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After 1946 one of the goals of the procommunist government’s religious policy was the removal of the „recalcitrant” prelates from the Holy Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church. Thus the Groza government could replace them with its favourite clergy perceived as obedient executioners of the political orders. Some of the radical Communist circles wanted even the overthrow of the Romanian patriarch Nicodim Munteanu, but the governmental authorities focussed only on the preparation of a successor. At the same time the Communist officials and the Police launched a mean campaign of disparage against Irineu Mihălcescu, the metropolitan of Moldavia.
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Review of: Nicolae Stanciu, Impozitarea Bisericii Ortodoxe Române, Ed. C.H. Beck, București, 2022, 354 p.
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The author is a researcher at the History Museum, Pitești. Metropolitan Visarion Puiu wrote Stalin on 14 September 1939, in an attempt to defend the Russian Orthodox Church and to promote a reconciliation between the State and the Church.
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Important personalities like Fr. Gheorghe Calciu, Fr. Vasile Vasilachi, Fr. Felix Dubneac, Fr. Roman Braga or the Archbishop Justinian Chira have left their mark on the history and tradition of the hesychasm in the Romanian space. Using the information that we have about them, but also their testimonies and notes, we will try to emphasize the way how they developed this tradition on our lands and in the same time to bring into attention their legacy and their heroism in a society where the religion was often prosecuted and its representatives often imprisoned for being „mystics”, which was seen as a form of „ploting against the social order”
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The present text is a chronicle of the volume De l’homme extérieur à l’homme intérieur : l’anthropologie spirituelle de saint Jean Cassien, signed by deacon Florin Petre. Deacon Florin Petre belongs to a new generation of theologians who dare to be modern precisely through the tireless search for an ideal relationship between tradition, experience and knowledge. At Florin Petre, the deep and successful study of theology is ennobled by the lucid and pious gesture of searching for the Truth with the support of unceasing prayer. His work, dedicated to Saint John Cassian, is the logical continuation of an exceptional doctoral thesis, presented with great success at the Faculty of Theology in Strasbourg. Father Florin Petre describes Saint John Cassian as a founder of monaster- ies but also as a spiritual builder, a theoretician of prayer, but also an ascetic in the purest sense of the term.
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The hierarchical type of clothing in the mural paintings of the Romanian Orthodox churches in the14th century is presented as a new discourse both in the research of the idea of unity of the Romanian Orthodox space in a period when this idea was not officially stated, as well as for the importance in itself of the hierarchical attire that, so far, historiography have not studied more closely. The present study envisages the establishment of cultural interconnections both between Wallachia and Transylvania and between them and the areas of eastern and western artistic influence, in order to identify the transfer of vestments patterns from one area of culture to another, the extent to which they were adapted to the area of “adoption” and last but not least, the interest that determined the implementation of several hierarchs figures in the mural theme of some of the churches. Again, the research aims to capture those models of hierarchs that, despite their clerical rank, are depicted in garments of different composition depending on the context in which they are painted.
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Review of: IULIU-MARIUS MORARIU, Repere ale autobiografiei spirituale din spaţiul ortodox în secolele XIX şi XX: Ioan de Kronstadt, Siluan Athonitul şi Nicolae Berdiaev, Editura Lumen, Iaşi, 2019.
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The period of the Antonescu government (February 1941 – August 1944) was one of the most tumultuous in Romania’s recent past. Studied especially because of the Holocaust and its participation in the Eastern war, the Antonescu period has been less researched on chapters related to domestic politics, such as economy, society, health and especially religious life. In the present study, we highlight some aspects related to the role that religious faith, as viewed by Marshal Antonescu, was supposed to have in the Romanian society, afflicted by the war. During that period, the Church had to face a challenge: what kind of a relationship it should have with the Antonescu state during a time when the state promised a reform? To answer this question, we try to present some aspects of the reform initiated by the Head of State, Marshal Ion Antonescu and the reactions of the Church elders. We will present the following chapters: 1) Organization of the Department of Cults, 2) Religious policy of the Antonescu government, 3) The issue of the priests involved in the legionary rebellion, 4) Reorganization of the Romanian Orthodox Church and 5) Reformation of monasticism.
