Orthodoxy and the holy dynasty in the Balkans (14th – 15th centuries) Cover Image

ORTODOXIA ȘI DINASTIA SFÂNTĂ ÎN BALCANI ÎN SECOLELE XIV-XV
Orthodoxy and the holy dynasty in the Balkans (14th – 15th centuries)

Author(s): Ştefan Stareţu
Subject(s): History
Published by: Universitatea »Dunarea de Jos« din Galati -Facultatea de Istorie, Teologie și Filosofie
Keywords: orthodoxy; Roman Empire; monarchy; Orthodox Serbia; Holy Dinasty; Kossovopolije.

Summary/Abstract: Orthodoxy as a political community, has always sought to implement a social order based on its principles. The Christian idea of restoring the monarchy as it is theorized here appears for the first time when Constantine the Great became a Christian. He renounced state sacrifices and adopted not a Gnostic form, but a nicenian form as the religion of the imperial family. The phenomena was continued by Theodosius the Great who really turned the Roman Empire into a Christian empire. However, the republican character of the Roman Empire, later the Byzantine Empire, would not disappear. The Senate is reduced in importance, and even the republican institutions and the title of imperator romanorum remains. And so a conflict between the idea of a Christian state and the realities of the Roman Empire breaks out. The adoption of the sacral anointing will not resolve this conflict. There are various eulogies and comparisons with David hagiographers, including Eusebius, but a definition of the state through this approach has not been done. While in the Talmudic Judaism the Messianic idea disappears, the search for the Davidic succession giving rise to the Kabbalistic intellectual experience, in the area of Orthodox Serbia the concept of the sacred monarchy will be reconstructed. So Judaism no longer identifies with the temple, but with cabalistic Gnostic ideas. Judaism will not pray for the Messiah of the lineage of David until after the 16th century. Jewish prayer books have no previous mention of Solomon's temple or sacrifices (korbanot) or the messiah. Meanwhile, Serbian documents given through donation to the different monasteries will make reference to donations that David and Solomon made to the temple. As an archetype for the donations they will paint the churches with David and Solomon as ancestors. These realities are coupled with the idea of a holy dynasty. The idea of a holy dynasty took full composition in iconography by overlapping the Jesse tree to the tree of Decani with the sacred dynasty nemanide, time maximum manifestation in history of fulfillment of the promise of restoring the text of the Ascension of the Kingdom of Israel, which will culminate with the Kossovopolije Vidovdan ideology, choice of heavenly kingdom. The paper aims to highlight the role of the Serbian dynasty in the Balkans, including influences in the Romanian space.

  • Issue Year: 8/2015
  • Issue No: suppl.
  • Page Range: 33-48
  • Page Count: 16