The Resonant Icon of the Romanians, Tatăl Nostru (Our Father) by Ciprian Porumbescu

Author(s): Ruxandra Mirea,Ciprian SAVIN / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2016

Ciprian Porumbescu was the Romanian composer who brought his contribution to the national cultural gallery, serving the art of sounds through his faith. In the course of his short life (1853- 1883), he brought into the hearts of Romanian people a warm creation, with a gentle touch, but full of powerful emotional force. His style is part of the Romanticism, revealing ways of expression and musical languages endowed with strong emotional feelings, the love of God, of people, of family. His work, often pictorial,creates musical images through natural and harmonious bindings, that are, also, simple,suggestive and easy to be perceived. Ciprian Porumbescu decided to dedicate his life to serving God through his music. The valuable sacral works of the composer are the expression of his everlasting love for God Almighty. The lyrics of the Prayer to God,selected by the composer, are those from the Gospel of Matthew 6- 9-13. The content of the prayer, with a two-dimensional structure, carries a genuine symbolism through its messages. The work has 40 measures, this meaning the 40 days in which our Savior Jesus Christ, spent on earth, after His Resurrection, revealing himself to all, until His ascension to Heaven on the mount Tabor.

Church, Society and Conflict

Author(s): Nicolae Popescu / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2016

In a recent suggestive description of our society we are warned of the impact of the relation between Religion (in our case between the Church) and Society upon humanity: „The changes in the last quarter of a century that comes at the end of the millennium are, to an un-researched extent, great religious insurrections. The state of the world depends on more and more heavily upon man’s religious condition. The millennium started on a secular note, progressively emphasized to the atheist globalization, which combines hedonism and the „gospel of the market” with Marxist communism, to close down on n incredibly pure religious note, that is, in the exactly opposed note. Thus, the „pagan” millennium draws to an end, exhausting the illusion of the great European para-religions and pseudo-religions, from the rationalist one to the individualist one or the Marxist atheist one”. The rebirth of the interest for Religion and for the increasingly powerful global assertion of the a Religious Movements reveals the fact that – without the need to cultivate false prophecies on conflicts between religions or civilizations – the religious dimension will evidently play (because of fundamentalist ideologies), an increasingly important role in conflict situations and it might even be a source of conflict with consequences upon the process of globalization.

Zagadnienie pochodzenia idei Boga w ujęciach Kartezjusza i J. L. Wolzogena

Author(s): Paweł Kosiński / Language(s): Polish Issue: 5/2015

My paper concerns René Descartes’s conception of innate idea of God and Johann Ludwig von Wolzogen’s critique of Descartes’s view. I gave a detailed analysis of the content of Meditations on First Philosophy by René Descartes and the content of Obiections to Descartes’ Meditations by Wolzogen, and on that basis, I reconstructed Descartes and Wolzogen’s views. It was also necessary to show the historical context of both philosophers’ ideas. Descartes argued that the idea of a perfect and infinite being was placed in mind by God. Wolzogen wanted to show that Descartes didn’t prove the idea of innate God. He believed that all ideas derive from sense experience and the mind generates idea of God. My main purpose was to show that Wolzogen accepted Thomistic’s view in which the human mind has imperfect concept of God.

Warrior Saints as Protectors of the Byzantine Army in the Palaiologan Period: the Case of the Rock-cut Hermitage in Kolchida (Kilkis prefecture)

