Events

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October 14, 2020 Alexei Lidov gave a talk “The Icon-Painters’ Pattern-Books and the End of the Byzantine Iconicity in the Post-Medieval Russia” at the workshop The Problems of Religious Art in Modernity. Uses and Abuses of the Icon in Russia Institute for Human Sciences, Vienna.

November 24, 2019 at the International Congress of ASEES a roundtable discussion on the topic Creating Sacred Spaces: Lidov’s Hierotopy has been organized

November 15, 2019 г. Alexei Lidov gave a talk “Kavod-Doxa. A Jewish enigma in Church Slavonic Iconography” at the symposium Enigma in Medieval Slavic Culture organised by the University of Cologne.

October 30, 2019 Alexei Lidov gave a talk “The Virgin of the Burning Bush in the Boyana Church and the Symbols of the Whirling Light in Byzantine Hierotopy” at the conference “The Boyana Church between the East and the West in the Cultural and Historican context of the 13th Century“, in Sophia, Bulgary.

September 11-13, 2019 the symposium “Air and Heavens in the Hierotopy and Iconography of the Christian World ” was held in Moscow at the Russian Academy of Arts.

December 6, 2018, Alexei Lidov gives a talk at the Florentine Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies Florence as New Jerusalem. The Rite of Lo Scoppio del Carro and the Regular Miracle of the Holy Fire in Jerusalem

November 9, 2018, Alexei Lidov gives a talk: “The Florentine Hierotopy of the Holy Land. The Scoppio del Carro and re-enactments of the Jerusalem Miracle of the Paschal Fire” at the conference Florence and the Idea of Jerusalem (Florence, November 8-10, 2018). Conference is organized by Timothy Verdon and Alexei Lidov.

The European Association of the Study of Religion organizes its annual conference in Leuven, Belgium, 18-21 September 2017 View list of sections and general info . Abstracts submitted to the hierotopic section

The Russian Academy of Arts announces the symposium entitled Holy Mountains in the Hierotopy and Iconography of the Christian World in Moscow on September 13-15, 2017. Please submit proposals for papers to Alexei Lidov at alidov@gmail.com.

July 6, 2017 Аlexei Lidov gives a lecture “Icons Made of Relics: Creating Holy Matter in Byzantium” at the Cross-Cultural Workshop on the Semantics of Image-Making “Fashioned from Holy Matter” at the Max-Planck-Institut in Florence, Italy.

May 11, 2017 Nicoletta Isar gives a lecture “The Dazzling Χορός : Being Moved by Light (Vision of the Saturated Phenomenon in Byzantium)” at the seminar for Byzantine History at the University Paris-Sorbonne.

May 2, 2017 Аlexei Lidov gives a lecture “Byzantine Icons and Western Pictures: Two Matrices of Christian Imagery ” at the seminar “Medieval Visual Culture” at the Oxford University.

December 05, 2016 Аlexei Lidov gave a lecture Icon versus Religious Picture. The Notion of Iconicity and a New Spatial Vision in Art History at the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz, Max-Planck-Institut.

September 20, 2016 Alexei Lidov received the Order of Friendship #17 from the hands of the President of Armenia Lidov was honored with this distinction for his seminal studies of Armenian culture and art.

August 2016 Аlexei Lidov moderates the round-table discussion Icons of Space, Icons in Space, Iconography or Hierotopy? at the International Byzantine Studies Congress, Belgrade.

June 02, 2016 Alexei Lidov gave a talk “The Priesthood of the Virgin Mary as an Image-Paradigm in Byzantine Visual Culture” at the 10th International Conference of Iconographic Studies, Rijeka.

April 2016 Аlexei Lidov gives a talk about Spatial Icons at the Cambridge University as part of the series united by a topic “A sense of place”.

In april 2016 г. Alexei Lidov was interviewed by a newspaper «Le Courrier de Russie» in connection with the liberation of Palmyra

October 23, 2015 Аlexei Lidov gives a talk “St Basil’s on the Red Square: Renaissance Masters creating
Byzantine Imagery in Medieval Muscovy”
at the International seminar “Les chrétientés orthodoxes post-byzantines face à l’Europe de la Réforme et des Temps Modernes (1500-1700)” in Paris, France.

July 18, 2015 Аlexei Lidov gave a talk Hierotopy as a new Field of Historical Studies at the Summer school of the Max Planck Institute “Religion and Ritual: A Matter of Power” in Erfurt, Germany.

July 01, 2015 Аlexei Lidov gave an annual lecture at the Oxford Centre for Byzantine studies on the subject: The Luminous Disk and the Whirling Church. The Icon of Light in Byzantium.

