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In the liturgical tradition of the Orthodox Church, the great feast of the Epiphany has as main theological focus the Baptism of our Lord Jesus Christ in the Jordan River. The liturgy of the feast and the hymns of the forefeast and of the afterfeast, starting from the text of the Gospel, develop the same theme. The Baptism of the Lord is understood and experienced in the Church as a salvific event, that encompasses not only the humankind but also the entire creation, and reveals the cosmic dimension of the mystery of salvation. The aim of this study is the structural analysis of the ritual of the Great Consecration of the Waters, followed by a concise presentation of the theological meanings of the water consecrated at the Epiphany.
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The doctrine about the Holy Virgin Mary forms a substantial and a very important chapter of Christian theology, which has been enriched, analyzed and synthesized, in different contexts, by some Theologians and specialists in Mariology. The figure of the Mother of God is presented in the entire life of the Church, although we are speaking about the internal or the external liturgical service. She has occupied a determinant place in the heart of the believers, in personal piety or godliness, even from her life and especially after Her Assumption. This article tries to analyze the elements of the hymnography from this feast of the Assumption of Virgin Mary, to demonstrate the significance of this Holy feast and also the importance of the person of Holy Mother of God in the liturgical and sacramental life of the Orthodox Church.
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Saint Simeon The New Theologian is known in the Orthodox theology and beyond by his insistence and clarity with which he wishes to debate and analyse problems of the spiritual Christian life, often overlooked by the previous theologians or perhaps entrusted by them to a discretion of alloing each person to respond only in front of its own conscience. In his striking words, St. Simeon first unveils the serious problems of assuming, living and understanding the biblical teachings in the Constantinopolitan society of his time, problems that were the triggering factors of his spiritual discourse of that period, but which reflect so many human weaknesses present among believers all the time, up to our time. By this the article tries to emphasize the importance of his teachings for current Orthdox Theology.
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The present article is focused on the antisemitic mindset of several prominent Orthodox clergymen and theologians associated with the Romanian Iron Guard and the radicalization of Orthodox nationalism under the impact of fascism. During a wave of right-wing ideological radicalization, Orthodox clergymen and theologians shifted from understanding the Jew according to the patristic theology and canon law to a more confessional, exclusivist trend of theology. It also discusses the Romanian Orthodox Church’s position towards the development of an antisemitic theology and the implementation of this theology during the Holocaust by the Orthodox priests affiliated with the Romanian Orthodox Exarchate in Transnistria.
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At least from the 14th to the 17th c. – beyond their Middle Ages until their Early Modern Ages – the Rumanians belonged to the so-called Slavia Orthodoxa. Besides the Orthodox faith, they had in common with the Orthodox Slavs the Cyrillic alphabet until the 19th c. and the Church Slavonic, which was the language of the Church, of the Chancery and of the written culture, until the 17th c., although with an increasing competition of the Rumanian volgare. The crisis and decline of the Rumanian Slavonism, the rise of the local vernacular, have been related with Heterodox influences penetrated in Banat and Transylvania. Actually, the first Rumanian translations of the Holy Scriptures, in the 16th c., were promoted, if not confessionally inspired, by the Lutheran Reformation recently transplanted in Banat and Transylvania (some scholars incline to a [widely] Hussite origin of these early translations). Not only Banat and Transylvania, but also Moldavia and Wallachia (the Principalities) were crossed by the border between the Latin and the Byzantino-Slavonic world, the Slavia and the Romania. Influences from the whole Slavia – the Orthodox and the Latin Slavia, the Southern, the Eastern and the Western one – met in the Carpatho-Danubian Space describing what will be derogatively called Slavia Valachica (i.e. Rumanian): a kaleidoscope of Slavic influences in Romance milieu. The appearance of Slavo-Rumanian texts, either with alternate or parallel Church Slavonic and Rumanian, revealed that in the middle of the 16th c. the decline of Slavonism had already started. Mostly but not only in the western regions, beyond the Carpathians, which were under Latin rule, the Orthodox (“Schismatic”) clergy was less and less confident with the Slavonic. This last still remained the sacred language though largely unintelligible, whilst the vernacular still lacked sacred dignity, besides being suspect to spread Heterodoxy. The Slavo-Rumanian Tetraevangelion of Sibiu (1551–1553) is the oldest version of a biblical text in Slavonic and Rumanian and contains the oldest surviving printed text in Rumanian. Apart from evoking icastically – by its twocolumns a fronte layout – the Slavic-Rumanian linguistic border, this fragment of a Four-Gospels Book (Mt 3, 17 – 27, 55) can be considered in many senses a border text: geographically (the border between East and West), chronologically (the decline of Slavonism and the rise of the Rumanian Vernacular), culturally and confessionally (the border between the Latin [i.e. Catholic then Protestant too] West and the Byzantino-Slavonic East). This paper aims to reconstruct, as far as possible, the complex milieu in which the Tetraevangelion was translated, (maybe) redacted and printed, focusing on the Slavonisms in its Rumanian text. A special attention will be paid to any possible interaction between that mainly Latin (Lutheran-Saxon) milieu and the Rumanian Slavonism.