Author(s): Melina Paissidou / Language(s): English,Bulgarian Issue: 1/2015

Saints, Eunuchs, and Iconography

Author(s): Emmanuel Mutafov / Language(s): English,Bulgarian Issue: 1/2015

Митове и факти за Килифаревския манастир

Author(s): Aleksander Kuyumdzhiev / Language(s): English,Bulgarian Issue: 1/2015

The identification of the monastery, founded by St Theodosius of Turnovo in the 14th century with the present day Kilifarevski monastery is wrong due to inaccuracy in the text of the saint’s vita made in the late 18th century by the monk Spyridon in the Rila Monastery. He relayed the name of the monastery as ΚиλΪɸɑƿстЂи monastery, while in the Rila Panegyric (1479) it is written that the monastery was founded in the ΚѥɸɑλɑƿЕвО area. This incorrect transcription puts the base of a legend that St Theodosius founded Kilifarevski monastery, which was endorsed by the bringing of Spyridon’s copy of Life of Theodosius in the Kilifarevski monastery on March 1, 1817 by the mendicant friar of the Rila Monastery in the region, monk Gabriel. This is the date from which begins the veneration of St Theodosius of Turnovo in Kilifarevski monastery, and the legend is further sustained in 1842 with the construction of the new catholicon where, as a tribute to the work of Spyridon and the Rila Monastery, a chapel was dedicated to both St John of Rila and St Theodosius. Consequently, all the early images from before 1817, which are thought to be images of St Theodosius of Turnovo should actually be interpreted as images of St Theodosius the Cenobiarch (c. 423–529), and in support of this comes the fact that not a single image of St Theodosius prior to 1842 was explicitly inscribed as Theodosius of Turnovo.

Славянските просветители Кирил и Методий и късновъзрожденските зографи

Author(s): Elena Genova / Language(s): English,Bulgarian Issue: 1/2015

The church murals of the period of Bulgarian National Revival include inevitably in the tier of the standing saints representations of SS Cyril and Methodius, among the Slavic holy hierarchs. An extraordinary in terms of its scope phenomenon of the age was the mass painting of their images together on icons and murals. Each church either commissioned or was presented with several at times icons of the holy brothers or icon-painters rendered their representations. The shaping of the representations of SS Cyril and Methodius in a joint composition, evincing certain attributes, could be explained not only by the rapid and ubiquitous establishing of a jointly celebrated feast day of the two saints. This composition was predicated on literary sources rather than on repetition and copying of medieval models. It highlighted their isoapostolic contribution to the cause. In the late nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries, a team of icon-painters from Bansko worked in the southwestern parts of Bulgaria: Michalko Uvanov Golev and Dimiter Sirleshtov, who painted 11 churches in the regions of Blagoevgrad and Kyustendil. SS Cyril and Methodius are painted at the churches of The Presentation of the Most Holy Mother of God into the Temple, Blagoevgrad (1882–1889); of St John the Baptist, village of Bistritsa/Dubova Neighbourhood (1882–1883); St Elijah the Prophet, village of Selishte(1888–1889); St Michael the Archangel, village of Leshko (1889); The Holy Ascension, village of Pokrovnik (1891–1901); St Demetrius, village of Drenkovo (1892–1893); St Demetrius, village of Marulevo (1893); St Michael the Archangel, village of Logodash (1896–1898); SS Peter and Paul, village of Palat, region of Blagoevgrad (1909–1910). The representations of SS Cyril and Methodius by Michalko Golev and Dimiter Sirleshtov demonstrate the various types of compositions they have used, including the representations of the holy brother in the altar apse. Moreover, they show also the committed attitude towards the personalities of the holy brothers, typical not only of the two icon-painters, but also of the rest of the icon-painters from the region, who stood for their national identity until 1912.

