|
 For
a long time the local ecclesiastical tradition propose
13 February of the holy year of 264 as the date of the
arrival of the holy body to Portinente in Lipari. But
unfortunately we do not have the necessary documentary
supports to accept in full this date. However, we find
that the French bishop St. Gregory of Tours – that lived
between approximately 538 and 594 - appears
well-informed of the solid "historic" link, - that had
established between S. Bartholomew and the island of
Lipari. So he wrote about it: "The story of his passion
tells that the Apostle Bartholomew was martyred in the
land of Asia. After many years of his passion, having
struck a new persecution against Christians and the
pagans seeing that all the people came to his tomb and
offered prayers and incense to him, driven by hatred,
they took away his body and put it in a lead sarcophagus
and threw him into the sea saying, because you do not
have to attract anymore our people. But with the
intervention of the providence of God, in the secrecy of
his operations, the sarcophagus of lead, supported by
the waters that led from that place was transferred to a
small island called Lipari. This revelation was made to
the Christians because they could find him: buried the
body, a big temple was built on it. In it he is now
invoked and he benefits many people with his virtues and
his grace".
There was therefore in Lipari - already during the VI
century - a tradition related
to the sacred body; there was a big temple built in
honour of the protector, and there were also foreign
pilgrims who came to experience the "virtue" and the
"grace” of those
miraculous
relics. Saying that the devotion to St. Bartholomew and
this primitive form of "tourism" started in the year
264, it would be risky. However, it remains a fact that
things in Lipari were like this much before that Gregory
of Tours wrote down those words in his Libri
Miraculorum.
Between 200 and 250 weighed on the Capital the crisis of
the military anarchy. We now know that this "anarchy"
was not only military but, more generally, involved all
the sectors of economic and administrative life and most
of the ancient civil and institutional values of the
Empire. In such atmosphere of political and social
ferment,
Christianity was able to make his first leap, massive
and triumphant, in the pagan world, and especially in
Sicily and along the coasts of the Tyrrhenian Peninsula.
It was precisely in these areas that, because of the
frequent landings, it was easier to feel the influence
of the already mature Christianity of Asia.
The phenomenon touched Syracuse, Catania, Taormina,
Messina, Reggio, Lipari, Vibo Valentia, Pozzuoli, Naples
and Ostia.
All this worried Rome, which didn’t recognised anymore
the face of most of his vassals, to the point that the
emperor Decius could not do anything else that announce,
in 249, a persecution, the most intelligent, widespread
and repressive that had ever been in the past. The
persecution continued under his successor, Valeriano,
until 258. Considered responsible for such pernicious
social transformation, Christians had to be eliminated
without mercy. It was even ordered that the citizens had
to be provided of a special card (called libellus)
in which it was declared after a finding of actual
evidence that the holder had sacrificed to the official
gods of the State and had burned incense in front of the
effigy of the Emperor. The impact with the persecution
found unprepared the Christian masses grown with
improvisation and often heterogeneous; next to the
Christians of true conviction there were those who had
joined the faith almost for an instinct of conservatism.
Contain defections and confirm brothers in the faith.
This was the motto and the spontaneous reaction of the
Church persecuted. So they started to enhance the act of
martyrdom and the personality of martyrs, of those, that
through the sacrifice of their lives had been able to
bear witness of their fidelity to Christ. Martyr means
precisely testimony.
 To
the Martyrs was attributed the term "Holy", a title that
before was given only to persons of Triad divine; in
iconography, they are placed in the right hand with the
palm of triumph, and, on the head, with the glory crown.
This aimed to express the belief that at the end of the
world and at the time of the resurrection of the flesh,
they, the Holy Martyrs, were reminders in awakening and
the first to be admitted to the beatific vision without
having to suffer the anguish of anxiety of the judgement
of God .
