Sacralizing Violence in Byzantium: Hymns, Empire, and the Narrowing of Christian Identity

Christians had always been concerned, since the faith’s inception, about the relationship between violence and belief. In Byzantium, this tension was explored not only in abstract theological texts but in the songs people sang: hymns, a multivalent, fluid form of devotion that served as the meeting place between theological conviction and lived religious experience.

Sacralizing Violence in Byzantium is the first book to examine the complex and shifting perceptions of premodern Christians tow...