With its long history and even longer memory, Ireland is a nation that offers plenty to historians. From its ancient history and Celtic identity, to the Viking invasions and many wars for...
Situated in Nea Makri, Attica, the Saint Ephraim Monastery stands as a significant landmark showcasing Greece’s historical and spiritual lineage. While originally called the Annunciation of the...
The well-known Joan of Arc , often referred to as la Pucelle, stands as a complex historical figure, far from the conventional depiction of a holy maiden. She emerged as an iconic female warrior ,...
Natalie Goodison / The Conversation As an undergraduate, on a tour of Europe, I happened to step into the church where Saint Valentine’s head was kept. The tour guide told us a (likely fictitious)...
Mythology is filled with an array of outlandish and far-fetched stories. Christianity is no exception. One of the most surprising, at least for me, is the story of the 12th century monk, Saint...
Standing up for what you believe in isn’t always easy. The early Christians are a prime example of this. They faced centuries of persecution at the hands of various Roman rulers. These early...
St. Francis, born Giovanni di Pietro Bernadore, was a mystic Italian Catholic friar. To this day, he is one of the most revered of all the saints and is remembered as the founder of the Franciscan...
New evidence, helping to form a 15th century reconstruction of part of Westminster Abbey, demonstrates how a section of the building was once the focus for the royal family’s devotion to the cult of...
Santa Claus is a mythological character, loved by children and adults alike around the world. But the fictional Jolly Old Saint Nick was actually inspired by a real-life St. Nicholas, who resided not...
For nearly fifty years, the town of Craco in southern Italy has stood uninhabited. Here, dark windows look out at potential travelers like empty eye sockets and the streets and buildings of this...
Tucked away in an almost-forgotten manuscript from the 11th century is the extraordinary tale of St Rumwold, an infant saint who lived on this earthly plane for only three days. But in that short...
How do you define a nation? Most people would probably think of a nation as being a defined geographical area governed by a political body of some sort which acts on behalf of its citizens, who are...
St Albans Cathedral in Hertfordshire is the oldest site of continuous Christian worship in Britain and work to restore its rare medieval shrine has just been completed. But the addition of a new...
It’s a name most people have never heard of and even fewer can pronounce, but St Aethelthryth of Ely is one of England’s most fascinating saints whose name has survived throughout the centuries and...
Dark Age Britain was apparently full of “saints”…well, at least hundreds of people gained membership into the ‘cult of saints’ at that time. Up to 3-4 percent of aristocrats may have been awarded...
Saint Januarius is a saint venerated in the Roman Catholic Church . He is the patron saint of Naples but is best-known for a miracle that happens several times each year – the liquefaction of what is...
A travel along the corridors of the Wieliczka salt mine inspired Polish writer Bolesław Prus to write his most famous novel -''Pharaoh''. Over the centuries, all of the explored chambers of the salt...
Joan of Arc was a young peasant woman who lived during the last phase of the Hundred Years’ War . This war was a series of military conflicts between France and England which began in 1337 due to an...
The coronavirus pandemic has led many people to seek comfort in a variety of ways. Some have returned to traditional customs and beliefs. In Ireland many people are making a pilgrimage to holy wells...
In Bulgaria, a previously unknown medieval church has been unearthed in an abandoned medieval city. It dates from the Second Bulgarian Empire and archaeologists have found some important murals in...
The small republic of Montenegro has a rich and fascinating history with many astounding historic sites that date back to the Classical period. Perhaps the most famous site in all of Montenegro is...
The bones of a Polish saint that have been lost for centuries have been re-discovered by chance during restoration work in a Christian basilica in Silesia. Conservators were working on the tomb of St...
Scientists have finally managed to solve a centuries-old mystery. They have been able to show with a high degree of probability that some bones located in a church wall belonged to a medieval saint...
Saint Hildegard of Bingen is arguably one of the most remarkable women of the Middle Ages . During her lifetime, she was abbess, mystic, visionary, and composer. In addition, she was a respected...