Sacralizing Violence in Byzantium

Hymns, Empire, and the Narrowing of Christian Identity

George E. Demacopoulos

• Publisher: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection
• Year: 2026
• Topic: History
• eBook ISBN:
  9780884025436
• Subtopic: Byzantine History
• Index: History

Christians had always been concerned, since the faith's inception, about the relationship between violence and belief. In Byzantium, this tension was explored not only in abstract theological texts but in the songs people sang: hymns, a multivalent, fluid form of devotion that served as the meeting place between theological conviction and lived religious experience.

Sacralizing Violence in Byzantium is the first book to examine the complex and shifting perceptions of premodern Christians toward violence and war through the lens of hymnography. This book argues that the liturgical reflection on violence in Byzantium underwent a profound transformation—a sacralization of violence—at approximately the same time that Persian and then Arab armies conquered Jerusalem in the early seventh century, a turn that persisted into the tenth century.

By focusing on hymnography, George E. Demacopoulos provides both correction and nuance to historical assessments of Eastern Christian attitudes toward war and violence and reveals how Byzantine culture dramatized, authorized, and even celebrated violence.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: The Jerusalem Georgian Chantbook
• Chapter 2: Crucifixion and “the Jews”: The Idiomela Hymns of Good Friday
• Chapter 3: Romanos the Melodist
• Chapter 4: Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross
• Chapter 5: Herakleios, Exaltation of the Holy Cross, and the Violence of Empire
• Chapter 6: Tenth-Century Liturgical Rites before Battle and after Death
• Conclusion
• Appendix 1
• Appendix 2
• Appendix 3
• Bibliography
• General Index