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Efektywne sprawowanie władzy w epoce wojny informacyjnej wymaga stosowania specjalnych technik służących manipulacji społeczeństwem. Dzięki internetowi i portalom społecznościowym możliwość wpływania na stan świadomości społeczeństwa mają już nie tylko władze państwowe, ale także zagraniczne ośrodki dywersyjne. Celem ich działalności jest osłabienie spójności atakowanego społeczeństwa przez skierowanie jego uwagi na tzw. tematy zastępcze i angażowanie emocji w celu wywołania podziałów. Obecna sytuacja w Polsce, gdzie społeczeństwo podzieliło się na dwa wrogie, wzajemnie nie słuchające się „plemiona”, jest klinicznym przypadkiem skuteczności takich działań. Jednym ze środków służących do zniszczenia społecznej spójności jest sączenie informacji podkopujących uczucia patriotyczne.
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This paper focuses on a text about a dispute between Panagiotes and the Azymites, an Orthodox work that was written about 1274 in Byzantium against the ecumenical council of Lyon and the reunion of the Eastern with the Western churches. The Greek text was translated more than once in Slavonic milieux. This paper considers a copy of a translation as it survives in manuscript no. 53 kept in the Russian State Library, Grigorovich collection: a Moldavian manuscript of the sixteenth century with Middle Bulgarian orthography. A diplomatic edition of the text is provided.
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The Mishnah lists four death sentences: stoning, strangulation,burning and beheading, although the latter was abandoned as it was considered barbaric. According to tradition, the death penalty was ruled by a court of twenty-three judges. The article, based on the original text of the Mishnah,briefly presents various types of judicial institutions, discusses the scope of judges’ powers, procedural law, and in particular the court procedure in criminal matters (hearing witnesses, judging, issuing judgments). It specifies the faults for which the specific death penalty is imposed and describes the methods of its execution.
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The article is a response to the call of the Holy Father Francis, who by publishing a letter on December 8, 2020 on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the declaration of St. Joseph as the patron of the Catholic Church, encouraged all to get to know this person, who has been close to everyone for centuries. The article presents 10 hymns in honor of St. Joseph, from the Collection of Religious Catholic Songs to Be Sung in Church or at Home published in Pelplin in 1871. The analysis of these hymns reveals the extraordinary veneration in which St. Joseph is held in the Church. These pieces, performed during the liturgy, became a systematic catechesis that explained biblical events and introduced the content of the Catholic faith.
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The aim of the article is to describe selected aspects of family mediation used on the occasion of divorce and to present mediation as an alternative method of dispute resolution to court proceedings. Divorce cases require contact with the court, because the court is competent to adjudicate on the divorce, however, thanks to mediation, this contact can be kept to a minimum, while leaving in the hands of the mediation participants a greater influence on the form of the agreement and the way of parting. Family mediation can also be perceived as an institution that can contribute to strengthening the principle of the permanence of marriage and by reducing negative emotions related to the conflict situation within the family, it can have a positive impact on family relationships in the future, in particular by preventing the conflict between divorcing parents from spreading to minor children.
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In our study about the funeral monument dedicated to the family Vasile and Maria Rusovici, important supporters of church St. John the Baptism we started with a synthesis of the history of this church, continuing with a presentation of the houses around the parish church built and donated to St. John church by Vasile and Maria Rusovici, a pious faitful reach family in Iassy at the beginning of the 20th century. Those houses had to be used as educational, administrative and acommodation places by the School of church singers organized in Iassy. In addition we added informations about the unfortunate and strange history those houses faced during communist times in Romania. Speaking about a funeral monument we pointed out in our study a few theological and spiritual significances the cemetery has in our Orthodox understanding. Finally, our study is to be a humble contribution to the clarification of the history of the church dedicated to St. John the Baptism and a sign of gratitude to the founder of the church, Voievod Miron Barnovschi, and to Rusovici family.
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Tech is one of the most fascinating descoveries of the human mind, which is in acontinuous progression. Moore‘s Law states that tech doubles its capacity at about 18 months. On the one side, when tech is used rationally, it becomes a tool that makes our lives easier and more enjoyable. On the other side, if it is used without discipline, without a fine moral selection of its contents, tech develops various addictions. Specialists state that between 5-10% of its users develop such an addicting behavior and the target population for this matter includes children and teenagers, whose discernment and self-control are not, yet, fully developed. Christian Spirituality teaches us how to keep our moral liberty and how to act in a responsible way towards tech, thus helping us understand that tech must be used as a tool, providing us with high quality information, useful and not enslaving us to its damaging power.
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The habit of reading the so-called „Prayers of the Kathismata” is, according to Cyrille Korolevskij, one of the most ancient and monastic tradition of our Church. The problem raised by the current practice is that of the sections on how to read these prayers, sections that no one today observes as they should, perhaps out of indifference, unawareness or even ignorance. Therefore, the present study reproduces some of the aspects related to this rather delicate situation, in our opinion.
