Serbian Female Saints Through History: Patterns - Adaptations - Modern Renewal of Spirituality

This lecture will discuss the development of selected female cults through the Serbian history. Its aim is to show the dynamic process of expanding the range of meanings and functions given to female saints in the Serbian spiritual, socio-political and cultural environment. By analysing the medieval (and subsequent) literary material (mainly hagiographic and hymnographic texts), the broad context of its creation and its further use I would like to give an answer to such questions: Are the medieval female cults revived in modern, post-secular Serbia? In what context is it done and what function does this process has? Has women’s holiness, among other things, an impact on the proclaimed ideas of cultural and spiritual rebirth in Serbia? To discuss the topic I have chosen the examples of different female saints known to Serbian literary tradition. 

We will head to Pingvinen for drinks after.  All welcome!

Dr Dominika Gapska is a Serbian philologist and medievalist. Graduate of the Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań. Her scientific interests focus on the history of Serbian medieval literature, Slavic writing traditions, spiritual culture, and Orthodox Church rituals. Her research concerns in particular the sanctity and spirituality of women, as well as the hymnographic, hagiographic, and euchographic texts devoted to them. She is the author of the Woman-Church-State. Cults of the Female Saints in the Writings of Serbian Orthodox Church monograph created within a project funded by Poland’s National Science Centre. She has published several articles devoted to the sanctity of women in Serbian Orthodoxy and has participated in multiple conferences in Poland and abroad.