Customer Reviews

Divine Heiress: The Virgin Mary and the Making of Christian Constantinople

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I have been reading church history books this summer, and this is by far the best read I've come across yet. Limberis first describes Constantine's founding of Constantinople, and explains how moving the capital from Rome enabled him to create a new imperial civic religion-Christianity hybrid. She shows how imperial civic religion morphed into a Christianized version, and then made its way into the church (as in, into church buildings and services) under Theodosius and especially Pulcheria. She examines previous patristic writings on Mary, the worship of goddesses Rhea, Tyche, and others, as well as imperial panergyic to show that the reverence for Mary which developed in Constantinople was a unique blend of all of them. A good synthesis of a wide range of material.
I a amateur when it comes to Church history, but I found this book exciting, clear, and compelling. I would recommend it. I don't think you would be offended by it even if you are a devout Catholic or Eastern Orthodox, because her focus is not on the veneration of Mary per se, but the form that developed in Constantinople from the fourth century onwards.