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Baptism is an important moment in a Christianʹs life. As such, it cannot be treated with indifference or superficiality. In the 59th Homily, St Gregory Palamas shows that there is a need for an awareness of everything that happens in the mystery of Baptism. The mystery of Baptism is not an individual act, unrelated to the community of the Church. It is not a simple ritual of acts that cannot be understood. Liturgical acts, which may seem inadequate to many in the realities of the 21st century, are in fact very actual, providing answers to contemporary man. In a special catechetical context, with many challenges, namely that of the 21st century, in which we are witnessing a diversification of the religious preferences of contemporary man, the return to the thinking of the Fathers is an act of recovery of utmost importance.
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The purpose of this paper is to present tasks of contemporary preachers of the word of God in the context of the currently developing secularization processes. The processes require the initial zeal and enthusiasm of Apostolic preaching to pervade preaching the word of God. Among the most important tasks of preachers who preach in the secularized environment are: preaching with the blessing and in the name of the Church, preaching the word of God in spite of unfavorable circumstances and dangers, awakening the desire to meet Christ in listeners’ hearts and brave preaching at a crossroads. The final point of the paper offers analysis of the most important dangers contemporary preachers of the word of God must face.
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We are accustomed to paying special attention to the Sacrament of Baptism, especially of infants, and this is often done to the detriment of both adult baptism and the preparation and formation to be considered before and after baptism. Therefore, in this article we want to draw attention to some formative elements that defined the life of the Church in the patristic period and that today have remained isolated, most of the time, at the level of academic research. The whole life of the Church is mystagogical par excellence, mystagogy being the Churchʹs guiding method towards approaching and uniting with God. Catechesis and patristic mystagogical commentaries are two expressions of this way of guiding the faithful, which should be reconsidered in the Church at the level of each diocese. Only by understanding the meaning of mystagogy in the Church can were discover catechesis as the living word, springing from the experience of the Holy Spirit, which has renewing power in the life of every believer. On the other hand, we want to emphasize the important role that the community of believers must play in relation to any new member of the Church. Without the awareness of responsibility towards the other members of the body of Christ, one cannot build a true spiritual life.
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This paper explores the theme of the authority in the spirituality of the desert. More exactly, we will analyze the relationship between ascetic authority and ecclesiastical authority as it appears in desert monasticism. We divide this paper into two sections. Section one explores the relationships between ascetics and bishops in monastic literature. If asceticism is a sign of the spiritual status of the monk, ordination represents a locus of ecclesiastical authority (bishops and priests). Several examples from ascetic literature reveal a significant tension between the two sphere of authority. Examining each of these spheres we will understand that this tension generated a fluid and ambiguous relationship between ascetics and bishops in early ascetic tradition. Finally, we will promote a vision based on cooperation between monks and bishops. Section two examines the relationship between ascetic clothing and spiritual authority. Clothing was a visible marker of spiritual authority in late monasticism. In this sense, the most known example is Life of Antony, a popular and influential text in Late Antiquity. Focusing on the Antony’s mantle, this section argues that the monk’s clothing was a symbol of wisdom and ascetic authority. Building upon this premise, my purpose is to examine how the monk’s mantle participated in discourse concerning spiritual authority in late ascetic tradition. With this paper, we hope to bring out the complexity of the theme of spiritual authority and to demonstrate the major importance of this theme for early monasticism.
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In the years 2012–2019, as part of two competitions financed by the National Program for the Development of Humanities (NPRH), 7 extensive volumes of an anthology of sermons were published. This „monumental work” (prof. Alina Nowicka-Jeżowa, University of Warsaw) contains on over four thousand pages the texts of sermons of both well-known and appreciated preachers and speakers of minorum gentium, a scientific commentary on them and a critical apparatus. A series with a joint title is: Kazania w kulturze polskiej. Edycje kolekcji tematycznych (Sermons in Polish Culture. Editions of thematic collections) „is slowly growing into one of the most important in the Polish humanities of the 21st century” (prof. Roman Mazurkiewicz, Pedagogical University). After years of neglect, the project’s research team resumed extensive work on this vast and hitherto unknown resource of sermons. The article presents the state of research on the history of Polish preaching, the assumptions of Kazania w kulturze polskiej (Sermons in Polish Culture) and the research teams participating in it, the criteria for selecting the texts of sermons, achievements in the project implementation and critical comments indicated by the reviewers.
