Date: Sunday, November 6
Time: 2 pm EST

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The terms “votives” or “ex-votos” designate the offerings, objects, or paintings, often depicting part of the human body, that people buy and take to the churches in hope of healing or improving their situation. These votives were widespread from Antiquity to the Middle Ages into our modern period, and are still popular today.

But their design also varies greatly, and could take almost any form, connected with the fate of the prayer – a giant wax human, a tiny iron animal, real parts of the body, clothes, weapons, and even crocodiles. Together we will delve into the peculiar world of votive offerings to find out the most unusual exemplars of this Christian cabinet of curiosities. The lecture will explore the evolution of votives from early Greek offerings to the medieval boom of Christian ex-votos, related to saint’s miracles; We’ll study the mysterious folk rites surrounding them as well as luxury votive objects, created for nobility. In search of Christian ex-votos, Zotov, who recently co-authored a book about the votive culture will bring us on an multi-faceted expedition to various places from Cyprus to India.

Sergei Zotov is a historian and doctoral student at the University of Warwick (Great Britain). Zotov is also the author of the five recently published Russian non-fictional bestsellers on alchemy, magic, and medieval iconography.