes from the Coptic word gyptios or kyptios, which later passed into Arabic as qibṭı ̄ (or qubt ̣ı ̄). From the latter comes the word ‘Coptic’ for both the language spoken until about 1400 A.D. by Egyptian Christians, surviving today only as a liturgical language, and the Egyptian Christians themselves, the Copts. In the opinion of specialists, the Greek word derives from the late Egyptian Hikuptah, ‘Menfi’, derived in turn from the ancient Egyptian Hat-ka-Ptah, which means ‘temple (house) of Ptah’, the name of a temple of the god Ptah in Menfi. The issue seems to be even more complex: in the second century AD,  Talmudic Hebrew already knew the Egyptians under the name of Gipt ̣ı ̄th (Cannuyer, 2001, p.  11). The ancient Arabic word qabāṭı ̄ also refers to a fabric imported from Egypt, usually used to cover the Kaʿba in Mecca since the pre-Islamic period (Shafı ̄ʿ, 1922, p. 427). Therefore, both words Mitzrayim and Qibṭ are very ancient, and both refer to Egyptian territory. Arab historians have always used the term Qibṭ to refer to the inhabitants of pre-Islamic Egypt, regardless of their religion, and only during the late Islamic period this word began to refer exclusively to Egyptian Christians. The modern Egyptian state, founded in 1952, has retained the name Miṣr in the Arabic language but has adopted the name Egypt in the translation of its name in other languages, thereby abdicating its own cultural identity in order to adopt a foreign cultural projection.

The Shared Veneration of Egyptian Holy Landscape Egypt’s holy landscape is at the centre of the sacred histories of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. One major example, as we shall see, is the Nile, which flows materially at the centre of the Egyptian landscape, providing a natural setting for its sacred history throughout the country’s various eras. Certain specific places are venerated by Christians and Muslims, while adherents of Judaism differ in their specific theological approach to the issue. Firstly, classical Jewish sources do not agree over the identification

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of the places described in the Old Testament with specific places on Egyptian soil, identifying with conviction only belief in the sanctity of Jerusalem as part of their creed. Secondly, in Judaism holiness is connected to the Torah, which descended to the prophet Moses through the Tablets of the Law. The Torah did indeed descend to a place called Mount Horeb (Exodus 3:1; Kings 19:8) and also Mount Sinai (Exodus 19:2; 24:16), but even if it could be identified with a precise place on the Sinai Peninsula, in Jewish thought as early as the Talmud, this place would have lost its holiness after the descent. This holiness was inherent in the Tablets of the Law, which the Jewish tribes transported to Jerusalem, and thus throughout the journey holiness was translated along with the Jewish people. Finally, holiness entered the Temple with the Tablets, being then transferred in the same way to the Temple and by extension to the entire city of Jerusalem, the Gate of Heaven, the place in which God chose to reside on Earth (Markl, 2016, pp. 23–26). For Christian sources too, the central holy places are located in the Holy Land around Jerusalem because of their connection with the birth, preaching and death of Jesus. However, the Egyptian Christian tradition, particularly in its early monastic phase, inaugurated the veneration of certain places connected with the passage of Moses and the Tribes during the Exodus. At the same time, as we will see later, veneration of the specific places where the Holy Family is thought to have halted during the Flight into Egypt has increased over the centuries. With regard to Islam, the central holy places are certainly Mecca and Medina, connected with the birth and death of the prophet Muḥammad. Jerusalem also enjoys a central position in Islamic sacred geography, being the site of the Prophet’s Night Journey and Ascension. However, in light of the great significance given to the figures of the prophets who preceded Muḥammad in Islam, other secondary holy places have been identified and venerated by Muslims down the centuries, a large number of which are located in Egypt. I will focus on some of these holy sites, in particular, paying specific attention to their re-actualization in the Islamic era. The Nile as a Shared Holy Landscape Within the context of Egypt’s sacred landscape, the Nile is at once an object of veneration and the setting for shared rituals over the centuries. Beginning with ancient Jewish traditions, later transmitted and developed in Christian and Islamic sources, the Nile is perceived as holy because

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its history intersects with those of certain prophets. For example, at his death, Joseph was buried in a marble sarcophagus and immersed in the waters of the Nile (Lauterbach, 2004, 1:119–120; Ṭ abarı ̄, 1987, 2:184; Ṭabarı̄, 1991, 3:21–32). His last instructions were that, if the Tribes should leave for the Promised Land, they should take his remains with them and give him a final burial. When Moses finally tries to leave Egypt after defeating Pharaoh’s armies, he is unsuccessful until he fulfils Joseph’s promise through the intervention of a charismatic woman who manages to locate the area of the Nile where the prophet is buried (Lauterbach, 2004, 1:119–120; Ṭ abarı ̄, 1991, 3:66). The story of Moses is also deeply connected to the Nile, which welcomes his cradle and protects him from the inevitable death decreed by Pharaoh (Exodus 2:1–10; Quran 28:7–13). Given the importance of the Nile for the lives of the people of Egypt, specific rituals have developed over the centuries to propitiate the floods and safeguard the prosperity of the land. The different religious communities that have been present in Egypt throughout its history have therefore reached a degree of mutual solidarity when faced with crucial circumstances of imminent danger. This has led to situations where these different communities have come together on the Nile to perform rituals and prayers in similar ways and with identical purposes (Patrizi, 2019). The Sinai as a Shared Holy Landscape One of the most impressive regions in the Egyptian landscape is undoubtedly the Sinai Peninsula, which also represents the place that is most intimately connected with the sacred history of Moses, particularly with regard to the Yes ̣i ‘at Miṣrayim, the ‘coming out of Egypt’ of the prophet and his people. For this reason, the Sinai represents an actual crossroads between three religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam. From the earliest times, the inhabitants of Egypt were attracted to this barren location because of the richness of its mineral deposits, particularly copper and turquoise, and they built temples dedicated to various divinities. In the area of Serabit el-Khadim, for instance, in the middle of the Sinai Peninsula, the remains of a temple dedicated to the goddess Hathor have been excavated since the beginning of the twentieth century (Valbelle & Bonnet, 1996). As we have seen, according to rabbinic Jewish thought, the Sinai lost its sanctity after the descent of Revelation, despite the fact that, according to the Old Testament, the Tablets of the Law were made of Sinaitic stone.

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However, some traces of pilgrimage practices to Sinai have survived in the rabbinic literature. In the Babylonian Talmud, we encounter the story of Rabbah bar bar Hana, who lived between the third and fourth centuries CE and travelled to the Sinai Peninsula in the footsteps of the wilderness of the Children of Israel. The Jewish scholar found a Bedouin guide to escort him, and when he reached what has been identified as Mount Sinai, he received some kind of divine communication. However, since he noted the presence of wild animals on the mount, the later rabbinic interpretation considered  this a clear sign of this site’s loss of sanctity (Grossmark, 2017). On the other hand, the perception of Sinai was different for certain Christian pilgrims and anchorites, who, from the fourth century onwards, travelled to the Sinai Peninsula in search of the holy places associated with the biblical  narration, but also because this deserted land reflected the inner landscape of essentialism and enlightenment that characterizes the ascetic path. The oldest and best-known report is the description given by Egeria, a fourth-century Christian pilgrim, of her visit to the holy mountain (McGowan & Bradshaw, 2018). The same perception is shared by Muslim populations since the Islamic conquest of Egypt, from the sixth century onwards. The topography of certain localities in Sinai, together with local customs, still reveals clear traces of these legendary attributions. These places have been and still are visited by Christian and Muslim pilgrims, and nowadays are also on the tourist itineraries offered by local guides. If we consider, for instance, the well-known episode of the Crossing of the Red Sea, which is mentioned in both the Old Testament and the Quran, we find a site on the shore of the Red Sea between Ra’s Maṭārma and Abū Zanı ̄ma which local populations consider to be the actual place where Moses and the Tribes miraculously crossed through the parted waters and reached the Sinai Peninsula, while Pharaoh and his army perished because of the closing of the waters after them. At this site is a source of hot sulphurous water used since antiquity and known as ḥamma ̄m Firʿawn, the Pharaoh’s Bath (Dankoff et al., 2018, p. 344). Further north, twenty kilometres south of Suez, are the ‘Uyūn Mūsā, the Springs of Moses, regarded as the place where Moses and the Tribes rested after crossing the Red Sea (Sadan, n.d., EI3). Again, these are hot sulphurous water springs, identified as the source of bitter water made sweet by a wood that Moses threw into the water at God’s command, as well as the twelve springs described in the Old Testament (Exodus

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15:22–27). Also in the Quran, we encounter a narrative according to which Moses struck a rock with his rod following a divine command, and twelve springs gushed from it, one for each of the tribes (Quran 2:60, 7:160). On the route that led the caravans to the centre of the Sinai Peninsula, in particular to the Monastery of Saint Catherine, is a vast valley called wādı ̄ Fı ̄rān, the Valley of Feiran, 2500 metres above sea level. According to local legends, it was rather in this place that Moses struck a granite rock, still visible today, from which a spring of drinking water gushed forth (Gabra, 1998, p. 77). At the bottom of the Valley of Feiran one reaches Jabal Sirbāl, Mount Serbal, which according to local legends is the mountain on which Moses received the Revelation. For this reason, the local Bedouins call it Jabal al-muna ̄ja, the ‘Mount of (Divine) Conversation’. Archaeological traces show that hermits from the early phase of Egyptian monasticism used to gather on the slopes of this mountain, and in addition to numerous granite dwellings, there are still traces of a monastery built at its foot, dating from the fourth century (Gabra, 1998, p. 77). Proceeding towards St Catherine’s monastery, one crosses the Wādı ̄ al-Ra ̄ḥa, the Valley of Rest, which is locally identified as the plain on which the Tribes camped while Moses ascended the Mount to receive the Revelation (Gabra, 1998, p. 77, p. 80). Before reaching the mountain, visitors come across the monastery of St Catherine, built in the sixth century at the time of Byzantine Emperor Justinian (r. 527–565), who also commissioned the construction of a very strong wall to protect it from Bedouin raids (Gabra, 1998, p. 82, p. 88). This monastery was held in high regard throughout Islamic times since according to medieval historiographical sources it was granted protection by the Prophet Muḥammad himself. These accounts relate that in the year 625, a delegation of St Catherine’s monks came to Medina to petition for the monastery to be safeguarded. They were well received, and the Prophet ordered a document to be issued granting them protection and exempting them from paying the jizya, the tax for the protection of Jewish and Christian communities under Islamic rule. A specimen of this letter was preserved in the monastery until it was taken to Istanbul by the Ottomans in 1517, by order of Sultan Selim I (r. 1512–1520). This document, whose authenticity is difficult to establish, was taken as the legal basis for a certain number of fatwas that was issued over the centuries by Muslim

