Saint Christopher the Dog-headed

4 min read
Saint Christopher with a dog's head



This is Christopher, a saint who is sometimes represented with the head of a dog. To find out why we need to uncover some Slavic Lore.

The earliest image we have of him comes from a 4th-6th century terracotta icon from Vinica Fortress in Macedonia, where he’s hanging out with Saint George. They’re both stepping on human headed snakes, which was an early version of the dragon slaying motif.

Saint Christopher and Saint George - Vinica Terracotta Icon



According to written sources he originates in 3rd century Ancient Libya, from a tribe of dogheaded people that lost a battle against the Roman army. While a prisoner he converted himself and the others to Christianity and was later tortured and killed for it. A possible reason for the way he looks is that when people were writing his biography, they miss-wrote his epitaph Cannaneus (or Canaanite, from the Land of Canaan) as Canineus (or ‘dog-like’). At the time people had heard rumours and travel accounts of strange beings living at the edges of the world, so this wouldn’t’ve been so far fetched.

Another theory says that his image was influenced by paintings of Coptic Christian saints from Egypt, showing traces of the veneration of Anubis, the god of the underworld. Speaking of which, there was a Graeco-Egyptian god Hermanubis (Hermis + Anubis) who used to guide souls into the otherworld, a role that Christopher later adopted. And because of this people started painting Christopher on their tombs, and some started believing that gazing into his figure would save them from sudden death.

Hermanubis



The Slavic tribes that came to the Balkans around the 6th century would’ve found his image familiar, because in their own beliefs there was Veles, the god of the underworld, sometimes portrayed as having the head of a wolf or a dog.

Veles



People kept up this tradition through the Byzantine period and well into the early modern period. The dogheaded image was not always accepted by the church, whether because of disagreements about his origin story, or the association with pagan beliefs. Changes to his appearance were uncovered in two Russian cathedrals. This is a fresco from the Transfiguration Cathedral in Yaroslavl. If you look closely, you can see the dog's head sticking out from the right side of his face.

Repainted fresco in Transfiguration Cathedral in Yaroslavl



And this other one is from Sviyazhsk (Svijarsk) Assumption Cathedral, where they just upgraded him to a horse, because they considered it a more noble animal.

Repainted fresco in Sviyazhsk (Svijarsk) Assumption Cathedral



Resources

The Vinica Mystery. The Ceramic Treasuries of a Late Antique Fortress, Museum Terakota Publishers, Vinica 2012
https://www.academia.edu/10550296/The_Vinica_Mystery_The_Ceramic_Treasuries_of_a_Late_Antique_Fortress_Museum_Terakota_Publishers_Vinica_2012

HORSE-HEADED SAINT CHRISTOPHER FRESCO IN THE SVIYAZHSK ASSUMPTION CATHEDRAL (16 th -17 th CENTURY, RUSSIA): HISTORY AND ARCHAEOMETRY
https://www.academia.edu/39946305/HORSE_HEADED_SAINT_CHRISTOPHER_FRESCO_IN_THE_SVIYAZHSK_ASSUMPTION_CATHEDRAL_16_th_17_th_CENTURY_RUSSIA_HISTORY_AND_ARCHAEOMETRY

"The comparison of Saint Christopher with the Hellenistic deity Hermanubis who overlooked the departure of deceased souls towards the Underworld..."
THE CERAMIC RELIEF PLAQUES FROM VINICA The most significant values of the cultural and natural heritage by Elizabeta Dimitrova 
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/349303151_THE_CERAMIC_RELIEF_PLAQUES_FROM_VINICA_The_most_significant_values_of_the_cultural_and_natural_heritage

The “Christianisation” of Hermanubis, Historia 4, 2013, 506-5014.
By Danijela Stefanovic
https://www.academia.edu/2522152

“Saint Christopher, a 3rd-century saint, was portrayed in the early Middle Ages as having a canine head because of a Byzantine legend, according to which he met the boy Jesus, who baptized him in the Land of Canaan. The Land of Canaan (cananeus) was subsequently mistranslated into Latin as the land of the canine (canineus) – i. e., the land populated by dogheaded creatures.”
Dog-headed Creatures as the Other: The Role of Monsters in the Construction of the Croatian Identity
(Friedman 71; Rehn 138; Jaritz 30).
Friedman, John Block. The Monstrous Races in Medieval Art and Thought. Syracuse University Press, 2000.

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