Christos Merantzas

Christos Merantzas is Assistant Professor in the Department of Cultural Heritage Management & New Technologies of the University of Patras where he teaches cultural history and theory. He has published extensively in the cultural history of Byzantine and post-Byzantine period (six books, two co-authored monographs) and numerous articles in a variety of journals covering subjects from cultural history of the body to cultural management. He was the scientific responsible for the Research Project entitled 'The Virtual Museum' funded by the 'John S. Latsis Public Benefit Foundation' (2015). In 2013 he has awarded the Metsovion Interdisciplinary Research Prize of the National Technical University of Athens for the best academic research.

The Museum of Contemporary Art “Theodoros Papagiannis” participates in the project In_NovaMusEUm. Museums come back to the local community through Art and Food, co-funded by the Creative Europe Program of the European Union. The main objective of the Program is to help strengthen the capacity to attract new audiences–especially young citizens (18-35 years old) of partner countries with low rate of participation to museum exhibitions and programs–of European museums located in peripheral areas, through activities of audience development related to Art and Food. We present here the actions being implemented within the project and their main expected results: i. one shared strategy of audience development related to Art and Food, for EU peripheral museums, ii. to reinforce audience development skills of EU peripheral museums’ responsible, iii. to increase local community’s feeling of belonging to peripheral museums through Art and Food, boosting new confidence and ideas, iv. involvement of local communities trough local – museum participative Labs, v. to create new forms of artistic cooperation between EU peripheral museums’ responsibles and local emerging artists, vi. to disseminate and enhance trough digital engagement pilot museum art works, vii. to promote the museums regions, as a base for economic innovation from the point of view of culture, tourism and creativity.

Christos Merantzas, From Demonic Noise to Paradisial Melody: Healing in Byzantium, στο: B. Pitarakis & Gülru Tanman (επιμ.), Life Is Short, Art Long: The Art of Healing in Byzantium — New Perspectives, Istanbul Research Institute 38, Pera Museum, Istanbul (2018), 65-74.

Christos Merantzas, The  Cultural  Itinerary  of  Acephalus:  from  Medieval  Cartography  to  Post-­Byzantine  Iconography, in P. Soucacos, A. Gartziou-Tatti, M. Paschopoulos, Hybrid and Extraordinary Deviations from 'Normality' in Ancient Greek Mythology and Modern Medicine, Athens 2017, 105-111.

The paper focuses on the cultural components of a walking trail with the Theodoros Papagiannis collection of sculptures at its focal point. The latter is mainly housed in the Museum of Contemporary Art of Helliniko, a village nestled in the Municipality of Northern Tzoumerka, in Epirus, Greece. In addition to the collection of the Museum, a series of outdoor sculptures are displayed en route from the entrance of the Helliniko village, continuing toward the Theodoros Papagiannis Museum, and ending at the Byzantine Monastery of Tsouka (founded in the twelfth century), which is dedicated to the Nativity of the Virgin Mary. The sculptures en route are the result of five summer sculpture symposia (from 2010 onwards) which were organized with the initiative of Theodoros Papagiannis himself. Up until the Helliniko sculpture promenade was created, the trail in question was popular in pilgrimage tourism. The research is carried out from the perspective of the cultural value of a walking trail and questions the way in which the sculptures give meaning to the cultural landscape. Furthermore, our exemplary case is intrinsically linked to the rural area, its coercive nature and its limited financial resources, as it serves the local area and is conducive to economic development. Essentially, the Museum and its outdoor sculptures turn a simply practical relationship with the region into an advantage, both on a national and international level. Our case makes up a significant part of the very sources that define the cultural heritage of the region and could greatly contribute to its economic and touristic development.

From the sixteenth century onwards precious Ottoman silk fabrics were traded in Balkan markets. They signified wealth and social status and their presence was linked to the development of trade in the Balkan Peninsula. Produced in Istanbul or Bursa, they were used in the making of secular and ecclesiastical garments. Orthodox Church officials adopted them in liturgical contexts. Consequently, the ecclesiastical painters of post-Byzantine art depicted saints wearing precious Ottoman-style silks because they were the textiles of preference, worn by high-ranking religious officials. The demand for these precious fabrics and the manufacturing workshops of the Ottoman Empire became overwhelmed by the very reputation of their products. Evidence for this phenomenon is given in monastic inventories and in the depictions of silk garments worn by saints in post-Byzantine paintings in Epirus and Thessaly. Based on these inventories and the religious iconography of the period in question, this essay explores how the decorative themes and motifs borrowed from Ottoman art were reshaped into a new aesthetic canon evolving at the periphery of the Ottoman Empire and how artistic motifs were established in a cultural milieu radically different from their Ottoman courtly beginnings. It also demonstrates the wide network of cultural exchanges and interactions through which Ottoman artistic forms, once borrowed, evolved consistently for more than two centuries.

