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.
Conference report on an international scientific conference “Old Believers Abroad”, held in Toruń 19th-20th September 2016. The conference was devoted to various aspects of life of Old Believers’ communities outside Russia, as well as the problems of Old Believer emigration and general questions of Old Believerism.
More...
According to Wahrig Deustsches Woerterbuch the concept of the “road” refers to a place which you have to walk in order to obtain your wish, to change some life situation in a positive or negative way; there the desired result of the act is achieved. Therefore, in our traditional culture the road is the place where people most often perform all sorts of magical actions including “white” and “black” magic. The crossroad has the same meaning; in a sense, it outlines the model of the horizontal division of the world which finds expression in four main directions – east, west, north, south. The article shows some of the most common “white” magical actions which aim at positive results – mostly various healing practices against diseases such as “gorska mayka” and “vankashna bolest” as well as customs dedicated to the mythical master-guardian of the village such as “Kokosha cherkva” and customs against drought. The article also examines some “black” magical actions aiming at doing harm: “binding” of newlyweds, stealing the milk of somebody else’s cows.
More...
Church practice before Easter Pass under the shroud of Christ has two names and two explanations in Bulgarian culture. The people call this practice Pass under the table. For the Bulgarian Orthodox Church this ritual honours the work of Jesus Christ and his death. According to the people, the custom is done for health, luck and forgiveness of sins. The reasons for difference in the explanation of the ritualized action are sought in the traditional worldview and centuries-old practices of the Bulgarian people.
More...
The article compares various interpretations of Dostoevsky's theodicy (“The Karamazov Brothers”) by Russian philosophers of the Silver Age generation. The focus of the research interest is focused on the views of Nikolai Lossky. A brief analysis of his philosophy – metaphysical personalism – is made, with particular attention being paid to the idea of the over-time of substantive agents. It is shown how this idea, borrowed from Leibniz, plays a decisive role in explaining the origin of evil and the meaning of the suffering of the innocent. A comparison is made between metaphysical personalism and Christian personalism, and the essential difference between them is indicated. Thus, the discrepancy between Lossky's approach and Dostoevsky's attitudes was also highlighted. The main idea of the article is to show the fundamental inability of rational solution of this problem.
More...
The text aims to explore the soteriological nature of the ascetic views of two of the most remarkable ascetic fathers. Based on a comparative analysis, are traced the general moments in their writings, as well as their differences, which outline the development of the ascetic tradition from antiquity to the present day. Abba Dorotheos conveys the ascetic experience of the Egyptian ascetics of the sixth century, the core of which is the spiritual struggle, the cutting off of passions and the acquiring of virtues. At the heart of the Christian feat, St. Porphyrios places the love for God, which transforms passions, converts evil and deifies man, with the focus being not on the fight against the passions, but on Christ and the communion with Him. Sacraments, prayer, worship lead one to praise and contemplation of God. In the words of St. Porphyrios of Kavsokalivia the correlation between soteriology and ecclesiology is much more clearly expressed.
More...
Anthony is a highly honoured saint, considered to be a patron and a defender of various diseases. The church “St. Anthony” in the smallest town in Bulgaria – Melnik – is known exactly for its healing aspect and can be identified as one of the most sacred cult sites in the surroundings, connected with numerous stories of miracles, healings, interesting and rare ritual practices. The modern state and functioning of the church is a complex of different components that build the role and importance of the cult site as a very attractive place for pilgrimage and healing. Besides of the cult of the patron itself, these components include also various miraculous objects, iconographic features, the location of the church, and characteristic stories of miracles, media, and personal representations and interpretations. In this article, I will examine the cult of St. Anthony in the city and church dedicated to him through the prism of two basic elements – miraculous objects or other ones in the church area and beliefs and ritual practices related to them. It is precisely the connection between the different components of the cult site, combining diverse objects of pilgrimage, honoring, and usage, that creates a truly unique context in which this church, the only one in the country until recently dedicated to the St. Anthony, exists. The analysis is based on observations from conducted fieldwork studies in Melnik and bibliographic and online surveys in the period 2016–2018.
More...
A widely popular concept among Orthodox Christians is that religious images as intermediaries between man and God (the Mother of God or the saints) can give material signs of the divine presence on Earth and often do so. First comes the veneration of miracle-working icons, which are connected to narratives of miraculous events and considered the most helpful mediators for prayers addressed to God, the Virgin or a saint. Another popular notion is that icons can miraculously renew themselves or exude holy oil or blood, and give out fragrance. Two cases of largescale myrrh-gushing from the recent years offer different examples of the emergence, development and interpretation of such miraculous events in Orthodox shrines. The first case is from the town of Terespol in Eastern Poland (since 2010) and the second one comes from the town of Shumen in Northern Bulgaria (from 2017). In the Polish case, the myrrh-streaming continued for a long period of time, encompassed other icons as well and was accompanied by stories of miraculous healings. It was approved by the Church as a manifestation of divine nature. All these occurrences gave an impetus to the development of the veneration of the myrrh-streaming icon of the Theotokos Gorgoepēkoos (She Who Is Quick to Hear) and stimulated pilgrimage to the town.In the case from Bulgaria there was also large-scale myrrh-streaming, but it happened only once, at the feast of the Dormition of the Mother of God (15 August). The event was accepted just as a divine sign and was interpreted mainly as given for the sake of penance and strengthening of faith. The fact that no myrrh was gathered and there were no consequent miracles made the Church take a more passive position and the local bishop just unofficially referred to the general Orthodox idea of myrrh-streaming icons.Events of this kind, which were traditionally taken for miracles, often provoke scepticism and doubts of falsification in modern times. For that reason, they are examined by committees appointed by the Church or inspected by bishops, and even submitted to chemical tests. All these processes emphasize the icons’ multifaceted presence in local communities and in society in general.
More...
Grégoire Zugravul (‘le Peintre’), connu toute sa vie comme Papathodor, Popovici et Frujinescu, a été l’un des peintres les plus importants de la Valachie à la fin du XVIIIe siècle et l’initiateur du courant d’occidentalisation dans l’art local. Constantin Săndulescu-Verna a découvert dans un carnet de croquis ayant appartenuau peintre que Grégoire est né près de Bucarest, dans le village de Frunzănești, au sein de la famille du prêtrepeintre Tudor, et qu’il a fait son apprentissage en 1766, à la l’âge de 16 ans, auprès d’un certain maître Jean / kirIancu. Ensemble, les deux hommes ont voyagé pendant dix ans sur le territoire de l’Empire des Habsbourg etont signé ensemble l’iconostase du monastère de Lepavina en Croatie, ainsi que celui de l’église de la Nativité de Saint-Jean-Baptiste à Székesfehérvár, en Hongrie. De retour en 1777, Grégoire a commencé une carrière prolifiqueen tant que peintre d’icônes; mais il a également peint les fresques de l’Église de l’Icône (Biserica Icoanei) àBucarest, des enluminures de manuscrits et des peintures à l’huile, y compris la vaste composition historique représentant Nicolas Mavrogheni distribuant des récompenses aux soldats qui avaient participé aux combatscontre les Autrichiens (1789), aujourd’hui dans les collections du Musée National d’Art de Roumanie, à Bucarest. Jusqu’à présent, cependant, l’identité de Maître Jean et la portée européenne de la carrière de Grégoire n’étaient pas connues en Roumanie. On considérait à tort que Jean devait être un peintre local, identifié soit au maître de l’école de peinture de l’évêché de Râmnic, soit à Ivan ‘le Russe’ (Rusul), maître de l’école de peinture du monastère de Căldărușani. Plus récemment, C. Săndulescu-Verna et M. Sabados ont supposé qu’il pouvait être d’origine balkanique, mais sans réussir à repérer son identité précise : peut-être un peintre grec ou macédo-valaque. La présente étude relie pour la première fois les recherches roumaines sur ce sujet à celles menées en Serbie(Aleksandra Kučeković), Bulgarie (Emmanuel Moutafov) et Bosnie-Herzégovine (Ljiljana Ševo). Les documents permettent d’identifier ‘kir Iancu’ avec Jovan Četirević Grabovan, aroumain d’Albanie, auteur de fresques dusanctuaire et de la nef de la cathédrale épiscopale de Roman (Moldavie). La carrière de ce dernier est jalonnéepar les étapes d’un parcours remarquable pour cette époque. Ses voyages relient littéralement l’Occident à l’Europe de l’Est, de la Croatie en Russie à travers Buda et Bucarest, et dessinent une perspective entièrementnouvelle sur les relations qui animaient le milieu culturel des peintres valaques du XVIIIe siècle. Comme Jovan, son élève Grégoire a joué également le rôle d’un ‘véhicule’ exemplaire des transferts culturels entre Occident et Orient, maillon d’un grand réseau commercial et politique développé à l’intersection des trois grands Empires: ottoman, russe et autrichien. Il a influencé de manière décisive l’évolution de l’atelier de peinture du monastèrede Cernica et s’est imposé comme une figure clé de la scène artistique locale ; il a été l’un des premiers peintresà moderniser l’art local. Par-delà les éclaircissements qu’elle apporte sur l’apprentissage de Grégoire Popovici,cette étude permet aussi d’attribuer les icônes de l’iconostase de l’Église Manea Brutaru de Bucarest au peintreJovan Četirević Grabovan, et d’identifier dix nouvelles oeuvres du peintre Grégoire, y compris les fresques del’Église de l’Icône à Bucarest. Elle transcrit sept inscriptions inédites des icônes de cette église et identifie le ssources artistiques du cahier de modèles du peintre et des icônes de l’iconostase de la chapelle dédiée à Saint Lazare au monastère de Cernica dans un exemplaire de la Bible Ectypa ayant appartenu au même Maître Jean.
More...
Articolul prezintă câteva observații asupra a două instituții monahale rusești înființate pentru comemorarea vitejiei și eroismului soldaților și ofițerilor ruși morți în timpul războiului ruso-turc din 1877-1878: Mănăstirea Înălțării Domnului, cu biserica „Sf. Alexandru Nevski”, construite între 1879-1882 pe dealurile Bakadzhik de lângă Yambol, la ordinul celebrului „General Alb” Mihail Skobelev, și Mănăstirea Nașterii Domnului din orașul Shipka, construită (și probabil și sfințită în 1902) la inițiativa mamei generalului, OlgaSkobeleva, de către un comitet director condus de diplomatul și omul de stat rus Nikolai Ignatiev.
More...
The ‘life’ of an object (the date of creation and its ‘adventure’ throughout time) can be revealed through a masterly interplay of historical, conservation, and scientific investigation. This is why a fruitful collaboration between chemists and restorers within the RICONTRANS Project(Visual Culture, Piety and Propaganda: Transfer and Reception of Russian Religious Art in the Balkans and the Eastern Mediterranean (16th-early 20th c.) has been initiated, in order to gain new insights into the phenomenon of the transfer and reception of Russian iconography in Transylvania.
More...
