Death and the afterlife in Byzantium : the fate of the soul in theology, liturgy, and art / Vasileios Marinis, Associate Professor of Christian Art and Architecture, The Institute of Sacred Music, Divinity School, Yale University.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Theologies -- The invention of traditions: Jewish and Christian apocrypha -- The diversity of the afterlife in late antiquity -- Continuity, systematization, and encyclopedism in the middle Byzantine period -- Visualizing the afterlife -- Late Byzantium and the encounter with the west -- Liturgies -- The afterlife of the soul in liturgical services -- Helping and remembering the soul: liturgical commemorations and prayers -- Two exceptional services -- The text and translation of the Kanon Eis Psychorragounta.

"For all their reputed and professed preoccupation with the afterlife, the Byzantines had no systematic conception of the fate of the soul between death and the Last Judgement. Death and the Afterlife in Byzantium marries for the first time liturgical, theological, literary, and material evidence to investigate a fundamental question: What did the Byzantines believe happened after death? This interdisciplinary study provides an in-depth analysis and synthesis of hagiography, theological treatises, apocryphal texts, liturgical services, as well as images of the fate of the soul in manuscript and monumental decoration. It also places the imagery of the afterlife, both literary and artistic, within the context of Byzantine culture, spirituality, and soteriology."-- Publisher's description.