Institute for Medieval Studies

Session	840
Title	Building and Breaking Cultural Barriers on Medieval Mount Athos
Date/Time	Tuesday 5 July 2022: 16.30-18.00
Sponsor	ERC Project MAMEMS 'Mount Athos in Medieval Eastern Mediterranean Society: Contextualising the History of a Monastic Republic, c. 850-1550'
Organiser	Zachary Chitwood, Historisches Seminar, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz
Moderator/Chair	Zachary Chitwood, Historisches Seminar, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz
Paper 840-a	From the Caucasus to Mount Athos: Language Barriers in Iviron Monastery (Language: English) Tinatin Chronz, Historisches Seminar, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz Index Terms: Liturgy; Monasticism
Paper 840-b	OpenAtlas: Open Software for Overcoming Borders between Disciplines (Language: English) Alexander Watzinger, Austrian Centre for Digital Humanities & Cultural Heritage (ACDH-CH), Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Wien Index Terms: Computing in Medieval Studies; Geography and Settlement Studies
Abstract	As a microcosm of the Christian Orthodox world, medieval Mount Athos attracted monks, patrons, and pilgrims from throughout Southeastern and Eastern Europe, Asia Minor, and the Caucasus. The monasteries of the Holy Mountain, which formed what was in essence a monastic confederation, over the course of the medieval period saw different approaches to negotiating cultural differences: from the creation of so-called 'ethnic monasteries' to complex internal regulations which determined the space and scope for each culture of Orthodoxy. The papers in this session will explore how these cultural boundaries were formulated, maintained, and sometimes even broken in this unique environment.