Hagios germanos of prespa, a church and a patriarch after the other

Abstract

The study of the middle Byzantine church of Saint Germanos is a good example of the complicated relations in the south of the Balkan Peninsula during the era of national allegiances and their impact on earlier and current scholarship. The founding of the church, its architecture and iconography have been studied through various lenses, but a comprehensive approach has yet to appear. The paper does neither intend to fill these gaps nor to investigate new archeological material or provide definitive solutions to the puzzling history of the monument, which, until recently, functioned within culturally and linguistically diverse communities. Instead, it proposes a re-reading of the visual and written evidence, in dialogue with the comments and interpretations that have so far been published. Moreover, the monument’s iconography and the issue of its patron saint are tentatively contextualized.

Keywords

• hagios germanos of prespa
• germanos i
• patriarch of constantinople
• germanos/gabriel of the “du cange catalogue”
• samuel cometopoulos
• tombstone of 993
• historiographical approaches