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The teaching on the Eucharist in the Summa Theologiae of St. Thomas Aquinas aptly illustrates that philosophy is an indispensable tool for rationalizing revealed truths in practicing theology. The author applies terminology developed on the basis of Aristotelian metaphysics to properly conceive the mystery which the liturgy refers to with the words: “This is the great Mystery of Faith”. Using the metaphysical concepts of “matter” and“form” as well as “substance” and “accidents,” Aquinas describes the essence of the Eucharistic mystery in which, through the words constituting the form of the sacrament, uttered by the priest on behalf of Christ and at His command,the substance is transformed from bread and wine (transubstantiatio) into the substance of the Body and Blood of the Lord. As a result, the accidents of bread and wine, still perceived by the senses, exist by the power of God’s creative action without their proper subject. Thomas draws attention to the uniqueness of the sacrament of the Eucharist among other sacraments, in which matter, such as water or oil, does not undergo a substantial transformation, but becomes only an instrument, the use of which is accompanied, through its consecration, by a specific power to produce spiritual effects.
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The philosophical thought of Miguel de Unamuno (1864-1936),a Spanish existentialist who lived at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries,engages primarily with anthropological issues. He is interested in the particular human being, of flesh and blood (“de carne y hueso”), and above all in the teleological dimension of human existence. The desire for immortality is the basic longing of the human will, which seeks a way out of the labyrinth of nothingness to which man is condemned by matter. According to the Spanish philosopher, man needs God as a strong foundation for the realization of his desire for immortality.The human being carries within himself not only the longing for infinity,but also the hardly expressible “Mystery” that we can identify with the inexpressible presence of the divinity in man. The desire for eternity is fulfilled this “Mystery” that constitutes a part of human nature.In the essay “El secreto de la vida” (“The Mystery of Life”), written in 1906,the main directions of Miguel de Unamuno’s thinking appear - the existence of God as an existential problem and the inability to understand Him directly by reason as the cause of the sense of the tragic.
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In Judaism various terms already occurring in the Hebrew Bible are used to define the soul: neshamah, ruah, nefesh, yehidah, hayah. They were adopted by Rabbinic Judaism which had its roots in Biblical Judaism but which, however, is fundamentally different as regards the soul, its immortality,resurrection and life after death. It was not until post-biblical times that the immortality of the soul came to be one of the main pillars of faith for the followers of Judaism.The Talmud points to resurrection as a dogma of faith (Sanh. 10:1; 90b-91a).In accordance with the Mishnah, and then with the Gemara, ‘All Israel have a portion in the world-to-come’ (ibid). But does this not conflict with the basic Rabbinic message of reward for good and punishment for evil based on biblical foundations that show the way to salvation by keeping the commandments?Orthodox Judaism maintains both faith in the resurrection of the body as part of the Messianic Redemption and faith in the immortality of the soul after death. Reformed Judaism, however, rejects the literal understanding of the resurrection of the body and is limited to the belief in the spiritual life after death.
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In the teaching of Benedict XVI, reconciliation can be interpreted as a social category that contributes to integral development. The consequence of the attitude of reconciliation is expressed in the manner in which theological knowledge is applied fora fuller understanding of social relations where the common good is a point of reference. Furthermore, reconciliation is also a theological category in the Bavarian theologian’s writings. In that respect, it is especially important to note that he not only puts reconciliation in the context of mercy, but also gives it a broader meaning by relating it to ecclesiological issues, and in particular to the dialogue of the Church with the contemporary world. Describing reconciliation against the background of social reality, Benedict XVI also points to forgivenessas a certain prerequisite. In the process of forgiveness, attitudes rootedin insincerity are overcome. Forgiveness therefore brings one intoa fuller participation in the truth. While reconciliation follows from forgiveness, Benedict is aware of the fact that individual actions are not always sufficient to achieve the former. This is why institutions such as the United Nations serve to fulfill the idea of peace as a practical application of the timeless Unity that is identified in theology with God.Doing works of mercy is a touchstone of social reconciliation founded on natural personal capabilities. Reconciliation in society, as promoted by the Church, favours the advancement of a culture that fosters an integral concept of the person and of development.
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Responding to an unfavourable prenatal diagnosis of their unborn child is a great challenge to parents. When they receive the test results, they feel confused and frightened, and many questions about the child and hisillness arise in their minds. This article aims to show the problems and needsof parents in this difficult situation, as well as to draw attention to the nonmedical aspects of supporting parents. Particularly important considerations in this area relate to the relatively new subdiscipline of pedagogy known as prenatal pedagogy, which draws attention to the individuality and dignity of the unborn child, as well as to the role of those who surround parents dealing with procreative difficulties. Perinatal hospices are a very important response to the needs of parents. Based on the philosophy of life affirmation, they shape their patients’ attitudes and give them the opportunity to experience very important parental events.
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The widely celebrated within the Eastern Orthodox world anniversary of St. A. Nevsky’s birth is a reason to examine his presence within the spiritual life of Bulgaria. The following publication will examine materials from periodical church literature, as well as inform the reader about the four temples built in Bulgaria in his name. Particular attention has been given to the village of Zhitnitsa (in the municipality of Dobrichka, in Dobrich Province).
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