And that’s why, in those years of persecution and in
those of truce that followed the emperor Gallienus
(259-268), there was a spurring to the hoarding in
public and private cemeteries, of niches that were
contiguous to burials of Martyrs. In those operations a
lot of money was invested. But was it worth it? When the
angelic trumpets would have rung, the martyr lifted to
heaven would have dragged with him the cluster of its
loyal devotees. And since it was not given to everybody
the privilege of having a martyr for personal and
exclusive use, a new belief started: that only a martyr,
officially adopted as a protector of Christians in a
given territory, it would have exercised the same save
powers for the benefit of the community.
The Christian community of Lipari was one of the first
in the West to be open to the cult of the martyrs, to
require a protection and assure a physical presence in
the field through the ownership of their mortal remains.
The Liparesi had not martyrs to honour (like those of
Catania that adopted in 251 S. Agata, or those of
Carthage that in 258 reported to the city the body of
the holy Bishop Cipriano), and so they decided for one
of the Apostles of Jesus. And this was also a source of
pride, because, ultimately, an Apostle was considered a
martyr in a supreme position being a direct witness of
the Master works and having accepted on behalf of him,
the extreme holocaust .
Apart from S.Peter and S.Paul - who already the Romans
held in "exclusive property" - the
preference of Liparesi could not avoid to fall on S.
Bartholomew. And the reason is very obvious: among all
the Apostles, S. Bartholomew had to have worked so
exceptionally fruitful and adventurous and had also such
an inhumane and complex death that it ended up not
knowing in what regions he had actually preached and in
what way he was martyred. Was he beheaded? Was he
condemned to the stake? Was he skin alive? One thing we
can say: that the vocation and dedication of St.
Bartholomew to the service of his Lord had to be of such
fervour and completeness that his apostolate alive the
admiration between the primitive believers and his
figure of martyr liked behind everything. We can also
say that probably he was also a certain pride and a
certain corporative spirit that guided the faith of
Lipari to the choice of this saint. Perhaps, the
Liparesi, almost all men of sea, suffered the charm of
the name, a name that in Aramaic-Syriac sounded
Nathanael Bar-Tholmài and whose significance was this:
Gift of God, son of the man who can move the waters. He
had to be gifted of the same powers on dominating the
blind forces of nature.
However, the story is too distant in time and too dark
to make a clear judgement about the existence of the
relics. Moreover, it should be considered another aspect
of the costume of that time: in the second half of the
third century the demands of the bodies of saints became
so pressing that almost for a natural consequence,
emerged soon, the sad tradition of profiteers ready to
sell off bones intact or fragmented - heads, hands,
feet, clavicles and jaws - attributed to the Apostles,
Evangelists, and hermits martyrs. The time and the
weakness of human memory did the rest. On the virgin
substrate of historical facts, the naive religiosity and
the lively imagination of our people was gradually
triggering those miracle superstructure (the stone cash
floating, the difficulty of pulling it etc..) referred
in sec. IX by S. Teodoro Studita and of which we all are
familiar.
 A
bad surprise had the Liparesi of the sixth century.
While S. Gregory of Tours gave for sure that the mortal
remains of St. Bartholomew were venerated in the island
of Lipari, they came to know that other writers argued
otherwise. Teodoro Lettore assured that the sacred body
rest in Dàrae in Mesopotamia, and Vittore from Capua on
the other hand said that it was in Phrygia. Obviously
they were coming to comb the knots of the previous
abuses and of such superficiality. How have the Liparesi
reacted we do not know. But we know that in the 592
(Pope Gregory the Great who was the first pope to give
order to the entangled field of relics) removed the
bishop of Lipari Agatho II. And very likely - supports
Prof. Bernabò Brea - our bishop had been punished for
having expressed a spirit of initiative and excessive
independence against the Roman Curia that in fact of
religion and relics of saints thought otherwise. The
episode ended there. However, it is a fact that all the
literary sources of the later centuries, on the cult of
St. Bartholomew, constantly indicate the island of
Lipari as the final destination of the first
translation. It could not be in another way. Even
though, after the year 838 his relics were stealing from
Benevento, the people of Lipari remained faithful to the
memory of the Protector, and his cathedral church became
a point of reference not only religious but also of
social aggregation . Even when the dismay of the
anticipation of the end of the world vanished, it seems
that there were still good reasons why he remained to
protect the cities and the islands. |
