The Cult of Saints in Late Antiquity

The present-day stone Basilica B in Rusafa was built after 518, in the centre of the city, by bishop Sergios II of Rusafa. It superseded a mud-brick structure, constructed in the early 430s by Alexander, bishop of Hierapolis-Bambyke in Syria, as a martyr shrine of *Sergios (see: E01440).

For a description of the present, three-aisled building, see: Key Fowden 1999, 87-91. Its size is: L. 48.50 m; W. 27.70 m. It is one of the largest churches in Syria, though it is still smaller than another church in the city, the so-called Basilica A (see: E01460; E01461).

The southern aisle ends with a pastophorion (a room adjacent to the apse), which leads to an apsidal chamber, identified as a burial place (Kollwitz, Wirth & Karnapp 1958-1959, 31-32) or as a martyr shrine (Donceel-Voûte 1988, 280 note 1, 284, note 20). The north aisle ends with a triconch room, paved with a delicate and expensive opus sectile. It has been suggested that the room was either inaccessible to laymen or the floor was covered by carpets. The eastern conch concealed a platform, probably with a table. A recess and a channel in the platform suggest that a reliquary was sited there and holy oil produced, to be distributed among pilgrims.

On a wide ledge near the eastern wall in an annex to the triconch room, a sarcophagus was found in situ. It was also fitted with channels for the production of the holy oil. Unfortunately, the identity of the saint, venerated here, is unknown. Johannes Kollwitz, who surveyed the church in the 1950s, suggested that Sergios was venerated in the triconch chapel, and Bakchos in the adjacent room, but the theory is no longer sustainable in the light of the epigraphic sources (E01140, E01460, E01461) and the literary evidence of the Pilgrim of Piacenza (E00571, E00572).

Basilica B was probably damaged by an earthquake in the late 6th or 7th c. and its stones were reused for the restoration of Basilica A and the construction of the Great Mosque in Rusafa.

Inscriptions:

Most of the building inscriptions for Basilica B were reused in Basilica A and in the Great Mosque, adjacent to Basilica A's courtyard (see: E01440; E01460, section 3). Unfortunately, none of them mentions the patron saint of the structure. Among the inscriptions found in situ, two deserve our attention:

Inscription 1:

The inscription is a graffito on the door-frame in the southern square room. It is no longer legible, but in 1957 Kollwitz saw 11 or 12 lines, of which he transcribed only the 1st, 4th, and 11th.

1. Κ(ύρι)ε, βοήθη
4. ΛΕΟ
11. ΛΕΟΝΤ

'Lord, help! Leo[- - - ] Leont[- - -]'

Text: Kollwitz 1957, 77.

Based only on this scarcely legible graffito, Gunnar Brands 2002 (48-52, 114-117) suggested that *Leontios, a soldier martyr, was venerated in Basilica B together with Sergios and Bakchos (as the three were venerated together in the city of Bostra, south Syria, see: E02234). This is, however, implausible, as the meaning of the inscription is very unclear, and the theory was questioned by Rolf Tybout (SEG 52, 1588bis). It is almost certain that the cult of Sergios ceased at the site of Basilica B after the removal of his relics from the mud brick structure and their translation to Basilica A (see: E01440), and Bakchos was never venerated in Rusafa.

Inscription 2:

The inscription is a graffito on the outer wall of the basilica, next to a door.

Μαρ[ί]α, βοήθη Σεργ[ίῳ]

'Maria, help Sergios!'

Text: Kollwitz 1957, 73.

This is an invocation of Mary by a certain Sergios.

Cult building - independent (church)
Cult building - dependent (chapel, baptistery, etc.)
Burial site of a saint - sarcophagus/coffin

Prayer/supplication/invocation
Bequests, donations, gifts and offerings
Construction of cult buildings
Renovation and embellishment of cult buildings
Appropriation of older cult sites
Pilgrimage
Visiting graves and shrines
Burial ad sanctos

Bodily relic - unspecified
Contact relic - oil
Making contact relics
Public display of relics
Reliquary – institutionally owned
Collections of multiple relics
Construction of cult building to contain relics

Ecclesiastics - bishops

Bibliography

Images

Plan of Balsilica B. From: Resafa 6, figure 13.