My ERC Starting Grant project Reviving the Ascetic Ideal in the Eastern Mediterranean (969–1375 CE) reappraises the medieval monastic revival among Syriac, Armenian, Coptic, and Arab Christians through the lens of cultural memory. By analyzing a large number of hitherto unstudied ascetic manuscripts (from St Catherine’s Monastery on Sinai, Dayr al-Suryan, and other monastic centers) as symbolic ‘sites of memory,’ the project investigates how narratives about early Egyptian monasticism were reshaped and transmitted across linguistic, confessional, and political boundaries, and how these ‘entangled memories’ of the Desert Fathers and Mothers sustained monastic reform, shaped identities, and connected Christian communities across the Medieval Mediterranean.

Within the framework of the Cluster, my contribution focuses on Christian liturgical memory in the medieval period, using Byzantine Antioch (969–1084 CE) as a primary case study. During this period, Antioch became a vibrant site of monastic and liturgical renewal, where Greek, Syriac, Arabic, Georgian, and Armenian traditions intersected. By studying a number of eleventh- and twelfth-century manuscripts produced in the region, the project explores how local liturgical traditions and practices of collective memory endured, changed, or were replaced under Byzantine rule. Moreover, I extend the scope eastwards to the Melkite Christian communities in Iraq and Central Asia, who were under the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Antioch and were therefore influenced by its shifting practices of liturgical memory.