The Eucharistic Dove: Considerations on the Meaning of Two Balkan Examples
The Eucharistic Dove: Considerations on the Meaning of Two Balkan Examples

Summary/Abstract: This essay presents two bird-shaped Eucharistic containers (“doves”), originally belonging to Orthodox foundations in South-Eastern Europe. In Western Europe, the use of eucharistic doves is confirmed by the conspicuous number of examples, survived to the passing of time and preserved in various medieval art collections, both in Europe and in the United States. On the other hand, the scarcity of attestations of objects with this form in use in Eastern-rite churches has not so far allowed to verify their diffusion, nor to define a possible evolution in comparison to the Western examples: despite the ancient sources offering interesting starting points for the research, their use in the Eastern Orthodoxy has not been the subject of intense investigation until now. These two examples possibly mark the two ends of a presumably long tradition of bird-shaped Eucharistic containers in the Orthodox world, and their introduction in the art historical literature represents a starting point for future investigations.

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