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Reviews

Author(s): Marina Vladimirovna Chistiakova,Elena Konickaja,Galina Miškinienė,Viktorija Ušinskienė,Olegas Poliakovas / Language(s): Russian Issue: -/2014

Reviews of: Славянская мозаика культур в связи с историей (не)толерантности и религиозных раздоров. Исторические свидетельства и современные вызовы (к 600-летию Констанцcкого собора и заключения под стражу Яна Гуса) Славянская и балтийская культуры на международной научной конференции “Мир животных в мифопоэтическом ракурсе” (Москва, 15–17 мая 2014 г.) Книжная культура литовских татар на конференции в Казани К юбилею Б.М. Синочкиной Расставание с нашей молодостью. Памяти Л. В. Судавичене

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Декоративные вербы в западной Беларуси и восточной Литве во второй половине ХХ–начале ХХI вв.

Author(s): Jonas Mardosa / Language(s): Russian Issue: -/2013

Various consecrated symbols play a special role in folk culture and folk religion. In the Christian liturgy, the verba (palm) is a symbol having a concrete religious meaning. In the second half of the 20th century, in Western Belarus and Eastern Lithuania, a tendency to consider verba from the aesthetic point of view emerged. An exceptional case among the verba (between Belarusian, Russian, Polish, and Lithuanian believers) are the decorated symbol, which may be called palm-shape verba. Amongst the believers of Belarus, regardless of confession, the decorated verba (with flowers) has become a symbol of the contemporary religious identity. Verbas with decorations in Eastern Lithuania are more popular amongst Polish believers; in Western Belarus, they are blessed regardless of confessional and nationality differences. In the beginning of the 21st century, three main variants of palm-shaped verba may be found. The first variant is made from willow or juniper twigs decorated with dry and green flower blossoms (or the twigs of both trees are used together). The second and very popular decoration variant is artificial flowers attached to a willow twig. In the third variant, the blossoms made from threads are arranged along the whole length of a willow twig. An exceptional case among the decorated verbas in Eastern Lithuania are the Vilnius verba. This variant of decorated verba first appeared at the start of the 19th century in the surrounding areas of Vilnius. Originally, these verbas were associated with the Polish religious and folk culture of Southeast Lithuania. In the second half of the 20th century, the Vilnius verbas were strongly linked with the Catholic Lithuanian and Polish folk culture of the Vilnius region, but have not been popular amongst the believers of Belarus. Considerable differences may be noticed in the scope and content of decorative elements in the verba of Lithuania and Belarus. In Lithuania, decorated verbas are more popular among urban Catholics. Thus, verba reveals the diversity of the Christian tradition, which comprises the exceptional features of the contemporary folk religion in Eastern Lithuania and Western Belarus. Through the link between the verba and the ethnic and confessional communities, these variants of the symbol become an important identity-forming factor for the inhabitants of Western Belarus and Eastern Lithuania in the second half of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st century

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Chuvash ‘Paganism’ at the Turn of the 21st Century: Traditional Rituals in the Religious Practice of Volga-Urals Chuvash Groups

Author(s): Ekaterina Iagafova,Valeria V. Bondareva / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2020

Traditional rituals formed the basis of ethnic Chuvash culture, and are still relevant in today’s festive and ritual culture, primarily among Chuvash ‘pagan’ ethnoreligious groups. Today among the unbaptised Chuvash there is, with varying degrees of preservation, a set of ideas about the spirits of nature and the patron deity of different fields of life, practice of ritual prayer and sacrifice, and festive culture. The focus of ritual practice is the cult of the Supreme God Tura (Tură) and the ancestors, who during the calendar year appear in a single complex and in strict sequence. Traditional rituals play an essential role in the funeral and memorial rites and customs of the Chuvash. Thus, ‘pagan’ elements are characteristic not only of the unbaptised Chuvash, but also of some local groups of Christians and Muslims, for example ritual mourning of the dead, weekly commemoration on Thursday evenings until the ritual of ‘seeing off the soul’, ritual singing, sacrificing and ‘feeding’ souls of the dead on remembrance days, and other rituals and their elements. These ‘pagan’ elements in the culture of the Orthodox Chuvash and Chuvash Muslims living in ethnically mixed villages with Russians, Mordovians and Tatars both constitute the basis of their ethnic and cultural identity as Chuvash and contribute to the preservation of their ethnicity. Chuvash ‘paganism’, despite centuries of influence from Russian Orthodox and Muslim Tatar traditions, has a moderating influence over contemporary modernisation and is an element in religious practices of Chuvash confessional communities that is an important resource for the formation and development of ethnic and cultural identity.