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jurists, which confirmed the protection order and have also been preserved in the monastery library to this day (Atiya, 1952, pp. 578–579). According to Islamic sources, during the Fatimid era, between the tenth and eleventh centuries, the monks allowed the construction of a mosque with a minaret within the monastery enclosure, in the place where an old refectory once stood. This encouraged an atmosphere of harmony that allowed the monastery to survive highly complicated historical periods. During the Middle Ages the monastery was frequently visited by Christian pilgrims of various denominations, above all Copts, Armenians and Ethiopians. Numerous European pilgrims also visited the monastery as part of their pilgrimage to the Holy Land. All subsequent Islamic ruling dynasties in Egypt confirmed the monastery’s protection, and even Napoleon, during the campaign in Egypt (1798–1802) took an interest in the monastery by providing it with a declaration of protection in 1798. Finally, Egypt’s King Muhammad ‘Ali (r. 1805–1848) dedicated a portion of his customs taxes to the monastery to provide it with an income (Gabra, 1998, p. 82, p. 88). The most sacred area within the monastery is the Chapel of the Burning Bush, mentioned in the Old Testament. When Moses approaches it, God tells him to take off his sandals because the land he is about to enter is a sacred territory (Exodus 3:1, 4:17). In the Quranic narrative, Moses also notices a fire from afar and is drawn towards what appears to him to be a burning bush. As he approaches, God tells him that he is in a sacred and blessed valley (wādı ̄ mubārak) called Ṭ uwā (Quran 20:12; Quran 79:16), therefore he must remove his sandals. In another passage of the Quran, the valley is described as a blessed place (al-buq‘a al-mubāraka (Quran 28:30). Medieval sources mention that at an unspecified point in time an ancient bush that had been growing in the monastery was taken away after being divided into several relics. A chapel was built in its place, presumably in the sixth century. Another bush was raised nearby, the one that is still visible today (Gabra, 1998, p. 100). The highest mountain on the Peninsula, which is considered to be the one on which Moses received the Revelation, is Jabal Mu ̄sā or Mount Moses, which for this reason is also called ‘Mount Sinai’. On the summit is a Greek Orthodox chapel, built in 1934 on the ruins of a sixteenth-­ century church. According to local legends the chapel, which is currently closed, contains the Sinaitic rock from which the Tablets of the Law were carved (Gabra, 1998, p. 110). Next to the chapel is a small square mosque

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that is still used today by pilgrims (Gabra, 1998, p. 114). At the top of the mountain is the ‘Cave of Moses’, where according to local legend the Prophet received the Ten Commandments; this site is visited in particular by Orthodox Christians and Muslims (Manginis, 2016, p 29). Mystical Interiorization of the Holy Landscape of Sinai Over the centuries the theophany of Moses on Sinai has inspired a long series of mystical interpretations in both Jewish and Christian circles (Brooke et al., 2008). In the rabbinic exegetical literature, for instance, Moses’ ascent to the Mount is interpreted as a spiritual ascent (Teugels, 1996, pp. 594–602). Interesting mystical interpretations related to this event can also be discovered in Islamic sources. As we have seen, in the medieval Islamic geographical imagery, the Sinai is perceived as the ‘heart’ of the Old World. This image can be found in the verses of the famous Sufi poet ʿUmar Ibn al-Fāriḍ (d. 1235), where an intense process of inner assimilation is described between the Quranic theophany of the prophet Moses on Mount Sinai and the mystical experience of the poet himself (Ibn al-Fāriḍ, 2001, pp. 371–377): You are my obligatory and supererogatory acts, you are my word and my occupation. Oh, my direction in prayer, while I am gathered in prayer your beauty is in front of my eyes, towards it I have turned my everything your secret is in my depths, and the heart is the mount of my theophany I caught a glimpse of a fire from the camp at night and warned my people I told them not to move, because maybe, maybe I found a guide I approached and found myself in front of the fire of Him to whom he spoke and it came to me the invitation to the direct meeting, answer, O, nights of my Union and finally, the time came when everything in me became unified and my mountain was razed to the ground by reverential fear for Him, Who has manifested Himself and shines a hidden secret that knows only who is my equal I became the Moses of my time the moment a part of me became my everything and in death I found my life and in my life death!

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These verses perfectly epitomize the process of the re-elaboration of Egyptian history and sacred geography that can be observed in medieval Islamic thought.

The Shared Veneration of Egyptian Holy Places Still within the context of Egypt’s sacred landscape, some ancient monuments and natural places are considered holy. Local populations transmit legends about them, which are often shared between different religious communities. Pyramids as a Shared Holy Place The oldest evidence of holy places in Egypt is the pyramids, those of Giza being the most important and the most worthy of interest. Archaeologists consider that they date back to the third millennium BC, and their construction would have been completed by the Egyptian dynasties of the Old Empire. Since the Christian period, the relationship of the Egyptian population with ancient holy places has always been contrasted, being a combination of fascination and fear of the ancient ruins. In ancient Christian and Islamic sources, the pyramids are generally associated with the story of the prophet Joseph in connection with Pharaoh’s dream about fat and thin cows and full and empty ears of grain. Joseph interprets this dream as an indication of the next seven years of abundance being followed by seven years of famine, and he advises Pharaoh to store up grain (Genesis, 41). This is why the Egyptian populations of the Christian era, and later of the Islamic era, interpreted the pyramids as huge granaries in which the Pharaoh stored reserves in preparation for the famine (Cooperson, 2013, p. 202). Egyptologists have often defined the historical period from the beginning of Muslim Egypt until Napoleon’s expedition (1798–1801) as ‘the Lost Millennium’, due to the alleged lack of interest shown by Muslims in the history and vestiges of Ancient Egypt. Some studies have challenged this opinion, showing that several Muslim scholars have been deeply concerned about this issue, with some results, such as a first albeit very partial deciphering of the hieroglyphics (El Daly, 2005). Indeed, a number of medieval Muslim historians and geographers were interested in the nature and function of the pyramids. Some of them

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report very peculiar traditions, according to which the pyramids were built before the Flood (Fodor, 1970, pp. 335–363). They claim that Hermes the Ancient introduced the sciences on earth, among which was writing, and was the first to observe the movements of the stars and to build temples in honour of God. He also predicted to men the coming of the Flood and built the pyramids as a kind of ark in which to preserve the knowledge of his era. The figure of Hermes found a remarkable development in Hellenistic Egypt, originating the hermetic tradition and the cult of Hermes Trismegistus, ‘Hermes three times great’. This affirmed a continuity with the tradition of ancient Egypt through the conflation of Hermes with the god Thoth, also a protector of writing, and with the Roman tradition of the god Mercury. The Islamic tradition then identified Hermes with Idrı ̄s, the prophet sent by God between Adam and Noah, quoted in the Quran, who shows the same characteristics as both Hermes and the biblical Enoch. In Arabic sources, Hermes is called Hirmı ̄s, al-muthallath bi-l-ḥikma, ‘the triple-wisdom one’ a denomination that recalls the Greek epithet Trismegistus, and is often split into three separate personalities. The first Hermes is identified with Akhnūkh (Enoch) and Idrı ̄s, and is called the ‘Ancient’, the one who lived in Egypt before the Flood and built the pyramids (Fodor & Fóti, 1976). The second, called ‘the Babylonian’, lived after the Flood in Babylon and revived the study of sciences. The third lived later in Egypt and left a considerable legacy of writings that constitute the origin of the Hermetic tradition (Van Bladel, 2009, pp. 121–161). In the view of some medieval Muslim authors, the pyramids are a holy place because the third Hermes is said to have been buried beneath them, and for this reason, they are sometimes referred to in Islamic sources as ‘Abū Hirmı ̄s’ (the ‘Father of Hermes’, with the probable meaning of ‘He who contains Hermes, his sanctuary’). The Sphinx is instead called Abū al-Hawl, (the ‘Father of Fear’, or ‘The Scary One’) (Fodor, 1970, p. 346). Shared Holy Places Associated with the Holy Family’s Flight to Egypt A remarkable case study for this analysis is undoubtedly the shared veneration of sacred places associated with the Holy Family’s Flight to Egypt. According to Matthew’s Gospel, the Holy Family sojourned in the land of Egypt for an unspecified period to escape the persecution of Herod (Matthew 2:13–23).

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According to ancient Coptic sources, on their journey from Palestine to Egypt, Joseph, Mary and the child Jesus took the Roman coastal road and passed precisely through Sinai, stopping at Pelusium/al-Farama ̄ (Meinardus, 1999, p.  17). It is not possible to cover all the places that Christian tradition names as stations on the Holy Family’s journey, from Pelusium to Deir el-Muḥarraq in Upper Egypt and back, and therefore I will only mention the most relevant ones for this paper, those where holy places were shared. Although the Flight into Egypt is only briefly mentioned in one of the canonical Gospels, other details are found in the Apocrypha, particularly the infancy Gospels such as Pseudo-Matthew (sixth/seventh century), later developed in Christian sources, particularly Coptic literature. With regard to Islamic sources, according to some commentators, there is a reference to the Flight into Egypt in the following verse of the Quran: ‘We made the son of Mary and his mother a sign; We gave them shelter on a peaceful hillside with flowing water.’ (Quran 23:50). In Ṭ abarı ̄’s commentary, among the various interpretations of this verse is also that by Saʿı ̄d ibn al-Musayyib (d. 715), who stated that the hillside (rabwa) with flowing water is one of the hills of Egypt, for such hills are found only in Egypt (Ṭ abarı ̄, 2008, 19:55). According to a tradition reported by the Muslim historian al-Maqrı ̄zı ̄ (d. 1442), the locality to which this Quranic passage refers is the city of al-Bahnasa, the ancient Oxyrhynchus (Meinardus, 1999, p. 23). At a further point in the Flight into Egypt, a tree is mentioned under which the Holy Family stopped to rest. Various locations are identified with the original site of this tree. One of these is Bilbeis, located north of Cairo in the Governorate of Sharqiyya, where according to ancient traditions Jesus resurrected a deceased man whose coffin passed by as the Holy Family was entering the city. The veneration of this tree has been attested since the Middle Ages, as it was part of the pilgrims’ itinerary from Egypt to the Holy Land. In Islamic times, Muslims too began to visit it, reflecting the importance of the figure of Mary in Islam. They called it ‘The Virgin Tree’, and the space around it was used for a cemetery in which religious figures and saints were buried. The most important of these personalities is the Companion of the Prophet, ‘Uthmān ibn al-Ḥ ārith al-Anṣāri, after whom the mosque that still stands on this site is named. Local sources relate that, during Napoleon’s campaign, some soldiers decided to cut down this tree, but as soon as their axes cut into the wood it began to bleed and they fled in terror. Around 1850, however, the tree

