Saint John the Baptist Rigodioktes. A holy healer of fevers in the church of the Panaghia at Archatos, Naxos (1285)

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Published: Aug 4, 2021
DOI: https://doi.org/10.12681/dchae.26195
Keywords:
13th century iconography Saint John the Baptist Rigodioktes dedicatory inscriptions the cult of saints agrarian societies history of health malaria Naxos Archatos church of the Panaghia
Θεοδώρα ΚΩΝΣΤΑΝΤΕΛΛΟΥ (Theodora KONSTANTELLOU)
Archaeologist, PhD UA
Abstract
On a depiction of St John the Baptist, located in the church of the Panaghia at Archatos on the island of Naxos and dated by inscription to the 1st of September 1285, the otherwise unknown epithet Rigodioktes (Ριγοδιώκτης) has been inscribed. This epithet refers to the ability of the Prodromos to dispel the shivering of fevers caused by a number of diseases and especially malaria. However, no evidence for this has been found to date in the Byzantine written sources. But, some oral narratives that shed light on this capacity of the saint were circulating in the Ottoman and Modern eras. A local outbreak of malaria may have caused this cult aspect of the saint to surface in the church of an agrarian-pastoral community in the Late Medieval period.
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