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The Romanian Orthodox Church in Transylvania, as well as the other Transylvanian historical churches, is the creator and keeper of an architectural, artistic, archival-documentary and bibliophile priceless heritage. If the architectural-artistic one is more visible and appreciated, the archival-documentary one is still not known and valued through conferences, exhibitions and in the historiography, as it should be. Our study is dedicated to one of the regional administrative structures of the Orthodox Church in Transylvania, presenting, firstly, the historical and organizational evolution of the Săliște deanery, and in the second part, the history, organization and content of the parish and deanery museum and archive. The Săliște Orthodox Deanery was certified in the 17th century, being formed by the parishes of the Săliște Chair and then by the Saxon Chair of Sibiu. In the 18th century, Săliștea was one of the centers of orthodox resistance in the face of the forced imposition of uniatism with the Church of Rome. Between 1805-1884 the seat of the deanery was in the town of Sibiu, therefore the deanery was oficialy called Sibiu II and was led by priests with higher studies of theology, history, pedagogy and philosophy at the Universities of Vienna, Leipzig and Budapest. They have taken great care for the patrimony and memory of the parish and the Săliște deanery, so one of the richest Orthodox deanery archives in Transylvania is preserved here. The archive and the Săliște parochial Museum represents a place of memory that testifies the rich history of spirituality, traditions, culture, art, commerce, personalities and Romanian life in the Sibiu area.
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The purpose of this article is to analyse the family and marriage in the Byzantium of the first Christian millennium, both from the perspective of civil law and ecclesiastical canons. In order to achieve this, the main sources and collections of Byzantine laws from that period were analysed, as well as the Orthodox canons of the Holy Fathers which had as a central topic the marriage and the family. By examining these resources and tracking the evolution of civil law, the article reveals the importance of the teaching of the Orthodox Church, which has imposed its mark on the life of Byzantine society, by promoting the sanctity of Christian marriage and woman’s importance in society, but also the efforts of Byzantine emperors in this direction, by promulgating laws, which are in conformity with the ecclesiastical teaching. Until these facts happened, the society disregarded the woman and her rights and the act of marriage as well.
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The article examines the orthodox tradition of paying homage to Venerable Mary of Egypt. The perception of the image of Mary of Egypt is compared with that one of Mary Magdalene in the West-European World, particularly in literature and art. The different forms of interaction between the hagiography of Mary of Egypt and Russian literature are traced: adaptation of the plot, allusions, insertion of the motif of a repented whore. The plot of Cleopatra, as of an impenitent whore, is opposite to a hagiographic plot (by its semantic pole of attraction). Two female images symbolize two divergent paths — to spiritual rebirth and to the ruin. As a result of the analysis of the works of A. Pushkin, I. Aksakov, N. Leskov, V. Bryusov, A. Remizov it is deduced that both plots turned out to be productive for Russian literature of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, namely because of their paired relationship.
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The article makes the first ever attempt to carry out a systematic examination, based on the historical, publicistic, poetic and epistolary body of work of Tyutchev, of the interrelation of different levels and aspects of the concept of “Russophobia”, introduced by the poet. His fundamental concern with the hierarchic relation of Christian ontology and anthropology, with historical processes, with different results of dynamics of the theocentric and anthropocentric perception of existence and history in Russia and in the West is emphasized. It is shown in the article how the analysis of the religious, historical, cultural, anthropological mainstays leads Tyutchev, in his own way, to Pushkin’s conclusion that the history of Russia, as compared to the history of Europe, needs a “different thought, different formula”. It’s demonstrated how different interpretations of those mainstays cause issues, discords.
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The paper attempts to substantiate the opinion of Professor I. A. Esaulov about the special “spirit” of Russia present in the urban space of the ancient provincial Yelets. The analysis uses the song lyrics of local poets of the early twentieth century, published in 1996 in the almanac Yeletskaya byl. The author comes to the conclusion that the Yelets poets in their works conveyed the unique flavor of their native land by means of contamination of the main cultural codes of the Yelets text — Yelets Orthodox, Yelets merchant, Yelets — a city of military glory. Local mythology played a major role in the formation of the Yelets text of culture. The appearance of the mother of God at Yelets to Khan Tamerlane, after which there was a miraculous escape from the ruin of Moscow and all Russia, became a “starting” event for the perception of Yelets as a sacred city under the patronage of the mother of God. The widespread use of Orthodox symbols in the song lyrics about Yelets emphasizes the predominance of the religious and spiritual component over the visual and secular landscape of the city.