Χρήστος Μεράντζας, Βυζάντιος ή περί της βασιλίδος μεγαλουπόλεως: Η Κωνσταντινούπολη ως αποκλειστική εγγύηση της πολιτισμικής υπεροχής του Βυζαντίου, στο Χ. Α. Μηνάογλου (επιμ.), Πρακτικά Συνεδρίου. Η Κωνσταντινούπολη στην Ιστορία και την Λογοτεχνία, 13-14 Μαΐου 2016, Σύλλογος Κωνσταντινουπολιτών, Αθήνα 2018, 29-58

Προτείνεται εδώ µια διαχειριστική πολιτική προσέγγισης του πολιτισµικού τοπίου αυστηρά οριοθετηµένη στο πλαίσιο του τόπου, ο οποίος εκλαµβάνεται ως πολιτισµικός βιόκοσµος. Η προσέγγιση αυτή περιγράφει σχέσεις και όχι απλά κατακερµατισµένα αντικείµενα. Η ολιστική διαχείριση µέσω του Oικοµουσείου (Ecomuseum) στοχεύει στη συνειδητότητα για την πολιτισµική κληρονοµιά του τοπίου και την ανάδειξη της σχέσης των στοιχείων που το συγκροτούν σε ενότητα, έρχεται να επανανοηµατοδοτήσει το πολιτισµικό τοπίο, αναδεικνύοντας όλα εκείνα τα στοιχεία της ιδιαιτερότητάς του που το καθιστούν ιστορικά παρόν. Κατ’ ουσίαν, καλείται να συµβάλει στην αποκάλυψη µιας συνθήκης ολότητας. Έτσι, µέσα στην ασυνέχεια της νεωτερικότητας εδραιώνεται, µε τον πιο απτό τρόπο, η συνέχεια µιας συνθήκης, µιας παράδοσης, ενός κτηρίου, µιας διατροφικής συνήθειας, η οργανική ενότητα φύσης και πολιτισµού σε µια σχέση αλληλεξάρτησης. Η ολιστική διαχείριση του Οικοµουσείου εστιάζεται στην αναγκαιότητα ανάδειξης και προβολής καθορισµένων σηµαινόµενων, τα οποία ως σύνολο επανασυγκροτούν τη συνθήκη του πολιτισµικού τοπίου στην ολότητά του.

This proposal aims to provide the cultural landscape with a management policy approach that is strictly defined within the context of the place, i.e. a cultural life-world. Put simply, this approach focuses on relationships instead of just fragmented objects. Therefore, a holistic management by means of an Eco-museum will raise awareness on the cultural heritage of the landscape and will highlight the relationship between all the elements that constitute a union, thus redefining the cultural landscape, by bringing to light all of its unique elements that give it a historical presence. In essence, this approach will contribute to the application of a holistic action. As a result, and in the most tangible of ways, consolidated within the discontinuity of modernity, is the continuity of an action, a tradition, a building, an eating ritual, and the organic unity of nature and culture all in an interdependent relationship. The holistic management of the Eco-museum focuses on the necessary development and promotion of defined trademarks, which as a whole re-establish the cultural landscape’s profile in its totality.

In this paper we will examine the anthropological dimensions of the Christian martyr’s embodiment of pain which we consider to be a shaping factor of the identity of Byzantine culture. The Christian martyr’s cultural presence gave Christians a meaning and a reason to exist as it heralded his/her salvation. Furthermore, the dramatic depiction of martyrical scenes in Post-Byzantine monuments under the Ottoman rule, mainly in the 16th century, served an ideological purpose, as they encouraged an attitude of resistance against the Ottoman conqueror with deep long-term social and political consequences for the conquered provinces across the Balkan Peninsula.

