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From Facebook to databases, the Bollandists remain young!

Why is Valentine the patron saint of lovers? Where do the names of the three Magi appear for the first time? Good questions! For the past year and a half now, the Bollandist Society has created a Facebook page where following the liturgical calendar some historical light is shed, in English and French, on a particular question relating to the saint of the day. Some of these posts make it clear that hagiography is actually related to current events: the destruction of the Ummayad Mosque of Aleppo was reported in the media, but who knew it was built with the stones of the sanctuary of the Christian martyrs Cosmas and Damian in Cyrrhus? We are very much aware of the tragedy of child soldiers, so why was one of them, the Mexican José Luis Sánchez del Río († 1928), martyred at the age of 14, canonized last October?

Social networks enable the Bollandists to reach a new audience, far wider than that of the academics to whom their traditional publications are addressed, and to make them aware of the “science of the saints”: not a devotion devoid of critical sense, but an academic discipline ready to use the methods of history and philology to illuminate the Christian past (and thus the present). Eighteen months after its launch, nearly 2,600 people regularly follow the page, but it is not uncommon to reach 6000 to 7000 views! Special attention is given to the choice of images: our page is thus an introduction to the richness of the iconography of the saints as well.

So many innovations have come to enrich the life of the Bollandists in the last months that it is not possible to list them all. But the arrival of a new Bollandist is too rare an event to be passed over in silence! Marc Lindeijer, from the Dutch Province, worked seven years in our General Curia in Rome as assistant to the postulator general, responsible for the canonization causes of the Jesuits. He will be able to develop his research on modern and contemporary holiness, thanks in particular to the exceptional collection of Positiones - the printed dossiers on the martyrdom or heroic virtues of the servants of God - possessed by the Bollandists, a continuously growing collection.

Mrs Irini de Saint Sernin is Greek by birth, Orthodox by religion, and passionate about this four-century old institute with its extraordinary library. The Bollandist Society’s precarious financial position cannot jeopardize its future. We must act. For the past year and a half, she has embarked on a long-term venture aimed at making the Bollandists and their work better known and providing them with the necessary financial support for the pursuit and development of their activities. The first results of her efforts were quick to come. The Baillet Latour Fund has offered a substantial subsidy to digitally catalogue some 22,000 volumes printed before 1800. Three cataloguists have joined the team. The bibliographical data they enter, are immediately available online in the catalogue of the Catholic University of Louvain (UCL) that hosts our catalogue.

The Bollandist Society possesses an immense documentation in books and manuscripts, but the inventories are on paper and can only be consulted on the spot. Through electronic databases consultable online, our collections can be made accessible to all. In this way, several scientific projects have been undertaken, in partnership with other academic institutes: census of hagiographic manuscripts, within the broader framework of a database of Greek manuscripts developed by the Institut de Recherche et d’Histoire des Textes (CNRS, Paris); updating and computerization of the Bibliotheca Hagiographica Latina, a directory of Latin hagiographic texts prior to 1500, together with the KULeuven, etc.

In order to carry out these projects and ensure the future of the oldest but still young Belgian scientific society, the Bollandist Fund was created within the King Baudouin Foundation: it is intended to collect donations from those who wish to support our great enterprise. 

Robert Godding, s.j. Director
Nouvelles BML, February 2017

 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bollandistes

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