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Does religion shape people’s sense of humour?

Author(s): Karl-Heinz Ott,Bernard Schweizer / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2018

Using an empirical approach, this study addresses the question whether followers of different religious beliefs (Christians, Muslims, and Hindus), as well as Atheists and Agnostics manifest different senses of humour when rating a variety of jokes. The study further investigates whether one’s religious background influences the threshold of what is considered offensive. And finally, it seeks to answer whether jokes targeting religions other than one’s own are always perceived as funnier. Analysing the results of a public survey (N=783) containing a blend of religious and non-religious jokes (including irreverent ones), we found that Hindus demonstrate overall the highest humour appreciation among all the groups, while Christians were the least amused by the jokes presented on the survey. Muslims had overall robust humour responses, despite reporting the highest incidence of being offended. Atheists were the least likely to be offended, and they generally enjoyed irreverent jokes. All groups agreed that if a joke was seen as offensive, its funniness was reduced.

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STO GODINA SAMOĆE: MUSLIMANI ENDELUSA 1492.-1614. GODINE

Author(s): Ahmet Alibašić / Language(s): Bosnian Issue: 15/2011

This article discusses the last chapter of nine centuries-long Muslim history on the Iberian Peninsula, which ended by the expulsion of some three hundred thousand Muslims 1609-1614. In the time of renewed debates about which religion is 'domestic' in Europe and which one is the 'guest', the research in this episode of failed coexistence of Christians and Muslims on European soil has not only historical but also a cultural significance for our time.

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"The Beginnings of Polish Jewry: Reevaluating the Evidence for the Eleventh to Fourteenth Centuries"

Author(s): Alexander Kulik,Judith Kalik / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2021

This article reexamines the evidence of Jewish presence in Poland from the eleventh to the fourteenth centuries in connection with problems of origins, periodization, and localization of Jewish settlement in Poland. It deals inter alia with questions regarding the balance between Jewish and Christian evidence, as well as with reports of Jewish presence from neighboring areas of Eastern Europe such as Kievan Rus’. The reevaluation of evidence on medieval Polish Jews helps to illuminate the origins of eastern Ashkenazi Jewry, as well as to clarify diverse aspects of the history of early Eastern Europe. Thus, for example, among the most important general conclusions is the lack of continuity across three waves of Jewish migration and settlement in Poland. Since most Polish Jews were descendants of the third wave of Jewish migration into Poland, there is little doubt that the vast majority of them came from Germany and Bohemia, mostly via Silesia. We can also reliably conjecture that the Jewish population of southwestern Rus’—whatever its origins (possibly also at least partially Ashkenazi) and size (possibly reduced by the Mongol conquest)— came to be integrated with immigrants from the west due to the eastward expansion of Lithuania and Poland during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Thus, most modern Ashkenazi Jewry must go back to the melding of these two communities.

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Essential Characteristics of Ideal Society From The Perspective of Religions

Author(s): Muhittin Akgül / Language(s): English Issue: 10/2020

The history of humanity shows that there is no period on earth which is far from religion, and truly superstitious societies absolutely believe in a religion / religions. This is because believing is a necessity and a need of the fitra. Besides, when we look at religions that have been accepted throughout history, we see the existence of some other primitive religions. When we look at the nature of religions that are accepted as authentic, it can be deduced that they are basically one. It is seen that the prophecy institution that started from Adam has same basic rules, even if the conditions change. These rules are universal and basically have the characteristic that leads people to happiness. The differences in the rules brought by the prophets are in the subjects of details. The rules related to belief and morality, whose validity have never been lost, have not changed since the time of Prophet Adam, down to Prophet Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus and consequently up to the last Prophet Muhammad (pbuh). These rules have an indispensable place in forming a proper and happy society. Because any society where these rules are invalid ultimately becomes problematic and the members of such a society are in trouble.

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Stupanje u razgovor religije s prirodnom znanošću i teorijom evolucije: primjer Katoličke crkve

Author(s): Nusret Isanović / Language(s): Bosnian Issue: 1/2021

The first part of the paper is about the challenges that modern natural sciences, the theory of evolution and their increasingly numerous technological ecstasies pose before religion, about the attempts of religion to recognise them, make itself aware of their meaning and to respond to them, which is shown here on the example of the Catholic Church. The rest of the paper develops a discourse about the process of opening and the effort of entering the dialogue on the part of the Catholic Church with natural sciences and the theory of evolution, as well as about its offcial positions released from the mid-20th century, or from the papacy of Pius XII, till this day. At the same time, this period saw the rise of religious theistic evolutionism, recognised as one of the most appropriate forms of bringing religion closer to natural sciences and the theory of evolution, as well as a certain compromise between them, which this paper also tries to make transparent.

