Page 43 - Studia Universitatis Hereditati, vol 13(1) (2025)

Altars associated with health and disease pathways to psychological and spiritual well-be-
are consecrated structures used in various reli- ing. Eliade’s analysis emphasises the importance
gious or ceremonial traditions for the offering of understanding health in a broader cultural
of sacrifices. These altars serve as the centre of and religious context. He emphasises that heal-
rituals aimed at appeasing deities or spirits be- ing is often seen as a holistic process that encom-
lieved to influence health and disease. They are passes body, mind and spirit. In this way, he il-
often used to invoke protection from illness, ex- luminates the ways in which religious traditions
press gratitude for healing or ask for forgiveness shape individuals’ perceptions of health and the
to alleviate further illness. The plague altar is a methods they use to heal.
particular type of altar whose concept emphasis- In mediaeval and Renaissance Christianity,
es the community’s desire for divine assistance Christian communities erected altars dedicated
in combatting plagues and epidemics and re- to saints associated with healing and protection,
flects a deep spiritual connection to health and such as St Roch or St Sebastian, during times of 43
well-being. plague. These altars were used for prayers and
In ancient cultures such as those of Greece pleas for deliverance from the plague.
and Rome, altars were often dedicated to gods Christian communities’ most lasting evi-
and goddesses associated with health, healing, dence of their presence are, in particular, the
and disease. Asclepius, the Greek god of medi- votive churches built in honour of the patron
cine, for example, had sanctuaries where people saints against plague epidemics (Atalić 2019,
made offerings to him in order to find healing. 214). Some of the most important Christian
His sanctuaries, called ‘Asklepieia’ (in Ancient saints who are considered patron saints against Sensory Representations of Plague
Greek Asklepieion; in Latin aesculapīum), were the plague are St Roch and St Sebastian, the
places where people sought healing for illnesses. best-known saints, but also St George, St Ed-
According to Christopoulou-Aletra et al. (2010), mund, St Beat, St Barbara, St Francis Xavier, St
over 300 Asklepieia were discovered through- Saturnin, St Coloman, St Anthony, St Aloysi-
out ancient Greece. Among the most famous us Gonzaga and St Rosalia. In the Christian tra-
temples were Trikka, Epidaurus, Kos, Ath- dition, these saints are traditionally invoked to
ens, Corinth and Pergamon. Asclepius’ daugh- protect against the plague. In Slovenia, there are
ters were Hygeia (goddess of health, cleanliness 33 churches dedicated to St Roch and around 30
and hygiene) and Panacea (a goddess of univer- churches dedicated to St Sebastian (‘Sveti Rok
sal remedy). – romar in spokornik’ n.d.). Furthermore, in
In indigenous and folk religious practis- churches not dedicated to these saints, there are
es, there were altars or sacred places dedicated many plague altars with a combination of sever-
to spirits or ancestors who were believed to in- al plague saints, and there are also plague signs
fluence health and disease. Offerings could be dedicated to them all over the countryside and
made at these altars or rituals performed to pro- in towns.
tect the community from illness. In his work The Obviously, plague epidemics left their mark
Sacred and The Profane: The Nature of Religion, on art. In connection with them and other dis-
published in 1987, Mircea Eliade explores the eases, many works of art were created in the sev-
complicated connections between different re- enteenth and eighteenth centuries, both out-
ligious practises and their effects on health and doors and in sacred spaces. In the period in
healing. He examines how different cultures question, we can hardly find a church or parish
incorporate spiritual rituals, beliefs and sym- that did not have at least one plague altar or a
bols into their concepts of well-being and sug- depiction of one of the plague patrons (Kostan-
gests that these practises often serve not only as jšek Brglez 2022a, 52). Just as people in the Ba-
a means of treating physical ailments but also as roque period erected plague signs, churches and