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17 The Ideological and Cultural Dimensions 14)

1981, p. 201). Given that "la basilique Saint Demetńus n‘etait pas un marty-rion” (ibid. p. 218, pp. 205—218, 200), the Saint appears to have been ser-ving the imperial and also the ecclesiastical ideology of the empire in the Balkans. St. Anastasia, whose Passion BHG 376z was modelled according to that of St. Febronia BHG3 659 (P. Devos, in AnBoll, LXXX, I—II, 1962, pp. 33—51) was still another case of hagiographic duplication and has many of the romantic characteristics of St. Irene Chrysobalanton (see supra). Still the important point here is the transfer of her body and cult from Sirmium to Constantinople in the second half of the 5.c., in the same period as the cult of St. Demetrios was taken to Thessalonica (P. Devos, pp. 34 — 36). For the Bałkan peoples after their conversion to Christianity the feeling that the saints whom they were asked to feast and venerate had a cultural past in the penin-sula, being a sort of a celestial community that moved about, and that some of them were transferred to the centres of the empire-model and became part of its ideology and symbolism, this feeling was an important stimulus for their integration into its culture; even though some of these saints had been their enemies before their conversion, and morę often than not also after that. The Bulgarians even appropriated St. Demetrios as their defender against the Greeks! (C. Mentzou-Meimaris as impar. 17, pp. 578—579).

27. Gregory the Sinaite’s influence on Bulgarian, Slav and Bałkan monasticism and its culture is significant for the reason that it promoted Bałkan spiritual unity on the eve of the Ottoman conąuest. From his Life, written in 1350 — 1353 by Patriarch Callistos, and translated into Bulgarian before 1362/1363 by one of his Bulgarian disciples, we leam that the uneasy itinerant that Gregory was, searching for true contemplation and not just ascetic praxis, eventually prefers the mount Paroria on the bordeline bet-ween Byzantium and Bułgaria to the hostile Athos, wherefrom he was expel-led by the adepts of secular wisdom! His panorthodox teaching to all, among them his 12 disciples on Athos who came from many parts of the Balkans, presaged his style at Paroria. There he received generous materiał assistance from the Bulgarian czar Ivan Alexander, whose comparison with John Va-tatzes by Callistos (cf. par. 19) underlines the non-racist ideology of the hagio-grapher and his hero. Callistos ends by comparing Gregory with Biblical parallels: Elijah, Moses, and St. Anthony. An important supplement to Gre-gory’s Life is that of his Bulgarian disciple Theodosios of Timovo by the same Ecumenic Patriarch Callistos, his friend and co-disciple. It was written between 1362 and 1364 and exposes the social aspect of Hesychasm in con-trast to the eremitic and monastic aspect underlined in the Life of Gregory. Theodosios stopped his search for a model when he met Gregory and transmit-ted into Bułgaria the Sinaitic Hesychasm of his teacher. Callistos stresses Theodosios’ Panorthodox ideology, which is by no means obscured by his struggle against heresy in Bułgaria. This was part of his social work, which included spiritual help to Bulgarians, Serbs, Mantzaroi, Vlachs and the inha-bitants of the area around Mesembria thronging to him for advice. Theodosios died in Constantinople, where he was sent after a long illness against the wish of the Bulgarian Patriarch and reported some abnormalities of his na-tional Church conceming some chrism. His chief aim, however, was to visit the "Mother of all Churches” and receive the benediction of his friend the Patriarch. He died on 27 November 1362 or 1363 and to his tomb he was

accompanied by the Patriarch and the Synod. Theodosios’ Life through its