More than a Church

One of the challenges of a summer reading list is staying to true to it enough to get through at least some of it while also being flexible enough to read unexpected books that come my way. Catherine Keane’s More than a Church: Late Antique Ecclesiastical Complexes in Cyprus(2024) is just such a book. I had read her 2021 dissertation, but I didn’t expect it to be converted so quickly and effectively into a book. But is was and here we are: the first unexpected detour in my summer reading list.

It is a good book and does important work. By my reckoning, it is the first monograph dedicated exclusively to the architecture of Early Christian churches on Cyprus (excluding some solid dissertations and some exceptional site specific studies). More than that, Keane’s emphasis on abandonment (and post-abandonment) processes is timely as it will help inform my work at the Roman bath at Isthmia where we focus on post-abandonment phases. Her work will also inform our work at the site of E.F1 at Polis which shares the depositional and architectural dynamism of many of the churches that Keane describes in her work. 

Here are five thoughts about this important new book.   

1. Early Christian archaeology from an archaeological perspective. A few years ago, David Pettegrew and I edited the Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Archaeology. In the project, we observed that despite over a century of work on the archaeology of Early Christian sites, monuments, and artifacts, the field remained dominated by approaches informed by art and architectural history. These fields have tended to privilege stylistic analysis and typology in their discussion of architecture. A more formally archaeological approach to buildings focused attention on architectural phasing, depositional processes (especially stratigraphy), and chronology. Of course, this isn’t to suggest that typological discussions don’t consider phasing or chronologies, they do, but archaeological discussions ground these conversations in the relationship between architecture and depositional processes. This allows for more robust analysis of use of the buildings over time and even in abandonment.     

2. Churches as more than just ritual spaces. The biggest benefit that a shift from studies rooted in architectural typologies and styles is that encourages ways of thinking about churches that go beyond their roles as spaces of ritual. Traditionally (and I include my dissertation in this tradition), we have thought about churches primarily as spaces where the Christian liturgy took place. As a result, we have tended to privilege the ritual significance of the clergy at the expense of their growing role in the political, economic, and social life of the communities. Keane’s book, which looks at production sites associated with Early Christian buildings shifts our view of the clergy from ritual practitioners to coordinators of production. Her emphasis on evidence for agricultural processing, ceramic production, bread making, and the place of churches in metallurgical landscapes shifts the conversation about churches from their place as ritual centers (with all the attendant symbolic and religious significance implied) to their place within the Late Roman economic landscape.

3. Churches as dynamic buildings. The challenge Keane faces in understanding the non-liturgical roles of churches is piecing together the dynamic history of these buildings. In many cases the role of churches in production appears later than their original liturgical function. This means that these buildings adapted over time and were perhaps even designed with such adaptability in mind. This not only required Keane to unpack the phasing and chronology of these buildings very carefully and to negotiate, at times, the vagaries of less than ideal excavation practices, but also think about these buildings as places in the landscape that persisted long after their liturgical functions were over.  

4. Late Antiquity as a dynamic period. Keane recognized that church building were not simply icons of Late Antiquity, but dynamic parts of a period which showed change over time. In this way, she contributes to the growing trend toward a “long late antiquity” on Cyprus and throughout the Eastern Mediterranean which recognizes the period as more than simply the persistence of forms associated with “Christianization,” “changes in imperial iconography,” or “decline” and includes an expectation of dynamic trends. Keane’s focus on the 7th and 8th century and the post-abandonment phases of these church buildings shows how the Late Antique economic landscape remained dynamic, resilient, and even prosperous well beyond the traditional “end of antiquity” marked by the Arab raids. She takes particular pains to challenge arguments for the presence of squatters or groups associated with quarrying material from the sometimes damaged churches. Instead she proposes that many churches witness longer term and more systematic use. These buildings themselves represented investments by the communities that paid dividends even after they no longer functioned in their primary liturgical role.   

5. Cyprus as periphery. Finally, there’s something about Keane’s work that continues to support a view of Cyprus as peripheral to imperial affairs. Her interest in the productive aspects of churches is consistent with a view of Cyprus as an economic hinterland in the Late Roman world. Agricultural, metallurgical, and even ceramic production for export fundamentally shaped the Cypriot landscape and contributed to the refashioning of Early Christian architecture. In exchange for these products, Cyprus absorbed imported ceramic, glass, and metal objects that communicated larger imperial and regional values and standards. In this ways, she echoes longstanding models for understanding Cyprus as a source of raw materials and markets for imported goods in the larger Late Roman world in ways that parallels 19th-century models of empire. 

This isn’t to say that she’s wrong or that these ideas don’t meaningfully describe the character of the island in Late Antiquity. At the same time, it is hard to avoid the specter of 19th century models of empire which had such a lasting influence on both traditional interpretations of the island in antiquity and its contemporary history.