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RESEARCH OBJECTIVE: The scientific goal of the article is to analyze the studies of textbooks for teaching religion in terms of used methodology, and to understand the nature of the sociological content analysis in the perspective of teaching materials used in religious education. THE RESEARCH PROBLEM AND METHODS: The problem and research methods are based on the paradigm of constructionism, which describes the social reality as a “network of meanings.” The analysis of the textbooks studies is based on content analysis of research results and research problem concerns the understanding of the specifics of this research technique with respect to the religious educational materials. THE PROCESS OF ARGUMENTATION: The process of reasoning runs from the outline of the methodological assumptions, definition of the specificity of school textbooks, the analysis of the religious education textbooks studies, to the presentation of the specifics of the content analysis focused on coding and constant comparison procedures. RESEARCH RESULTS: The results of scientific analysis boils down to the assertion of the superficial treatment of the content analysis of school textbooks to religious education and the possibilities of improving this research technique. CONCLUSIONS, INNOVATIONS, AND RECOMMENDATIONS: The conclusions, innovations, and recommendations focus on the formulation of methodological postulates: a deeper, semantic and sociological approach to content analysis of religious education textbooks, which can contribute to the empirical-based understanding of the social meaning of religion.
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RESEARCH OBJECTIVE: Account of religious education in the perspective of the morphogenetic approach, formulated by Margaret Archer on the assumptions of critical realism. THE RESEARCH PROBLEM AND METHODS: Research problem: what is the understanding of religious education from the perspective of formulated by Archer morphogenetic approach; method: hermeneutics. THE PROCESS OF ARGUMENTATION: In the following points are shown: 1) the controversy regarding the interpretation of religious education; 2) the theory of socialization formulated by Archer; 3) the analysis of religion from the perspective of morphogenesis; 4) the account of religious education in the light of morphogenesis. RESEARCH RESULTS: The independent from education experience of transcendental reality should be perceived as the source of religious development; religious education is a help in the interpretation of this experience and in the search for a modus vivendi in relation to the concerns from different orders: natural, practical, social and transcendent. CONCLUSIONS, INNOVATIONS, AND RECOMMENDATIONS: Because religious education refers to an independent experience, lack of religious education may result in difficulties in interpreting the experience of the Transcendence and formulating a modus vivendi or taking over the irrational or fundamentalist proposals present in culture.
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RESEARCH OBJECTIVE: The aim of the article is to consider contemporary culture of the words in the family, that is the foundation of the spiritual family culture and intra-family relationships, which, in turn, appear to be a model of references and relations between the child and the surrounding world and with others, as well. THE RESEARCH PROBLEM AND METHODS: A research problem was posed: how the words, which are the elements of spiritual family culture, are presented nowadays in this environment and how do they shape relationships. The method of analysis and synthesis of the subjective literature was used and an overview of selected studies was done. THE PROCESS OF ARGUMENTATION: The article focuses on the dimension of the spiritual family culture. Among its essential elements related to upbringing there are “the words.” The words’ culture is present in the form of interactions between people at different levels and in different areas of family life. It determines the quality of existence and development of individual members of the family and the family seen as an entity. RESEARCH RESULTS: The words in the context of family life are considered as one of the basic factors influ encing the development of love and proximity, as well as mutual relationships and tie. Word’s cul ture includes verbal and non-verbal communication and the “written word.” Its quality depends on family members. Contemporary threats to “words” is the development of new media, where the picture (visually) dominates. CONCLUSIONS, INNOVATIONS, AND RECOMMENDATIONS: The words are one of the most common means which culture applies; they can support or stop human development. Therefore, it ought to become the object of contemporary man’s concern. The family plays an important role here, that is revealed in introducing words into the world, teaching ways of communication, where dialogue plays role.
