Popular Religion and Material Responses to Pandemic

The Christian Cult of the Epitaphios during the Covid-19 Crisis in Greece and Cyprus

Bibliographic Data

ID7213992
AuthorsGiorgos Papantoniou (0000-0003-2710-9383, Trinity College Dublin, corresponding author), Athanasios K Vionis (0000-0002-1658-4034, University of Cyprus)
Year2020
Volume12
Issue2
Pages85-117
Publication date2020-07-02
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEthnoarchaeology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1944-2890 • E-ISSN: 1944-2904
PublisherTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/19442890.2021.1896129
OpenAlexW3154975721
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited74

This article explores the materiality of the Orthodox Christian cult of the Epitaphios on Good Friday of 2020 when, during the COVID-19 pandemic, social distancing and isolation were deemed the most effective means of protecting societies from exposure to the virus. Epitaphios is a metonym that references a venerated object, a decorated cloth or wooden icon bearing the image of Christ prepared for burial. It is placed upon a wooden bier, representing the Tomb of Christ, also called the Epitaphios. During the pandemic, people reacted inventively to restrictions imposed on practicing this communal cult publicly in churches by constructing homemade Epitaphioi and displaying them in privately-owned spaces. We examine the materiality of the homemade Epitaphioi in the context of popular religion, evaluating how crisis may divert the forces of the longue durée into a different channel, and how ethnographic analogy may be useful for understanding ritual and cult in archaeology

Aesthetics · Ancient history · Archaeology · Art · Context (archaeology · Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19 · Cult · Ethnography · Icon · Infectious disease (medical specialty · Isolation (microbiology · Materiality (auditing · Pandemic · Sociology · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Crime, Deviance, and Social Control · History · Religious Tourism and Spaces