Saints Cyril and Methodius were Byzantine Greek brothers born in Thessaloniki in the 9th century who became Christian missionaries among the Slavic peoples of the Great Moravia and Pannonia. Through their work they influenced the cultural development of all Slavs, for which they received the title “Apostles to the Slavs”. They are credited with devising the Glagolitic alphabet, the first alphabet used to transcribe Old Church Slavonic. After their deaths, their pupils continued their missionary work among other Slavs. Both brothers are venerated in the Orthodox Church as saints with the title of “equal-to-apostles”. In 1880, Pope Leo XIII introduced their feast into the calendar of the Roman Catholic Church. In 1980, Pope John Paul II declared them co-patron saints of Europe, together with Benedict of Nursia.
Αγία Σοφία, Hagia Sophia, Ayasofya, from the greek for Holy Wisdom.
On this day, the bully of East Med has decided to prove to the rest of the world that monuments of this magnitude can be used as tools to push personal, hidden or other political agendas.
Whatever the reason, monuments like Hagia Sophia #deserve better
AD 1149, Sicilian tombstone from Palermo Zisa palace; the inscription is written in 4 languages, Hebrew, Latin, Arabic and Greek, demonstrating in the best way the multicultural legacy of Sicily, which is located in the crossroads of many cultures. The byzantine style cross in the middle, with the standard abbreviated greek inscription IC XC NI KA, Jesus Christ, conquers.
The Byzantine Empire used a system of beacons to transmit messages across Asia Minor to Constantinople. The main line of beacons stretched over some 450 miles . A message could be transmitted the entire length of the line within an hour.
Genre: Romance/Historical/Fantasy, slightly based on thismyth Setting: Greek Anatolia, early 900s, Byzantine Empire Word Count:7200
Since Halia could remember she belonged more on the land than in the seaside city of Abydos, the tender soil as close to her heart as her mother’s line, who before they became known as healers lived off the land as farmers and hunters. It was here, on the outskirts of Astyra, that Halia was content.
She didn’t need marriage or children or love or family if only she could stay on the land.
Halia didn’t want to knock her birthplace by the Dardanelles. But the young Byzantine medic cherished that innate feeling of home, as she surveyed their dwindling olive groves. In this maternal alcove outside the main city, she felt at once at peace and loved. Nourished by the soft sun, the gleaming rocks, the scent of pine and cypress, and the crisp air.
This week, I’ll be taking a look at a Byzantine baked cheesecake - that’s quick, simple, and very tasty! It seems to be based on an earlier Greek recipe for a baked cheesecake, but was adapted to suit the tastes of Medieval Byzantine elite cuisine!
In any case, let’s now take a look at The World That Was! Follow along with my YouTube video, above!
Method 1 - Whisk Ingredients To begin with, we need to place our cheese in a bowl. I used ricotta here, because it has a good texture and is widely available, but other soft Greek cheeses would work well - such as myzithra or anthotyro. Into this, pour 150g of honey, and whisk it well. Crack an egg one at a time into the bowl, whisking it until it’s well combined before adding two more. Chicken eggs would have been used in this period, along with wildfowl and pidgeon eggs - so you can use these here too if you happen to have any. Finally, to thicken the mixture up a little, add a tablespoon or two into the mixture, whisking together as you go. I used plain wheat flour, which has a lower bran content than what would have been widely available in Late Antiquity, but it results in a smoother, finer cake when you’re finished.
2 - Bake Cheesecake Preheat your oven to 180C/356F while you pour your mixture into a tin.
Make sure you grease your baking tin before you pour in your batter. Your batter should be silky smooth as you’re pouring it in. Smooth out the top, and place it into the middle of your preheated oven. Let this bake for about 40-50 minutes, depending on your oven. It should be done when the top of it has turned a lovely golden colour, and the centre of the cake doesn’t jiggle when you wiggle it. The top of it will slowly fall down while it’s cooling, but don’t worry - that’s what’s meant to happen!
3 - Decorate Cheesecake Let the cake cool for about 5 minutes in the pan before you try and take it out and top it. When it’s cooled slightly, pour some more honey over the top, along with some ground cinnamon. Cinnamon would have been used by the elites of Byzantine society, as they would have had more access to expensive spices than Western Europe (given the Byzantine Empire’s proximity to the spice trade routes of the Near and Middle East). In any case, serve up warm and dig in!
Double-headed eagle of Byzantium (T-Shirt / Tank-Top /more).
In Byzantine heraldry, the double-headed eagle is a charge associated with the concept of Empire – the heads represent the dual sovereignty of the emperor both in secular and religious matters and/or dominance over both East and West. The early Byzantine Empire continued to use the (single-headed) imperial eagle motif. The double-headed eagle appears only in the medieval period, by about the 10th century in Byzantine art.