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was cut down by some workers working nearby, and its wood was used to make a fire. Today, at the entrance to the mosque is a pillar with an inscription in Arabic stating that this was the original spot where the tree stood (Meinardus, 1999, pp. 19–20). The passage of the Holy Family to Matarea (al-Maṭariyya) is narrated in the Pseudo-Matthew and in the Coptic and Ethiopian Synaxaria (twelfth/thirteenth centuries), but it is also mentioned in the memoirs of certain pilgrims to the Holy Land. According to the Synaxaria, it was Jesus himself who indicated the place where the Holy Family should stop. Jesus took Joseph’s staff, divided it into several pieces and buried them in the earth. When he stirred the earth with his hand, a spring gushed forth from it, emitting a very strong sweet perfume. Jesus then watered the fragments of Joseph’s staff, and they began to take root, becoming a tree and producing leaves, which gave off an even sweeter fragrance. Jesus then prayed for  the balm released from this plant might serve for Christian baptism (Halikowski Smith, pp. 102–103). In relation to this legend, since medieval times Christian and Muslim pilgrims who visit Matarea would take fragments of balsam wood and bathe in a pool whose waters were believed to be curative because Mary had washed Jesus in them. Pilgrims used the parts of the plant to make a balsam that was used with baptismal water or as an antidote to poison. Muslim pilgrims, on the other hand, used the balsam to cure various infirmities (Halikowski Smith, 2008, p. 106). This balsam tree is said to have died during the seventeenth century, and in its place a sycamore tree was planted, which itself died at the beginning of the twentieth century. The tree that is still visible today was replanted from a branch of this sycamore (Meinardus, 1999, p. 22). The tree stands near the Catholic Church of Our Lady of Matarea, an Islamic place of worship that has taken the name of the ‘Mosque of the Tree’ (masjid al-shajara). In the Apocryphal Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, on the other hand, this plant is rather a date palm, which Jesus bends towards Mary, at which point the plant prostrates itself towards her until she enjoys its fruit and quenches her thirst from the spring that gushes forth from its roots (Halikowski Smith, 2008, p. 103). The name Matarea is mentioned in the Arabic Gospel of the Infancy as the place where the family stood under a sycamore tree and where Jesus caused a spring to flow in which Mary washed her son’s clothes. From the contact of Jesus’ shirt with the water originated the balsam found in this place (Halikowski Smith, 2008, p. 103).

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The episode of the date-palm bears some analogies with a similar episode in the Quran, where, however, it is situated in the period before the birth of Jesus (Quran 19:16–25). According to al-Maqrı ̄zı ̄, at least until the end of the Umayyad period in 750 CE, the palm tree mentioned in the Quran was located in Ihnāsiyā, the ancient city of Heracleopolis Magna, in the province of Bani Suef (Meinardus, 1999, p. 22). Other accounts suggest that the area where the miraculous balsam tree was situated and where Mary washed Jesus’ clothes was actually the nearby Ayn Shams, on the site of the ancient Heliopolis (Becker, EI2). Veneration of these places, given their significance in the sacred history of Jesus and Mary, has been shared by Christians and Muslims since the beginning of the Islamic era in Egypt. This is also due to the fact that this religious and cultural heritage is part of a national patrimony of which the people of Egypt, who have always maintained attitudes of strong religious devotion, are deeply proud. A Multi-Layered Shared Holy Place: The Temple of Luxor and the Shrine of Abū al-Ḥajjāj In order to conclude this overview of some of the shared holy places that exist within Egypt’s holy landscape, I introduce one of the most singular cases. In the thirteenth century, one of the greatest and most revered saints of Egyptian Islam, Abū al-Ḥ ajjāj al-Uqṣurı ̄, was living in the city of Luxor. When he died, he was buried on the site of the ancient temple of Luxor, at that time almost completely buried under the sand that had accumulated over it down the centuries. The shrine and mosque that had been built around his tomb had incorporated the upper part of the great columns of the temple into its structure, replacing an early Christian church. When archaeologists began to unearth the ancient ruins in the nineteenth century, they were faced with a dilemma: what to do with this construction that had been built on top of the temple? As in similar cases, popular legends describe unsuccessful attempts to destroy it due to supernatural action, after which the archaeologists were forced to give up (Chih, 1993, p. 67). The only thing that is certain is that the shrine is still there today, suspended above the temple, access to it being provided by climbing a high staircase. If one looks down from the windows of this shrine, which is still used as a mosque for daily worship, one comes across the jarring sight of the hordes of tourists who regularly visit the majestic Egyptian temple every day. The rituals commemorating the death of this

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saint, which take place every year on a precise date, show similarities with ancient festivals related to the fertility of the Nile, and in particular with the Feast of Opet, although continuity with them cannot be verified (Chih, 1993, p. 78). Having been the site of cults of different religions at different epochs, this holy place is therefore shared today between Muslim pilgrims visiting the shrine of Abū al-Ḥ ajjāj and the tourists visiting the ancient temple of Luxor.

Conclusions In this chapter, I have attempted to satisfy one of the directions for research raised by the editors of this volume in relation to the dynamics underlying the formation and development of a shared holy place. The focus of this analysis has been Egypt’s holy landscape, which, for its great antiquity and the distinctive features it embodies, can be considered paradigmatic with respect to the very notion of ‘geographies of encounter’ which stands at the centre of this publication. In the first part of the chapter, I highlighted the centrality of the Egyptian holy landscape within the framework of the sacred history of different civilizations and religions, given its extraordinary geographical position at the centre of the Old World. The deep relationship between Egypt’s history and sacred geography is apparent from the various denominations it has assumed throughout the ages, reflecting its millennial history, and conveying the idea of an axial land and of a border between lands. The Egyptian landscape itself is venerated on account of its connection with the sacred histories of the various religions that have succeeded one another on its territory. The Nile is perceived as a sacred force of nature that intervenes to protect the lives of prophets such as Joseph and Moses. At the same time, the Nile is the holy setting for shared religious rituals aimed at ensuring a satisfactory flood and thus the prosperity of the populations living on its banks. The Sinai landscape is also intrinsically related to the prophetic histories of different religions, later to be interiorized within their respective mystical literature. The various holy sites identified in Sinai have, since ancient times, been the destinations of pious visits by pilgrims in pursuit of the holiness that is transmitted to these places by contact with the sacred. Monumental traces left behind by ancient Egyptian civilizations such as the pyramids were also incorporated into the sacred heritage of the

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religions that emerged on Egyptian land in later times, even in the apparent absence of historical-religious continuity. Within the context of the Egyptian holy landscape, certain places are venerated by Christian and Muslim populations because they are identified as stations of rest on the Holy Family’s Flight to Egypt. Sources mention pilgrimages to certain sacred trees through the centuries, some traces of which remain visible even today. A further emblematic case analysed here is the sacred site where the shrine of the Muslim saint Abū al-Ḥ ajjāj, itself built on an ancient church, is superimposed on the ancient Egyptian temple of Luxor. The visit to this impressive holy site is nowadays shared between pilgrims and tourists. In conclusion, the sacred character of the Egyptian landscape has left an indelible trace in the religious and human cultural heritage of the populations of this land down the centuries. This same process has occurred even when the majority of Egypt’s populations have adopted Islam, a religion normally characterized by a strong and assertive identity of its own. Again, however, the sanctity that is inherent in the Egyptian landscape has been able to exert a very strong influence on the religious and mystical beliefs and practices of the people living in these lands. The direct consequence of this process, as we have been able to observe, has been the presence in the Egyptian environment of very fertile ground for the emergence of sacred sites that are shared by different religions.

References Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥ akam. (1999). Kita ̄b futu ̄ḥ Mis ̣r wa al-Maghrib li-Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥ akam. Ed. by ʿĀ mir, ʿAbd al-Munʿim, al-Ha’yat al-ʿāmma li-quṣūr al-thaqāfa, al-Qāhira. Anawati, G. C. (1996). Arabic Alchemy. In R. Rashed (Ed.), Encyclopedia of the History of Arabic Science (Vol. 3, pp. 853–885). Routledge. Atiya, A.  S. (1952). The Monastery of St. Catherine and the Mount Sinai Expedition. Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 96(5), 578–586. Becker, C. H. (n.d.). ʿAyn Shams. In P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C. E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel, & W. P. Heinrichs (Eds.), Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition. http:// dx.doi.org.uoelibrary.idm.oclc.org/10.1163/1573-­3912_islam_SIM_0913. Brooke, G.  J., Najman, H., & Stuckenbruck, L.  T. (2008). The Significance of Sinai: Traditions About Sinai and Divine Revelation in Judaism and Christianity. Brill. Calasso, G. (2020). The Past Before Their Own Past: Time, Otherness and the Monumental Remains of Pre-Islamic Civilizations as Seen by Medieval Muslim

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CHAPTER 14

Spatial Arrangements for Conviviality: The Garden of Faiths as a Multi-Religious Landscape in Germany Rasool Akbari and Mahdi Hasanzadeh

Introduction As German and other European societies have become more religiously plural through transnational migration, efforts have been made to create new ‘spatial arrangements’ (see Burchardt and Giorda in the introduction to this volume) in order to support emergent forms of conviviality (see, for instance, Hinchliffe & Whatmore, 2006; Padilla et al., 2015; Rodríguez, 2015). One such salient spatial arrangement is the rising number of multi-­ faith constructions that are often designed to promote interreligious encounters (Crompton, 2013) such as the ‘Casa delle religioni’ in the Italian city of Turin (Bossi and Giorda, in this volume) and the ‘House of One’ in the German capital, Berlin (Burchardt, in this volume). This chapter, by contrast, explores how such efforts have been played out in the

R. Akbari (*) • M. Hasanzadeh Department of Comparative Religions and Mysticism, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 M. Burchardt, M. C. Giorda (eds.), Geographies of Encounter, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82525-6_14

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creation of the GlaubensGarten (literally the ‘Garden of Faiths’), a multi-­ religious space in a setting which has been animated by collective imaginations of the spiritual value of natural landscapes. The Garden of Faiths emerged in a secular setting as part of the 2017 provincial garden show in the spa town of Bad Lippspringe, in the Paderborn district of Nord-Rhein-Westfalen (NRW) in Germany. In its creative spatial arrangement, GlaubensGarten materializes the multicultural conviviality that is enacted among a diversity of local religious communities and their surrounding populations. At its sustainable location inside a green garden park, GlaubensGarten has been functioning since 2017 as an open community centre to offer a public space not only for everyday religious routines such as joint interfaith prayers and meditations on a multi-belief calendar of daily, weekly and annual events but also for a variety of intercultural encounters and engagements, mainly in multiple forms of (non)religious sharing, networking and socializing. Using a case study in a German multicultural setting, this chapter addresses GlaubensGarten as a spatialization of sustained social relations and a materialization of conviviality among multiple religious and non-affiliated actors. As such, this multi-religious space symbolizes the local community’s capacity to manage socio-spatial relations through constructive negotiations and in consensual ways, which in effect can produce peacefulness and preserve harmony in a diverse society (Barkey, 2014). Despite the rather small size of the town, with its population of around 16,000, the project illustrates how participating faith communities and activist individuals from different religious, ethnic and ideological backgrounds engage in debates on conviviality. GlaubensGarten has today become a central spiritual element embedded in the architectural heritage of Bad Lippspringe as primarily a spa town. It not only embodies the socio-spatial resources of the participating religions, but has also created new relations and transformed sociocultural connections within the larger community. In accordance with the main argument proposed by Burchardt and Giorda in the introduction to the present volume, this chapter assumes that, as a particular socio-spatial arrangement, GlaubensGarten is an outcome of mutual interactions between the ‘religious spatial strategies’ of the communities involved and their secular ‘spatial regimes’(Becci et al., 2017). But how do participating religious communities understand this multi-religious space? And what are the dynamics that have facilitated consensus among them?

