Dear Friends of the Bollandists,
For some weeks now, readers who come to work in the Bollandist library have been welcomed by a new host: Saint Peter himself!
His tall stature and the expression of his face can startle you making you think he is alive… but it is a wooden statue sculpted in the eighteenth century and probably coming from a confessional of a destroyed church: the keys held by the apostle attest to the power he has received to bind and loose, to forgive and retain faults.
From a confessional to a library…
The volume that the apostle holds in his left hand attests in any case that this new residence is not incongruous. As for the keys, traditionally interpreted as those of Paradise, do they not invite us to examine the lives of all those – the saints – who show us the way there?
This impressive sculpture, kept for more than a century in a family, was recently bequeathed to the Bollandist Society.
Its donors can be assured that we will take care of it for centuries to come…
Robert Godding, SJ
Bollandist Activities:
Dr Xavier Lequeux was invited by the Byzantine Studies Section of the National Hellenic Research Foundation in Athens (http://www.eie.gr) and gave a lecture on June 2 entitled :
Latin hagiographic texts translated into Greek or the opposite: how to determine the language in which they were originally written?
Dr François De Vriendt , took part on the TV programme with the title: Relics, treasures of our Church : https://www.telemb.be/article/cest-notre-histoire-les-reliques-tresors-de-nos-eglises
and he will be commenting, like most years, the procession on Trinity Sunday in Mons.
Fr Diego Arfuch, PSS,participated in the conference with the title “Memory: forms and purposes of remembering in early Christianity”, under the auspices of the Augustinian Patristic Institute in Rome from the 5th to the 7th of May.
Find out what is in the next issue of Analecta Bollandiana 140/I – June 2022 :
Guido VENTURINI. La versio Syra minor della vita di Giovanni il Misericordioso
Caroline MACÉ. The Epistola ad Timotheum de Morte Apostolorum Petri et Pauli, Attributed to Dionysius the Areopagite. A Medieval Translation from Georgian into Latin
Pádraig Ó RIAIN. The Feast of the Dedication of St Peter’s Basilica in Rome, and Other Feasts First Recorded in the Early Ninth-Century Tallaght Martyrologies
Santiago RUIZ TORRES. El culto a los santos en el monasterio de San Juan de la Peña. Claves de su codificación romana y transmisión en la Baja Edad Media
Grigory KESSEL. Syriac Miscellany of Apocryphal and Hagiographic Texts from Crusader Jerusalem (Sinai Syr. 82/I)
Angela DELL’OCA. Una rara immagine di Ignazio ipso adhuc vivente (1543)
Bernard JOASSART. Glanures d’histoire bollandienne – 2 Autour de Victor de Buck
Thanks to your donations, the library has been able to acquire several relatively rare works in recent months.
Among these is the curious volume by the scholar Jean Baudoin, “Les saintes métamorphoses ou les changemens miraculeux de quelques grands saints tirez de leurs vies”, Paris, 1644: one of the 33 works printed by the calligrapher, printer and engraver Pierre Moreau in a cursive type of his own invention.
– An edition of the “Vita prima” of St. Bernard in five books to which are added three books of Miracles and some other pieces, published in Bamberg in 1678. – A short Life of St. Severus, bishop of Ravenna, patron saint of linen and wool weavers, composed in Dutch and published in Antwerp in 1767.
– Two liturgical books: les Offices propres des saints du diocèse de Bordeaux (1693), of which only two other copies are known, and those of the diocese of Orvieto (1783). These works are interesting in particular for the hagiographic readings they offer for the feasts of sometimes little-known saints.
A new Bollandist and a new editor
There have been some notable changes in our small team recently.
François De Vriendt who had assured the impeccable quality of our publications for the last twenty years, has been promoted Bollandist and has joined the research team. Now, it is up to Pietro D’Agostino to take over this austere but indispensable task. We warmly congratulate both and we wish them well in their activities.
The Bollandist Fund Appeal
Every gift, no matter the amount, has a significant impact on our work: supporting a research project on hagiographic manuscripts, helping our library to purchase a rare book and contributing to the digitization of our card catalogues, are just a few examples of what can be achieved with your help.
You can support the Bollandists by using the link below to make a tax-deductible gift: https://www.bollandistes.org/support-us/
If you have any questions, please email us at saintsernin@bollandistes.be
We thank you in advance for your generosity and we extend our gratitude to those who support us already.
On the road for the Bollandists!
Fr Mark Rotsaert and Irini de Saint Sernin travelled to the United States to present the work of our very special research institute, forge collaborations and friendships and seek support. From New York to Chicago, with a stop at South Bend invited by Notre Dame University, we had the occasion to present our projects and discuss how best to continue existing collaboration programmes and launch new ones.