Зограф Филип

Author(s): Mariela Stoykova / Language(s): English,Bulgarian Issue: 1/2015

In the publications on Bulgarian Revival art the facts about the icon-painter Philip are completely missing. He became well-known in the recent time: in the Winter of 2014, when the Apostles frieze if the Church “Sts Cosmas and Damian” of the monastery in the village Guiguintsi, has been cleaned by the restorer Alexandar Penev. He has discovered the signature of the icon-painter located under the images of Sts Apostles Andrew and Marc. Two of the icons of the Royal doors at the monastery of Guiguintsi are part of the Permanent Exhibition in the Museum for Christian Art in the Crypt. The rest of them are still in the monastery. They are depicted about 1814–1815 after the its renovation. From all the collected materials we can conclude that Philip Zograph was very creative and productive. Nevertheless he stood away from the public interest and knowledge. According to Bulgarian Revival art researchers Philip Zograph is an artist with a very specific manner of expression. This is the reason why he could be very easily identified. The earliest among his preserved ions in Bulgaria is the one with the images of St Virgin Hodegetria from the church “St Petka the Old” in Sofia. This icon has been depicted about 1814. After that Philip Zograph has arrived in just-renovated monastery of the village Guiguintsi where he has been working and creating for more than an year. Then his errands to the churches “The Holy Veil of Virgin Mary”and “St Nicolaus” in Doupnitsa and “St Nicolaus” in the near village Cherven Breg” (1818) have been accomplished. One year later the icon painter fulfills one of his most important and significant errands to the church “Dormition of Mother of God”, Kyustendil. When this task is already over, he comes back again to the region of Breznik. There is a group of icons, preserved in the Museum of History in Pernik from that period (1819 – 1820). These are almost all of the icons of the Royal doors in the church of “St Petka”, Breznik. The only piece of work dated by the artist himself is the icon of Virgin Mary with the Infant with the Holy 40 Martyrs of Sebastia and St Charalampius (1821) kept in the Crypt – Sofia. Two other icons – part of the iconostasis – date from the same period. They are part of the collection in the National Archaeological and National History Museum in Sofia. The last well-known art work of the icon painter – “Ascension” – is one of the icons on the Royal doors in the church “The Nativity of Christ”, Pirot. Philip has been painting it untill the end of the 20s of the 19th century. Based on the collected data and the efforts made to discover stylistic and iconographic parallels to his work I concluded that there is a close relation between his art and the circle of the icon-painters Kraste from Veles and the monk Antonius from the region of Bitolya, although he works very often with the artists Christo Dimitrov and Ioan the Iconpainter. Analizing the relative dating of the earliest and the last icons of Philip Zograph, we can suppose that he was born in the 60s of the 18 century and died around 1830.

Marriage and transnational family life among Somali migrants in Finland

Author(s): Mulki Al-Sharmani,Abdirashid Ismail / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2017

In this article, we investigate how marriage practices of Somali migrants in Finland are influenced by their transnational kinship. We examine how transnational family ties play a role in migrants’ spouse selection, marriage arrangements, and management of spousal resources. We also identify the factors that enable migrants to successfully navigate marital challenges caused by their transnational kin-based ties. These factors are: companionate marriage relationship based on emotional closeness and flexible spousal roles, compatibility in spousal resources, and the cooperation of couples in navigating transnational family obligations. We show how gender and generation are at play (in complex ways) in the interplay between transnational kinship and marriage. We draw on interview data from 16 married male and female interviewees, taken from a larger sample of 37 interlocutors of different marital statuses. Our analysis is also based on data from focus group discussions.

Z dziejów parafii unickiej pw. św. Michała Archanioła w Perespie w XVIII wieku

Author(s): Janusz Frykowski / Language(s): Polish Issue: 3/2016

Perespa is a tiny village located in Tyszowce gmina (country commune) that lies within the administration of Tomaszów poviat (county) in Lubelskie Voivodship (District). Its roots date back to at least the beginning of 16th century. The first written record about this village claiming it to be abandoned dates back to 1531. However, it is recorded that the Orthodox church functioned there according to the note from 1570. The operation of the Orthodox parish throughout the remaining years of 16th century was also later confirmed. The Uniate parish of Saint Michael the Archangel was the successor of the Orthodox parish. In the beginning, in terms of jurisdiction it belonged to the protopope in Grabowiec. In accordance with the post-visitation protocols the Orthodox church appears to have been wooden and quite well equipped with ecclesiastical utensils. Also, there was a wooden bell tower and a cemetery by the church. Not only did a paroch (parish priest) have some arable land and grassland at his disposal to cultivate and support himself but also he collected various fees from the parishioners. Furthermore, he also was in possession of a parsonage and ancillary buildings. The personal details of past seven parochs presiding at this church in the period this research focuses on has been established whereas the average number of parishioners for the same period that fluctuated with the time is estimated at between 300 and 375.

Stereotyp rodziny w konferencji religijnej XXI wieku

Author(s): Małgorzata Bogusz-Imiołek / Language(s): Polish Issue: 5/2016

The article presents the way the family and its problems are presented in the religious discourse in the 21st century. The religious conferences feature both the traditional family as well as the family which faces the problems of the modern world. The article represents the trend of theolinguistic research.