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In order to address these questions, the chapter draws on data collected while conducting a qualitative research project from June 2018 to March 2020. Methods of data collection included semi-structured interviews with key actors in the GlaubensGarten project, participant observation of the multi-religious space, and artefact and document analysis.

One Garden Pavilion for Seven Faiths Located in a sheltered spot on the western edge of the Egge Mountains, Bad Lippspringe is the only state-recognized medicinal-climate spa town in NRW. For many visitors and patients, the town is a favourite destination for its climatic health resorts and therapeutic mineral-water springs. Out of five candidate applications submitted in 2011, the town was chosen by the NRW Ministry of Environment to receive funding to host a horticultural show from April 12 to October 15, 2017, as well as further grants for a programme promoting urban development. Under the motto ‘Blumenpracht und Waldidylle’ (‘Floral splendor and forest idyll’), the state garden show involves flower shows, themed gardens and events designed spatially between the parks and the city centre. As stated on the online archive for the garden show (Meldearchiv der Landesgartenschau, 2016a), sustainability was from the beginning a particular focus for the construction of a forest community centre as a venue for ‘events and restaurants with particular excitement’ where ‘parents can have a coffee in peace while their offspring are playing with restless excitement’. Inside the territorial boundaries of this primarily secular site, there was an impulse among the organizers to prepare a space in the forest park for ‘Garden of Faiths to be created and led jointly by different religions’. Local religious communities were invited to ‘contribute to living respect, equal communication and participation, integration, religious education and the reduction of prejudices’ (Meldearchiv der Landesgartenschau, 2016b). In an interview, a middle-aged pastor, a leading community activist in interfaith relations and one of the key initiators and managers of the project, whom we call Hannah,1 explained the beginnings of space-making as follows: ‘Well, in the beginning, the municipality had only invited the Roman Catholic and the Lutheran Church to participate in the garden show.’ This seems understandable given that, despite Germany’s growing multicultural diversity, in some cities and towns more formal or deeper 1

 All participants’ names have been anonymized using pseudonyms to protect their identity.

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relations between minority religious communities and the municipalities have not yet been established. Hannah emphasized: But we had had a vivid interreligious dialogue for some years before. So it was easy to decide that our contribution to the show would be a shared one. The idea came from the religious communities that had already been in cooperation for almost ten years. We had to convince the municipality, though.

Those religious groups that had already been involved in interfaith exchange were apparently successful in selling their idea to the municipality. As the first of its kind, at least at the provincial level, GlaubensGarten was conceived as a multi-religious network which in Hannah’s interpretation aimed ‘to unite all religions’ and ‘to give the members of other religions and denominations the chance to experience the positions of the Other by seeing it through their souls and not their theologies and also to make non-religious visitors aware of the prospects on religious diversity’. But how was it possible to create the garden in a non-competitive way given that, historically, religious sharing has often involved stark antagonisms (Hayden et al., 2016)? Daisy, a prominent interfaith activist, told us: We needed a concrete space to come together, one that could symbolize our seven faiths but was associated with none of them directly in an exclusive manner, or perhaps did not even imply anything religious at all; we all knew about the House of One project in Berlin and find that tricky somehow because we think it dissolves the religious identities.

Thanks to their sustained relationships, practical dialogue and exchanges of experience at the community level, the representatives of religions promoted the vision of an alternative architecture that reflected their differences and commonalities. However, for them the question remained how to make such spatial collaboration possible. As Christoph, a Catholic priest, argued, We felt that something new, something different should be created. This had very concrete effects on the design of the pavilion as the common place of religions. We have dispensed with designs such as towers or domed roofs in order not to dominate the well-known sacred buildings. In this question, everyone involved had to step back a bit. We have dispensed with [conventional] designs in order not to be reminiscent of the sacred buildings of any

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particular religion. Something new, something different was supposed to emerge.

This response reveals how such an alternative materialization of religious inclusivism would paradoxically necessitate bracketing the contested ‘sacred’ element within distinct cultural traditions of space. It would entail a step away from established ideas about what a place of worship requires. At the same time, the secular context of the German state garden show encouraged actors to modify their religious socio-spatial strategies. As Christoph further elaborated: We live in a secular society. Religion is perceived as a disruptive factor. Religions often appear in the news when it comes to conflict and demarcation. In contrast, we convey a positive image of religion. In the secular society we stand for spirituality. Something that surpasses this reality. This is something we find in all religions. Despite their minor differences, all religions have this insight in common: this world cannot be explained by itself. It is important that such a message has a place in a space of leisure. We are grateful to the State Horticultural Show Society for making it possible to establish a religious focus in a secular context.

Nevertheless, the organizers’ concerns went far beyond the religious aspects of their project. According to Hannah, ‘the site needed to have a roof, for the German weather, you know, but barrier-free and open. Money and meaning were both issues. A number of students of architecture sketched plans for the structure, but some were too expensive, [and] others were too Christian’. Importantly, as we show in this chapter, in order to make the new design possible, religion was required to give way to spirituality (Heelas & Woodhead, 2005). The interaction of the project’s promoters and the team of architects led to a paradigmatic shift towards spirituality as a ‘new form of public religion’ (Woodhead, 2013) that helped to give ideas of interreligious dialogue a spatial form. Largely volunteering their services on a pro bono basis, local architects designed a pavilion that solved a fundamental dilemma for the religions involved: to create a space for spiritual events that could be experienced as sacred but not religious, and that was not reminiscent of existing religious designs. ‘Everything that looked like a church, temple, minaret, church tower or mosque was actually eliminated from the outset,’ Hannah exclaimed.

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Spaces of Identity and Representation With an area of eighty square meters and a height of six meters to make it visible from the large spa promenade in the garden show area, the pavilion (Fig. 14.1) is situated at the centre of the Garden of Faiths and serves as a multifunctional space for meetings, events, information and weather protection. The upper half of this upward-facing rectangle is covered with a lamellar structure consisting of wooden beams with a light glaze. This gives the pavilion transparency and openness. The light falls through the spaces between the woods and the shadows of the trees play on the lamella structure. From afar, this nonreligious-looking structure erected in a lower, free area looks like a passage or a market place, a place that opens up and invites people to linger. The light wooden structure shimmers through the trees without the building appearing dominant. The pavilion radiates a certain promise and invitation in light and transparent manner.

Fig. 14.1  The Pavilion© Rasool Akbari & Mahdi Hasanzadeh, July 2018

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The artistic installation of acrylic glass rods has made it possible for the pavilion to reflect the core idea of this multi-religious space project, as set out on its official website: ‘rays of light should emanate from this project’ (GlaubensGarten, 2017a). The idea behind this was to reduce the religions to their presumably essential element of natural spirituality. Thus, the pavilion is reminiscent of a protected place, which, however, continues to correspond with the surrounding nature. The religious groups that participate in the garden represent the religious communities that live in the local district. In a circle around the square pavilion (Fig. 14.2), seven square gardens have been arranged for Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism, Baha’ism, Islam, Judaism and Christianity. These geometric shapes are described on the GlaubensGarten website as having specific meanings in many religions: ‘the circle is among other things a symbol of the heaven and infinity. The square symbolizes

Fig. 14.2  The Pavilion and the Seven Gardens of Faiths © GlaubensGarten (2017b)

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perfection as well as man-made production and is thus a common form for enclosed places: gardens, cloisters or courtyards.’ The different gardens follow a certain uniformity in their dimensions and materials while also enabling the participating communities to recreate their symbols (water springs, plants and so on) in metalwork and woodwork. One special edition of a local magazine (Dom Magazin, 2017) provides descriptions of the spatial and architectural meanings and symbolisms in the GlaubensGarten project that represent each faith community: 1. With its loose planting of ferns and grasses, the Buddhist garden appears almost wild and rather disorganized. The Buddha, depicted in a typical meditation posture, sits under a tree to symbolize the possibility of experiencing spiritual awakening, while the balance of the bodily proportions in the lotus position reflects the values of meditation, contemplation, inner peace and the Middle Way (Sanskrit: Madhyama-pratipada ̄) (Dom Magazin, 2017, p. 10). 2. Selected from a vast number of deities in the Hindu tradition, Ganesha symbolizes the divine as a gracious, kind, friendly, humorous, clever and human god, as well as being the son of Shiva and Parvati, with whom he embodies the ideal image of the Hindu family. The banana tree kata kela represents coolness and mastery, and the act of peeling back the layers of the banana tree trunk until there is nothing left reflects eternal knowledge. In addition, the tulsi plant or Holy Basil, which is often used in Hindu religious ceremonies, represents divine protection. Flowers, with their bright, cheerful colours, are meant to symbolize purity, faithfulness, creativity and enlightenment (Dom Magazin, 2017, p. 11). 3. For Sikhism, four indicated gates with entrances from four directions symbolize the famous Golden Temple in Amritsar, the preeminent spiritual site for Sikhism in Punjab, India. The idea is that all people from all directions are welcome, regardless of their origin, tradition or religion. Besides, the Khanda as the emblem of faith represents the four pillars of the Sikh religion (Dom Magazin, 2017, p. 7). 4. The Baha’is believe that ‘nature in its innermost being rests in the powerful hand of God’. As a result, in the garden they have attempted to depict harmonious beauty and mirror symmetry, with geometrically precisely cut trees as a planted invitation to rest, prayer and meditation (Dom Magazin, 2017, p. 13).

