Life-giving springs and The Mother of God Zhivonosen Istochnik / Zoodochos Pege / Balikliyska. Byzantine-Greek-Ottoman intercultural influence and its aftereffects in iconography, religious writings and ritual practices in the region of Plovdiv
Life-giving springs and The Mother of God Zhivonosen Istochnik / Zoodochos Pege / Balikliyska. Byzantine-Greek-Ottoman intercultural influence and its aftereffects in iconography, religious writings and ritual practices in the region of Plovdiv

Summary/Abstract: This article looks at veneration of healing springs (ayazma) in Orthodox Christian churches and monasteries in the region of Plovdiv and Asenovgrad (Bulgaria) to raise the problem of its connections to Byzantine, Greek and Ottoman religious cultures of Constantinople/Istanbul. My argument is based on the fieldwork and archival research I conducted in 2012–2014 to seek an answer to a research question that had kept me intrigued for over a decade: namely, what is the meaning, in practical terms, of the claim frequently made by Orthodox Christians that the various religious rituals they engaged in (with the exception of funerary ones) were practiced “for health” (za zdrave).

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