Holy headless head-bearer. 18+

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

The Kramola portal does not recommend this article for viewing by impressionable people. The purpose of this rather unsightly publication is once again to make people who consider themselves believers and attribute themselves to a particular religious denomination think about the unnatural and antihuman essence of religions as such.

Certain deliberate actions of the human body after cutting off the head - known phenomenon, religiously independent … But religion, as it has always been, has appropriated an inexplicable "miracle" for itself, declaring it the prerogative of Christian martyrs.

Any villager knows that a chicken can run without a head. A well-known and well-documented story about a rooster, which the Lived without a head for 18 months … And here is evidence from the life of human society:

In 1336, King Ludwig of Bavaria sentenced to death the nobleman Diez von SchauMburg (in other sources his name is written as Diez von Swinburg) and four of his associates for the fact that they rebelled against his majesty and thereby “disturbed the peace of the country . The troublemakers were to have their heads cut off. Before his execution, according to tradition, Ludwig of Bavaria asked Diez von Schaunburg what his last wish would be. Diez asked the king to pardon his sentenced friends in case he, beheaded, manages to run past them.

At the same time, von Schaunburg clarified that the sentenced should stand in a row at a distance of eight steps from each other. Only those are subject to pardon, past whom he, having lost his head, will be able to run. The monarch burst out laughing after hearing this nonsense, and promised to fulfill the wish of the doomed. Dietz placed his friends hardly, carefully measuring out the agreed distance between them with steps and knelt in front of the block. The executioner's sword whistled. Von Schaunburg's blond head rolled off his shoulders, and the body … jumped to its feet and, in front of the maddened king and courtiers, sprinkling the earth with streams of blood gushing from the stump of the neck, rushed swiftly past the condemned. Having passed the last of them, that is, having made more than 32 steps, it stopped and fell to the ground. The king kept his word and pardoned the rebels.

According to some accounts, the same story happened with the German pirate Störtebeker. He managed to save half of the crew of his ship, passing them without a head ….. It was in the 14th or 15th century in one of the cities of the Hanseatic League … How accurate the details in this legend, no one knows, but there is no smoke without fire …

There are many stories in which a person lives without a brain at all. All this is quite understandable, since in the first seconds after sudden death, the essence (soul in the terminology of religions) of a person can retain partial control over the body, but it is religions that appropriate such inexplicable cases to themselves in order to be able to manipulate the masses.

Moreover, not only Christianity was distinguished by such mimicry, the religious tradition of India and Tibet also has its own cephalothoid holy being - the Hindu-Buddhist deity Chinnamasta, which means "the one whose head is cut off."

But back to the tradition of Christianity.

Kefalofor - literally translated from Greek as "Head-bearer".

Kefalofor holds his head in his hands - this serves as an indication that the saint was killed by beheading. In this case, handling the halo remains at the discretion of the artist or sculptor: someone puts a halo where the head should be; others show a saint carrying a halo with his head; the third masters have a halo both there and there; in the fourth, both separated parts of the body without a halo.

It is believed that this iconographic scheme is based on images from two canon texts:

I. One of the sermons of John Chrysostom.

II. Biography of Dionysius the Areopagite.

1. John Chrysostom

A Laudatory Conversation on the Holy Martyrs Juventin and Maximin / Evventia and Maximus, who suffered under Julian the Apostate:

"Then their heads became even more terrible for the devil than when they uttered a voice, like the head of John, which was not so terrible when it spoke, as when it was lying silently on a platter, because even the blood of saints has a voice that cannot be heard by the ears. but embracing the conscience of the murderers."

[…]

"As the soldiers, pointing to the wounds they received from their enemies, talk with boldness with the king, - so they can easily receive whatever they want from the King of heaven."

2. Dionysius

The most famous cephalophor is Saint Dionysius of Paris, heavenly patron of Paris, the first bishop of Paris, who lived in the 3rd century. There is confusion with him. Rather, a big confusion came out with Dionysius the Areopagite, mentioned in the Bible in the book of the Acts of the Apostles [Acts 17:34]. During the sermon of the Apostle Paul in Athens in the Areopagus, Dionysius the Areopagite "adhered to him, believed." It was to this New Testament character that other Dionysias were glued.

In the image of St. Dionysius united three personalities:

1. Dionysius the Areopagite from the New Testament - a disciple of the Apostle Paul, who lived according to traditional chronology in the 1st century.

2. Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite - the author of "Corpus areopagiticum" / "Areopagitics", who lived in the 6th century (but this is not certain). The works of Pseudo-Dionysius were of exceptional importance for the development of Christian thought.