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5. In the Jewish garden, a long table has been installed on which to roll out the scrolls of the TaNaKh, the canonical collection of Hebrew scriptures. Two chairs for conversation invite the visitors to encounter, dialogue with and jointly study the scriptures in order to delve into the root principles of the faith. Moreover, citrus trees have been planted to depict the vegetation in biblical Israel and symbolize the personalities of the people (Dom Magazin, 2017, p. 12). 6. The Islamic garden is meant to function as a reminder of the great and ancient tradition of Islamic gardens, which in turn reflected Al-­ Janna, the Arabic word for paradise in the Qur’an. Four rivers, symbolized in the garden by broken glass, recall the Qur’anic streams of life in heaven: honey, water, wine and milk. Water is generally the symbol of goodness and of the grace of God and a primordial element of creation. Additionally, a rose has been planted as the symbolic flower of the Prophet Muhammad (Dom Magazin, 2017, p. 9). 7. The visitor enters the Christian garden only to see at its heart a table with a metal bowl filled with water and at its centre a carved cross to make an association with baptism, which is recognized by all the participating denominations. Whereas the grapevine has been planted as one of the most common plants mentioned in the Bible, the strawberries symbolize paradise, and with their low growth, they stand for humility and modesty (Dom Magazin, 2017, p. 8). Significantly, negotiations over the garden’s design were not without dissonance, as shown by an incident narrated by Ceyda, a Muslim interviewee and local activist, who explained how, on a special occasion, one community wanted their nationalist political flag raised in their garden space: But everyone said “No! We do not want nationalism. That will separate us!” So we discouraged them from doing that, and they finally accepted … Sitting down to talk about the space we desired, we thought first to dedicate different unique corners in the garden space for every faith. Then we responded “No! That implies separation!” We must focus more on the commonalities and similarities within our religions.

In this context, reaching a practical consensus over the making of a shareable sacred space entailed compromise and negotiation among the participating actors. As Daisy suggested: ‘It was not always easy. Of course, there

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were still cases when someone came at the last moment and said: “We actually want this or that design, this or that symbol to change and be very different!”’. In another instance, the informants came to an agreement on how to fit the Christian garden into the framework: ‘It took a long time for the four Christian denominations to come to a conclusion. We discussed the Church history of two thousand years, and it is important that there has been a result,’ Christoph said. Yet, to others, such concerns seemed out of place, as they highlighted the garden’s nature as a space for encounters. In this vein, Hannah suggested: ‘It is a place for lively dialogue. We did not want to create a museum of world religions or a showcase of faith traditions. Therefore, we acknowledge perhaps some religions are missing; even the seven religions that are represented here only show a part of the many worldwide traditions within the religions.’

Building a Sustainable Community Centre Officially, the Garden of Faiths was from the outset ‘planned to function as a theme garden for providing information about the engaged religions, holding events and ceremonies, as well as for networking and exchange, encounters and cooperation’ (Meldearchiv der Landesgartenschau, 2017). This raises questions as to how negotiations among the participating religious actors are grounded in existing social networks in the town. We found that the most important of these were circles of women activists with Protestant, Baha’i and Muslim affiliations. According to the interviews, in an important example, local religious networks were engaged in so-called ‘Ihr und Wir’ (You and We) programmes, a publicly funded initiative for holding joint annual festivals, with invitations to some of the local religious communities four times a year for a limited number of joint interreligious practices. As Hannah narrated, Before that, we had already been working together on various occasions and projects for over a decade … we carried out the Ihr und Wir interfaith programme for many years; we gathered together once a year for common prayers; we had built relationships among our families; we cooperated in refugee support projects … and this cooperation gave rise to the idea of presenting a joint project for religions in the 2017 state garden show.

Before expanding their intergroup engagements in the new action field of constructing the multi-faith gardens, the main participants had

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previously created such community relations in the rather regular ritualistic forms of ‘Common Prayers of Religions’ and ‘Festival of Encounters’ (Fest der Begegnung), as well as ‘Women’s Reading Networks’ developed by friends from four local faith traditions. Such pre-existing networks have clearly supported the sustainability of GlaubensGarten. Asked how the religious groups in Bad Lippspringe have managed to get along with each other for so many years, Christoph stressed that from the start they have treated each other openly and respectfully: ‘This is our message, an example that we want to give with the Garden of Faiths; that religions work together peacefully and with trust.’ Furthermore, Daisy underscored the value of interreligious acculturation and mutual understanding: We have shown that religions can learn from each other. This happens when you approach each other positively and not only always look for the mistakes. This includes being open, accepting the Other, looking at the individual and not the fact that he or she may have a different skin colour or speak a different language.

In addition, we draw attention to the capacity of the participating theologies to produce meanings and distribute values that can create sustainable socio-spatial community relations or transform exclusive social networks into more inclusive ones. We found traces of such transformative theologies in various  notes collected from the field and the  interviews. Thus, participants variously suggested: ‘Our self-image also shapes our responsibility toward the Other faiths;’ ‘My faith must offer hope and tolerance to all of our visitors regardless of their (non)beliefs;’ and ‘Faith must have at its heart an element of humility as a human being’. In view of the ‘relational’ aspect of the social space (Fuller & Löw, 2017), we can see that dialogic interactions among the participating religions have facilitated the (re)modification of their spatial strategies and thus been conducive to spatial arrangements that materialize the consensual development of GlaubensGarten as a shared community. Such a relational-­interactional element of spatialization in this multi-faith project can particularly be discerned where networks of social relations are created and/or sustained in the larger spectrum of the city. Based on the fieldwork and interview data, constructive dialogues and relationships were built not only within the engaged religious groups but also outside the faithful community with secular or non-religious authorities and actors. Christoph underlined the effectiveness of negotiations among religious and

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non-religious actors as they widen the network of social relations beyond the boundaries of religions: We attempted to look at practical examples from previous state garden shows and to hear different people’s interesting suggestions for planning the structure, and the basic ideas came from our own interfaith dialogue circles. We even made ourselves the first drafts for the Garden of Faiths. But the concrete implementation, the way in which the gardens and the grounds were designed in an appealing manner, came largely from the professionals.

As Hannah explained, ‘The architects wanted to know what had motivated their clients. So they had to get to know our religions—all the meanings, symbolisms, values!’ Apparently, to find out about every religion which would enable them to make appropriate designs and sketches, the architects talked to the representatives of every faith community. As a result, the project can be viewed as a spatial arrangement mediated through in-group as well as out-group networking that fosters consensus and cohabitation despite the frequent controversies linked to the ideologies of the participating religions. An important indicator of the sustainability of this multi-religious space is the range of programmes and events that were planned and held in it. The programme in 2017 for a six-month garden show included festivals on the holidays of the participating religions, regular rituals of devotion and meditation, lectures and discussion events, guided tours, information provision in the form of brochures and interactive media, concerts and activities within the framework of the ‘Green Classroom’ (Grünen Klassenzimmer) to offer natural experiences in the garden’s fields with varied course programmes on the environment, culture, science and education. For the opening ceremony in April 2017, invitations were sent to religious and secular leaders from within and outside the locality, activists from different religions and various non-religious organizations, and neighbouring cities and towns. Between 2017 and 2020, an estimated 14,000 people visited the GlaubensGarten and offered donations, thereby nourishing perceptions of it as a big success. In qualitative terms as well, interreligious activities in the town have been intensified since the establishment of GlaubensGarten. Through joint work on shared projects, more volunteers and participants from various religious communities have found an opportunity to engage in interfaith relations. The list of programmes includes religious rituals and

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practices ranging from weekly meetings for meditation, scripture readings, prayers for every religion in the gardens, regular garden talks by multi-­ faith educators and lecturers on diverse themes of faith and health, human rights, eschatology, religious tolerance etc., ecumenical gospel service offered by male and female pastors from different Christian denominations, together with musical frameworks of traditional and newer pop and gospel songs, sessions of scripture readings with violin and piano and shared prayers of religions and festival of encounters to a variety of interfaith choir and dance performances, interreligious devotional practices, meditative flute concerts, food festivals of homemade specialities from different countries, cultures and religions, and educational and leisure programmes for children and teenagers. Additionally, even profane tasks such as those related to gardening have been transformed into multi-religious joint community activities. At the same, the debates around GlaubensGarten have highlighted the complex and sometimes fraught relationships between religious identities and the idea of interreligious dialogue. On one occasion, one participant suggested: ‘The design of the individual parts is done by the respective religious communities. They choose what they want to show; they decide what is the essence of their religious identity.’ The same emphasis on distinct religious identities is also illustrated in the introduction to the project on the website, which states: ‘GlaubensGarten does not want to hide the differences between the religions, but rather to illustrate the peaceful cooperation of the religions with mutual respect and appreciation of diversity. Nobody should hide because otherwise they will withhold their wealth from others’ (GlaubensGarten, 2017a). This description is highly reminiscent of the ways in which religious differences were emphasized and in fact reproduced in the debates around the ‘House of One’ as explored by Marian Burchardt in his chapter in this volume. The paradoxes involved in the demands the religious actors made to protect their separate identities are also reflected in the following observation made by Hannah: ‘We had religious groups that were reluctant to accept the invitation because they thought it will be a desacralization of their traditions. But these same people, as soon as they joined, they demanded equal space and fairness of sharing.’ Identity and equality were thus the most critical themes in the multi-religious context of GlaubensGarten. Out of dissatisfaction with the ways in which these values had been addressed in the project, some religious groups, although they were invited, actually refused to participate. As Hannah explained:

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Not only has the design of our space been inclusive, but also our attitude in inviting all living communities in the town. But OK, people are free to decide if they want to join or not, if they want to share the space or not. There are groups and denominations that challenged us for desacralizing faiths, and those who were reluctant and sceptical, while some others were resentful because we had delayed in inviting them to join us. Attitudes are different.

Concerns over equality among the participants also came to the fore with regard to the question of who should have ownership of the multi-­ religious space until the Evangelical Church of Paderborn Parish took over the legal entity and the trust’s administration of the donations for GlaubensGarten. This certainly gave the church a degree of dominance within the consortium that needed to be justified as well as counterbalanced by decision-making procedures. Again, as Hannah explained: Everyone had a vote at the table, and the principle of consensus was that decisions had to be unanimous so that they could actually be implemented. All religions or denominations had one vote each, and thus it never happened that [for instance] the majority population of Christian denominations dominated the interfaith circles.

