![]() In brief, a string of stunning successes had seen the Sasanians conquer basically the entire Byzantine Near East, culminating in laying siege to the Byzantine capital of Constantinople with the help of their Avar allies. However, the most immediately relevant siege of Constantinople for today’s purposes is the 626 siege undertaken by the Avars and Sasanians. Those three successful sieges were the capture of the city during the Fourth Crusade, the eventual Byzantine re-taking of the city, and, most famously and consequentially, the conquest of the city and subsequent end of the Byzantine Empire under Mehmed. Of all the sieges that took place from its founding by Constantine the Great till 1453 only three were successful, twenty one were unsuccessful, and three were lifted by reaching mutual agreements.” “Out of the ten sieges that occurred during its time as a city-state and while it was under Roman rule, six were successful, three were repelled and one was lifted as a result of the agreement between the parties … This provides some key context into the music for today, as it is one of the most famous and enduring Greek hymns to the Theotokos in history. In Eastern Christianity - the most well-known being the Eastern Orthodox, but also including the Oriental Orthodox, the Church of the East, and the sui iuris Eastern Catholic Churches - the equivalent term to “Mother of God” is either the Greek “ Theotokos” (Θεοτόκος literally “the one who gave birth to God”) or a translation of “Theotokos” into whichever liturgical language the particular in church uses most often. In the Latin Rite, January 1 is the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God. Used under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported, 2.5 Generic, 2.0 Generic and 1.0 Generic license. Image by Berthold Werner, via Wikimedia Commons. ![]() Christ Pantocrator on the dome of the catholicon of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |