I. Concept and Origins

Church dedication is the ceremony which commits a church building to its liturgical use (dedicatio). It is first attested in Tyre (Eus. Hist. eccl. X 3f.); the translation of the relics of martyrs for the first celebration of the eucharist appears as early as the 4th century (Ambr. Epist. 22). Since the early Middle Ages, the dedication of …