News and Christmas wishes December 2024
Dear Friends of the Bollandists,
Saints have been beacons of light throughout the history of Christianity. They have inspired and comforted, guided and encouraged, have been exemplars to the faithful and not. Thanks to the audacious plan of our founders, we, the Bollandists, have been researching, studying, critically editing and thus preserving the Lives of the extraordinary figures who have shaped Christianity over the past two millennia. So far we have mostly concentrated on all those saintly figures of the first fifteen hundred years of Christian history.
Recently encouraged to embrace more modern saints as well—those from the sixteenth century onward—and to do so with an ecumenical perspective (just as the Acta Sanctorum include the saints from both the Catholic and the Orthodox Churches), we wholeheartedly welcomed the challenge. A dedicated team is now in place, exploring innovative ways to approach this mission—a mission recently affirmed in the Holy Father’s blessing given to us when he visited our Library.
To achieve this, as well as our many other projects, we need your support. Your help is essential in enabling us to continue as stewards of this vast literary, historical and spiritual heritage. As we embark on this journey together, we invite you to stay tuned for updates and to join us in preserving and celebrating this extraordinary legacy.
In the meantime, our team wishes you a blessed Christmas and a joyful New Year.
Irini de Saint Sernin
The Director’s Note
The past months have been eventful. In September, Father Arturo Sosa, Superior General of the Society of Jesus, visited and spent an hour with the Bollandists’ team to better understand their work. Two weeks later, Pope Francis, during his visit to Belgium, made it a point to spend a few moments at the Bollandists’ library and left his written blessing in the Society’s guestbook.
In addition to the second issue of Volume 142 (2024) of Analecta Bollandiana, the Subsidia Hagiographica collection is preparing to publish its 100th title! It will feature the complete dossier of the Persian martyrs, encompassing all their linguistic traditions. The work will comprise over a thousand pages. Meanwhile, the Bollandists, when not engaged in writing, are working to enhance several databases (hagiographic texts and Greek and Latin hagiographic manuscripts). A Belgian university intern is assisting them in this task for a few months. Two other ones are expected early next year.
The digitization of our medieval manuscripts continues (eight of them can already be consulted on our website). A new inter-university research project focusing on our collection of copper plates (used for illustrations in the Acta Sanctorum) has just been launched. Scanning of the 500,000 index cards from the library’s thematic catalogue is nearing completion.
Despite these many initiatives, we remain committed to welcoming readers and guiding them in their research when needed. And we are always delighted to welcome you, our friends, who are passionate about supporting our projects!
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year 2025!
Robert Godding, SJ
Find out what is in the next issue of Analecta Bollandiana 142, II December 2024:
Le Pape François à la Bibliothèque des Bollandistes
Stefan BOJOWALD. Zwei ägyptische survivals im Koptischen.
Die negative Sicht auf den Hund und das Ruder als Bild für leitende Persönlichkeiten
Sergey KIM. The Longer Recension of Bishop Zenob’s Sermon On Martyrs. An Armenian Homily Translated from Syriac
Damien LABADIE. La Vie géorgienne de Jean d’Édesse. Traduction et commentaire d’une œuvre à la croisée du maǧlis et de l’hagiographie
Mathieu CUIJPERS. An Ignored Fragment about the Stauroproskynesis on the Third Sunday of Lent. Euthymius Malakes’s On the Veneration of the Cross
Agostino CONTÒ. Le Vite inedite delle sante Teuteria e Tosca e di sant’Osvaldo
Bastien DUBUISSON. Le dossier hagiographique de Théodulphe de Trèves, homologue de Théodulphe de Saint-Thierry du Mont d’Hor 376
Ivan BILIARSKY. The Vita of Saint Gregory Decapolita in Slavic Manuscript 307 of the Collection of the Library of the Romanian Academy in Bucharest
Bernard JOASSART. Le subside gouvernemental alloué aux Bollandistes (1837-1869). Histoire d’un enjeu idéologique (II)
François DOLBEAU. Catalogues de manuscrits latins. Inventaire hagiographique (quarantième série)
The grant recently accorded by the National Fund for Scientific Research (FNRS) to the project introduced by the University of Louvain (UCL) and the University of Liège in partnership with the Société des Bollandistes will allow us to bring to light a treasure trove of iconographic information. Under this new project, a qualified researcher will be appointed to catalogue, study and showcase the (nearly) 700 copper plates used for the engravings illustrating the volumes of the Acta Sanctorum.
The successor to BHLms, the new Légendiers Latins database is the result of a fruitful partnership between the Institut de recherche et d’histoire des textes (IRHT/CNRS, Paris), the University of Namur and the Société des Bollandistes. It will be put online in January 2025, making it accessible to everyone. Tens of thousands of items of information on Latin hagiographic manuscripts from the Middle Ages (2nd to 15th centuries) will be available for consultation. See you in January (via our website) to discover this extraordinary research tool on hagiographic literature!
A new volume of the Subsidia hagiographica, in two tomes, will be coming off the press in January: it is number 100 in our series, which began in 1886! This new work, destined to mark a milestone in the field of Oriental studies, provides our readers for the first time with a complete multilingual dossier of the Acts of the Persian Martyrs from the early 5th century, opening a window on both the life of the ancient Christian communities of Persia and the history of the Sassanid Empire. We are therefore delighted to announce its publication, and would like to thank all those who have contributed in different ways to this editorial project!
More than 5000 volumes, mostly duplicates from our library, are for sale on the Abebooks website. You may browse our thematic catalogues, e.g. “Hagiography”, “Liturgy”, “Patristics, Byzantium, Christian East, Middle Ages”, “Ancient and Rare”… You will surely find more than one title encountering your interests. And this is also a way to support the Bollandists!
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