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Euzebijo Fermendžin was born in Vinga, the Banat region (Romania) and was a descendant of catholicized Bulgarian Paulicians from Nikopol, who had left their homes at the beginning of the 18th century but haven’t lost their Bulgarian national consciousness. Fermendzhin was better known in Rome and the Vatican, in Vienna and Hungary, in Croatia, than he was in our lands, but spiritually, emotionally and creatively, he was also related to Bulgaria. He reached the highest positions in the Franciscan Order, he was a professor at Catholic schools and academies; a corresponding member of the South Slavic Academy of Sciences in Zagreb; for some time he was the head of the well-known multivolume edition of Luke Vading ”Annales Minorum”, in which were published documents and studies on the history of the Franciscan Order all over the world and others. Collector and compiler of ”Acta Bulgaria ecclesiastica ...”, a large volume of documents on Bulgarian church history from 1565 to 1799, published in Zagreb in 1887, and also the collections ”Acta Bosnae potissimum ecclesiastca ...”, of ”Acta Croatiae ...” and others.
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In philosophy of religion the term of Immanence is mostly applied to GOD in contrast to the divine Transcendence. This relation, as we will see here, it is not far from the truth since one cannot be without the other, however they are not to be put in contrast, but in conjunction. The one-sided insistence on the immanence of God, to the exclusion of His transcendence, leads to Pantheism, just as the one-sided insistence upon His transcendence, to the exclusion of His immanence, leads to Deism. These two can be separated, but the consequences are great for human knowledge and society; it is the two taken together that result in, and are necessary to Theism. But from the least complicated idea that even the name of God is a manifestation of His immanence contrasting with Deus absconditus, whose existence and name cannot be known or thought, theology and religion in general need to regard immanence of God as crucial for the acts of worship. What are the philosophical background for Christian theology to imply the immanence characteristic for God’s existence related to His creation? – This is the main question the present work tries to answer as an overview.
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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.
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The great work of the Solun Brothers – Saints Cyril and Methodius – undoubtedly played an important part in the creation of the national identity and national awareness for many Slavic nations. Considering importance of the Cyril and Methodius heritage, it seems surprising how little their images were used on national coinage – one of the most common and most important symbols of independent nations. The only countries that paid a tribute to Solun Brother’s legacy, while creating their national identity were Slovakia, Bulgaria and Macedonia; by placed them in certain cultural, political and ideological context on collector’s items as well as on everyday currency.
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Hands language as a means of expression in rhetoric and fine arts, the rules of which were presented mainly by the Roman authors Cicero and Quintilian, continued to stir interest over the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and strongly influenced artists and their iconographic reference points. English physician and rhetorician John Bulwer (1606–1656) devoted a few of his significant works to studying of the human gesture system, offering over 120 chirograms (types) of particular meanings. Spanish mathematician Juan Caramuel (1606–1682) studied the rhetorical wealth of chirologia, defining it as a major means of human communication. Hand gestures with fingers locked together is traditionally deemed to be a Christian prayer gesture, where palms are pressed together with fingers straight pointing up. In fact, the locked together fingers, known as early as the Antiquity, unlike the prayer gesture that emerged as late as the late medieval period, designated something else: a moment of deep sadness and suffering reflecting the strong tension of the mind. French artist Georges de La Tour uses this gesture as a basis for reflection on the vanity of worldly goods. Thus the position of the hands played the role of both a plastic device and an iconographic symbol.
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The music of Polish composers of the Romanticism is still quite a forgotten and undiscovered area. One of the examples of that issue are the works of Joseph Poniatowski (1816–1873), a composer who spent a significant part of his life abroad. His work concentrates mainly on the opera music, which was largely dictated by the environment from which he descended and in which he stayed. The purpose of this article is to draw attention to one of the composer’s forgotten works – Mass in F major, and also to presently selected topics related to this work.
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At the end of the Turkish era the royal administration recovered the Diósgyőr dominium, including Miskolc, and in 1702 the inhabitants of Miskolc took loans and redeemed themselves from the serfdom for half a century. In 1755 the town returned to the administration of the crown’s dominium falling under royal property law, and o ffices of the dominium were established in Miskolc, and the establishments and facilities of the economic and business activities of the dominium appeared. After an almost 150 years’ predominance of the Reformed Church, a Roman Catholic parish was re-established in Miskolc and in the 1720s; a Catholic church was also built. The gaining ground of Catholicism was reinforced by the settlement of the Minorite order in Miskolc. The increase and strengthening of the central functions of the town are indicated by the fact that in the 18th century Miskolc became the permanent seat of Borsod County.
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The study deals with the characteristics of Opava, the metropolis of one of the Silesian principalities in the period of completion of political and religious transformation (circa 1630 – 1660) and culminating transformation of the burgher society. Its elites are classified as people (and their families) with the highest extent of social prestige and political rights that shaped the public life of the locality in a fundamental way. It states that in Opava in the given period it concerned estimated 20 – 25 people/families out of circa 300 burgher families and 500 – 600 settled families. It perceives family strategies as intentional steps and activities aimed towards improving and strengthening of the positions of an individual and his or her family in the private, professional and public areas, and ensuring (improving) the status of the descendants in the town, respectively the country society. Based on the present micro-studies, it declares the initial theses for the consequent research considering the following strategies: 1. ensuring and enlarging of the real estates of municipal and free (nobility) character as a source of strengthening the social status and influence, as well as securing the family positions, 2. nobilitation as a source of achieving an exceptional position in the municipal society, 3. transitional rituals (marriage, christening, funeral) where the most substantial role is seen in the marriage policy and the choice of partners for the members of the elites and their children, or alternatively the closest relatives, 4. support of education and directing of the professional orientation of the descendants. The study also indicates further possible activities that may be included into family strategies that so far stand completely (or almost completely) aside from the interest of historical research of Opava in the given period (expansion of the family memory, marriages across the social classes, motivation and features of private bonds and contacts, relations of burghers and household members without blood and relative bonds, etc.)
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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“?
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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.
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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.
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