[stavros]

The construction wasn't "fixing her gaze on the shrine" (which would be correct), it was "fixing the shrine with her gaze", which makes no sense. What the article says means either "she fastens the shrine into place using her eyes" or "she repairs the shrine with her eyes".

[noduerme]

Indeed, the construction gives the feeling that the shrine itself might float away without her gaze, such is the intensity of her watching it. That is purposeful. It comes from the common phrase "she fixed him with her gaze" which means, not as much that her gaze was fixed on him, as that he froze when he saw her looking at him.

I think it was a conscious and valid choice to use this in relation to a static holy object in this context.

[smcin]

"fixing the shrine with her gaze" totally makes sense (I'm also a native speaker of English, that makes four) and is semantically equivalent to "fixing her gaze on the shrine", it merely chooses to emphasize "the shrine" as the object, rather than "her gaze". Clearly "fix" here means "attaching securely"(/"locking on to") not "repairing", that Collins citation already given above also defined "fix" https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/fix

And adding the preposition "with" to get the preposition phrase "with her gaze" doesn't change the meaning: clearly the sentence is about her gaze being firmly on the shrine (not the shrine being firmly on her gaze).

[SideburnsOfDoom]

> it was "fixing the shrine with her gaze", which makes no sense.

Again, I disagree, it's a poetic construction, possibly a bit dated, and so the other commenter pointed out, probably more UK English than US English.

You don't have to be familiar with it. But there's a kind of closed-minded arrogance to reading such an otherwise well-written piece and concluding "is it me that doesn't know this particular turn of phrase? No, it must be nonsense!"

[bmacho]

I mean the dictionaries don't now it, and google doesn't know it. Also what about your arrogance, just because you've heard it, it doesn't mean that it's correct. I've heard a lot of things that are considered broken English.

[mock-possum]

The irony of you accusing them of arrogance while you refuse to accept an English speaker’s description of how their own language is used - while commenting on an article about fascism and genocide and the erasure of culture - is just -

What do you hope to accomplish here?

[marssaxman]

Only if one is determined to be stubbornly pedantic about it! That would make no sense, so the poetic sense is obviously the one intended.