3. St. Dionysius of Paris - Christian bishop sent from Rome to baptize Gaul in the 3rd century.

These three characters were united in the 9th century by Abbot Hilduin / Hilduinus, who was abbey in 814-840.

The official legend goes like this:

The Emperor of the West, Louis the Pious (778-840), son of Charlemagne, received the manuscript "Corpus areopagiticum" from the Byzantine emperor Michael Zaika. Louis instructs the Abbot Hildwin to correct the biography of St. Dionysius, in order to include in it the newly acquired composition. The previous version of the life "Post beatam et gloriosam" appeared shortly before and in it for the first time it was reported that St. Dionysius carried his head to the burial place.

The work on the biography was completed before the death of the emperor and is known as Post beata ac salututiferam or Areopagitica. In this text, St. Dionysius is the author of a Greek manuscript and an Athenian archbishop.

Dionysius goes to Rome, where Pope Clement meets him and sends him to Paris. In Paris, St. Dionysius buys land for one of his converts, Lisbius, to build a basilica and baptistery there. With the help of companions Rustic and Eleutheria, he preaches the Gospel.

Emperor Domitian, who ruled in 81-96, instructs the prefect Sisinnius / Sisinnius / Siscinnius to deal with Dionysius and his companions. Lisbius' wife Larsia accuses St. Dionysius is that he bewitched her husband. St. Dionysius is tortured in front of his companions. All of them are thrown into prison, St. Dionysius is subjected to numerous tortures, but each time the Lord saves him. In prison, before execution, all three martyrs receive the sacrament from the hands of Christ, then they are beheaded on the Mount of Martyrs.

St. Dionysius, accompanied by an angel, carries his head and sings psalms, while the heavenly host also proclaims the glory of the Lord. Larsia, seeing such a miracle, converts to Christianity and also goes to the execution.

The son of Larsia and Lisbius, a certain Visbius / Visbius, who was at that time in Rome, returns to Paris and adopts Christianity. This Visbius becomes the main source of information for the writer of the biography - he refers to a certain treatise by Visbius / traité de Visbius, allegedly discovered by chance in Paris.

In total, no less than 134 descriptions of the lives of the saints are known, who were killed by beheading and were rewarded with images of themselves without a head, with it in their hands.

Here are some of them.

Felix, Regula and Exuperantius - martyrs of the 3rd century, who died in Zurich. According to legend, saints Felix and Regula, brother and sister, and their servant Exuperantius, executed in 286, were among the martyrs who suffered along with the Christian soldiers of the Theban legion. During the execution of the soldiers, they managed to escape past the town of Glarus, in eastern Switzerland, to the Zurich region.

There they were captured, tried, and beheaded. Miraculously, they got up, took their heads and, climbing the mountain forty steps, made a prayer and departed to the Lord.

In Zurich, the Grossmünster Temple was subsequently erected, according to legend, founded by Charlemagne, whose horse fell to his knees over the grave of Felix and Regula. Recent archaeological finds have confirmed the presence of Roman burials at the base of the Grossmünster.

And on the site of the execution of the saints, the Wasserkirche temple was built. Saints Felix and Regula are considered the heavenly patrons of Zurich.

Saint Nicasias was the eleventh bishop of Rheims. He built the city cathedral in honor of the Mother of God, on the site of which the Reims Cathedral was later erected. Nikasius died either from the Vandals or from the Huns. According to legend, when the honest head of Saint Nicasias was beheaded, he took her and went to his place of burial. What the legend says is immortalized on the tympanum of the portal of the saints in Reims Cathedral. On the same day, the barbarians killed his sister, Saint Eutropia, and the deacons, Saints Jocond and Florent.

Saint Nicasias is revered as the patron saint of the city of Reims. His name means "victory" in Latin. Other bishops with the same name were at Dee and Rouen.

Hieromartyr Alban of Mainz / Albanus Mogontiacensis.

Alban was a Greek priest from the island of Naxos in the Aegean, expelled by the Arians. According to other versions, his homeland was Albania or North Africa. During the reign of Emperor Theodosius I the Great, together with the itinerant Bishop Theonestus and the martyr Ursus, he visited Mediolan (modern Milan). After the martyrdom of Ursus in Aosta around 385, Alban and Theonestus were sent by the famous Ambrose of Mediolan to Mainz (Roman Mogonziac), where around 404 they began to preach among the Gauls. In 406, when the city was captured by vandals, Alban was beheaded. The same death was accepted by his companion Theonestus. According to legend, Alban was taken by surprise during prayer and was struck down by the sword of the Arian Vandal. Alban put his severed head in the place where he wanted to be buried.

