Kavanagh Lecture: Harald Buchinger, “Deposition Rites: Dramatic Liturgy and Its Media Between East and West”

Deposition rites, that is, ritual entombments of symbols of Christ’s dead body on Good Friday, have long been an emotional climax of Holy Week. As dramatic rituals and multi-medial representations of biblical history, they gave rise to innovative artistic, poetic and musical genres and exerted cultural influence far beyond liturgy. While deposition rites have been abandoned in the early modern reformation or recent reform in most Western churches, the Epitaphios procession is still one of the most popular services in Byzantine Christianity. The lecture will investigate the history and meaning of these prominent elements of Christian liturgy. Historically, it will be argued that the ritual may have spread from West to East and therefore against the widely assumed general trend of liturgical influence; hermeneutically, the character of mimetic rituals and their mediality will be discussed, not least in view of their theological and spiritual bearing.
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Prof. Dr. Harald Buchinger is Chair of Liturgical Studies at Regensburg University.