Conclusion In this chapter, we have explored the social and political dynamics around a multi-religious project in rural Germany that emerged out of local efforts to strengthen interreligious dialogues in a context of ‘religious super-­ diversity’ (Burchardt & Becci, 2016). We suggest that, while this site was certainly not in the spotlight of international public attention, our analysis offers some valuable lessons for the study of multi-religious spaces in general. First, being located on the geographical periphery of a small town, the Garden of Faiths can be construed as a multi-religious landscape that draws on the presumed spiritual qualities of nature. Just as in the other, older historical examples of multi-religious landscapes discussed in this volume, religious actors in the Garden of Faiths draw on particular spatial strategies (Becci et al., 2017) to rework and transform nature into a network of sacred sites in which different religious communities are powerfully invested. However, unlike these historical cases, the Garden of Faiths

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is a multi-religious landscape by design that reflects conscious efforts to create convivial interreligious relationships. In fact, many of the debates around design, the division of space and the protocols of decision-making we have identified and analysed in this chapter are very similar to those of the other contemporary multi-religious spaces addressed in this volume. We, therefore, suggest that the management and rhetoric surrounding these projects adhere to and converge around the core set of tenets (equality, egalitarian access, non-discrimination and so on), which renders them largely homogenous. Second, as we have shown, the negotiations among the participants over the garden’s design and the idea that design elements should emphasize the distinctiveness of the religious communities led to the foregrounding of the language of spirituality. To put it more succinctly, whereas in the debates among the participants religion was supposed to be particularistic, indivisible and distinct, something that was to be organized through discreet categories and in the plural, spirituality was understood as universal and shared among all. To some extent, it was this shift towards the language of spirituality that has most characterized this multi-religious space project and enabled the convivial relationships described in this chapter. Finally, we highlight the particular types of activity that take place in the Garden of Faiths. There appears to be a consensus, shared across numerous multi-religious projects and interreligious dialogues, about how such spaces are supposed to be used. Activities pivot on ideas about spirituality (i.e. shared meditations and devotions) and (high) culture (for instance, concerts and exhibitions). Such activities are not easily classified as religious or secular. Rather, they endow these spaces with a distinct cultural atmosphere, one which does not neatly map on to existing categorizations. At the same time, by design, such multi-religious landscapes invite activities that serve to ‘touristify’ them. There are some overlaps here between the touristification of the Svet Naum monastery in northern Macedonia that Evelyn Reuter describes in her chapter and the efforts to attract visitors to the Garden of Faiths. What remains to be seen is how multi-religious landscapes such as the Garden of Faiths will figure within the spatial imaginaries of ordinary religious practitioners and the religious practices of local everyday life.

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References Barkey, K. (2014). Religious Pluralism, Shared Sacred Sites, and the Ottoman Empire. In E. Barkan & K. Barkey (Eds.), Choreographies of Shared Sacred Sites: Religion, Politics, and Conflict Resolution (pp.  33–68). Columbia University Press. Becci, I., Burchardt, M., & Giorda, M. (2017). Religious Super-Diversity and Spatial Strategies in Two European Cities. Current Sociology, 65(1), 73–91. Burchardt, M., & Becci, I. (2016). Religion and Superdiversity: An introduction. New Diversities, 18(1), 1–7. Crompton, A. (2013). The Architecture of Multifaith Spaces: God Leaves the Building. The Journal of Architecture, 18(4), 474–496. Dom Magazin (2017, April 30). GlaubensGarten in der Landesgartenschau Bad Lippspringe [Garden of Faiths in the Bad Lippspringe State Horticultural Show]. Fuller, M. G., & Löw, M. (2017). Introduction: An Invitation to Spatial Sociology. Current Sociology, 65(4), 469–491. GlaubensGarten. (2017a). Projekt. https://www.glaubensgarten.de/projekt. GlaubensGarten. (2017b). Der GlaubensGarten Pavillion und die 7 Gärten der Religion [The Pavilion and the 7 Gardens of Faiths] [Site Plan]. https://www. glaubensgarten.de/fileadmin/mediapool/gemeinden/glaubensgarten/ Webseiten_Grafik_Bilder/Religionen/plan_GG.png Hayden, R. M., Tanyeri-Erdemir, T., Walker, T. D., Erdemir, A., Rangachari, D., Aguilar-Moreno, M., Lâopez-Hurtado, E., & Bakić-Hayden, M. (2016). Antagonistic Tolerance: Competitive Sharing of Religious Sites and Spaces. Routledge. Heelas, P., & Woodhead, L. (2005). The Spiritual Revolution: Why Religion Is Giving Way to Spirituality. Blackwell Publishing. Hinchliffe, S., & Whatmore, S. (2006). Living Cities: Towards a Politics of Conviviality. Science as culture, 15(2), 123–138. Meldearchiv der Landesgartenschau [Report Archive of the State Garden Show]. (2016a, February 19). Blumenpracht & Waldidylle [‘Floral Splendor & Forest Idyll’]. https://www.gartenschau-­badlippspringe.de/landesgartenschau/ aktuelles/Meldearchiv-­L GS-­2 017/Blumenpracht-­Waldidylle-­a uf-­d er-­ LGS-­2017.php Meldearchiv der Landesgartenschau [Report Archive of the State Garden Show]. (2016b, June 23). “GlaubensGarten” vereint alle Religionen [‘GlaubensGarten’ Unites all Religions]. https://www.bad-­lippspringe.de/bali/aktuelles/meldungen/meldungsarchiv/2016/2016-­06-­23_32_GlaubensGarten-­vereint-­ Religionen.php Meldearchiv der Landesgartenschau [Report Archive of the State Garden Show]. (2017, January 26). “GlaubensGarten” nimmt konkrete Formen an [‘GlaubensGarten’ Takes on Concrete Forms]. https://www.gartenschau-­

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b a d l i p p s p r i n g e . d e / l a n d e s g a r t e n s c h a u / a k t u e l l e s / M e l d e a r c h i v -­ LGS-­2017/2017-­01-­26_-­GlaubensGarten-­nimmt-­konkrete-­Formen-­an.php Padilla, B., Azevedo, J., & Olmos-Alcaraz, A. (2015). Superdiversity and Conviviality: Exploring Frameworks for Doing Ethnography in Southern European Intercultural Cities. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 38(4), 621–635. Rodríguez, E.  G. (2015). Archipelago Europe: On Creolizing Conviviality. In E.  G. Rodríguez & S.  A. Tate (Eds.), Creolizing Europe: Legacies and Transformations (pp. 80–99). Liverpool University Press. Woodhead, L. (2013). New Forms of Public Religion: Spirituality in Global Civil Society. In W. Hofstee & A. van der Kooij (Eds.), Religion Beyond Its Private Role in Modern Society (pp. 29–52). Brill.

Index1

A ‘Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan, 37 Abba Rid, 259, 267, 269–271, 275 Abbink, Jan, 255n2, 257n7 ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAmr ibn al-ʿAṣ, 282 ʿAmr ibn al-ʿAṣ, 282, 284 Abū al-Ḥ ajjāj al-Uqṣurı ̄, 296–298 Abū Hirmı ̄s, 293 Abū Zanı ̄mi, 288 Adam, 103, 293 Adventist Church, 184 Agatanghel, 187, 191, 193, 195, 196 Aegyptos, 285 Akiva, 90 Aksum, 261, 263, 269, 269n30 Al-Aqsa Mosque, 37, 41 Albania, 156, 162, 164, 167, 170, 171 Albera, Dionigi, 6n6, 14, 121, 159, 160n3, 235 Aleph, 30, 48, 48n3, 50 Allegory, 137, 148, 149 Ambiguous/ambiguity, 30, 155–158, 160n3, 161, 176, 224

Alexander, Stella, 169 Alexander the Great, 61, 75, 88, 170 Ammianus Marcellinus, 79, 81–83 Antioch, 2n2, 10, 18, 68, 75–93 Antiochus IV, 89 Appropriation, 9, 15, 32, 41, 56–58, 61, 63, 69, 117, 136, 137, 180 Archdiocese of Târgoviște, 187, 199 Architecture, religious, 116, 234 Ark of the Covenant, 146 Ark of Law, 146 Armenians, 39, 75, 76, 109, 119, 121, 122, 124, 290 Ashmunit, 90 Asia Minor, 142 Azoury, Negib, 45 B Babylas, 10, 18, 78–86, 92, 93 Babylonian Talmud, 89–91, 288 Bad Lippspringe, 304, 305, 313 Balevski, Milčo, 167

 Note: Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes.

1

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 M. Burchardt, M. C. Giorda (eds.), Geographies of Encounter, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82525-6

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322 

INDEX

Balsam, 295, 296 Bani Suef, 296 Baptist Church, 184 Barkan, Elazar, 6n6, 7, 13, 48, 160, 235 Barkey, Karen, 5, 6n6, 7–9, 13, 16, 44, 48, 160, 235, 304 Bar Kochba, 136, 140 Bayṣar, 284 Ben-Dor, Shoshana, 271n32, 271n34 Benjamin of Tudela, 104 Benvenuti in Italia Foundation, 181–182 Berlin, 3, 125, 181, 198, 231–250, 303, 306 Bern, 3, 182, 198, 200 Beta Israel, 268 Beth-Shearim, 90 Bilbeis, 294 Bishop, 10, 36, 69, 79, 139, 144, 145, 157, 162, 166, 191, 193 Bitola, 166, 168, 173, 174 Black Drinriver, 172 Bordeaux, Pilgrim from, 141 Bosnia, 165 Botta, Mario, 212 Bougarel, Xavier, 166 Bowman, Glenn W., 6, 12, 13, 18, 44, 158–160, 160n3, 166, 235 Bunea Monastery, 185 Byzantium, 7, 8, 99, 102, 109 C Cairo/al-Qāhira, 10, 284, 294 Calliope, 81 Cambrai Map, 41, 42 Cam/Ḥ ām, 284 Canaan, 284 Casa delle religioni, 181, 205–227, 303 Castalia, 82

