27 II 2025 Julia Schwarzer (Universität Regensburg), Christian Brotherhoods and Liturgical Song during Long Late Antiquity

Lay brotherhoods known as philoponoi or spoudaioi, “lovers of work” or “eager ones”, are an anomaly – but an exciting one. At home in late antique Egypt (beginning with the 4^th century) but also attested in other parts of the East, they epitomize the role of laypeople in an increasingly hierarchical church. They performed roles and occupied spaces which “normal” laypeople had long been displaced from. The paper will focus on their best attested liturgical activity: Singing. While Greek material is comparably scarce and ambiguous, the Coptic evidence helps expand our horizons: Brotherhoods were involved in liturgical singing. This is especially visible during consecrations of churches and martyr shrines. They feature in contexts of liturgical innovation and might even have been involved in the composition of liturgical music. Their songs are lost today. Yet by parsing together their stories, we can resurrect the echoes of voices long marginalized and silenced.