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The subject of our study, the priest Alexandru Vidrighinescu, is a clerical figure less known to specialists in church history. For this reason, the present material can be considered as an attempt to recover the memory of a Romanian orthodox priest from Transylvania. After his years of theological studies at the Şaguna Seminary in Sibiu, Alexandru Vidrighinescu was functioning as priest in Ocna Sibiului. Through his intellectual and human qualities, he stood out in the local Romanian community as one of the most representative figures. A true patriot, he soon got involved in the national movement of the Romanians from Transylvania and contributed to the Great Union from December 1st, 1918. He took part, in his official capacity, at the great event from Alba Iulia. During the interwar period, priest Vidrighinescu got involved in the political life of Greater Romania, being a member of the Romanian National Party. Later, he became a military priest in Bârlad and Râmnicu Vâlcea, reaching the rank of major. Unfortunately, many aspects of his life and activity remain unknown at the current stage of research.
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N. Steinhardt was a constant supporter of courage as an essential character trait and in many of his works – journalism, literary criticism, memoirs, interviews and religious sermons – he demonstrated a clear propensity for this human quality. Courage was a leitmotif of Steinhardt’s creations, an aspect that becomes evident through his works in which he advocated for the courage to act, to express one’s opinion, to take a stand against injustice, to persevere, to be loyal and not to betray, to pave new paths. However, the essence of this preoccupation culminates with the detailed analysis of courage from a religious perspective in the sermons given by N. Steinhardt during his monastic life at the “St. Ana” Monastery in Rohia. In the book “ Dăruind vei dobândi. Cuvinte de credinţă,” the theme of courage is extracted with surgical precision from various pericopes or biblical fragments, an aspect that sheds light on N. Steinhardt’s hermeneutic qualities. The fact that he “practiced” courage, not just verbalized it, is revealed by the years spent in prison in the name of friendship and devotion to C. Noica and the other members of the Noica-Pillat group, by his subversive writings during the communist years, and by the testimonies of his friends and those who knew him.The work “ Dăruind vei dobândi “ is one of the few theological works that gives special attention to this Christian virtue – courage – and represents an existential guidebook based on Christian precepts and models. The call to courage is outlined both scripturally and theoretically, through all selected verses and examples from the Gospels, as well as practically, by assuming, during the sermons given at the Rohia Monastery, the courage of expressing his opinion, urging vigilance, critical thinking and resistance against all types of abuse. He always emphasized the idea of freedom, dignity, and the common good, despite the fact that assuming these values was a real rebellious attitude during the communist years.
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The Judeo-Christian culture is par excellence a logocentric culture, derived from the Word of the Creator and from the founding narrative, which, being fundamental elements for shaping this culture, is however transmitted in writing. From the Tablets of the Law, where the Decalogue is written by the finger of God himself, to the Pentateuch dictated to Moses (the Torah), or the Gospels instilled into the four apostles under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, an entire sacred history unfolds under the sign of revelation and, implicitly, of the imperative to transmit the revealed truths, i.e. the “predanie”.Starting from this observation, our study aims to focus on, and analyse, some of the symbols that are recurrently exploited to suggest the idea of revelation received and transmitted instantaneously, starting from the representation of St. John the Evangelist dictating the Gospel (or The Book of the Revelation or the Apocalypse) to his disciple Prochorus.
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The hesychia, by definition, is an expression of inner peace and high prayer. The Internet is a realm of the many, the uncontrollable and the fragmented, a specific ecosystem that does not „per se” exclude the possibility of making known the teaching of Christ and His Church. The present study aims to index the topic of isihasm in the virtual environment, how 'search engines' generate results on this search, their authenticity, and the quality of the first three suggestions for the keywords: „hesychasm, Carpathian hesychasm, prayer of the heart". We aim to answer questions such as: Is hesychasm a topic of interest to Internet users? On the other hand, we will try to answer the question of how to make the most of the information made available by the new means of communication on the subject of hesychasm in the catechetical laboratory? How is it possible to live hesychastlly in a chaotic, crowded and hyper-informed world? How irreconcilable is the pair isihasm-virtual space?
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The new context in which the Orthodox Church around the world is following the measures to prevent the spread of the virus leads us to reflections and attitudes that we would not have taken into account in other situations of relative normalcy. Of course, these reflections and attitudes do not only consider the liturgical and sacramental aspects, but they also include our position on catechesis and preaching. But the purpose of this study is not to propose additional or alternative ways of preaching in times of pandemic, but to provide inner support to anyone who has a duty to deal with those of Godʹs word. As such, I believe it is necessary to see how the Fathers and theologians of the twentieth century relate to experience, to the preaching of the word, to the reception of this word through experience. Why did I choose to refer exclusively to them, especially since they do not constitute the entire patristic pleroma of the Church? Firstly because the space of this study would not allow for a broader development and a diachronic presentation, and secondly because the Fathers and theologians of the twentieth century develop their theological thinking in very special circumstances and not very different from certain realities that we also live.
