We adopted a threefold workflow. We: 1./ analysed the history of the doctrinal controversies and Church synods that took place in Sirmium; 2./ surveyed the material culture of Christian Sirmium; 3./ analysed the relevant hagiographic heritage, suggestive of local devotional life. Partial results were presented at international conferences (Shifting Frontiers 2017 and NAPS 2018), as well as at the Exeter Theology and Religion Research Seminar (2017), the EHS annual conference 2017 and the project's own workshop (2018).
Sirmium was situated along the Sava, approximately 70 km from the imperial frontier on the Danube, a strategic vantage point for the intensifying military manoeuvres of the 4th century, which often required the presence of the emperor and his delegates. Such background impacted the local Christian community in terms of numbers and social standing. It also placed Sirmium on the map of the grand events that shaped world history and Christian orthodoxy. The court and the army, with all their paraphernalia, brought, apart from means and patronage, a certain dynamism to the local community, which must have included any number of wealthy as well as less fortunate incomers. Among them we find Ambrose, later bishop of Milan; Germinius, Photinus (and possibly Anemius), bishops of Sirmium itself. These social dynamics left their imprint in Christian architecture (churches and chapels), epigraphy (funerary inscriptions), art (decorated tombs, small artefacts) and literature (hagiography, theological-polemical writings).
The Church in Sirmium had by that time a complex and well established hierarchy, with higher orders (deacons, priests, bishops) and lower orders (exorcists, lectors). Under the authority of the bishop were also virgins who committed to a religious life. More complex, however, is the question of their doctrinal stance. When Christians across the Roman empire were debating on the relationship between the persons of the Holy Trinity, Sirmium contributed with no less than five synods and a profession of faith. At least the higher clergy and partially the religious women were convinced that the Son must be subordinated to the Father (a belief later deemed heterodox). This was not merely the province of philosophical abstraction among a handful of bishops; by the 370's at least part of the laity professed what came to be known as the orthodox Nicene faith: the consubstantiality of the persons of the Trinity. This rift had bitter consequences for ordinary Christians of the congregation: representatives of Nicene laity suffered trial and exile; they were exposed to the animosity of fellow Christians on account of having disrupted the "peaceful" status quo. Even after an orthodox bishop was ordained, the brand of heresy persistently over the inhabitants of Sirmium. The impetus of Christian culture at Sirmium was curbed by Gothic invasions and ultimately the destruction of the city in mid-5th century. Amongst the Pannonian refugees in Italy, we find some appealing to the orthodoxy of Sirmian martyrs as if to a voucher of their right belief. And this brings us to the only constant in the tumultuous life of Sirmian Christians: their devotion to local martyrs. This is attested not only by the stories of the martyrs, but also by the practice of burial near the saints (whereby devotees try to secure a resting place as close as possible to relics of martyrs). When fleeing from the Barbarian threat, it was these relics and these stories that were deemed worthy to be taken with them, to be safeguarded.