On the entire territory of the eastern regions of the Republic of North Macedonia, archaeological research and historical sources confirmed only the Bishopric of the city of Bargala as the first and so far the only bishopric. Beside the bishopric as the main church seat, there were also 453 Christian centers with lower rank than that of a bishopric, which have great merit for the spread of Christianity in other parts of the eastern regions of the Republic of North Macedonia. Based on the number of discovered basilicas and early Christian single-naved churches on the territory of the eastern regions of the Republic of North Macedonia, as Christian centers we can distinguish the following: - Maleshevija – Pehcevo: three-naved basilica on the site St. Petka and the three early Christian churches on sites: Skalata – village Ciflik, Manastir and Lesje in the village Spikovo. - Vinica with the two three-naved basilicas at the sites: Gorica and Kale. - Pijanec: Dulica with the three-naved basilica at the site Begov Dab, and the single-naved churches at the sites: Manastir, Seliste – St. Ilija, Keramidnica and Crkva. - Demir Kapija with three-naved basilicas at the sites: Manastir and Crkviste and the single-naved church at the site Kale – Strezov Grad – village Celevec. - Nov Dojran: the early Christian centre Nov Dojran with the three-naved basilica at the site Crkviste, and the singlenaved church at the site Manastir. - Vraninci (Kocani), with single-naved churches at the sites: Gramadi, Grobista and Seliste. - Kochani: Morodviz, has been discovered the church complex Crkvishte with two early Christian churches and one medieval church, dating from the 5th to 12th century, and the early Christian center Vraninci, in the area of which three single-church early Christian churches have been discovered, Gramadi, Grobista and Seliste. - Kratovo with Konjuh, on the territory of which three basilicas were discovered, two at the site Golemo Gradiste and one at the site Kshla. - Strumica, we will separate the city of Strumica with two early Christian basilicas, discovered at the sites of St.15 Martyrs of Tiberiopolis and Orta Mosque. - Stip, besides the Bishopric of Bargala, a great contribution to the spread of Christianity, there is also an early Christian center of Krupishte, 454 located in the middle of Bregalnica, in whose territory are discovered: the cathedral temple and the single-naved Early Christian church at the local church Kale, the three-naved church under the foundations of the medieval church of St. Nicholas. Early Christian centers (basilicas and single-nave churches) were demolished during the increasingly frequent attacks by the Avar – Slavs, late 6th – early 7th century. From the 8th century until the 14th century, until the arrival of the Ottomans in this region, нew sacred buildings were built above the foundations of most basilicas and single-nave churches, which continued to spread Christianity in the eastern areas of the Republic of North Macedonia.
More...
The object of study in this paper is the heortological nomenclature established in the Old Bulgarian and Church Slavonic texts. This investigation sets out to extract the calendar names of the feasts and of the run-up to them from records, which appeared in different years and belong to different genres. After that they are subjected to a linguistic analysis, which includes observations on the nomination techniques in Christian heortology, the phenomena synonymy, doublets and polysemy in the names of the Christian calendar and their syntagmatics and epidigmatics.
More...
This study is aimed at identifying the most noticeable Slavic elements in the calendar rites of Bukovyna. It analyzes material collected by Romanian researchers in the second half of the 19th – early 20th century (E. Niculiță-Voronca, T. Pamfile, L. Bodnărescu, А. Fochi, A. Zașciuc), documents from the Central Scientific Archive of the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Moldova, the New Linguistic Atlas of Romania, Moldova and Bukovyna (1987), as well as personal observations recorded by the authors of the study in Ukraine and Romania during ethnographic expeditions. In the calendar rites of the Romanians of Bukovyna, some clear Slavic elements can be identified, such as some names of calendar holidays, Ukrainian elements in such rites as koliada, the Christmas star, shchedruvannya. Ukrainian motifs of musical folklore in winter rites, as well as the use of the names of Ukrainian opryshky and haidamaky, the adaptation of the “walking with vertep”, the use of the term vidma of Ukrainian origin, the penetration of the name and main text of the Ukrainian Malanka, etc.
More...
This paper aims to reconstruct the way in which the Romanian written culture from the second half of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth gradually built the image of the Russian Enlightened monarchy with three of its most famous representatives: Peter II, Catherine II and Alexander I. By means of translating from Italian and German historiography, these texts served a double goal: on the one hand they satisfied the reader’s need for knowledge and understanding of the contemporary events, and on the other they contributed to a political discourse that viewed Russia and the Russian Orthodox monarchy as potential saviours of the Romanian principalities from the oppression of the Muslim Ottoman Empire. By means of translation analysis, we have attempted to illustrate how the Western image of an Eastern monarch, guided by a blend of Western philosophy and Eastern Orthodox tradition, was transferred in the Romanian culture as a scientific base for political and cultural decisions.
More...