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The intention of this article is to show how the church life of the Orthodox Church in Montenegro went from the abolition of the Patriarchate of Peć (Serbian Church) in 1766, to the end of the process of establishment and unification of the same Church in the period from 1918 to 1922. The Patriarchate of Peć was abolished in 1766 by a decree of the Ottoman Sultan Mustafa III, violently and uncanonically. The Orthodox Church in Montenegro did not recognize that act, but continued its internal life, considering itself the successor of the Patriarchate of Peć. During the 19th century, there was state emancipation in Serbia as well as canonical emancipation in various ways of other Serbian dioceses. Finally, with the end of the First World War, in 1918, the conditions were created for the establishment and unification of the Serbian Church. The Church clergy in Montenegro largely supported the unification as a political act, and the process of the establishment and unification of the Serbian Church that means the return to the situation from 1766, in its entirety. All the hierarchs of the Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church in Montenegro supported this procedure, and led by the head of the Church, Metropolitan Mitrofan Ban, participated in it.
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This article shows how war is restructuring the configuration of religious life in Ukraine as a result of Russia’s full-scale invasion. Following a short introduction, which documents churches’ initial reactions to the war, I focus on three issues. First, I examine the ways in which the war exacerbates existing tensions within Ukrainian Orthodoxy, echoing the divide within world Orthodoxy. Second, I analyse the challenges faced by Ukrainian Catholics in relation to the Holy See’s position on the war, which is marked by neutrality and a propensity towards nonviolence. Third, I delineate a few trajectories, which could allow churches to be more proactive in playing a role in peacemaking and future reconciliation.
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The religious revival in post-Soviet Russia resulted in a new, more intimate than ever before, alliance between the Russian Orthodox Church and Putin’s autocratic regime. Three key elements were essential in shaping this unholy alliance: a) re-establishing the Russian Orthodox Church under Stalin’s decree in 1943, b) the constant support of local Orthodox Churches and the ecumenical movement, and c) the formation of a specific religious based ideology.
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The present essay details the intricate relationship between the Romanian Orthodox hierarchy and the conflict in Ukraine on various levels (philanthropic, social, ecclesiological, political). While most of the Orthodox bishops in Romania continue to voice their concern about the war, few condemn the complicity of the Russian Orthodox Church in endorsing the military involvement of Russia in Ukraine. Another factor that contributed to the moral anaesthesia of the Orthodox bishops has todo with the silent political preference for the pro-Russian, ultranationalist Alliance of the Union of Romanians party (AUR). While the Romanian Patriarchate condemned vehemently the political instrumentalization of Orthodoxy, against the official position of the hierarchy, a part of the regular and monastic clergy still nurtures admiration for Vladimir Putin, seen as the main benefactor of the Orthodox Church worldwide and his pro-Christian policies.
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This article reveals interesting testimonies related to the lives of Moldovans who suffered during foreign occupations. Researching the magazine Arhivele Bessarabiei, year I, No. 4 from October - December 1929, T. G. Bulat discovers a letter written by Constantin Ghica, Iordache Balș and countersigned by Iordache Roset, on behalf of the Divan of Moldova, addressed to the Russian knight senator S. S. Cușnicov, in the year 1808. Also presented is a princely charter issued by Mihail Vodă Suțu, by which the old royal decrees are confirmed to the hermitage in the Ceahlău mountain, which is signed and on which the great red royal seal is applied on February 15, 1820.
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The research paper takes a closer look at the biography of Rev. Diodor Kolpinskiy, PhD (1892–1932). He was a truly outstanding individual: a Christian, priest, painter, poet, philosopher, writer, sculptor, patriot, political and religious emigrant – this is the simplest way to summarise nearly 40 years of his life. Today, the figure and achievements of Rev. Kolpinskiy are unknown. In his life, in which he was constantly on the move as a searching Christian, he sought answers to existential questions. Tsarist and Soviet Russia, Poland, Austria, Germany and China – these were just the main points on the world map where Rev. Kolpinskiy used to stay for a bit longer. It is important to present the life and work of such a talented person as Diodor Kolpinskiy, who spent one compact part of his life in Poland, leaving behind not only poems, scientific and artistic works, but also his students, to whom he passed on his knowledge and love of the East within the walls of the Missionary Institute and the Catholic University of Lublin.
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