How modern? There’s a saint’s remains somewhere around Vladimir (I forget where), and apparently the church had to put it under glass, because pilgrims kept trying to pinch a bit out of either the body or the coffin. Sometimes even trying to bite out a piece
TL;DR: Huge old tree was growing at the pilgrim trail to Jasna Góra. On the nearby church wall there is portrait depicting st. Apollonia, saint of aching teeth. So, pilgrims started to literally bite the tree because it supposedly helped on their teeth pain… And it wasn’t just few cases, there was solid fence erected because they significantly endangered the tree (and this did not stopped some of them)
So even the really silliest superstition remain strong despite XXI century and all the science and reason.
I was speaking rather about change in mainstream culture where they abandoned the creepy memento mori and such. Frankly pretty understandable since it does follow general western aesthetics and beside how many times you can whip you sheep into doomerism frenzy after it was absolutely clear the messiah is not in much hurry to come again.
Medieval christian aesthetics be quite wild compared to modern.
How modern? There’s a saint’s remains somewhere around Vladimir (I forget where), and apparently the church had to put it under glass, because pilgrims kept trying to pinch a bit out of either the body or the coffin. Sometimes even trying to bite out a piece
Well in Poland this happened.
TL;DR: Huge old tree was growing at the pilgrim trail to Jasna Góra. On the nearby church wall there is portrait depicting st. Apollonia, saint of aching teeth. So, pilgrims started to literally bite the tree because it supposedly helped on their teeth pain… And it wasn’t just few cases, there was solid fence erected because they significantly endangered the tree (and this did not stopped some of them)
So even the really silliest superstition remain strong despite XXI century and all the science and reason.
I was speaking rather about change in mainstream culture where they abandoned the creepy memento mori and such. Frankly pretty understandable since it does follow general western aesthetics and beside how many times you can whip you sheep into doomerism frenzy after it was absolutely clear the messiah is not in much hurry to come again.
And decadent. All Catholicist aesthetic is decadent as fuck, everything is skulls, bones, blood tears and cadaveric faces.
This iconography was probably taken from ancient roman cults. I’m not an expert on decadence in art, but death cults are creepy.