Opresyjna lub porządkująca funkcja prawa. Karla Poppera i Erica Voegelina interpretacja Platońskiego projektu polis

Author(s): Marcin Sobczak / Language(s): Polish Issue: 38/2016

According to Karl Popper, Plato’s project of an „ideal” organization polis is anti-democratic, totalitarian and racist, and the law on which it is based, is inherently tyrannical, oppressive and diminishing the dignity and freedom of the citizens. On the other hand, according to Eric Voegelin, the same project is therapeutic in its nature – it is an upbringing measure, which aims to restore order, the spiritual unity of polis and provide the citizens with happiness. In my paper, I draw attention to the facts that allow to compare the proposals of both researchers: first of all that both find in the philosophy of Plato the „diagnostic” dimension and that they also see the need for therapy. Basically, however, they differ when it comes to its concretization. In the further part of the article I am pointing to the presumptions, the adoption of which led to the formulation of such extreme opinions. Therefore, I show the assumptions that influenced the fact that Popper saw in Plato tyrannical legislator and Voegelin someone who heals the spiritual condition of polis.

Wymiary ubóstwa zakonnego

Author(s): Grzegorz Firszt / Language(s): Polish,Italian Issue: 1/2014

Sulla base della teologia del Concilio Vaticano II e quella postconciliare, l’articolo tratta dei diversi significati della povertà religiosa. Vengono specificate queste dimensioni: dimensione antropologica, dimensione mistica, dimensione fraterna e dimensione apostolica.

SOSYAL HİZMETİN SOSYOLOJİ VE İLAHİYAT İLE EŞGÜDÜMÜ VE BÜTÜNLEŞMESİ

Author(s): Muhsin Yilmazçoban / Language(s): Turkish Issue: 30/2016

Social Service is more a practical science rather than a theoretical. Just like any other new scientific major, it took its accretion and literature from other social sciences which makes it individual and independent field in Turkey and in the World. There will be always theory exchanges for Social Service with other Social Sciences. It is crucial that this matter would be kept valid with information transitivity inter disciplines for all scientific field. Social Service is a practical oriented and universal scientific major which fulfils sociologic, socio-economic, socio-psychological, psychological, cultural, religious and spiritual needs of human being. With the help of a concrete intermediary fields, a coordination can be provided to have an establishment which sociology and social science links together all with theology. In the last instance, there will be social service specialists or social workers who generate close and one to one service to people and groups with various kind of disadvantages. Being a communication with society which has a strong Islamic faith will help them to make things easier against to risk groups by means of supportive, preventive, rehabilitative and curative. The adoration conscious level would rise with being patient to a person’s condition who needs special assistance. Believing to a redemption comes from his condition will ensure a calm and strong spiritual status with full devotion.

Яначко Станимиров от Брезе

Author(s): Ivanka Gergova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 4/2016

The paper deals with a miscellany in handwriting (SS Cyril and Methodius National Library 1088), compiled in 1840 by Yanachko Stanimirov from the village of Breze and the local priest. The autographs of the icon-painter are used to identify his paintings. His unknown mural ensemble in the Serbian Yillage of Dojkinci is presented in brief. It is assumed that Yanachko Stanimirov has been strongly influenced by icon-painter Kosta Valiov from Samokov, whose journeyman he supposedly has been. Influences of some icons by icon-painter Priest Rade are discernible. Yanachko Stanimirov has used as a model prints contained in the Euchologion, published in Venice in 1761.

Църквата "Св. Анна" в село Яна

Author(s): Maya Zacharieva / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 4/2016

The Church of St Anne is an unpublished and less well explored monument of the early nineteenth-century in Bulgaria. It was built in the cemetery of the village of Yana, district of Sofia. The paper seeks to present the church comprehensively, making some observations about the historic records, architectural specifics and the iconographic programme of an unpublished monument of the first half of the nineteenth century. The extant paintings of 1845 are not signed, but the iconographic and stylistic particularities refer to a group of monuments associated with Yanachko Stanimirov from village of Breze.

Икони на дебърски зографи в българските колекции

Author(s): Mariela Stoikova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 4/2016

The paper deals with a few icons by painters from Debar kept in the collections of the National Art Gallery Museum of Christian Art (NAGMCA), housed in the Crypt of the Cathedral of St Alexander Nevsky, Sofia; of the Metropolitan See, Vidin; of the Church of St George, Zlatograd and a privately owned icon. The best part of these has never been published being an invaluable source of establishing unknown facts related to the work of the Art School of Debar. The icons by Dičo the Icon-painter, have the makings of brilliance presenting good examples of the mature period of his oeuvre. Though their provenance is not fully confirmed, they are an important part of the painter's output and an invaluable source of information about his career. A number of the icons have been painted by Dičo's descendants or journeymen Avram and Krste or by the most gifted of them, Petre. These evince that they did their best to reproduce the models of their master. Though in most of the cases the colour, modeling, proportions and the fineness of Dičo's manner were lost, his trainees remained true to the specific types and compositional methods, developed by Dičo's the Icon-painter in his work. Of these, the icon Petre Debranac excels in professionalism. The rest have been painted by Veno Kostov, Evgenij Kuzmanov, Mario Minov and Nestor Trajanov. Their works were more often than not commissioned directly by renowned members of Bulgarian clergy and intelligentsia whose activities were related to the struggle for an autocephalous Church and the establishing of the Bulgarian Exarchate. The icon-painters from Debar often worked in churches previously painted by masters from Triavna, Samokov or Adrianople, which had influenced their manner.

Няколко мощехранителници от софийски златари

Author(s): Darina Boykina / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 4/2016

The presented six reliquaries have either not been published or have just been mentioned fleetingly in scholarly literature. The best part of the objects is alms boxes carried by taxidiote monks for almsgivings. These are made from hand-chased gold vermeil or are entirely wooden with metal finely decorated repoussé casings. All the objects under consideration have been used in Sofia or in its vicinities, which is attested to in the inscriptions they are bearing or in the books kept by the metropolitan church. In the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries, it was a common practice among the taxidiote monks to enclose relics in a metal casing in the place to which they had been sent on a mission. The boxes were usually small in size, containing a small cross of carved wood and relics. Artefacts would occur among the later monuments made after the mid-nineteenth century that contain not relics but resemble reliquaries just on the face of it, in form and decoration. Some of them feature also painting s representing the patron saint either of the church or the monastery the object comes from. All the reliquaries have been wrought in the nineteenth century by goldsmiths from Sofia. Most of the objects are hand wrought and Eucharistic symbols and images dominate their decoration. In the concluding part of the paper, their stylistic and technical specifics are considered. The presented cult objects both provide new information about the goldsmiths' trade in Sofia and show that local monasteries were actively engaged in alms gathering by monks though of limited in scope compared with the large monastic centres in the Balkans.

Косвени сведения за предатирането на възрожденските стенописи от наоса на Куриловския манастир

Author(s): Aleksander Kuyumdzhiev / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 4/2016

The paper suggests the murals of the National Revival period at the naos of the catholicon of the Monastery of Kurilo, believed to have been done in 1816 or 1846, to be redated. In fact these were, in all probability, painted in 1856 by Theodore, an almost unknown icon-painter coming from the region of what is now the city of Mon­tana. Almost next to nothing is known about him but for his work on the murals at the naos of the catholicons of the Monasteries of Kurilo and of Podgumer as well as the churches of St Petka, Svoge; of St Nicholas, the village of Gintsi and of St Nicholas, the village of Burzia. He was probably Yanachko Stanimirov's journeyman.

“There can be no ecology without an adequate anthropology” (LS 118). Which man can take care of our common home?

Author(s): Alberto Piola / Language(s): English Issue: 23/2016

One of the underlying thesis of Laudato si’ is the close link between anthropology and ecology. Pope Francis calls for an ecological conversion, which involves an adequate anthropology based on an authentic interpretation of man’s creation in God’s likeness. Only the man who sees himself and acts as guardian, and not as a tyrant, can take care of our common home.