In the modern anti-Semitic caricature, Jews are usually presented with predator-like long hooked noses. This trait has become a recognizable stigma, a visual marker of the physical, cultural, psychological or spiritual otherness. Looking for the origins of such images, historians turn to the medieval anti-Semitic iconography and easily find “portraits” of Judas Iscariot, high priests or Pharisees with exactly the same profile. This article shows that in the Western Medieval iconography, the type that historians often call “Jewish”, was also used in portraying the adherents of different faiths as well as heretics. At the same time, the Jews themselves were represented not only with a hooked, but also with a flat upturned nose. That physiognomic pair from the 12^th century has been ubiquitous in Western art. Both types of noses in the medieval physiognomy treatises had the most negative reputation.
Medievalists often use a hooked nose as a marker that allows them to recognize Jews or characters identified with them in the image. However, in many cases that leads to errors, because the hooked nose was more likely one of the universal signs of the otherness and villainy than a specifically anti-Semitic sign.

The paper focuses on the visual motif of idoloclasm in Russian iconography. Images of a saint who crashes an idol played important roles in Christian art, demonstrating the triumph of Christianity, the powerlessness of false gods, and the demonic nature of non-Christian cults.
Unlike European iconography, Russian icons, frescoes and miniatures rarely used the model of destruction / disintegration into parts, which clearly demonstrated the powerlessness of idols and their material nature. Likewise the demonization of an idol did not become popular either in the scheme, when an idol was endowed with the features of a demon as a true actor who animated the statue and performed actions in its material “body”. In Russian iconography more restrained models were used – above all, the fall of the “idol” and its worshipping.
However, the variability of those images was high: in small scenes of idoloclasm one can find examples where the play of signs and visual parallels creates an original author’s “text”, giving the entire scene unexpected semantic nuances. The author analyses the side-scene of the Rostov icon of the first third of the 18th century with the figure of monk Avraamiy Rostovsky crashing the idol of Russian pagan god Veles. Veles is visually likened to Christ, and the entire scene is paralleled to the Crucifixion. This unusual scheme could serve as an additional indication of the false God role played by the demon-idol.

Many venerated icons of Virgin Mary in Russia used to be carried around a certain territory or taken to other places due to different religious, political and ideological goals. The article considers the phenomenon of a traveling Shrine – the miraculous image of Our Lady of Georgia that became famed in the 17^th century. The author describes and analyzes the main specific features of its cult. The icon was brought out from a non-Christian country, Persia. Its veneration for a long time had no localization in the capital and major cities of Russia. The icon changed its place many times because of the different circumstances and the will of some historical persons interested in that. Special attention is paid to the particulars of its glorification in Moscow during the reign of the Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich and Patriarch when several well-known copies of the icon were and to the time of Peter the Great when its cult became widespread in a large part of the country. The author describes the reasons why the Georgian Icon of Our Lady turned into a traveling Shrine and analyses the traditions of its veneration.

The article is devoted to the history of the Joan of Arc holiday in Orleans, which is traditionally celebrated every year on May 8. Until today none of the researchers set out to study the topography of that holiday: what urban spaces it took place in, what addresses it was linked to in different periods, what the change of its location depended on, and who exactly took part in its arrangement. Those issues are considered in the article on the basis of both written texts (chronicles and historical writings of the 15^th–17^th centuries) and documentary sources (city accounts and holiday posters for the 18^th–21^st centuries). Special attention is paid to the period of the Revolution and the Consulate, when the struggle for the sacralisation of the Joan of Arc “place of memory” unfolded intensively. The beginning of the 20^th century the period before the official canonization of the Pucelle d’Orléans seems also important, as well as the beginning of the 21^st century, the time of an active struggle between the city authorities and the far-right parties over the issue of France’s stay in the EU, which directly affected the topography and the specifics of this holiday.