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In this article, we wish to highlight the fact that the words “with much power” of mother Monica won the soul of her son, Augustine, and directed him towards moral beauty, writing the words of eternal life in his heart. And Augustine, as soon as he received the power of the Word, stood up and came close to the light of divinity. The power of the word is extraordinary. Every word has power, because it is someone’s, because through the word someone’s desire and will is expressed. And the desire, the will, the call of that moves the one towards whom it goes. Man subdues man. Man gives power to man, primarily through the word. Saint Monica, like the other great saints of the Church, when she reached the revealed experience and found herself in mystical ecstasy or in the uncreated Light, “there”, in those states, there are no created words and meanings, in other words, categories of human thought, which are formulated and expressed through rational processes. “The experience of glorification (δοξαςμός) surpasses all words and meanings. Saint Monica partook of the uncreated words and meanings and then transmitted this experience of seeing God to Augustine, through created words and meanings to heal him, so that he too, using the created words and meanings, would be guided to the uncreated words and meanings, to the experience of revelation. When Augustine lives the experience of revelation, created words andmeanings are transcended, since he experiences uncreated reality itself.
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BOOK REVIEW: Philip Jenkins. 2018. Istoria pierdută a creștinismului - The Lost History of Christianity, The Thousand-Year Golden Age of the Church in The Middle East, Africa, and Asia – and How It Died. Translated by Maria Moroiu. Scientific consultant hieromonk Agapie Corbu. Baroque Books & Arts. 185 pp.
More...How our belief system defines our health
What if our spiritual beliefs make us a negative character? What if we hurt ourselves and our loved ones by clinging too tightly to what we believe? What if, at the end of life, when we meet God, He asks: "How was Heaven"? What if we are wrong? There are so many spiritual paths now, so much information, so much Knowledge to absorb, and so much fake knowledge to differentiate. Each time the inner barometer of discrimination gets overwhelmed, the current beliefs become stronger, even if they are flawed. The lack of mental and spiritual flexibility can slowly take the shape of ignorance and somatization. The physical body is the meeting point between the spiritual and the material and as a result, symptoms of confusion may occur in the physical body. This paper aims to emphasize the connection between spiritual beliefs, relationship with God, and somatoform disorders using a narrative review. By accepting the unacceptable and opening the belief system, one may be able to relieve the somatic symptoms and regain control of the body.
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Human beings have will, but is it free? According to Sufism, which finds its grounds in religious texts and dominantly the Quran, the body is a cage, and the spirit is like a bird in it. Therefore, free will has dimensions. Sufism suggests going beyond the limits of senses with an effort to know the self and thus become one with the Divine to reach real freedom. This article aims to explain consciousness in terms of Sufism and science.
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Creation groans from humankind’s fall into sin and the curse placed on it, and from humankind’s mistreatment of it, contrary to what God envisioned when he brought the universe into existence. This article seeks to show that God intended a harmony in his creation between humans and nonhumans right from the beginning. Even when sin brough chaos into God’s good creation, God continued to work towards bringing creation to its intended purposes. Thus, God chose Israel and the Promised Land to do with them what he desired for the whole creation. When history repeated itself and Israel went into exile, God announced the renewal of creation. This plan that God has had all along for his creation betrays a particular value he attributes to it. It is only natural that we, as stewards of creation, be equally interested in the protection of God’s creation.
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Creation is not what it was intended by God to be. It has been suffering the effects of the curse over humankind. Yet, God has not abandoned his plan for his creation to make it glorify him, but sent his Son into creation in order to redeem it. This article seeks to explain Jesus’ central role in inaugurating and consummating the renewal of rebellious creation. We see the first signs of redemption in Jesus’ victory over Satan in the wilderness temptation, in his authority over the rebellious nature, and supremely on the cross. His departure from earth meant that the second stage of consummation will follow later. Thus, Paul explains in what ways reconciliation of all things to God have an “already” dimension and a “not yet” one. Presently, redemption through Jesus’ death and resurrection is limited to spiritual salvation, but it anticipates the physical redemption of the human bodies and the material redemption of the natural world. At Jesus’ return, “all things will be made new,” meaning not a replacement of the first creation but a renewal of it. This biblical understanding of the new creation, that Jesus first inaugurated but will eventually consummate, shows that creation has value to God and therefore should have value to those who love God and their neighbor.
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The main founder of churches and ecclesiastical institutions in the early Middle Ages was the duke, while from the 12th century magnates also became involved in founding these institutions. Gifts went to God and the saints. In the early period of founders, the property donated to the Church was treated in the spirit of respecting the rights of the proprietary churches. The law of patronage, which was progressively implemented during the 13th century and first half of the 14th century brought change. The most common holders of the right of patronage in the Bohemian Kingdom and the Moravian Margraviate were the king, the margrave, individual noble families, bishops, monasteries, chapters, Royal towns, and occasionally patrician families. A priest who applied for a parish benefice had to submit proof of his ordination and a presentation document from the church patron. Following confirmation from the vicar general, he received a confirmation document showing that he was the authorised holder of the particular parish benefice. Parish benefice confirmations were recorded in the confirmation books held by the vicars general.