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The role of lethuelas/sangomas in Lesotho. “Traditional” beliefs, spiritual professions and Christianity among the Basotho

Author(s): Agnieszka Podolecka / Language(s): English Issue: 55/2021

This article investigates the place of lehuelas/sangomas in Basotho society, their vocation, work and relationship with Christian churches. Lethuelas, also called sangomas or shamans, are healers, diviners and/or mediums. Thanks to the country’s mountainous isolation, their vocation and work can be observed in its most primal and unspoilt version, passed down for generations without much influence of outside shamanic traditions or New Age forms of shamanism encountered in other Southern African countries. The article includes the data gathered during the field studies conducted in Lesotho in March 2013 and January 2019 in four regions: the capital city of Maseru (250 000 inhabitants), the Nazaretha/Roma region, the villages and tiny settlements in the western part of the Maloti Mountains, and the Butha-Buthe district in the north of the country.

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საერთო რელიგიური სიწმინდეები და მისი გავლენა რეგიონულ უსაფრთხოებაზე

Author(s): Maia Kapanadze,Shorena Sigua / Language(s): Georgian Issue: 1/2020

Jews and Arabs are people of common Semitic descent. And Abraham is their common ancestor. Therefore, they have common sanctities, which have been a major point of contention between them for several years. Conflict cannot be resolved on this ground, both Jews and Arabs are demanding recognition of their exclusive rights to common religious shrines. External forces in the region are also involved in this conflict, which prolongs the problem and has a negative impact on regional security. There is a serious dispute over Jerusalem besides other common sanctuaries that recognize both Israel and Palestine as its capital. It should also be noted that Jerusalem is a holy city for both Jews and Muslims. Recently, the US position on Jerusalem has posed a serious problem for the security of the Middle East. The recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel by the United States has caused concern not only to the Palestinians, but to the Muslim world as a whole, because, as we have already mentioned, this city is sacred to both of these religions. Added to this is the fact that the city has common religious - Jewish and Islamic shrines.

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Premises on the integration of religiosity in the REBT context

Author(s): Ovidiu Teofil Roman / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2021

Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) is a structured therapy that is used in the treatment of psychopathology and in personal optimization. It is addressed to the general population, but also to the clinical one, being compatible with the religious elements. Its usefulness is increasingly studied in relation to religious people. The integration of religious elements in a psychotherapeutic context is seen as an improved variant of psychotherapeutic treatments for religious patients. REBT and sacred texts have many similarities and are compatible from a theoretical and practical point of view. Religious practices such as prayer and reading sacred texts are encouraged in psychotherapy with religious people.

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СУПСТИТУТИ СВЕТОГ ДРВЕТА У КУЋИ У ТРАДИЦИОНАЛНОЈ КУЛТУРИ БАЛКАНА

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СУПСТИТУТИ СВЕТОГ ДРВЕТА У КУЋИ У ТРАДИЦИОНАЛНОЈ КУЛТУРИ БАЛКАНА

Author(s): Dejan Krstić / Language(s): Serbian Issue: 19/2021

Traditional Balkan culture is defined by enormous diversity and archaic components in religious practices. One of its aspects is worshipping a tree as a cult object. In open spaces, most obvious examples are: 1. holy votive trees, so called zapisi or obroci which are dedicated to the feasts of smaller and larger social communities, 2. trees planted at graves (beside other grave marks) and 3. using of fruitful trees from a family house’s yard or wider surroundings in various customs. However, sometimes, in various occasions, instead of holy trees substitutes are used: parts of trees and wooden objects that symbolize trees, which have their roles in various rituals. This paper deals with substitutes of holy trees that are either brought into the house occasionally or they are constantly present in the house making the space sacred to some extent. Sometimes this is not obvious, but it becomes clear in custom or ritual context. The substitutes include 1. Christmas badnjak tree and its parts, 2. a small New Years (Christmas) tree branch, 3. a ceiling wooden beam 4. entrance door and its parts 5. the icon of a family patron saint 6. paskurnik – a stamp used for decorating of ritual breads 7. a small wedding day tree branch. Their presence in the house brings about a co-existence of humans and a deity embodied in a holy tree. Using ethnographic material and comparing to mythological elements in world religions, this paper shows that the core of religious worshiping of holy trees and their substitutes in the Balkan is a religious idea of the Father almighty, a supreme solar deity’s presence in the tree.

