We kindly inform you that, as long as the subject affiliation of our 300.000+ articles is in progress, you might get unsufficient or no results on your third level or second level search. In this case, please broaden your search criteria.
This paper was made as part of a wider research I made about rituals and their meaning and roles they are playing in the religious system of thinking. The way they are thought, displayed, precisely followed as instructed and believed, makes them a powerful social act that has been always provided by any religion, and also a tool for religion to make the human society what it is today. After I speak about what is a ritual and its religious content in general, I am enumerating roles and functions of play and theatre in particular have, both for profane and religious purpose. Do we still use play/games as adults because they are rewarding, they give us pleasure? They are used as means of relaxation, or for continuing the age of childhood; or it is in our nature to play games in everything we do? In this paper I have emphasized play as adaptive potentiation or adaptive variability useful both in therapy, as in religious ceremony. The relation and comparison of rituals with play is due to the fact that playing is the most engaging behavior performed by man and animals, and it can be found as foundation of almost any ritualist activity.
More...
This paper focuses on the question of how clothing which expresses religious identity is used and perceived in Bulgarian secular society. The authors discuss different strategies in the choice of religious symbols and clothes corresponding to individual roles in society, as well as to the ethnic and religious communities in general. The exposition follows through several basic cases in which the activities of state institutions and public opinion are discussed. The strategies in regard to the religious elements of clothing in the public and private spheres in Bulgaria are viewed in terms of a historical and contemporary perspective of the relations between the religious and the secular in the context of the traditional ethnic and religious variety in Bulgaria. Research on the topic indicates that there is a necessary and clear position on the part of the institutions and civil society in order to build adequate mechanisms to influence or control the processes in the future.
More...
The first contacts of the Anglican Church with Eastern Orthodoxy date from the early 17th century and they initiated a process of rapprochement, which is well known in the international historiography. Over the centuries, to this day it has a different intensity depending on the degree of theological negotiations and the political situation. This study traces the impact of this process among the Bulgarian Orthodox community and among Bulgarian society, how perceptions of the Anglican church were formed among Bulgarians and furthermore whether the topic went out of theological dialogue and was publicly known and discussed, and hence politically exploited. The author tracks the attitudes and positions of the representatives of the Anglican Church to the main events related to Bulgaria, and the Bulgarian Orthodox Church in the 19th and early 20th century. He reveals how individual public representatives tried to see farther than purely theological dialogue and sporadically, albeit unsuccessfully, to use thefavor of the Anglican Church to Eastern Orthodoxy in the context of the national tasks that had to be resolved. During the Second World War and the Cold War Anglican-Orthodox rapprochement became part of big politics and was influenced by Stalin‘s religious policy. Although Stalin initially relied on the Anglican Church to expand Orthodox influence in international organizations, subsequently he started considering it to be a competitor and opponent. As a consequence the dialogue was restored after the death of Stalin, but in the countries from the socialist camp and particularly Bulgaria the Orthodox Churches followed the Communist Party religious policy of „opening“ which aimed to use the churches in the big propaganda war between East and West showing that there was religious freedom behind the Iron curtain.
More...
This article is devoted to the everyday life of an Orthodox parish in a small town in Russia. Starting with a critical analysis of existing approaches to measuring religiosity, the author tries to find ”communal” dimensions of religiosity, which typify Orthodox Christianity in today’s Russia. The text traces the history of the local churchsince its restoration and analyzes a variety of interactions and the development ofrelations among Orthodox parishioners, as well as their relations with the priests. Drawing on ethnographic data and interviews, the author identifies indicators suitable for analyzing parish life and what it means to belong to the parish community. The conclusion is that the parish community is formed of extensive and continuous interactions among parishioners that are not limited to religious practices yet still initiated by clergy. It is suggested that the figure of the priest should take a central place when studying Orthodox parish communities. The article also describes how to incorporate these aspects into further investigations of Orthodox Christianity.
More...
The paper reconstructs the place and role of solar and lunar optical phenomena in the sacral picture of the universe by the Eastern Slavic society during the pre-Mongol period. The written and folk interpretation of halo traditions, solar and lunar shine is analyzed. The views on atmospheric diffraction phenomena as weather signs and omens of political changes are also investigated. The people of Old Rus’ believed that simple halos defined weather changes. At the same time, complex halos predicted victory or political crises and signified holiness of the deceased person. The common mind connected the sacred solar and lunar halos with the figure of prince and (in the Christian era) saint pretenders. The folklore also associated the phenomenon of halo with the special solar and lunar sacred activities. The literary presentations of complex halos could reflect the biblical semantics of light and glow as heavenly fire and evidence of the glory of God.
More...