When someone looks into the representational depth of the mosaic compositions that have settled in the
Chora’s onastery (Cariye Camii) in Istanbul what fully emerges is a rich representation of the chora in
Plato’s Timaeus (48e-52c), documented and evidenced in the enclosures of this architectural space. This
monument is the result of a major renovation that took place between 1315 and 1321 under the
supervision of Theodore Metochites (appx. 1270 and 1332), a scholar and Prime Minister to Emperor
Andronikos II Palaeologos. The subject matter, the religious mosaic representations and their spatial
arrangement echo a pictorial discourse: while the narrative is based on an iconographic polysemy, the
mosaic decoration depicts the attempt to restore the ecumenical order. The mosaic’s decorative fusion
may be interpreted as an alliance between the identical and the distinct which are revealed as degrees of
complexity in the execution of the iconographic display. An incision into the architectural space exposes
various forms of otherness that allow the real and the imaginary to coexist, as well as the perceivable with
the conceivable. So an unconscious power and disorderly nature coincide with a conscious awareness and
the shaping of the visual and composed space that make up the “creation.” Thus, the mosaic art places the
subject matter in its architectural space and the Chora’s receptacle establishes the site’s history.

The Castle of Salona (municipality of Delphi) offers a unique possibility for the region of Central Greece to render the time distance a field of productive understanding of the historical continuity. However, the current conditions of its maintenance does not correspond, in the minimum, to the demands of a management, which resonates the claims of contemporary societies with self-consciousness. In this perspective, we propose alternative management methods of the Castle of Salona, so as to restore the continuity in its use, which move complementarily to the value-based model of the management of the official bodies treating the cultural heritage as the visible evidence of the living experience of the past. A necessary condition for this is that the user of the specific place has previously acquired a specific ‘ethos,’ which renders the past a lived experience of the present. The interpretive model proposed acknowledges the necessity of the connection of an architectural entity such as the place embedded in daily life of the residents of the town of Amfissa with the surrounding space, a connection from which springs the living present of the town.

Silk fabric as a cultural representation :
The example of monumental post-Byzantine
painting in North-eastern Greece

In the present article we look at representations
of silk fabrics - Ottoman, or Italian with an
Ottoman design - in the monumental post-
Byzantine painting of North-Eastern Greece. The
examples originate mainly from the geographical
regions of Epirus, Thessaly, as well as Western
Macedonia. Studying these examples, thanks to
the number of monuments precisely dated by their
dedicatory inscription, should initially provide
elements to determine the duration and extent of
the geographical distribution of these textiles. A
classification of their decorative designs could
then give some indication of the way decorative
trends, Italian or Ottoman, progressed, as well as
their cultural representation at the periphery of the
Ottoman Empire. In addition, information taken
from wills, commercial registers and monastery
inventories are particularly precious regarding the
circulation of silk fabrics in the areas under study."

Silversmithery and goldsmithery of the Orthodox Christians in Constantinople

Author(s) : Merantzas Crhistos (5/19/2008)
Translation : Tsokanis Anna

For citation: Merantzas Crhistos, "Silversmithery and goldsmithery of the Orthodox Christians in Constantinople",
Encyclopaedia of the Hellenic World, Constantinople
URL: <http://kassiani.fhw.gr/l.aspx?id=11352>
Αργυροχοΐα και χρυσοχοΐα των ορθοδόξων της Κωνσταντινούπολης (12/17/2009 v.1) Silversmithery and goldsmithery of the Orthodox Christians in Constantinople (4/26/2007 v.1)


1. Research – Study

In order to study the ecclesiastic and lay artefacts of silversmithery made by orthodox Christians in Constantinople during the Late Ottoman period, one should initially consult the catalogue of relics belonging to the Ecumenical Patriarchate, which was drafted in 1937 by G. Sotiriou. Moreover, a significant number of artefacts from Ottoman Constantinople can be found in ambries of monasteries located outside Turkey, as in Mount Athos, Patmos and St. Catherine Monastery of Mount Sinai, where artefacts made in other parts of the empire – not just the capital city – are also located. Moreover, a significant number of ecclesiastical silverware from Asia Minor, central Anatolia and the Black Sea, reached Greece along with the refugees after the population exchange between Greece and Turkey in 1923. All these today are scattered in private collections, the Benaki Museum, as well as the Byzantine and Christian Museum of Athens. Important studies by A. Ballian and Y. Ikonomaki-Papadopoulos, as well as catalogues for exhibitions and private collections –for example the publication of silverware from the K. Notaras collection by K. Korre-Zografou– offer valuable insight into the art of silversmithery as crafted by the Greek Asia Minor communities. The recent work by B. Pitarakis and G. Merantzas is dedicated to the art of silversmithery by Greeks of Constantinople during the Late Ottoman Period. Within the context of this study, the silverware of the collection owned by the late Sevgi Gönül is examined. These are currently exhibited at the Sadberk Hanım Museum of Constantinople. Moreover, the contribution of G. Kürkman’s work on the subject of Ottoman imperial ciphers (tuğra) on silver artefacts is valuable...