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СВЕЩЕНО И ПРОФАННО: ЗА НЯКОИ ПРАВОСЛАВНИ И КАТОЛИЧЕСКИ СВАТБЕНИ ТРАДИЦИИ

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СВЕЩЕНО И ПРОФАННО: ЗА НЯКОИ ПРАВОСЛАВНИ И КАТОЛИЧЕСКИ СВАТБЕНИ ТРАДИЦИИ

Author(s): Iveta Rasheva / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 20/2021

The current article presents some of the author’s thoughts on the resemblances and differences between some symbolic French and Bulgarian wedding items. It looks into the nowadays possibility of these objects to be valued as sacred or profane.

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The Essence and Purpose of Intertext in Hagiographic Works Translated by Euthymius the Athonite

Author(s): Irakli Orzhonia / Language(s): English,Greek, Modern (1453-),Georgian Issue: 12/2022

The scope of the present article is hagiographic texts translated from Greek by Euthymius the Athonite, and the aim of the research is to find out the essence and purpose of their intertext. The study of the material revealed that the authors of the hagiographic works, describing the life-martyrdom of a particular saint, are based on three types of sources: the Scripture, historical sources and patristic sources. While citing the Bible, they use three forms: analogy with the Scripture, paraphrasing the Scripture, quoting from the Scripture. As a rule, the authors by no means offer a specific reference to which book of the Bible they used because the texts about saints were written for the community within the church, and implied that the readers would understand all the analogies, paraphrases or quotations. Intertexts, connected with the most authoritative book – the Holy Scriptures, obviously, did not have only an artistic purpose. Their role should also be appreciated in the cultural-religious context: the writers of the lives of the saints tried in this artistic way to show the continuity of the divine works conveyed in the Scripture and their close connection with modernity, the spiritual unity of the heroes of the hagiographic writings with the biblical saints, whose ultimate goal was to strengthen the Christian faith and address the broad masses. Using historical sources, the authors provide additional material to the reader, while referring to the patristic monuments; they offer a deep, thorough and theological discussion of the events or facts conveyed in the work enriched with appropriate terms.

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Contested and Uncontested Religious Landscape Markers: The Dissemination of Crosses in Northern Albania (1990-2020)

Author(s): Ardian Muhaj,Mentor BEQA / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2022

This paper analyses the relationship between the “politics of religious symbolism” and the physical landscape of post-communist Albania. It examines the proliferation of crosses on highly visible peaks, especially in Northern Albania where both Muslims and Catholics live. The paper combines qualitative and quantitative methods to understand the basis of this phenomenon, and conducts field interviews to reveal the exclusivist nature of Catholicism as its main driving factor. While most Catholics believe this exclusivity is their right, many Muslims feel provoked by attitudes they describe as offensive. Although the phenomenon has been marginalised from national public debate under the auspices of “religious tolerance”, the tension it has created is very much present.

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Din Referanslı Hareketlerin Sosyo-Politik Bağlamda Karşılaştırılması: Evanjelizm ve Gülenizm (FETÖ) Örneği

Author(s): Muhammed Yamaç / Language(s): Turkish Issue: 2/2022

Religion is a social phenomenon. In particular, religion's legitimation and instrumentalization power can be functional in many dimensions of religion-referenced movements. The socio-political context of these movements is not independent of the functionality of religion. In the study, Evangelicalism and Gulenism (Fetullah Terrorist Organization - FETÖ) were examined comparatively within the framework of a socio-political approach. In this sense, it has been determined that movements have similar tendencies in many dimensions. It has been understood that Evangelism and Gulenism have identical aspects and contents regarding socio-political preferences that differ from the religious tradition they refer. In the study, documentation, one of the qualitative method techniques, and a sociological and understanding point of view were used. In this context, only similar trends of the findings or data were focused on and these were tried to be revealed by comparative analysis. The study, “Evangelicalism and Gulenism in terms of which social policies tendencies contain similar features?” scrutinizes the problem. The conclusion reached is that Gulenism and Evangelicalism have similar tendencies of many aspects in the socio-political context. The main subject of the study is to reveal the similar trends of the movement in terms of establishment, stages of development, structuring, national and global scale social policies, goals, discourse, activities, and strategies.