Catholicism, Catholic, 2, 11, 101, 105, 106, 109, 116, 121, 126–128, 161, 180, 208, 210–213, 217, 246, 306 Cave of Moses, 291 Ceaușescu, Nicolae, 179 Celakoski, Naum, 164 Celsus, 67, 81 Children of Israel, 288 Christianity/Christians, 2, 3, 7–12, 8n7, 8n8, 9n9, 16, 18, 20, 34–41, 43–46, 63–69, 76–89, 91–93, 99–105, 107n8, 110, 115, 116, 118, 121, 125, 135–151, 155, 157, 158, 160–168, 175, 176, 180–182, 184, 185, 195, 196, 199, 210, 210n11, 211, 217, 223, 236, 238, 241–243, 246, 255–277, 282, 284–292, 294–296, 298, 307, 309, 311, 312, 315, 316 Chrysostom, John, 77–79, 82–88, 90–92 Church of the Anastasis, 142 Citizenship, 3, 120 Class differentiation, 128 Clayer, Nathalie, 166 Clement of Alexandria, 139, 148, 148n4, 150 Clinton, Bill, 47, 48 Clinton parameters, 48 Codex Theodosianus, 69 Competition, religious, 10–12, 60, 61, 67, 76, 77, 85, 91, 93 Compounds, 11, 35, 37–43, 45, 48, 174, 259, 266, 267 Communication, religious, 56, 57 Communism/Communist, 179, 182, 183 Community local, 88, 304 faith, 120, 239, 304, 310, 314

 INDEX 

religious, 1, 6, 13, 15, 16, 41, 44, 65, 101, 122, 127, 159, 169, 180, 182, 197, 200, 224, 226, 239, 241–243, 258–260, 267, 275, 276, 287, 292, 304–306, 309, 312, 314–317 non-religious, 215 Consensus, 61, 304, 311, 314, 316, 317 Constantine, 8, 36, 69, 84, 99, 102, 107, 139–143 Constantine the Great, 102 Constantinople, 8, 11, 19, 76, 99–110, 249 Constantius Gallus, 79 Constantius II, 78, 79 Conviviality, 245, 303–317 Courts of the Gentiles, 140 Cyprian of Carthage, 144 D Däbrä Ḥ awi, 264, 266, 273, 275, 276 Daphne, 10, 18, 75–93 David, King, 34 de Certeau, Michel, 56 Deir el-Muḥarraq, 294 Delos, 82 Demon, 64, 84, 85, 105 Derat, Marie-Laure, 274 Design, architectural, 232–234, 237, 243 Dialogue, interreligious, 3, 180, 194, 196, 197, 215, 218, 234, 236, 240, 250, 260, 276, 306, 307, 315–317 Diaspora/ethno-religious diaspora, 119, 137, 141, 146, 238 Didascalia syriaca, 145, 150 Dio Cassius, 136, 140 Diodorus, 82, 192 Diversity, religious, 12, 19, 55–70, 77, 113–128, 181, 206, 208–213, 215, 217, 244, 306

323

Domus ecclesiae, 138, 144, 151 Drama, 59, 60 Dura Europos, 90, 146, 150, 151 Dynamic bottom-up, 199, 206 top-down, 206 E Eastern Orthodox Patriarchate, 2 Ecumenism, 190, 192, 193, 196, 197 Egeria, 288 Egge Mountains, 305 Egypt, 9, 10n10, 20, 57, 63, 90, 91, 281–298 Egypt, flight to, 10, 286 Eisenstadt, Smuel M., 2 Elephantine, 141 Empire Habsburg, 7, 119, 121, 122, 122n1, 123, 126 Ottoman, 7–9, 11, 44, 45, 76, 100, 104, 110, 119, 120, 122, 125, 155, 164, 167, 289 Russian, 125 Encounter, geographies of, 1, 4, 17–21, 29–31, 48, 49, 55, 281, 297 Enoch/Idrı ̄s/Akhnūkh, 67, 293 Erne, Thomas, 160n3 Ethiopia, 7, 20, 256n5, 257, 257n7, 258, 261, 263, 267, 270, 284 Europe Southeastern, 211 Western, 167, 180 Eusebius of Caesarea, 36, 79 Evangelical Church, 184, 208, 211, 316 Evangelical/Evangelist, 9, 122, 147, 209n8 Exegesis allegorical, 137, 148, 149 typological, 137

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INDEX

F Fabri, Felix, 42, 43 Feast of Opet, 297 Firmilianus from Cappadocia, 142 Flavius Josephus, 139 Flood, 283, 287, 297 G Gäbrä Mäsqäl, 261, 262, 268, 269n30 Gamst, Frederick, 272, 272n36 Garden show/Gartenschau, 304, 305, 307, 308, 312, 314 Gedewon, 268, 269 Germany, 120, 173, 193, 238, 239, 245, 303–317 Gieryn, Thomas, 243, 244 Giza, 292 GlaubensGarten, 304–306, 309, 310, 313–316 Gnostics, 10, 139, 148, 148n4 Valentinian, 148 Grand Mufti, 193 Greek/Greeks, 56, 58, 66–68, 77, 79, 82, 85–89, 91, 99, 103, 104, 107, 108, 119, 121, 122, 124, 126–128, 142, 148, 197, 283, 285, 293 Growth, urban, 43, 114 Grozdanov, Cvetan, 164, 167–169 Gupana-lawn, 166, 169 H Hadrian, 82, 136, 140 Hagia Sophia, 2, 104–107 Haile, Getatchew, 261, 261n10, 264, 269n30 Halil, Ismet, 192 Hamas, 47 Hanioğlu, M. Şükrü, 167 Haram al-Sharif, 2, 38, 39, 41, 45, 46 Harmony Gate, 190, 191

Hasluck, Frederick William, 8n8, 164 Hassner, Ron, 12, 13, 19, 31, 235 Haus der Religionen, 182 Hayden, Robert M., 11, 13, 14, 101, 158–160, 166, 167, 235, 259, 260, 274, 274n39, 276, 306 Heldman, Marilyn, 261, 261n10 Heliopolis/Ayn Shams, 296 Heracleopolis Magna/Ihnāsiyā, 296 Heritage, 2, 4, 14, 41, 137, 156, 160–166, 168, 173, 175, 198, 213, 232, 257, 277, 281–283, 296–298, 304 Hermes/Hermes Trismegistus/ Hirmı ̄s, 293 Herod, 139, 293 Hezekiah, King, 89 Hieromonk, 187 High culture, 317 Holy Archangels Michael and Gabriel Monastery, 185 Holy Family, 10, 286, 293–296, 298 Holy Land, 36, 135, 142, 286, 290, 294, 295 Holy Sepulchre, 36, 39–43, 45, 46 House of One, 3, 18, 181, 231–250, 303, 306, 315 House of Religions, 182, 191, 200 I Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥ akam, 282–284 Iconicity, 30, 48, 244 Identities/identity distinct, 135 religious, 2n2, 4, 9, 13, 15, 20, 57, 63, 68, 70, 76, 77, 84, 92–93, 120, 125, 126, 159, 161, 164, 167, 180, 250, 306, 315 Imagery, shared, 136 Incubation, 9, 86–92 Individualization, 63–66 Institutional ghosting, 225

 INDEX 

International Academy for the Study of Culture and Religious History, 183 International Bank of Religions, 183, 186, 189, 195, 200 International Ecumenical Center, 182, 183, 186 Interreligious Complex of Vulcana-­ Băi, 188, 193, 194, 197, 199 Isis, 9, 10, 63, 65 Islamic movement, 238 Islam/Islamic, 2, 3, 8, 8n7, 11, 34, 37–41, 45–49, 100, 106–110, 120, 165, 198, 208–210, 214, 216, 219, 223, 238, 245, 246, 249, 281–298, 309, 311 Italy, 62, 63, 116, 120, 196, 205, 208–211, 217

325

Kara, Cem, 164 Kaufman Shelemay, Kay, 277 Kedar, Benjamin Ze’ev, 259, 267, 271, 274 Kempgen, Sebastian, 169 Kerkeslager, Allen, 87 Khanov, Ildar, 199 Kieffer, Maxime, 158n1 Knott, Kim, 55, 158–160, 181 Koch, Anne, 160n3 Koco, Dimče, 168 Koestler, Arthur, 29, 32 Korçë, 162 Kosovo, 156, 165 Kristić, Tijana, 164 Kush, 284

J Jaddus, 88 Jerusalem, 2, 19, 21, 29–50, 56, 68, 88–90, 100, 116, 135–137, 139–143, 146–148, 185, 192, 193, 234, 261, 277, 286 Jesus, 21, 36, 135, 136, 138, 141, 142, 147, 149, 150, 209, 212, 213, 286, 294–296 Jews/Jewish, 8, 34, 62, 76, 101n1, 116, 135–151, 185, 209, 237, 255–277, 285, 311 Joseph, 277, 287, 292, 295, 297 Josephus, Flavius, 88, 139 Judaea, 139 Julian, Emperor, 78–83, 85, 91–93 Justinian, 289

L Laç, 165 Landscape multireligious/religious, 30–31, 33, 36, 38, 48, 49, 78, 85, 103, 110, 182, 183, 255–277 natural, 304 therapeutic, 196 Leontopolis, 141 Leslau, Wolf, 257n7, 270n31, 271n32, 271n35 Libanius, 76–78 Literature, 6, 9, 9n9, 10, 14, 15, 63, 78, 87, 88, 105, 119, 138, 138n2, 141, 149, 182, 194, 257n6, 257n7, 258, 267n24, 268n25, 271, 288, 291, 294, 297 Luxor, 296–298 Lydda, 90

K Kandalaft, Ibrahim Hama, 193 Kaplan, Steven, 255n2, 256n3, 256n4, 257n6, 257n7, 269n30, 274

M Maccabean Martyrs, 91 Macedonia, 155–176, 317 Malalas, John, 91, 92

326 

INDEX

Maqrı ̄zı ̄, 294, 296 Marcion, 68, 137, 138n1 Marem, Resul, 192 Martyr shrine/martyrion, 75–93 Mary, 193, 294–296 Mass ritual, 60 Matarea, 295 Materialization, 21, 304, 307 Matrona, 86–93 Mecca, 38, 116, 185, 283, 285, 286 Media, 56, 57, 62, 66, 117, 231–250 Medina, 283, 286, 289 Meditation, interreligious, 238 Mediterranean, 2n2, 4, 7–9, 11, 56, 61, 88, 118–122, 125, 127 Meletius, 92, 93 Meliton of Sardis, 142 Menfi/Hikuptah, 284, 285 Mercury, 293 Middleup, 125 Migration, 2, 209, 217, 235, 241, 303 Minorities, religious, 3, 8, 161, 209, 214, 241 Miṣr, 283–285 Miṣr al-Fust ̣āt ̣, 284 Miṣr al-qadı ̄ma, 284 Mithras, 65 Mitzrayim, 284, 285 Mobility, social, 127, 128 Monastic, 64, 117, 162, 164, 165, 168, 171, 187, 187n2, 194, 195, 197, 198, 257n7, 263, 265n16, 266, 286 Moses, 20, 62, 88, 193, 286–291, 297 Mosque, 2, 11, 18, 37, 40, 100, 106–109, 179, 182–185, 189–191, 193, 195–198, 211, 216, 218, 219, 223, 232, 237, 290, 294–296, 307 Mosque Cathedral of Cordoba, 2, 234 Mosque of the Tree, 295 Mount Gerizim, 141