This article is dedicated to the evolution of the religious building’s complex that was formed firstly in Bolsena (Latium) around the tomb of Christina, early-Christian martyr, and from the second half of the 13^th century – around the place of Eucharistic miracle of 1263. Also the author studies the evolution of ways of veneration of those sacred places and relics connected to them. Starting from the middle of the 3^rd century, the lower catacomb complex in Volsinii Novae, where the worshipped tomb is located, began to attract pilgrims. The built up area center was gradually shifted down towards the south, and by the 7^th century the first Volsinii Novae Christian church, located in the building of the forum basilica, was abandoned in favor of the so called “Small Church”, cut in the rock around Christina’s tomb. Saint Christina’s basilica was mentioned as one of the 79 stops on the way to Rome by Via Francigena in the itinerarium belonging to the bishop of Canterbury Sigeric in 990. In 1077 due to large pilgrim influx the “Big Church” was rebuilt and by the beginning of 12^th century passage from the Small Church to the Big was designed in the form of covered corridor. But the supposed theft of Christina’s relics by the French pilgrims on their way to the Holy Land in 1099 left Bolsena without the worshipped hallows. The situation changes in the end of the summer 1263 because of the Eucharistic miracle with bleeding Host and stained corporal in Bolsena. However, the Bolsena passing under the control of the Bishop of Orvieto, which has taken place a century and a half earlier, also foredoomed the fate of that relic – it was immediately moved to the diocese capital. Starting from the end of 15^th till the 18^th centuries saint Christina’s basilica complex was gradually returning its lost status. The saint’s tomb and the altar of The Miracle were topographically separated. The pilgrims were offered some shrines “alternative” to the corporal (the sacred objects witnessing the Miracle – by new mode in exhibiting marble slabs, stained with the Host blood). Finally, in 1815 the permission was obtained to carry one of the slabs in the Corpus Domini procession as the corporal in Orvieto used to be carried.

The article discusses the meaning of the concept of fear in Tolkovaya Paleya (Old Russian commented retelling of Old Testament). This historical source is important for exploring the notion of fear in Old Russian literature. Tolkovaya Paleya was an influential text. It includes interpretations and additions to the Biblical stories. The concept of fear in Tolkovaya Paleya has a rather complex structure. Its key point is the fear of God. The meaning of the God-fearing concept and its main characteristics in Paleya were defined by the author of the article following the analysis of the context for the expression ‘the fear of God’ and through the study of larger semantic blocks that include that phrase. The paper also focuses on the role of the Godfearing in the world order and in the lives of humans as it was described in Tolkovaya Paleya. The opposite of this fear is the fear of death, appearing in the text of the source in the description of sinner’s demise. The analysis of that component in the concept of fear shows the most frightening aspects of death for the compiler of Paleya. The paper helps to expand the understanding of how the concept of fear was interpreted in Ancient Russia, and outlines a direction for further research – the study of fear in the context of sinfulness and righteousness.

The paper discusses one of the most ancient sacred places in the Philippines, situated in the town of Obando, not far from Manila. In pre-colonial times it was a centre for the veneration of the Tagalog fertility gods, where a striking feature of their cult was a group dance with singing. At present, it is a Catholic church that every May becomes the national centre of pilgrimage for the childless.
The Philippines is the only Christian country of Asia. Rapid Christianization at the very beginning of the Spanish colonial period (16th–19th c.) put an end to many religious practices and a number of ritual folklore genres. However, Philippine Catholicism has inherited the lexica that used to be a part of the traditional belief system; sacred places, dedicated to local gods and spirits, are still loki sacra, but nowadays as Christian centres; pre-Hispanic rituals were partially incorporated into the church service and are still the basis of numerous vernacular Catholic practices. That inheritance is not studied enough. Two points are discussed: the question of the inheritance of ancient magic practices by present-day vernacular Catholic ones, and the question why that important connection is so poorly researched (the issue being a twofold break in tradition, caused by changes induced first by Spain, then by the USA). As the author shows, throughout the existence of the locus as a Catholic center, the pagan principle influenced the choice, interpretation of the images of holy patrons and the means of accessing them.
Despite the occasional restrictions, the vernacular practices, rooted in pagan beliefs invariably returned and are now legalized. The author’s field materials are used.

The Jewish tradition has ambivalent attitudes toward cemeteries: they are treated at the same time as sacred loci (in Yiddish the cemetery is called a “holy place”, heilik ort) and as places of impurity, associated with the impurity of dead bodies. The article discusses the practices associated with the pilgrimage to the graves of Hasidic tzaddiks, currently common in Russia, Ukraine, Israel and the United States. In most cases, we are dealing with different variations of the veneration of the righteous in Hasidism, and many individual practices at the graves of tzaddiks echo historical and memorial testimonies of worship of those same people during their lifetimes. On the graves people leave notes asking for help, sometimes they put coins and various objects that require blessing. Coming to the burial place, pilgrims observe the rules of behavior established by the tzaddik themselves: they don’t turn their backs to the grave, take off their leather shoes, read certain psalms and prayers. A special place in the article is devoted to pilgrim practices toward the substitutes of the graves of the righteous: to the places of the former burial place transferred to another country or to the grave of the wife of the righteous, which is in another country.