Landscape aesthetics, meaning and experience in Christian pilgrimage

近年来，在人文科学和社会科学以及整个社会中，人们对朝圣的兴趣重新抬头。这项研究项目的主要目的是为理解地方在基督教朝圣研究中的意义带来一个新的视角，特别关注作为朝圣者可视化和体验精神的镜头的风景，以及作为朝圣表演本身的地点。虽然之前的研究已经将地点确定为朝圣的中心元素(以及人和文本)，但朝圣的空间方面已经被框定为静态的神殿及其周围的建筑、神殿或朝圣者的空间网络、具有流动性和性能的空间，以及神圣的空间作为反思的“空虚”。虽然人们注意到许多朝圣地点位于自然美景出众的地区，但朝圣中心的景观及其美学在“圣地”、宗教和情感体验中的作用却很少受到关注。我们感兴趣的是，景观美学是否增加了朝圣地点的精神磁力，朝圣者和其他游客如何体验和表达这一点，以及这是否模糊了朝圣者和其他游客之间的区别。另一个问题是景观美学是否吸引了大量的人到遗址来，降低了体验和环境的质量。这项研究项目基于社会和文化地理学、历史和神学的跨学科视角，将在三个国际案例研究中检验景观的重要性，反映和比较基督教传统中不同的教派做法。每个案例研究都侧重于将风景作为宗教经验的场所和隐喻和旅程的储存库，通过书面描述、视觉陈述、参与者观察、调查和访谈，探索朝圣者与风景之间随时间和在当代的不断演变的互动。案例研究1.希腊的Metéora是东正教最大的修道院建筑群和朝圣目的地之一，拜占庭修道院建在数百米高的天然砂岩石柱上，被认为是世界上最具感染力的景观之一。在1923年之前，道路基本上无法进入，现在修道院向大量东正教朝圣者和游客开放。在东正教传统中，朝圣指的是向圣像或遗物鞠躬的行为，而不是旅行的行为。然而，在气象厅，专业人士离不开穿行和凝视周围的风景。2.位于意大利中部苏比亚科镇附近的本笃会修道院Sacro Speo(‘圣洞’)供奉着五世纪末圣本笃隐居三年的洞穴。修道院提供了一个神圣的景观，通过复杂的地形图纪念馆，唤起人们对圣地遗址和圣本笃生平的回忆。修道院建筑群吸引了三种不同类型的“朝圣者”：天主教信徒对本尼迪克特生活和基督教叙事的重新激活；游客对修道院风景的视觉消费；以及人文学者到附近圣斯科拉斯蒂克修道院的图书馆。马恩岛是早期凯尔特教堂的奠基地点，但在后宗教改革时代几乎没有朝圣的传统。将参考1997年尼尼安和哥伦巴联合百年纪念活动、新教和普世活动、沿海景观在吸引‘朝圣者’(包括非信徒)和他们的朝圣经历方面的作用，探讨最近通过‘祈祷圣灵’倡议重振当地朝圣的意义和方法。

Within the humanities and social sciences, and society at large, there has been a resurgence of interest in pilgrimage in recent years. The primary aim of this research project is to bring a new perspective to understanding the significance of place in studies of Christian pilgrimage, with a particular focus on landscape as a lens through which pilgrims visualise and experience the spiritual, as well as being the site of the performance of pilgrimage itself. While previous studies have identified place as a central element of pilgrimage (along with people and texts), the spatial aspects of pilgrimage have been framed in terms of static shrines and their surrounding architecture, spatial networks of shrines or pilgrims, spaces of mobility and performance, and sacred space as a reflective 'void'. While the location of many pilgrimage sites in areas of outstanding natural beauty has been noted, the role of the landscape and its aesthetics in 'sacred place', religious and emotional experience in pilgrimage centres has been given little attention. We are interested in whether landscape aesthetics adds to a pilgrimage site's 'spiritual magnetism', how this is experienced and articulated by pilgrims and other visitors, and whether this blurs the distinction between pilgrims and other visitors. Another issue is whether landscape aesthetics attract large numbers to the sites, reducing the quality of experience and environment.Drawing on an interdisciplinary perspective grounded in social and cultural geography, history and theology, this research project will examine the significance of landscape in three international case studies, reflecting and comparing different denominational practices within the Christian tradition. Each case study focuses on the landscape as a site of religious experience and repository of metaphors and journeys, exploring evolving interactions between pilgrims and landscape over time and in the present day through written accounts, visual representations, participant observation, surveys and interviews. Case Studies1. Metéora (literally 'suspended in the air'), Greece, is one of the largest monastic complexes and pilgrimage destinations of the Orthodox church, Byzantine monasteries are built on natural sandstone rock pillars several hundred meters high and are deemed to constitute one of the most evocative landscapes in the world. Largely inaccessible prior to 1923, road access has opened the monasteries to large numbers of Orthodox pilgrims and tourists. In the Orthodox tradition, pilgrimage (or proskynese) refers to the act of bowing down to an icon, or to relics, rather than the act of journeying. At the Meteora, however, proskynese cannot be divorced from moving through and gazing at the surrounding landscape. 2. The Benedictine monastery of Sacro Speco ('Holy Cave'), near the town of Subiaco in central Italy enshrines the cavern where at the end of the fifth century St Benedict lived as a hermit for three years. The monastery provides a sacred landscape engineered to evoke sites in the Holy Land and the life of St. Benedict through a complex topography of loci memoriae. The monastic complex attracts three different types of 'pilgrim': the Catholic faithful's re-activation of Benedict's life and Christian narratives; tourists' visual consumption of the scenic views from the monastery; and humanist scholars to the library of the nearby monastery of Santa Scolastica.3. The Isle of Man was a foundation site of the early Celtic church, but had little tradition of pilgrimage in the post Reformation era. The meaning and means of the recent reanimation of local pilgrimage through the 'Praying the Keeills' initiative will be explored with reference to the 1997 joint centenaries of Saints Ninian and Columbaa, Protestant and ecumenical initiatives, and the role of coastal landscapes in attracting 'pilgrims' (including non-adherents) and their experience of pilgrimage.