Miraculous renal healing in the church of the life-giving spring in constantinople compendium (1812) from the original by nikiphoros kallistos xanthopoulos (1256–1335)

Abstract

Nikiphoros Kallistos Xanthopoulos (1256–1335) was a priest in Hagia Sofia and a scholar considered as the last Greek ecclesiastical historian. Apart from “Ecclesiasticae Historiae”, dedicated to the emperor Andronikos-II Palaeologos (1282–1328), he wrote poems, liturgical hymns and “synaxaria” of the Orthodox Church. His book of the miracles in the church of the Life-Giving Spring in Constantinople was published in a compendium translation in vulgar Greek (1812). Initiated by the ex-Bishop of Stages (Meteora) Paisios (1784–1808), this translation aimed to offer contemporary Greeks a book more comprehensible and thus more beneficial than the original. Our aim was to analyse the forms of miraculous healing applied and the renal ailments healed in this compendium. Miraculous healings (54 among 63 miracles) included prayers, visions and the spring-water. Drinking was applied in 43, washes in 11 and mud compresses in 8 cases. Renal ailments were present in 11 cases: bladder stones with dysuria, hematuria, pyuria or urine retention in 9 and hydrops in 2. Emperor Justinian (527-565) was healed from an obstructive bladder stone. Help was sought after doctors’ treatments failed. In two cases, water drinking was applied despite medical advice and side effects of drugtherapy were healed in two other. In the compendium edition of the book of Nikiphoros Kallistos Xanthopoulos on the miracles of the Life-Giving Spring in Constantinople, healing of renal disorders was very frequent (20%). This publication implies a close relationship of Greek scholars, during the Hellenic Enlightenment (1750–1821), with Palaeologian Byzantine Humanism. © Athens Medical Society.