Military saint

Four Military Saints by Michael Damaskinos (16th century, Benaki Museum), showing St George and St Theodore Teron on the left, and St Demetrios and St Theodore Stratelates on the right, all on horseback, with angels holding wreaths over their heads, beneath Christ Pantokrator.

Triptych of the Bogomater flanked by Saints George and Demetrius as horsemen (dated 1754)

The military saints or warrior saints (also called soldier saints) of the Early Christian Church are Christian saints who were soldiers in the Roman Army during the persecution of Christians, especially the Diocletian persecution of AD 303–313.

Most of these saints are martyrs, soldiers of the Empire who had become a Christian and refusing to participate in rituals of loyalty to the Emperor (see Imperial cult), subjected to corporal punishment that escalates to torture and eventually martyred.

The characteristic of the military saints is their depiction as soldiers in traditional Byzantine iconography from about the 10th century (Macedonian dynasty) and especially also in Slavic Christianity.^[1] While early icons showed the saints in "classicizing" attire, icons from the 11th, and especially from the 12th century, painted in the new style of τύπων μιμήματα, i.e. imitating nature, are an important source for Byzantine military equipment of the medieval period.^[2]

Veneration of these saints, most notably of Saint George, also entered Western tradition during the time of the Crusades.

The title of "champion of Christ" (athleta Christi) was originally used for these saints, but in the late medieval period also conferred on contemporary rulers by the Pope.

Significance

In Late Antiquity other Christian writers of hagiography, like Sulpicius Severus in his account of the heroic, military life of Martin of Tours, created a literary model that reflected the new spiritual, political, and social ideals of a post-Roman society. In a study of Anglo-Saxon soldier saints (Damon 2003), J.E. Damon has demonstrated the persistence of Sulpicius's literary model in the transformation of the pious, peaceful saints and willing martyrs of late antique hagiography to the Christian heroes of the early Middle Ages, who appealed to the newly converted societies led by professional warriors and who exemplified accommodation with and eventually active participation in holy wars that were considered just.^[3] A similar development in the cult of Saint Demetrius of Thessaloniki has been observed; although always described as a soldier, depictions of him were in civilian dress for centuries until around the turn of the millennium, after which he is nearly always shown fully armed.

The angelic prototype of the Christian soldier-saint is the Archangel Michael, whose earliest known cultus began in the 5th century with a shrine at Monte Gargano. The cult of soldier-saints followed the transformation of Michael into a Christian figure.

The Orthodox military saints are on the whole more prominent in the respective devotions of their churches than the Catholic ones, especially as the military crisis of the Byzantine Empire deepened. They are usually shown fully equipped for fighting, unlike many Catholic military saints. The most important are Saint George, Saint Demetrius of Thessaloniki (these two very often paired, riding on horseback or on foot in icons), Saint Theodore the General, and Saint Theodore the Recruit. It is noticeable that a historical basis for all of these is essentially lacking.

Of these St George was imported to the West during the period of the Crusades.

List of Military saints

Iconography

Eastern

• 
  Demetrius of Thessaloniki (10th century)
• 
  Demetrius of Thessaloniki, 12th century Greek mosaic from Kiev
• 
  Icon of Saint Nicetas from Yaroslavl (16th century)
• 
  Saint Eustace (17th-century icon)
• 
  Saint Menas (18th century)

Western

• 
  Saint George and the Dragon by Paolo_Uccello
• 
  Saint Maurice by Matthias Grünewald
• 
  Saint Gereon, by a 15th-century German artist
• 
  Saint Martin of Tours from the Grandes Heures of Anne of Brittany.

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to military saints.

• Christians in the military
• Patron saints of the military
• Saint George: Devotions, traditions and prayers

References

• Monica White, Military Saints in Byzantium and Rus, 900–1200 (2013).
• Christopher Walter, The Warrior Saints in Byzantine Art and Tradition (2003).
• Piotr Grotowski, Arms and Armour of the Warrior Saints: Tradition and Innovation in Byzantine Iconography (843–1261), Volume 87 of The Medieval Mediterranean (2010).

External links

• David Woods, "The Military Martyrs" (ucc.ie)
• The Warrior Saints (iconreader.wordpress.com) (2012)