What Made a Church Sacred in Late Antiquity? Two Different Views and the Tension between Them, lecture by Mary Farag (Princeton University), Mainz/Frankfurt ScienceCampus via Zoom, February 2, 2021, 4:15 pm

The juristic and liturgical spheres were not separate in late antiquity, and the personnel even overlapped with bishops serving in some juridical capacities and former lawyers becoming bishops. Nevertheless, the two contexts conceived of "the sacred" in ways that produced demonstrable tension, even though the two ideas of ecclesial sacrality were not necessarily mutually exclusive. The dossier pertaining to the trials of one bishop of Constantinople, John Chrysostom, offers an especially detailed view of a conflict over ecclesial property and over perceptions of its sacrality. 

Mary K. Farag is Assistant Professor of Early Christian Studies at Princeton Theological Seminary. She is a historian of Christianity in late antiquity. Her research focuses on Christian liturgical practices in late antiquity and their role in the wider Greco-Roman, Byzantine, and Islamic worlds. 

Advance registration required.