Shared Worship at Filerimos on Hospitaller Rhodes 1306–1421 1

Three churches were constructed on the site at Filerimos, which under the Hospitallers of Rhodes became the centre of a cult of a miraculous ikon, but it is unclear whether any of them existed before the Hospitallers’ arrival in 1306. This chapter discusses how and when this famous cult was organized, arguing that this was part of a deliberate pilgrim traffic programme that the Order developed during the second half of the fourteenth century to help resolve its economic difficulties. It suggests that there was a Greek cult on the site before the Hospitallers developed their Latin cult, and that Greeks and Latins shared that sacred space.