Mount Horeb, 286 Mount Moses, 290 Mount of Olives, 143 Mount Tomorr, 165, 169 Muhammad, 38n2, 40, 47, 282, 286, 289, 311 Muhammad ‘Ali, King, 290 Multiconfessional, 7 Multiculturalism, 3, 10, 232, 238 Multi-level-project, 205–227 Munich, 173 Muslim/Muslims, 2, 7, 8, 8n7, 9–12, 20, 37–46, 76, 99–101, 103, 106, 106n7, 107–109, 115, 120, 121, 155, 157, 158, 160–168, 173, 175, 176, 180, 185, 192–194, 196, 198, 199, 209n8, 213, 215, 219, 223, 238–241, 243–246, 255, 282, 284–286, 288, 289, 291–298, 311, 312 N Napoleon, 290, 292, 294 Nationalism, 19, 45–48, 50, 120, 127, 128, 311 Networking, 189, 220, 304, 312, 314 Nile, 282, 283, 285–287, 297 Nineteenth century, long, 113–128, 164 Niphon of Târgoviște, 187 Noah, 284, 293 Nord-Rhein-Westfalen (NRW), 304, 305 North Macedonia, 2, 7, 155, 167 Nosnitsin, Denis, 266n19 O Odessa, 19, 118, 119, 121–125, 127, 128 Ohrid city, 161, 164, 165, 168, 171

 INDEX 

lake, 155, 171 Ojeda, Antonio B., 158n1 Organization, 2, 4–6, 8, 12, 14, 15, 20, 31, 57, 60, 70, 106n7, 127, 136, 138, 150, 159, 179, 181–183, 197, 199, 206, 206n2, 208, 209, 211–217, 220–222, 222n17, 223, 224, 227, 244, 246, 314 Origen, 67, 139, 142, 148–150 Orontes, 83 Orthodox Church, 18, 106, 109, 155, 167, 169, 179, 182–185, 189, 195, 197, 209, 211, 215 Osman, Aziz Besir, 192 Ottomans/Ottoman Empire, 7–9, 11, 44, 45, 76, 100, 104, 110, 119, 120, 122, 125, 155, 157, 164, 167, 289 Our Lady of Matarea, 295 Oxyrhynchus/al-Bahnasa, 294 P Paganism/pagans, 9, 10, 10n10, 75–93, 99, 100, 102, 103, 109, 136, 151, 271 Palestine, 46, 47, 65, 139, 142, 146, 193, 283, 284, 294 Patriarchate of Romania, 187, 209 Patriarch/Patriarchate, 109, 169, 192, 193 Paul, 147 Peace, 5, 14, 19, 32, 37, 197, 232, 238, 246, 248, 274, 305, 310 Peisistratus, 82 Pelusium/al-Faramā, 294 Pharaoh, 287, 288, 292 Pharaoh’s Bath/ḥammām Firʿawn, 288 Phidias, 82 Philon of Alexandria, 62, 66

327

Philosophy, 15, 59, 61, 64, 137 Phut, 284 Pilgrimage, 9, 10, 12, 14, 20, 35, 36, 64, 116, 140–142, 159, 169, 174, 195, 196, 271, 271n32, 273, 276, 288, 290, 298 Pilgrimage site, 11, 36, 116, 271, 273 Place multireligious/interreligious/ religious, 2, 4, 12, 14, 15, 18–20, 155–161, 167, 175, 176, 179–201, 205, 206, 210, 210n11, 212, 215, 223, 231–250 shared, 181, 199, 201 Place of memory, 18, 182 Pliny the Elder, 139 Pluralism, religious/urban religious, 2, 3, 7, 8, 118–120, 122, 128, 181, 206, 210, 235 Pogradec, 170 Popescu, Ion, 183, 185, 186, 189, 191, 193–197, 200 Popovska, Dragica, 166 Port cities, 19, 113–128 Prayer, interreligious, 232, 246, 312 Priesthood, 60, 137, 150 Prishtinë, 165 Prizen, 165 Protestantism/Protestants, 119, 121, 122, 124, 180, 184, 196, 237, 240, 241, 245, 312 Pyramids, 188, 211, 292–293, 297 Q Qibṭ, 284, 285 Quirin, James, 255n2, 256n4, 268, 268n28, 269, 275 Qumran, 141, 147

328 

INDEX

R Rabbah bar bar Hana, 288 Rabbi, 88–90, 137, 141, 144, 150, 181, 191–193, 239 Ra’s Maṭārma, 288 Red Sea, 288 Reform, religious, 81, 125 Regimes, spatial, 15, 16, 304 Relics, 81–85, 89, 91, 93, 192, 193, 195, 196, 290 Religion, imperial, 120 Religioscape, 100, 110 Resen, 169 Riesebrodt, Martin, 17, 17n12 Risteski, Stojan, 162, 167, 169 Ritual, 6–8, 15, 18, 20, 33, 35, 44, 47, 56, 58–62, 65, 67, 68, 76, 78, 81, 82, 84–86, 88, 91, 92, 115, 121, 125, 164, 189, 193, 194, 242, 245, 246, 259, 267, 271, 282, 286, 287, 296, 297, 314 Rohdewald, Stefan, 164 Roman Empire, 62, 66, 68, 69, 76, 77, 81, 88, 92 Romania, 2, 18, 179–201, 211, 216 Romanian Greek-Catholic Church, 197 Romanian Orthodox Church, 195, 198, 200 Rome, 19, 55–70, 76, 100, 106 Russia, 199 S Sabri, Sa’id Ekrima, 193 Sacralization, 9, 62, 139, 150 Sacred places, contested, 31–33, 46 Sacrifice, 17, 35, 37, 59, 78, 85, 88, 89, 137, 144, 146, 148–150

Saʿı ̄d ibn al-Musayyib, 294 Saints, shared, 258 Saltuk, Sari, 157, 164, 165, 175 Sarajevo, 165 Seleucus I Nicator, 75, 77 Selim I, Sultan, 289 Sǝmen Mountains, 255–258, 260, 261, 263, 277 Serabit el-Khadim, 287 Serapis, 10n10 Serbia, 167 Shaffer, Rafael, 192 Shamuni, 90 Sharqiyya, 294 Sinai, 282, 283, 286–292, 294, 297 Sites religious, 5n4, 12, 13, 57, 75–93, 101, 121, 128, 159, 160, 259–260, 271 secular, 305 shared, 7–14, 159, 259–260 Skete, 184, 186, 187, 187n2, 188, 193, 194 Skete of Saint John the Baptist, 186, 187 Society, secular, 307 Solomon, King, 256n3 Sozomen, 79 Space multi-faith, 100, 106, 109, 180, 181, 217, 239 non-sacred, 120–127 Spatial arrangement, 1, 3–5, 14–21, 100, 101, 118, 144, 180, 234–236, 250, 303–317 Spatialization, 30, 92, 304, 313 Sphinx/Abū al-Hawl, 293 Spirituality, 181, 210, 220, 307, 309, 317 Springs of Moses/‘Uyūn Mūsā, 288

 INDEX 

St. Antony of Laç, 165 Staroye Arakchino, 199 St. Catherine’s monastery, 289 St. John the Baptist, 186, 187, 191–193 Strabo, 88 Sundhaussen, Holm, 167 Susǝnyos, 256, 269n29, 273 Sustainability, 305, 313, 314 Sv. Naum Monastery/Sveti Naum Monastery/St. Naum Monastery, 3, 18, 155–176, 317 Swing, William E., 193 Sycamore, 295 Symbolism, architectural, 196, 310 Synagogue, 10, 18, 75–93, 101, 103, 104, 108, 109, 143–147, 150, 151, 179, 182–185, 188, 189, 191, 193, 195–197, 211, 232, 237 Synaxaria Coptic, 295 Ethiopian, 295 Syncretism, 7, 243 Syria, 77, 89, 90, 283 T Ṭ abarı ̄, 287, 294 Tabernacle, 35, 135–151 Tablets of the Law, 286, 287, 290 Ṭ ana Qirqos, 264, 266n19 Temple Mount, 2, 34–37, 39, 41, 45–47, 135, 139, 141, 143, 234 Temple of all Religions, 199 Temple of Apollo, 10, 78, 80, 86, 87 Temple of Jerusalem before 70 A.D., 139 after 70 A.D., 140 Temple of Jupiter, 140

329

Temple of Luxor, 296–298 Temple of Solomon, 139 Templization, 136–139, 147, 150 Territorialization, 15, 31, 180 Tetovo, 165 Theodosius I, 83, 93 Theology, 36, 37, 59, 61, 68, 164, 306, 313 Thoth, 293 Titus, 136, 139–143, 149 Tolerance antagonistic, 100–103, 106, 166, 235 pragmatic, 100, 101, 108 religious, 117, 119, 122, 123, 315 Torah Shrine, 146 Touristification, 14, 155–176, 317 Trapp, Erich, 162 Tribes, 188, 286–289 Trieste, 19, 118, 119, 121–127 Turin city, 3, 181, 182, 198, 205–227, 303 Department for Integration, 209 Department for Urban Planning, 211n12 Ex-Incet area, 206 Interfaith Committee, 182, 208–210, 214, 216, 226 Turkey, 45, 75, 166, 250 Ṭ uwā, 290 U ʿUmar Ibn al-Fāriḍ, 291 Urbanism, 30, 237, 241 US Episcopal Church, 193 ‘Uthmān ibn al-Ḥ ārith al-Anṣāri, 294

330 

INDEX

V Valley of Feiran/wādı ̄ Fı ̄rān, 289 Violence, 10, 14, 46, 49, 245, 247 ethno-religious, 128 Virgin Tree, 10, 294 Vlad Dracula/Vlad the Impaler/ Voivode of Wallachia, 183 von Oppeln, Philine, 173 Vulcana-Băi, 179–201 W Wasserman, Josef, 191–193 Waste, 227 Weber, Max, 12 Welteke, Dorothea, 274 Western Wall, 44, 46, 47 Woman with seven Sons, 89, 91

Worship, 6–9, 11, 18, 19, 62, 78, 80, 84–86, 90, 101, 103, 105, 107–109, 116, 137, 139, 144–148, 150, 180–185, 187, 189, 191–197, 199, 200, 206, 211–216, 218–220, 223, 224, 226, 231, 235, 238, 257, 271, 274, 295, 296, 307 domestic, 138 Y Yared, 9, 20, 255–277 Yugoslavia, 155, 158, 165–169, 176 Z Zeus, 77, 81, 82, 151 Zuramba, 264, 264n13