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The study presents the history of the Ukrainian territories, where the beginnings of the Russian state and the Russian Church were, from Christianization to the middle of the 17th century. Today’s Ukraine and Belarus have been included in the Polish-Lithuanian Union since the 14th century. The Orthodox were deprived of any civil rights, being considered serfs. A minority at the top of society, along with the higher clergy, embraced union with the Church of Rome in order to maintain their class positions within the Polish state, and the mass of the people remained faithful to Orthodox traditions. Metropolitan Petru Movilă of Romanian origin was providential for the Church of Ukraine, which he defended, strengthened it on an institutional level (within the Polish kingdom), on a dogmatic and liturgical level (through fundamental books), trained its ministers, organized – it (through administration and discipline), endowed it with new founders, danes and extensive restoration works of the old places. he was an outgrowth of Ukrainian culture, in whose revival, in a European and national sense, he played a decisive role.
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Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) are directly at forefront of development. The course of action of AI by law prerequisite organizations, militaries, and ventures around the world has sown question interior the common open, as various fear that these unused developments jeopardize their most crucial human rights. The culture of human rights is as of presently acknowledged to be a cutting edge reality that mankind cannot bear to live without. It is by and huge seen as a need that›s likely to advance human relations and bring around nonstop peace and understanding between individuals and among bunches of people. By this article we will have an understanding of the religious bases for human rights concern and activism, so that we can be prepared to counter common complaints, verbalized inside a few Christian circles, to association in human rights promotion and challenged towards proactive engagement in advancing equity with sympathy.
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The war that today saddens the entire humanity started from the ambition of a great military and economic power, Russia, which for three decades does not accept the idea that the Ukrainian people are not identical with the Russian people and that Ukraine is another state that wants to build its own way into history. A similar phenomenon happened years ago through the tragic war in the Balkans, when Serbia could not accept the independence of the Kosovo region and the idea that another people lived there with their own ambitions. The Russian-Ukrainian war has a major impact on the lives of Orthodox believers around the world. We see clerics who bless war and incite hatred towards brothers of the same faith, who have turned into tools of an aggressor state and believe political illusions that have nothing to do with the love of the Savior Jesus Christ. In this study I present the historical events that led to the tragic inter-Orthodox war.
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This study aims to examine how contemporary man uses the divine gift of freedom. On the one hand, man, freed from sin by the Sacrament of Baptism, can grow in freedom to the extent that he opens himself to the work of grace and fulfils the works of freedom, i.e. the virtues. On the other hand, if he is caught up in the whirlwind of life’s various choices in order to find professional fulfilment, he may not find his desires fulfilled and may not feel the joy of earthly life, thus falling prey to fears, fears, unhappiness and neurotic-depressive behaviour, which has been exacerbated in recent years by the various global crises (the COVID-19 pandemic, the war in the Soviet Union, etc.).
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Research on Lutheran confessional culture in Transylvania has focused mainly on pinpointing the official theology and the antagonism towards Calvinism. The paper attempts to show, on the basis of the archival documents of the Antesilvanum Chapter based in Sebeș, how the election of pastors in the 17th century, especially towards the end of the 17th century, is a characteristic feature of Lutheran confessional culture, which corresponds to the results of research in this field. Analyzing the microhistory of a multi-ethnic chapter, composed of towns and villages located on the Fundus regius or on the Noblemen’s domains, we found out how the chapter representatives tried to maintain their customs regarding what they considered one of the pillars of freedom of the privileged Saxon churches: the election of pastors by the local communities through the chapter’s supervision and the patronage of the superintendent. The oppressive climate imposed by the preference of the princes of Transylvania towards Calvinism and the political regime with its obvious absolutistic tendencies led to the “embedding” of the Lutheran confessional identity. In the case of the election of pastors, this is manifested in the rigorism and obstinacy with which the chapter tries to maintain its own procedures and customs, which is difficult to achieve, for example, in the context of a serf village with a very influential landowner who is ignorant of Saxon ecclesiastical particularities, or in the context of free villages whose electors are subject to pressure from the Saxon political elite, both at the level of the Nation's University and at the level of the Seats, with no lesser interference than from the nobility. It was even more interesting to observe how the representatives of the church united with the political leadership of the Seats and the University in depriving the Romanian inhabitants of the free villages of participating in the election of the Saxon pastor, to whom they paid tithes.
