And what would become of the cult of the saints?

The cult of the saints in particular places associated with their memory was transferred to movable relics.

Yet in their rejection of the cult of the saints, Protestants often betrayed an equal anxiety.

But, said Edward Elliott, this was very little different from the cult of the saints practised by the church in apostasy.

Brown has been instrumental in popularizing late antiquity, the figure of the "holy man" and the study of the cult of the saints.

The veneration of saints, in Latin, 'cultus', or the 'cult of the saints', describes a particular popular devotion to the saints.

Similarly, the Catholic doctrine of the Blessed Virgin and the cult of the saints could be equated with indigenous polytheism.

There has also been a significant decline in the cult of the saints, and many of the practices which characterized the devotional revolution of the mid-nineteenth century.

Early Christian writers transferred the imagery of garlands and crowns of roses and violets to the cult of the saints.

This feeling was also released in the cult of the saints - both those long dead and those whose lives of special piety inspired a demand for their canonisation.

Much of this was helped by the fact that many parallels could be drawn between the gods and the cults of the saints as well as the Virgin Mary.

Of more immediate importance, as far as the majority of the population was concerned, was the determination of the bishops to control non-monastic sites associated with the cult of the saints.

The cults of the saints were the very heart of its curriculum, and if the translations of relics were highdays and holidays, the liturgical calendar supplied its everyday timetable.

This was by introducing-or reviving-the cult of St Boniface (the cult of the saints was in full swing at this time) and firmly established Crediton as his birthplace.

Precisely because a bishop's hold on his diocese could be precarious, he needed to manipulate all the resources at his disposal; contacts at court, family connections, the canons and the cult of the saints.

He advises them on obscure medieval manuscripts, on 19th-century poetesses of Accrington, on King Arthur, on archaeology, on the cult of the saints, all with equal facility and depth of knowledge.

Rich textiles and precious objects in gold and silver, such as chalices and reliquaries, were produced in increasing numbers to meet the needs of the liturgy, and to serve the cult of the saints.

The Bollandists are an association of scholars, philologists, and historians (originally all Jesuits, but now including non-Jesuits) who since the early seventeenth century have studied hagiography and the cult of the saints in Christianity.

Although Benno's sainthood had little to do with Luther's call for reform, once canonized he became a symbol for both sides of the reforming debate: Luther reviled him in early tracts against the cult of the saints.

The one exception to this rule consists of certain incursions justified by the 'pagan' nature of some of the minor aspects, such as the cult of the saints in our own churches or the gods and demons of Buddhism" (emphasis added).

Among other things, persecution sparked the cult of the saints, facilitated the rapid growth and spread of Christianity, prompted defenses and explanations of Christianity (the "apologies") and, in its aftermath, raised fundamental questions about the nature of the church.

As noted above, also, everybody knew that women were more inclined to attend church, more susceptible to the influence of priests, confessors and preachers, more devoted to the cults of the saints, and more credulous in regard to miracles than their menfolk.

On one hand, one sees a great monotheism; on the other, to speak like a Muslim, one perceives the polytheistic or pluralistic character of the local cults of the saints, not to speak of the cult of the B.V.M.

They both denounced what they believed was the exaggerated cult of the saints, asserted justification by faith, and denounced the coercion of the conscience in the sacrament of penance by the Catholic Church, that they believed could not offer certainty of salvation.

Umbriatico Cathedral in Calabria in the south of Italy is dedicated to him: the area was occupied by Epirote troops after the conquest of Nikephoros Phokas the Elder in the 9th century, who brought with them the cults of the saints familiar to them.