Doukaton
(δουκα̑τον), rare term designating a territorial unit. Hagiographical texts of the 6th–7th C. understand doukaton as a district under the command of a doux: doukata of Palestine (Cyril of Scythopolis ...
Eduard Schwartz
(1858–1940), classical philologist and patristic scholar. He held a succession of professorships in Germany. His main work, the Acta Conciliorum Oecumenicorum (1914–40), was a grandly planned edition ...
Ephesus
City in Asia Minor (near the W. coast of modern Turkey and now a ruin), and venue of the third ecumenical council in 431.A second synod was held in ...
eulogia
Literally a blessing, the word had a wide extension in early Byzantine use. It was used for gifts of a sacred nature, e.g. bread, consecrated or merely blessed, sent to ...
famine
May be defined as the occurrence of serious food shortages resulting in significant rises in the death rate. Mortality during famines was rarely caused solely by starvation but from related diseases ...
Great Lavra Of Sabas
(Mar Saba), monastic settlement southeast of Jerusalem, traditionally founded in 483 by the ascetic St. Sabas. After having visited the Egyptian desert, Sabas lived in Palestine as a solitary and ...
Jeweler
The Byz. distinguished the goldsmith (chrysochoos) from the silversmith (argyrokopos) (Koukoules, Bios 2.1:225, 228). Often they used the word chrysochoos in the broad sense of a jeweler, for ...
koinē
The form of Greek (koine = common) which was the international language after the death of Alexander the Great (323 bce) both in cities of Greece and throughout the Hellenistic world. It is a ...
lavra
(Greek for a street or alley). In the early Church a colony of anchorites who, while living in separate huts, were subject to a single abbot. The oldest lavras were founded in Palestine in the early ...
Leontius of Byzantium
(6th cent.), anti-Monophysite theologian. He is probably to be distinguished from the Scythian monk of the same name who took part in the Theopaschite controversy, but practically nothing is known of ...
Marcian the Monk
(probably late 4th cent.), ascetical writer. He has long been known as the author of three short extracts in the Florilegium Edessenum, but in modern times J. Lebon has attributed to him nine other ...
Mary of Egypt
(5th century(?),penitent. A certain Mary lived the life of a hermit in Palestine according to John Moschus, and her tomb was visited by Cyril of Scythopolis, who in his Life of Cyriacus related how ...
Origenism
The group of theories enunciated by, or attributed to, Origen. Among his earliest opponents was Methodius of Olympus, who rejected his teaching on the pre-existence of souls and his denial of the ...
pastophorion
(Gk. παστοφόριον).In the E. Church, the sacristy adjacent to the apse, used at least from the end of the 4th cent. (Apostolic Constitutions, 8. 13) for the reservation of the Sacrament.[...]
Prokopios
(Προκόπιος), saint; feastday 8 July.According to Eusebios of Caesarea (De mart. Palest. 1.1–2), he was the first Palestinian martyr, beheaded in Caesarea during Diocletian's persecutions of 303 after ...
Skythopolis
(Σκυθόπολις, Hebr. Beth Sh'an or Shean, Ar. Baysān), largest city of northern Palestine and administrative and episcopal capital of Palaestina II. In the 4th C. there were imperial linen workshops ...
St Euthymius
(377–473), monk. A native of Armenia, he came to Jerusalem in 405 and established a lavra at Khanel-Ahmar c.426. He was loyal to the decisions of the Council of Chalcedon and he exercised a formative ...
St Sabas
(439–532), monk. A native of Cappadocia, in 478 he founded a large lavra between Jerusalem and the Dead Sea. He reluctantly accepted ordination to the priesthood (not then usual among monks) in 490, ...
Stephen the Younger
(715–765)Martyr (feast 28 Nov);Stephen, called the Younger to differentiate him from the protomartyr, was a monk put to death by Constantine V (741–775) because he incited those close to ...
Theodosios the Koinobiarches
(Κοινοβιάρχης), saint; born in village of Garissos or Mogarissos, Cappadocia, died in his monastery near Jerusalem 11 Jan. 529, reportedly almost 100 years old. Hagiographers are silent about his ...