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The present article can be considered a contribution to the oral history and contains the description of the fields of duty that a protestant pastor’s wife had in a Transylvanian Saxon parish until the beginning of the 21st century. As an introduction there is a brief overview over the evolution of the parsonage as a religious institution beneath the church beginning with the Lutheran Reformation in the 16th century in Germany. The author is a protestant pastor’s wife herself and recounts some of her experiences living in a village parish where the pastor and his wife were seen as the father and mother of the parish. Among the wife’s duties was the organizing of the women’s association in the village, baking gingerbread for all children at Christmas and Easter, teaching religion at school but also privately (the only possibility in communist Romania), being a good host to all arriving guests, whether invited or not, and many other activities. After the fall of communism through the revolution in December 1989, almost 90% of the German speaking population of Romania, the so-called Transylvanian Saxons, left for Germany. This historical event meant the end of the parsonage as an institution within the parishes and the Evangelical church.
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Religious concepts are sensitive to personal and cultural influences. Research data have attempted to find a universal theory that explains individuals' religious experiences. Each person has a different interpretation of religious concepts because a number of factors (environment, education, religious experiences, socio-economic status) act on each of us. In this study, we aim to analyze research that was conducted between 2005-2023 on the representation of God in childhood. We note that there is not a large body of research on this topic, let alone in our country.
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It is well-known that the Byzantine liturgical type has one specific rite called the zeon, which implies a second infusion of water into the chalice after the consecration of the Holy Eucharistic gifts. According to this rite, just before communion boiling water is poured into the consecrated chalice by the Eastern Orthodox deacon or priest. A thorough analysis of this sacred act was performed by Robert Taft (1932‒2018), who stated that simultaneous appearance in the 11th century of the zeon rite, its symbolic and theological explanation in the commentators of Byzantine liturgical type, and the liturgical formulas expressing this symbolism, point to the origins of zeon rite in the 11th century. Above all, Taft believed that Nicholas Cabasilas’ zeon mystagogy (14th century) had resolved the problem of its theological understanding. However, our approach to the question of recognizing the exact period of institution of the zeon rite was based first of all on the arguments of Iconoclasts concerning their explanation of Divine Eucharist. They thought that the Holy Bread and the Holy Chalice after the consecration are just the icons of Christ. Exactly this point of view caused – according to our opinion – the introduction of the zeon rite in Constantinople, probably during the 10th century. The first evidence for this hypothesis is the liturgical manuscript Dresden Praxapostol A 104 (first half of the 11th century), where the zeon rite is mentioned under another word, τὸ θερμόν (to thermon), in the last group of rubrics for the Liturgy of Presanctified Gifts. Other authors from the 11th century, a monk and priest from the Constantinopolitan monastery of Studios, Nicetas Stethatos, and the liturgical commentary The Protheoria: Or, Summary Commentary Concerning the Symbols and Mysteries Occurring in the Divine Liturgy (the second half of the 11th century) testify about thezeon rite as an established sacred practice in the Eastern Orthodox Church. The aim of the zeon rite is very clear. Since the warm water represents the image of life on account of the heat, it is added at the moment of communion, so that touching the lips to the chalice and receiving the blood in communion, the Eastern Orthodox Christians are confident that they are drinking from Christ’s vivifying breast, with the feel of the heat typifying that divinity has not been taken away. The place where the zeon rite was introduced was most likely the Church of Divine Wisdom (St. Sofia) in Constantinople, which even had a Holy Oven (ὁ ἅγιος φοῦρνος – ho agios fournos) in its sacristy (to skevofilakion), where boiling water could be prepared. Finally, such a unique element of Byzantine liturgical type has remained until today the indispensable sacred sign of theological and liturgical tradition of the Eastern Orthodox Church.
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