The book in your hands emerged from an intense effort to understand the heterogeneous condition that touches on the conceptualization of light and darkness within the Byzantine civilization. As such, this book discusses four exemplary cases of which the common element is the revelation of an unverifiable truth. This idea had been constantly agonizing me in recent years, before deciding to tuckle with it on a thorough basis. Strangely, what started as a narrative diary eventually turned into a systematic study that features as the third and last part of a trilogy on Byzantine civilization, in which the two earlier chronologically dated works belong to Inverted Dionysus. A Draft Body-theory of Algaesthetic Selfconstraint (2011) and Α na-chora(-i)tism. Forms of Otherness in Byzantine Culture (2014). Hence, this final part of the trilogy comes as a futher investigation into one of the most complex compounds of the Byzantine identity, such as luminosity and darkness, revelation and crypticity, perishable earthly and divine eternal. My intention, nevertheless, was not to offer an exhaustive account of the conceptualization of light in Byzantine civilization. Instead, I chose to complete this triptych of studies by delving into the core of the Byzantine identity, both religious and secular, that is the narrow boundaries of perishable human existence.

As for the theme of crypticity, gradually surfaced in an attempt to conceptualize the significant presence of light in Byzantine culture. For Dionysius the Areopagite, God exists in the distinction among two conditions; the condition of absolute light and that of endless darkness. However, neither of these two contrasting conditions owns its independent identity, as they are inherent to one another, and the understanding of God endlessly shifts from one term to the other. Consequently, this very idea responds to the interior composition, the distribution of light and shade, and to the spatial organization of the church of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople (532-537). We could essentially discuss the spatialization of this distinction within the construction of Hagia Sophia. At first, Hagia Sophia seems to stand for a dark matter which the craftsman introduces to light. However, in this context, the light is not a mere function that adds a certain something to pre-existing darkness in order to acquire some kind of form. Instead, it mirrors the sculptor who removes sections from the amorphous matter in order for his work to gain its morphicity in the form of light. By analogy, in our case, light takes away amorphous darkness in order to reveal the spiritual existence of Hagia Sophia. If we consider this edifice in question as entirely subjected to darkness and if light is not visible at first sight, then the very presence of light reflects the order of time. Through light the edifice acquires temporality that is historical discussion. Via light, it’s as if matter is unleashed from the building. In turn, the interior of the building appears to symbolize a sun-drenched absence, as if referring to the infinitelyotherness of darkness. However, light isn’t equivalent to the objective account of a presence, but to the transcendent account of an absence, existing within darkness. At the same time, the edifice is a place of both separation and union, it serves the notion of a wholeness that is inherent in a dualism; on the one hand, a vivid descriptiveness of light, and, on the other, the weak description of darkness. Hagia Sophia activates a description of light that bursts out of itself and leads to a non-definable other, a non-specific otherness. Darkness, then, reaching beyond light.

For Gregory of Nyssa, one of the many functions of light has to do with the assumption that humanity was made to possess visual contact with natural order of things and to actively participate in divine light. Gregory accepts that God’s light-entrenched knowledge brings together the multiple possibilities that render light a feature of human nature itself on its move to reach the divine. Because, rising to the divine is inseparable with rising to light. Through light, an understanding of the divine is made possible, albeit to a certain extent. Meanwhile, great difficulties gradually arise as light alone is insufficient to provide us with a deeper consciousness of the divine existence. Gregory perceives the incarnation of Christ as a means to fight the inconditional darkness of the world’s sin. The coming of Christ to the world plays therefore a decisive role in the restoration of divine light. A Christening, in turn, removes the darkness of sin and instead lays starlight brightness. The bright ones are similar to bright star. Hence, the realm of divine homogeneity corresponds to the moment where light comes to substitute darkness. The dynamics of the analogy between divine and perceived light explains the logic behind a certain equivalence which helps Christian subject to perceive the light-shadow distinction on the pre-modern cultural environment, where the importance of sunlight was of prime importance for the preservation and growth of life...