Congress in Leuven
  Programme | | SACRED PLACES AND THEIR SECRETS Sacred places have long exercised a special fascination. Not only do they attract people to them, but they also bring about changes in human behaviour. Whether ‘holy places', places of devotion or pilgrimage, the sites of cults or the enclosed spaces of abbeys and convents, the fact is that such places bring people to stillness and silence. Sacred places, both in cities and in rural areas, are perceived as special. This becomes evident in the surroundings of the sacred place: in many religions, marketplaces often spring up in areas where religious objects and/or souvenirs are sold and where food and drink are available. This material and logistical band marks as it were a boundary between the sacred and the profane, forming a kind of liminal zone. Yet, sacred places are not static entities but reveal a historical dynamic. They are the result of cultural developments and have varied multidimensional levels of significance. They are places where time is, as it were, suspended, and they are points where holy times and holy places meet. Sacred places are thus places apart. It is this specificity in the context of the Christian religions of the West that the congress Loci Sacri wishes to unveil by bringing together specialists from various disciplines, countries and Christian denominations. One of the questions to be explored is why some sites have for centuries proven to be so popular while others have not. Perhaps this is precisely the ‘secret' of the site, that it is an imaginary or reconstructed meeting-point between heaven and earth. Another topic to be examined in the congress will be the way in which extraordinary natural sites have been designated as sacred and given new meaning, primarily by means of architecture. However, the congress also wishes to explore the ‘eternal' character of this sacred status. Is cultural tourism in these places compatible with a commitment to ongoing religious observance? Is it possible to preserve the authenticity of the non-material dimension of sacred places for the future? How can we do this in the face of and in concert with the pressures of increasing urbanisation and the rapidly changing cultural landscape in the countryside? In what way do religious monuments give identity and meaning to the contemporary city and the shrinking countryside? In other words, do sacred places lose their specificity once they have been given a new function? In restoring such sites and buildings, or in allocating them a new function, what points deserve particular attention? This congress is organised by KADOC-K.U.Leuven within the framework of the European project Converting Sacred Spaces. More information |
