until Sunday January 19 2014
Museum of Byzantine Culture
T : +30 2313 306 400
2 Stratou Avenue
54013 Thessaloniki
Greece
For the first time, the exhibition presents the broad dissemination of Saint Mamas’, which until today remains alive among different peoples across the Mediterranean. Artifacts from Greece and Cyprus, but also rich photographic material cover a period from the 6th c. to our time.
Initially, the exhibition traces the identity of the saint, martyred in Caesarea during the years of the Emperor Aurelianus (270-275 a.D.), as well as the origin of the iconographic type as a shepherd boy. The main part of the exhibition focuses on the diffusion of Saint Mamas’ veneration in Cyprus, Constantinople, Eastern Mediterranean and Greece. A special reference is made to the relation between Mamas and Demetrius, patron-saint of Thessaloniki, highlighting their healing and myrrh-streaming powers. The exhibition ends with the diffusion of the saint’s veneration in the medieval West.
Through churches, wall-paintings, icons, objects of metalwork, religious fairs and place names a common tradition is displayed, a tradition that survives in several parts of the Mediterranean. The exhibits and the photographic material come from the collections of the Museum of Byzantine Culture, public museums, private collections and Ephorates of Antiquities around Greece, as well from museums and churches of Cyprus.