Sometimes Alban is called the disciple of Theonestus, who accompanied the latter to the place of his ministry as a bishop in Mainz and remained with him. Alban of Mainz, considered one of the patrons of Mainz, was revered as a healer who cured epilepsy, stone disease, hernia, headache, and poisoning. Studies of the late Roman cemetery in Mainz testify to the antiquity of the local veneration of Alban. One of the graves of this cemetery is considered the burial place of Saint Alban.

The veneration of Alban of Mainz in the Carolingian era spread far beyond Mainz. The veneration of Alban spreads in Western Europe in the 9-11th centuries.

Due to the similarity of the circumstances of his death, the name of Alban of Mainz is often confused with Alban of Britain. So, on the coat of arms of the Tyrolean commune of Matrai, Alban British is depicted, although Alban of Mainz is considered the patron saint.

Alban British/ Alban Verulamskiy / lat. Albanus, eng. Alban (c. 209-305) - First martyr of the British Isles. The mention of Alban's martyrdom is one of the earliest historical accounts of Christianity in Britain. According to legend, Alban was a Roman warrior. Converted to Christianity under the influence of the priest Amphibalus, whom he hid during the persecution, Alban was condemned to death and beheaded in the city of Verulamium, now the city of St. Albans, named after the saint.

The second British martyr was the executioner, who refused to carry out the death sentence, so he was shocked by the faith of the saint. He was immediately executed, and was baptized with the blood shed for Christ. The historian Bede the Venerable testifies that the executioner who replaced the first had his eyes falling out of the sockets as soon as the saint's head fell off his shoulders. This is what we see in the 13th century miniature from the Life of Saint Alban.

Saint Melu was the king of Armorica. Kingdom of Armorica / Bret. Arvorig is an early medieval kingdom on the Brittany peninsula in modern France.

Melu was the eldest son and since 501 heir to the King of Armorica Budic I / Budic. Melu had brothers Theodoric and Rivod. Having become king, Melu ruled wisely and justly. However, the relationship between the good ruler Melu and his younger brother Rivod was tense. Once their dispute became so heated that Rival hit Mela, after which the king died. Melu's heir was his son Melor, who was still a child. Sometimes Melu is portrayed as a cephalophor, but in fact, no one knows how it was.

Saint Solange / Solange was martyred on May 10 around 880. His severed head cried out the name of Jesus three times.

Saint Domninus of Fidenza, according to legend, was a native of Parma. He was the chamberlain of the Emperor Maximian and the guardian of the crown. Upon conversion to Christianity, he fell under the wrath of the emperor. Pursued by the imperial forces, he rode through Piacenza holding the cross. St. Domnin was captured and executed on the banks of the Stirone, outside Fidenza, or on the Via Aemilia. According to legend, he picked up his truncated head and took it to where the Cathedral of San Donnino is today. His relics are in the Fidenza Cathedral.

St. Domnin is considered the patron saint of Fidenza. They turn to him in prayers for fear of hydration. Saint Domninos is depicted in military attire, holding the palm of martyrdom.

Saint Justus

Virgin Martyr Valeria of Limoges, she also lived in Aquitaine in the 2nd or 4th century. Information about her was preserved in the life of Martial of Limoges. The girl was beheaded in Augustorite, now Limoges in the region of Limousin, France.

She came from the family of the Augustorite governor, whose wife received Saint Martial of Limoges in their home. Turning thanks to his sermon, the girl promised to a high Roman dignitary refused to marry a pagan, for which he ordered the executioner to cut off her head.

But a miracle happened - immediately after the execution, the executioner was struck to death by lightning, and Saint Valeria took her head in her hands and went to the church of Saint Stephen, where Saint Martial performed the Divine service. After these events, the groom was baptized with the name Stephen.

In the 10th century, the monks of the Monastery of Saint Martial transferred the relics of Saint Valeria to the banks of the Vuez River, where they founded the Monastery of Chambon-sur-Voueize. Subsequently, in the name of Saint Valeria, a chapel was erected in the north transept of the newly rebuilt Limoges Cathedral of Stephen's - according to legend, at the place where the saint was met by Bishop Martial.

Currently, the lower jaw of the saint resides in the church of Saint Michael / Saint-Michel-des-Lions in Limoges, and her skull is still kept in Chambon.