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The article analyzes the peculiarities of biblical motifs and images in E. I. Kostrov’s works. In his odes the poet often refers to the Old Testament scenes and images through the prism of a Christian aspect. Kostrov considers ancient and the Old Testament subjects in the light of the Christian and Orthodox tradition. The poet attributes a Christian sound to the secular genre of the ode, saturating his works with the motifs of the Holy Scriptures. Kostrov often uses the concept of “meekness” emphasizing the sanctity of the Orthodox power, which gets commandments of mercy and humility from God leading to spiritual salvation. The motif of two paths — the unholy and righteous ones — becomes cross-cutting in Kostrov’s poetry. The path of Russia corresponds to the latter one. The motif of divine light descending into the world and eradicating the darkness is the motif of the people “chosen by God”. According to Kostrov, not the Jews but the Russians are such a people. Working with the texts of the Psalms, Kostrov introduces his own motifs, shows his individuality, reveals his own experiences and doubts, and disagrees with some ideas of his era. Christian ideals of meekness and non-violence are the main values in E. I. Kostrov’s poetry.
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Based on the material of “Dead Souls”, the problem of the correlation of the “native” and the “universal” is considered. The author of the article highlights the special paraphrastic aspect of the interpretation of Russian classical literature, which includes both Western European aesthetic landmarks and the Orthodox cultural tradition, emphasizing their interweaving and mutual influence. In this aspect, the need to restore the full version of the name of Gogol’s poem is argued. The semantics of the cover of a separate edition of “Dead Souls” is analyzed. The author traces the paraphrastic context of the poem, referring to Dante’s “Divine Comedy”, which does not come down to motives, reminiscences, plot coincidences, but actualizes the unified Christian meaning of the Easter end of the earthly path, interpreted differently within the framework of Catholic and Orthodox cultural traditions. The semantics of the final Easter transformation of the “native” horizontal of Russia into the spiritual vertical of holy Russia in “Dead Souls” is revealed.
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The conflict between Russia and Georgia dates back to 1801 when the Russian Empire annexed the eastern part of Georgia. The country was under the direct rule of the Tsarist regime until May 26th 1918 when Georgia regained its long-awaited independence as a consequence of Russia’s ongoing civil war. Yet Georgia’s democratic republic was short-lived. When the civil war ended in Russia, the Bolsheviks once again subdued the South Caucasus region, including Georgia. From 1921 to 1991 the country was part of the Soviet Union. After the end of the Cold War, Georgia regained independence.
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Review of: KRZYSZTOF R. PROKOP - Coelestin Patock, Die Eparchien der Russischen Orthodoxen Kirche und die Reihenfolge ihrer Hierarchen in der Zeit von 1885-2005 (überarbeitete und aktualisierte Neuauflage) (Beihefte zur Reiche „Das östliche Christentum”, Bd. 1), Augustinus-Verlag bei Echter, Würzburg 20072, ss. 328 KRZYSZTOF R. PROKOP - Demetrius Kiminas, The Ecumenical Patriarchate. A History of Its Metropolitanates with Annotated Hierarch Catalogs (Orthodox Christianity, Vol. 1), The Borgo Press (An Imprint of Wildside Press LLC), [Rockville] 2009, ss. 260
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Late in the twentieth century anthropological research on heritage, which in earlier years had focused on objects (historic monuments) and space (lieux de mémoire), started changing its perspective, concentrating mainly on heritagisation, understood as a process, and on social actors (states, associations, individuals) involved. The research presented in the article is part of this current; it is aimed at grasping characteristics of heritagisation of things related to religious cults in the Serbian Orthodox Church. In the article, I focus on a particular group of historic objects defined both in Serbian expert discourse of art history and by museum practices as ‘zograf icons’. I present the process of grounding their meanings constructed in heritagisation in Serbian national imaginarium. Heritagisation practices such as musealisation of icons and their conservation form the starting point for reflection on their religious setting, as well as the relationships between two sets of practices focused on them, and subsequently two value sets in which they are called ‘heritage’. Because of their specific geographic provenance, some questions of heritagisation of churches and monasteries on Fruška Gora in Serbian Vojvodina have also been discussed.
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The article presents the main directions of the ‘strategies’ of Orthodox and Protestant social communication in the Ruthenian Territories of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth at the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries. Relations between Protestants and the Orthodox Church followed a natural and traditional course of actions aimed at protecting the confessional freedom of non-Catholics. This cooperation was taken up too late. It took place at the time of predominance of the counter-reformation camp in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
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