June 02, 2015 Аlexei Lidov gave a talk Iconicity as Spatial Notion. A New Vision of Icons in Contemporary Art Theory at the 9th Iconographic Conference in Rijeka, Croatia (paper, IKON, 2016-9)

May 29, 2015 Аlexei Lidov gave a talk The Temple Veil and the Curtains at the Gates to Byzantine Sanctuariesat the International Interdisciplinary Conference «The Door of the Sanctuary: a Place of Transition» at the Free University of Amsterdam.

A new book by Alexei Lidov was published in 2014: The Icon. The World of the Holy Images in Byzantium and the Medieval Russia . Мoscow: “Theoria”, 2014.

October 18, 2014 Аlexei Lidov gave a talk “The Shroud of Christ and the Holy Mandylion in Byzantine Hierotopy” at the international iconography congress Das Christusbild in Wurzburg, Germany.

June 25-27, 2014, the International Symposium “The Life-Giving Source. Water in the Hierotopy and Iconography of the Christian World” took place in Moscow, Russia. Materials of the symposium are available here. For more details see here.

November 29, 2013 Alexei Lidov gаve a talk “The Catapetasma. Byzantine Installations and their Impact into Slavic art after Iconoclasm” at the Cyril and Methodius conference at the Center for the Study of the Cultural Heritage of Cyril and Methodius, Thessaloniki. Program of conference

September 20, 2013 Alexei Lidov gave a talk “Holy Russia in the Making. Patriarch Nikon and the Western New Jerusalems” at the conference “The Moscow Patriarchate (1589 – 1721). Power, Belief, Image and Legitimacy” at the University of Leipzig.

June 24, 2013 Alexei Lidov gave a talk “Miraculous icons in the hierotopy of the Holy Mount Athos” at the conference “The Holy Mount Athos – the Unique Spiritual and Cultural Heritage of Humanity” in Belgrade, Serbia (and also moderated round-table discussion #3).

June 5, 2013 Alexei Lidov gave a talk “The Whirling Light. Iconography and Hierotopy of the Byzantine Temple” at the “20th scientific session of byzantinists of the Russian Federation” at the University of Moscow.

May 23, 2013 Alexei Lidov gave a talk “The Temple Veil as Spatial Icon. Revealing an Image-Paradigm of Medieval Iconography and Hierotopy” at the 7th iconograhy conference “Iconology at the crossroads” in Rijeke, Croatia.
Abstract: In the paper I will argue that the imagery of the Sacred Veil separating the Holy from the Holy of Holies at the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem was a most powerful spatial icon which considerably influenced art and culture of the Byzantine world and the Latin West. The paper deals with new approaches to the history of art, and the crisis in traditional methodology which does not work in some cases. First of all, it concerns the concept of hierotopy (the creation of sacred spaces), recently proposed by the author of this paper and elaborated in several publications by the international group of scholars. These studies have revealed an important theoretical issue. In many cases the discussion of visual culture can not be reduced to a positivist description of artifacts, or to the analysis of theological notions. Some phenomena can be properly interpreted only on the level of ‘image-paradigms’, which do not coincide with the illustrative pictures or ideological conceptions. This special notion seems a useful instrumentum studiorum, which helps to explain a layer of phenomena. That image-paradigm was not connected with the illustration of any specific text, though it was a part of a continuum of literary and symbolic meanings and associations. This type of imagery is quite distinct from what one may call an iconographic device. At the same time the image-paradigm belonged to visual culture, it was visible and recognizable, but it was not formalized in any fixed state, either in a form of the pictorial scheme or in a mental construction. In this respect the image-paradigm looks similarly to the metaphor that loses its sense in re-telling, or in its de-construction into parts. It does not concern any mystic but a special type of consciousness, which determined several symbolic structures as well as numerous concrete pictorial motives, it challenges our fundamental methodological approach to the image as illustration and flat picture.

May 15, 2013 Alexei Lidov gave a talk “Model Books versus Spatial Visions. The Russian Iconicity after the Fall of Constantinople” at the conference “‘Post-Byzantine’ Art: Orthodox Christian Art in a ‘Non-Byzantine’ World?” at Central European University in Budapest. Abstract: In this paper I will argue that the appearance of the icon-painter’s patternbook (litsevoi ikonopysnyi podlinnik) in the 16th century was one of the crucial factors in the development of the Russian art after 1453. It considerably changed the basic Byzantine concept of icons as spatial images mediating between the earthly and heavenly realms. Moreover, the patternbook transformed the whole process of icon painting which was reduced to reproduction of fixed schemes, then painted by the conventional colors. The common contemporary perception of icons as flat and decorative pictures charged with particular religious messages goes back to this unofficial reform, which declared the following to Byzantine models, but in practice destroyed the principles of the Eastern Christian iconicity.

April 17, 2013, Alexei Lidov gave a talk “The luminous disk and the whirling church. Hierotopy in the mirror of the Byzantine iconography” in the St. Sophia refectory, Kiev.