My previous research has shown that Orthodox monasteries, as compared to the Catholic Mounts of Piety, were functioning in the logic of medieval banks. For instance, they served as places of deposit through donations of real estate; the surplus of annual revenues was in turn channelled, on the one hand, for the liturgical commemoration of the donor and, on the other hand, for the assistance to the poor. Donors were thus investing in their salvation while contributing to the common good of the Christian community as well. The “Romanian” monasteries dedicated as metochia to the Eastern Patriarchates fell within the same pattern, except for particularities which stemmed from the specific profile of the donors. Most often they and their descendants were Christian subjects of the Ottoman Empire residing in the Romanian lands or they were ruling princes appointed by the Porte and attached to power networks in Constantinople and Rumelia. Consequently, sacred investing went towards the great monasteries located in the places of origin of the donors, that is, under the jurisdiction of the “Greek” Patriarchates. The double goal of donors was first to secure themselves prayers of commemoration in their place of origin, in prestigious and lasting places of worship, and then to protect the “invested” patrimony from the vicissitudes of time. Furthermore, tacitly donations assisted their poor compatriots and maintained the common weal of their native community, which was the Church itself. I have sustained this argument by comparing the practice of the dedication of “Romanian” metochia to the Holy Places of Orthodoxy to the communal evergetism displayed by the members of the Greek community in Venice via the deposit of large sums of money in Venetian banks. Based on this comparison, it appears that the economic activities of the “Greek” monasteries, which administered the metochia acquired north of the Danube, consisted in putting to work the real estate of the metochia through farming, trade, rental, or pawn brokering, just as money produced profit in Venetian banks. All these peculiarities, which characterized the Wallachian and Moldavian churches dedicated to the Greek Patriarchates, i.e., being founded and subsidized by migrants, accommodating travellers, or practicing trade, explain the concentration of the metochia in and near the urban centres of Wallachia and Moldavia, more precisely in proximity to markets and to migrant communities. The present study examines closely this ingenious system put in place by the Greek monks, consisting, on the one hand, of channelling the income from the lands scattered throughout Wallachia and Moldavia to the metochia situated in the towns, which in turn devoted themselves to reinvesting the gains in urban real estate, commercial, and financial affairs and, on the other hand, to attract donations from wealthy migrants and from their descendants concentrated in urban centres.
More...
Samokov is a small town with an exceptional cultural and spiritual heritage. It is founded in the 14th century as a small mining settlement and in a short time, it occupied as a significant place on the map when it is one of the major iron mining and processing centers. The Bulgarian population is strongly united around the Christian faith and ancestral roots. A significant sign of this are the five Christian churches built on the relatively small territory of the city, which for 350 years was the spiritual and administrative center of the Samokov Diocese (1557–1907). One of the most ancient churches is dedicated to the ‘Introduction of the Virgin Merry of God‘ located in the northern part of the city. The written documents refer to the existence of a small Christian church here which has been renovated and expanded at various times In its current form the church was built in 1829–1834. It was consecrated on 14.09.1834 (Crossroads Day) by Metropolitan Ignatius P. of Samokov. The church like the others in the city is partially frescoed. The iconostasis was made by Debar masters and the icons are the work of the Samokov painters founders of the famous icon painting and art school. Several ‘Jerusalems‘ written and richly ornamented on animal skin, which contain pictures from the earthly life of Christ the Savior and His mother – the Holy Virgin are well preserved. These shrouds were donated by returning pilgrims to the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem whom they called ’hadji’.The church library contains many old printed liturgical books and some them date back to the 16th century. For several decades, it was working the city’s first chamber’s school and it was teaching Bulgarian children to read and write.
More...
Georgian ecclesiastical hymns and folk songs are perceived within one musical language. However, the stylistic palette of Georgian song is more diverse than that of generally more regulated chants. Nevertheless, Georgian church chants made a significant contribution to the development of expression techniques of Georgian folk music tradition. Apparently, This tendency was more manifested in the following directions: • Increase in the melody volume and centonization principle (linking the phrases) in the songs; • Differences between Acharan and Gurian songs through the Prism of changing religious situation; • Structural and dramaturgical proximity of Svan hymn-like songs and mourning song “Zari” to church hymns; • Similarity of “ghighini”, festive hymns and some merry songs, as well as “live lie” songs with church hymns; • Modal mode and parallele voices in para-liturgical hymns and folk songs.
More...