Marisia - Maros Megyei Múzeum Évkönyve 33/4. (2013)
Articles
142 E. Gall Fig. 3. House form graves in the values and the picture of the other world of the pagan period can be detected. One can rather talk about a religious-mental syncretism. In the early Christian period the graves of Christians were not separated from those of other religions, but from the 2nd century on memorials were built on the graves of the martyrs, which resulted in the creation of places of worship. After Constantines edict of toleration (312), when peace was restored to the church, basilicas were sometimes built over portions of the catacombs, especially over the known burial place of some favourite martyrs. For instance, Ambrose Bishop of Milan (333-397)32 was buried under the altar of the basilica later named S. Ambrogio after him, which lent a new symbolic content to it, emphasising the connection between Christ and the priest presenting the offering, which granted him the burial inside the church. Ambrose himself thought it to be a privilege of priests to be buried inside the church, but in the following period this custom changed significantly. By the time of Pope St. Gregorius33 Ambroses conception gained common ground, even the pope considered burials in the churches useful as the relatives of the deceased person can remember the person buried there and they can pray for him when glancing at their tombs. However, he prohibited the building of churches in the place of former pagan cemeteries so that the graves of heathens would not become sanctified by consecration. Therefore it can be stated that burials in churches were not prohibited in the early Middle Ages yet.34 From the 4th century on the so called ad sanctos burials spread both in the W and in the E. Graveyards were out of the boundaries of towns until the 7th century - there were several 32 Dassmann 2004. 33 Markus 1997. 34 Duval 1988; Rebillard 1993, 975-1001. churches in a city, but there only a few individuals, mostly persons revered as saints, or privileged people (as the emperors in the Apostoleion) were buried. According to Roman, Jewish etc customs, graveyards were outside the boundaries of towns or alongside roads or in free lands forming smaller or larger clusters (depending on whether it was a big town or a small village ).35 There was not set rule in the territory of the E empire, therefore we cannot talk about a system, but there are certain cases, e. g. in Korn al-Ahmar, Egypt, where there are thousands of graves in different orientation around and inside the church .36 37 The conversion of people outside the antique world such as Germanic, Slavonic or eastern37 people to Christianity was the clash of a highly developed religion with a more simple one, a universal religious system with a gentile religious structure.38 Simple religions lacked the theoretical and ideological foundations therefore we cannot talk about the confrontation of theories, but the triumph of Christianity or the everyday practical approach. A lot of conflicts may have arisen as millennia old values were facing other values: writing-reading, school, institutionalised jurisdiction, the Bible with its teachings such as sin, forgiving, temptation, redemption, and the father dwelling in heavens all contradicted the world of tribal legends, magic, tradition and oaths. According to Christianity, health, illness or recovery were not subject to the power of spirits, which constituted an integral part of more simple 35 Bollók 2014. 36 http://www . uni- tue-bingen.de/fakultaeten/ philosophische-fakultaet/fachbereiche/altertums undkunstwissenschaften/ianes/forschung/aegyptologie/projekte/ saruna.html 37 It is Csanád Bálint who draws our attention to the relative and in many cases incorrect use of this terminology in several articles. Bálint 1999, 13-16; Bálint 2004, 246-252; Bálint 2007, 545-567. 38 Angenendt 2000, 14.