The study was performed in order to introduce into scientific circulation the part of an Orthodox “encolpion” from the ancient settlement site of Samosdelka in the Volga delta (layers of the 12th century). The objectives of the study are cultural and historical interpretation of the artifact and its dating. This cross gives an indication of the extent of Christianity in the city of Saqsin during the pre-Mongolian period. Furthermore, it allows to identify another way of contacts between the worlds of Islam and Christianity, i.e., through the area of Saqsin and Russia. The paper provides a number of examples to prove that crosses of this type were most popular in the 11th–13th centuries. Such artifacts were well known in Medieval Russia, but they originate from the vicinity of Kiev. The cross from Samosdelka settlement refers to the period from the middle to late 12th century. It is likely to have been brought to the Volga delta by one of the Russian merchants. The small quantity of objects of Christian worship, as well as the lack of any information about the Christians in the Lower Volga region during the 12th–13th centuries in written sources make us to conclude about the weakness of direct contacts between the Christian regions and the area of Saqsin, which was generally Islamized at that time. The obtained results are important to describe the cultural situation in the Lower Volga region on the eve of the Mongol invasion.
More...
Fundamental differences between Kyiv-Pechersk choral style and Western model of performance of religious chants can be considered in various contexts and at several levels. One should take into account diversity of church rules (canon), mentality, even geographical location and physiological capabilities of voices of the singers coming from a particular area. The performance practice is also connected with such factors as cultural traditions, language, way of life and social issues related to faith. It is therefore understandable that, after a short period of a fragile cultural unity of the Church, different traditions emerged. The author argues that the way of singing is directly dependent on the fundamental philosophical and theological ideas, originating from the Church canon. Then, the differences between chant performance in two main branches of the Christian Church seem to be a consequence of the distinct ways in which the theological doctrine, dogma of the Church, the temporal and spatial principles of worship and art developed in Roman Catholic and Byzantine Orthodox traditions. The two different perceptions of communication with God and its influence on church singing are considered by the author as an exemplary case.
More...
Based on known and newly found documents the author traces the specific actions taken by the Russian diplomacy to abolish the Bulgarian Union in the middle of the 19th century. The main role in this task was assigned to the Russian consular agent in Plovdiv Nayden Gerov. The article highlights the activity of N. Gerov and D. Tsankov and presents their opinions on how to solve the Bulgarian Church Issue showing clearly the difference in the positions of the two prominent figures of the Bulgarian national movement. One of them was a Russian diplomat who was obliged under his official position to follow Russia’s policy towards the Bulgarian-Greek religious strife, which coincided with his personal beliefs to solve the Issue within the traditional Bulgarian Eastern Orthodox. The other was a Bulgarian journalist, politician and public figure offering to Bulgarians a union with the Roman Catholic Church as the way out of the tangled religious issue. The author tries to give a reasoned answer to the question which is a major focus of this article: What did the Bulgarian union achieve for the national movement in the mid-19th century and in this sense – was it its well thought out, far-sighted and politically justified „alternative“?
More...
This article aims to clarify the reasons that necessitate the preparation of orders, messages and statutes regulating marriage, premarital and marital agreements. The information is collected from Codes of bishoprics record books of Bulgarian parishes and correspondences from the National Revival press. The study shows that regulations and orders issued by all institutions of authority, suggesting the existence of a common vision for the development of society. The main goal of the requirements is to establish a balance in relations by freeing poorer families from the financial burden of the wedding.
More...
Hrisant Samokovsky (1800–1871) is one of the few well known Bulgarian Renaissance churchmans. He studies at the Theofilos Kayris School on Andros island and serves in the Patriarchate of Constantinople. From 1847 to 1858, Hrisant is the Archimandrite of the Greek Ekaterininski Monastery in Kiev. In this period he is the most influential Bulgarian in Kiev and supports a lot of Bulgarian students at the Kiev Spiritual Academy. Archimandrite Hrisant is mentioned in letters and memories of the renowned Renaissance brothers Miladinovi, brothers Mustakovi, Ivan Seliminski, Vassil Cholakov and Stanislav Dospevski. Unfortunately there is no specific study about him. Therefore, based on indirect information from published sources, and mainly unpublished documents from his personal fund (Stored in the Bulgarian Historical Archive of the National Library “St. St. Cyril and Methodius” in Sofia), we are trying to recover his biography.
More...
The years after the Ilinden Uprising put to the test the overall work of the Exarchate in Macedonia. One of the levers by which the Ottoman authority tried to sabotage the process of consolidation of the Bulgarian element in the provinces was the principle of preserving the ecclesiastical status quo. After the uprising many villages started leaving the Patriarchate and passing under the jurisdiction of the Exarchate. That was an increasing trend which pushed to the fore the question of the ownership of churches and schools. For many years the problem remained unsolved by the government, whose policy was to maintain the idea on confrontation between patriarchists and exarchists. And after the Young Turk revolution of July 1908 the issue remained on the agenda and the government continued to apply the familiar tactic of delay and transfer of responsibility in this case to the parliament. The decision was taken as late as the summer of 1910 with the adoption of the Law of contentious churches and schools. Although its provisions did not fully meet the legitimate expectations of Bulgarians, they regulated a solution to a problem which albeit artificially created and maintained by the government was quite pressing for the population in the provinces.
More...
Through the prism of Bulgarian church history and its links with the Roman Catholic world, the author outlines the wide range of issues that were addressed at the Second Vatican Council (XXI Ecumenical Council of the Roman Catholic Church), which largely shaped the development of theological thought in the second half of 20th century. The article also focuses on the Vatican’s active diplomacy during the period under review and on the internal discussions between the local Orthodox churches, which led to a more open dialogue and increased interest in the work of the Council.
More...