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Capitalism and Catholic Social Ethics: From Benedict XVI to Francis with a Sideways Glance to Augustinian Liberalism

Author(s): Peter Schallenberg / Language(s): English Issue: 38/2022

This article first outlines some of the basic lines of recent Catholic social ethics, as developed in Pope Francis’ encyclical letter Laudato si’ (2015). In his letter which is less fundamental but more prophetic with a strong Franciscan background, Pope Francis continues the thoughts of his predecessor Benedict XVI and Benedict’s encyclical letter Caritas in veritate (2007). In the course of criticizing a misguided reliance on a market economy (and so-called capitalism without adjectives), it is emphasized in this paper that these alone are not sufficient to promote the Common Good or understood as integral to human development and social inclusion in a global world. With a view to the challenges of our time outlined by the encyclicals, the article then wants to focus on an approach to political theology that draws on the tradition of Augustinian thought and offers a solution for the promotion of the Common Good under the circumstances of modernity. The core tenet of so-called Augustinian Liberalism is the demonstration that the central liberal principles of individual freedom and universal equality are not sufficient enough to ensure human flourishing in this world. Despite the eminent importance of democratic constitutional principles, they ultimately fail to comprehensively promote the fulfilment of human life in its individual and social dimensions. They shorten the concept of rational autonomy to self-centred freedom that absolves itself of its responsibility and value-relativist tendencies, the thinkers of Augustinian Liberalism then profile a concept of love based on the thought of St. Augustine as a normative. Their position promotes principles for the political practice of individuals and guidelines for institutions in the liberal constitutional state.

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From Margaret Noble to Sister Nivedita: Mapping a Colonial Woman’s Journey to India in Search of a ‘Home’

Author(s): Ritushree Sengupta,Kumar Sankar Bhattacharya,Devika Sangwan / Language(s): English Issue: 11/2022

While stories of travels from Britain to India during the colonial times were replete with stereotypes, the journey of an Irish Lady, Margaret Noble (1867–1911) and her subsequent transformation into Sister Nivedita (the one dedicated to the cause) was unique in many senses. Attracted by her Guru (Spiritual Master) she came to Calcutta, India on her spiritual quest in 1898, where she immersed herself in the local culture, learned the language, and significantly contributed to women’s progress. Her involvement with local intelligentsia and nationalism highlighted the Indian values, talents and erudition to the outside world. Her journey showcased her spirit that could transcend the rigid European orthodoxy for White women in a colonized land and placed her as one of the leading architects of modern India. Earlier studies have not recognised Nivedita as a social reformer. Most importantly, works on her seldom refer to her struggle and subsequent triumph over limitations imposed on her in terms of racial othering, geographical positionality and gendered subjectivity. This paper addresses her struggle and celebrates her successful navigation in transcending the limitations and restrictions of both her Irish culture and the Indian culture and highlights her significant contributions towards human race at large.

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Simbolismul solstițiului de vară. Lecturi comparative, Iosefina Blazsani-Batto

Author(s): Carmen Dimitriu / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 1/2023

In the book Symbolism of the Summer Solstice: Comparative Readings, Iosefina Blazsani-Batto approaches, through a comparative perspective, a theme with wide resonances in Romanian folkloric mythology, but also in the universal one, taken up by many historians of religions, exegetes and, last but not least, writers. The wide area of research reflects the author's desire to document as well as possible the scholarly approach to the theme and to give secondary importance to field sources, as well as to imaginative elaborations of them. The research, especially through its various hermeneutic possibilities, is a meritorious achievement which, complemented by the author's constant preoccupation with this field, offers a textually illustrated field of analysis of the subject, both in terms of theory (ethnography) and folklore and literature.

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FRANCO-ROMANIAN RELATIONS IN THE XIX CENTURY

Author(s): Ana Platon / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 18/2019

During the first two centuries after the fall of the Roman Empire Western Europe supported and elicited the emergence of new adjacent organizations. Up until the twentieth century Orthodoxy was seen as a foreign religious and spiritual practice. The contact between it and the Western culture, fostered within various Diasporas (e.g. Romanian, Greek, Russian) represents a spiritual event with one of the most far-reaching impacts in the nineteenth century. Cultivating the unity of faith and nation, the Orthodox Church supported the great historical events that had as their goal the national unity of the Romanians: the Unity of the Principalities (1859), Romania's independence (1877-1878) and the Great Union of 1918.

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