Table Of ContentPraise for Mother of the Lamb
“Matthew Milliner’s Mother of the Lamb: The Story of a Global Icon is
a book of remarkable scholarship combined with deep humanity. The
story of the pervasive influence of a single, poignant icon of Mary and
Christ—fi rst painted in the hills of Cyprus in the last days of the Cru-
sades and the sad twilight of Byzantium, then copied throughout the
world—o pens the mind and the heart to a long- neglected chapter in
the history of the Christian imagination. It challenges the reader to give
thought to what its serene, sad lines and gracious posture might yet
have to say to our own times.”
Peter Brown, professor emeritus, department of history,
Princeton University
“Byzantine icons, fruit of Byzantium’s distinctive material theology,
exert an unexpected claim on our attention now. Matthew Milliner
explores the vast, evolving afterlife of one great icon, variously known as
the Virgin of the Passion or Our Lady of Perpetual Help. Welding the
events of a passionate and violent era to his own passionate response to
the icon, Milliner roots the image in the circumstances of its earliest sur-
viving rendition: a fresco of consummate artistry painted on the island
of Cyprus in the immediate wake of its Crusader conquest. Wrenched
forever from its parent culture of Byzantium, an empire triumphant for
centuries under the aegis of a conquering Mary, Cyprus saw the birth
of a new image of Mary. Here a half a millennium’s ardent Marian ven-
eration, expressed in Byzantium’s radiant theology of liturgical worship
and holy imagery, was distilled into a new image of Mary for a coming
half- millennium of inexorable imperial decline. It is an image of sus-
tained and compassionate sorrow. Milliner unfolds the image’s many
theological dimensions— Trinitarian, sacramental, ecclesiological, and
emotional— and then traces the paths by which it traveled from a small
Mediterranean island on the verge of an encroaching Islam to the heart
first of Orthodoxy and then of Roman Catholicism, and from there into
the hearts of people literally across the entire globe. The book’s early
chapters vivid with evocations of Byzantium’s luminous and beautiful
forms of worship give way by the end to earnest inquiries about this
image’s message for issues of contemporary faith: social justice, political
violence, ecumenism, the role of women in a faith system that revolves
around a figure like Mary. The book is written with energy and clear
theological conviction, and it reveals how simple and yet how deeply
complex a creation like the Virgin of the Passion is. Readers must not
slight the endnotes. They are dense with interest.”
Annemarie Weyl Carr, university distinguished professor
of art history emerita, Southern Methodist University
“Abounding with vivid detail and told with unerring dramatic flair, Matt
Milliner’s new book traces the evolution of one of Christianity’s central
motifs— the Virgin and Child— as it evolved across the Eastern Medi-
terranean from the eleventh to the fifteenth century. We have a front-
row seat as Milliner takes us through the many dramatic twists and turns
in Byzantine icon theology and practice and its tangled political and
ecclesial background. Mother of the Lamb is an absorbing and compel-
ling story unfolded by an immensely gifted art- historian and storyteller.”
Thomas Pfau, professor of English and professor of German,
Duke Divinity School
“This captivating book invites readers on a spiritual adventure. Starting
from his own first encounter as a young scholar, the author introduces
us to a special icon: the Virgin of the Passion. This extraordinary image
witnessed both the glory and the downfall of an empire, providing both
protection and succor. As her story unfolds, we understand her unparal-
leled power to humble the proud, to encourage the meek, and to console
the defeated.”
Robin M. Jensen, Patrick O’Brien Professor of Theology,
University of Notre Dame
“It is rare to find a scholar who is equally at home in history and the-
ology. Matthew Milliner shows how the history of a devotional image
in its many cultural contexts opens up new horizons of understanding
about the complex relationships that connect politics, faith, and theol-
ogy. Throughout Christian history, the sorrow of the Mother of God has
been an expressive medium for those who find their lives overwhelmed
by suffering and violence. I was deeply affected by this book and con-
firmed in my conviction that no understanding of history is possible
without an understanding of the role played by religion in the shaping
of the human story.”
Tina Beattie, professor emerita of Catholic studies,
University of Roehampton
“Mother of the Lamb is an extraordinary book: a scholarly detective story,
a historical travelogue, a tracing of an image’s persistent crossing of cul-
tural boundaries, a spiritual meditation— and above all, an endlessly
stimulating delight.”
Alan Jacobs, distinguished professor of humanities,
Baylor University
“In the beautifully produced and sumptuously illustrated Mother of the
Lamb, Matthew Milliner shows the now global reach of the Virgin of
the Passion whose icon, as he concisely puts it, ‘contains the compressed
theological wisdom of the Byzantine Empire.’ For those who seek to
understand more deeply the meanings of this Christian icon, here’s your
indispensable book.”
Arthur Versluis, religious studies,
Michigan State University
Mother of the Lamb
Mother
of the Lamb
The Story of a Global Icon
Matthew J. Milliner
Fortress Press
Minneapolis
