Middleages-Christianity - A sparkling mind

Treatise on the Married Episcopate

March 02, 2026

by Denis M. Garrison In the Orthodox Church in the New World, since early in the twentieth century, the concept of the married episcopate has been an important and urgent issue. The question has arisen with increasing frequency and force: Is it allowable to elect and consecrate married Priests to

An unpublished escape to Byzantium

Filioque orthodoxy inquisition

November 24, 2025

The anonymous Calabrian refugee of the Greek Vatican Code 316 Cardinal Giovanni Mercati had reported in 1923 that the codex Vaticanus graecus 316 contained in last sheet, the 167v, the story, or rather its background, of an escape from Calabria of an anonymous Christian of the Orthodox faith, no

S. Augustine and sexuality

sexuality marriage celibacy

November 23, 2025

This article is the section on Augustine’s doctrine regarding sexuality that was omitted from the final version of my book *Married Priests in the Middle Ages* (Claudiana, 2000) as a digression to be developed separately. In the Italian context, it is the only book describing the origin of mandatory

Pope Joan

Middleages-Christianity Women

November 21, 2025

While studying the work of Barlaam of Seminara, a 14th-century Greek monk, I realized that he was the only Eastern polemicist who had mentioned the story of Pope Joan. Intrigued, I sought to explore this topic further, and what I found is presented in this article. The first mention

The real Francis of Assisi and Giotto

Francis work papacy

November 27, 2020

This is my review of the book Struttura di una leggenda. La vita di San Francesco dipinta da Giotto ad Assisi by Umberto Milizia The popularity of Francis of Assisi has found over the centuries few equals to interior of the Christian world and it remains intact in our de-christianized time. Evide

The spirit of Byzantium

Middleages-Christianity Rome Byzantium

November 26, 2020

Anyone who observes the geographical location of Constantinople immediately senses its exceptional nature: it is simply the best possible place to be the center of the world. Asia and Europe, the noblest lands on the planet, find there their predestined seat of command and union. Between them lie

Praising the Stylite in southern Italy: Philagathos of Cerami on St Symeon of Cristian-Nicolae Gaspar, Central European University, Budapest

Middleages-Christianity Italo-greeks

December 29, 2019

This paper from www.geocities.com/serban_marin/gaspar2002.html is a very interesting contribution to the knowledge of a great italogreek author: Philagathos of Cerami. At this moment the edition of his homilies is frozen because the big work it demands: about a hundred is the number of manuscr

The hemorrhaging woman in Mark, a “theologically incorrect” miracle

Middleages-Christianity Gospel of Mark Judaism

July 13, 2018

The miracle of the healing of the woman with the issue of blood is present in the three synoptic Gospels. Mark, who is considered by all biblical scholars to be the source of the other two, contains the original narrative invention:[1] Now a woman who had been suffering from bleeding for twelv