Eastern Saints Database (SYNAXOR)
The Synaxarion (called Book of Martyrs in Europe), is a book that contains a list of the saints who are celebrated by the church with a brief biography of each. The names are listed in accordance to the liturgical year when the biography of each is read during the service dedicated to him. The use of the Synaxarion is fundamental in the Christian worship services. During the Byzantine era there was only one Synaxarion, that of Constantinople which came into use by the middle of the tenth century. The churches quickly adopted it and developed it. It is difficult to account for all the many manuscripts that dealt with it. So, the importance of the SYANXOR lies in its attempt to enumerate these synaxarions , to register them and to show their relation to the first one that appeared in the Eastern Church. These manuscripts answer questions that are of special importance to the historians of the Eastern Church. These early Synaxarions allowed us to create a special file for every saint. They may also be used in comparative studies to understand the identity of these many Eastern Christians.
The Problematics
The Constantinople Synaxarion is now available to everyone due to its publication in Brussels in 1902 by the Bollandist Father Hippolyte Delehaye, who was a hagiographic scholar specialized in Byzantine saints. This publication was based on a special manuscript but it also included biographies of saints taken from other sources. Despite the richness of this publication, nevertheless, it is limited and not comprehensive. Besides, some of the manuscripts are difficult to identify. Also manuscripts in languages other than Greek were not accounted for.
After Delehay considerable advances were accomplished. Among them we can mention the Armenian Synaxarion and the Ethiopian one. In 1969 J.M. Sauget worked on an Arabic Synaxarion. In the second half of ther 20th Century we have the studies of E. Folleri and his students, especially l A. Luzzi. It is because of these various works that we were able to have a more complete idea of the Synaxarion and its development, but we still have a lot of work to arrive at a more complete and comprehensive picture.
1. The Oldest Synaxarions
We are proposing in our project to study the three oldest Synaxarions. The origin of the Constantinople one is known. In its first version it was composed by deacon Euraristos by orders of Emperor Constantine the 7th. (944-959). This first version, which is not shown clearly in Delahay’s edition has come to light through 2 Greek manuscripts and we may use it as the basis of our study, and limit our work in the first 18 months to the first half of the liturgical year.
Alongside this study of the Greek Synaxarion we will study the oldest Armenian one. It will not be the one recently published, but another unknown manuscript dating to the end of the10th century. We will also study the Arabic Synaxarion , the only one to keep Euaristos introduction and which is under study at the University of Balamand.
2. Structure of the Database
The database includes the following information: Name of the saint being celebrated, one or more biography to accommodate for the discrepancies found the manuscript itself or in the different manuscripts of the Greek synaxarion , also in the calendars or books or other texts where he is mentioned . A list of manuscript use is also included.
This work is being done by a team under the leadership of Dr. Elie Dannaoui, Director of the Digital Humanities section at the University of Balamand (Lebanon). The work will also depend on some finished, or still under construction databases concerned with the lives of the saints specially the work being done by the Bollandist in Brussels, and the CNRS in France.
3. Employing a specialized research team and developing a European network