March 16, 2013, Alexei Lidov gave a talk “The Holy Fire at the Tomb of Christ: the Impact of a Regular Miracle on Medieval Iconography and Hierotopy” at the conference “Temple and Tomb: Reimagining the Sacred Buildings of Jerusalem”, The Courtauld Institute of Art, London .

January 24, 2013, Alexei Lidov presented a paper «Anastenaria. Ritual dances with icons in Byzantine iconography» at the 9th international conference “Icon in the Russion literature and culture of the Russian diaspora”, Moscow, Solzhenitsyn House of the Russian Diaspora.

December 17, 2012, Alexei Lidov gave a talk “The Medieval Hierotopy. The Creation of Sacred
Spaces as a New Field of Cultural Studies” at the conference “Sacred spaces and routes: sanctuaries, roads, and bodies”, University of Padua, Italy.

November 27, 2012, Alexei Lidov gave a talk “The Luminous disc. Hierotopy as reflected in the iconography of the Byzantine churches” at the joint meeting of the seminar “EIDOS. New approaches in the studies of the world culture”, Institute of world culture of the Lomonosov State University, together with the seminar “Symbolic Middle Ages” of the Higher School of Economics, department of history, Moscow.

November 06, 2012, Alexei Lidov gave a talk “Anastenaria: fire-walking ritual and dancing with icons (observations of 2011)” at the seminar “Folklore and traditional culture in audiovisual and multimedia studies», Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Science, Moscow.

October 15, 2012, Alexei Lidov presented a paper “Hierotopy, spatial icons and the performative in the Eastern Christian culture” at the conference dedicated to the 125th anniversary of Joseph Orbeli, Yerevan & Tsaghkadzor, Armenia.

October 03-06, 2012, Alexei Lidov gave a talk “Myths about Bysantium in the dialogue of civilizations” at the conference “The dialogue of civilizations” on the Greek island of Rodos.He also chaired a roundtable discussion “Byzantine heritage and Europe” within the framework of the same conference.

September 06, 2012, Alexei Lidov presented a paper “The Luminous disc. From the Neoplatonic Concept to the Image-Paradigm of the Whirling Church” at the conference “Mimesis in Byzantine Art – Classical, Realistic or Imitative” in Krakow, Poland.

August 31, 2012, Alexei Lidov gave a talk “Hierotopy of Orthodox Church Architecture – Byzantine Tradition and Modern Practice” at the seminar on the Orthodox Church Architecture at the Barnaul Seminary (by the invitation of Maxim, the Bishop of Barnaul and Altai).

August 17-18, 2012. Alexei Lidov visited Kiy island in the White Sea to study the sacred space of the Holy Cross monastery of Patriarch Nikon

August 14, 2012. Alexei Lidov presented a paper “Russian New Jerusalems and the Western European tradition of the transfer of the Holy Land” at the conference “XVII century in the history of the Russian North”, Cargopol, Russia.

June 24, 2012. Alexei Lidov presented a paper “Hierotopy of the Holy Mountain and its manifestations in today’s world” at the conference “The Holy Mount Athos for the Modern World” in Weimar, Germany.

May 28, 2012. Alexei Lidov organized and moderated a round-table discussion in Moscow on the topic “Byzantine heritage in the European world: Italy and Russia”. Lidov’s interview related to this event can be found here   (in Russian).

May 24, 2012. Alexei Lidov gave a talk “Hierotopy. New studies of sacred spaces” at the Chiristian Orthodox seminar in Jerusalem.

May 17, 2012. Alexei Lidov presented a paper “The Priesthood of the Theotokos in Late Byzantine Art” at the conference “Cultural Exchanges between Byzantium, East and West in the Late Byzantine World (12th-16th centuries)” at the University of Haifa, Izrael

April 27, 2012. A paper “The Byzantine Antependium and the Origins of the Russian Iconostasis” was presented by Alexei Lidov at the conference “Art And Science of medieval Church Screens” in Cambridge, UK.

April 5, 2012, a lecture “Hierotopy: religious and philosophical aspects of the creation of sacred spaces” by Alexei Lidov at the seminar “Russian philosophy”. Venue: “the Losev House”.

March 25, 2012, 18:00, a lecture “The space of an icon. Hierotopy and  iconography”  by  Alexei Lidov, organized by the Tretiakov Gallery.

December 2011. The Hierotopy site is released (this site), an electronic library of publications on hierotopical topics.

October 2011. Alexei Lidov was interviewed by the Russian student site “Tatiana day” about the relevance of Byzantine studies in our time. Link to interview (in Russian).

September 2011. International symposium “Light and Fire in the Sacred Space” was held in Moscow”. The book of extended abstracts is available here.