„Expositio Symboli Apostolorum” Jana z Kwidzyna jako źródło badań nad średniowieczną teologią i egzegezą biblijną

Author(s): Marek Karczewski / Language(s): Polish Issue: 22/2021

The article presents the work of Johannes Marienwerder (Jan z Kwidzyna) Expositio Symboli Apostolorum as a source of research on medieval theology and biblical exegesis. The study contains four points: 1) Johannes Marienwerder als the autor of Expositio; 2) Expositio Symboli Apostolorum against the background of other literature of Johannes Marienwerder; 3) the edition of Expositio in Olsztyn; 4) Expositio Symboli Apostolorum as a source of scientific research. The purpose of the article is to draw attention to the publication of the entire medieval work and his tranlation in polish. The basis are the manuscript Johannes Marienwerder, Expositio Symboli Apostolorum N. 1977 (1401) from the Biblioteka Gdańska PAN in Gdańsk (Poland) and the manuscript 299 n. 163a 0 175b from the Jagiellonian UniversityLibrary in Cracow. This is the first modern edition of the entire work in print.

„Hagiologiczny Kerygmat”. Teologiczna „lektura” bazyliki San Stefano Rotondo w Rzymie

Author(s): Katarzyna Parzych-Blakiewicz / Language(s): Polish Issue: 22/2021

The article presents the theological interpretation of the sacred space of San Stefano Rotondo in Rome. It is the result of research in the area of saints and holiness – that is, hagiology. The aim of the research undertaken is to define the temple as locus theologicus. San Stefan is a rotunda. In the middle there is a presbytery illuminated by natural light. Around it is a nave with 34 frescoes depicting scenes of the martyrdom of saints from the first centuries of Christianity. The theological interpretation concerns the whole interior, including its artistic furnishings and architecture. It was done in the perspective of papal teaching onholiness as a daily experience of closeness to God and taking into account the assumptions of aspectual hagiology. She has led to conclusions that include a proposal to use a new term– „hagiological kerygma” for use in further hagiological research aimed at „theology for innovation.”

„Mărgăritarul de mare preț”. Euharistia cosmologică a poetului sau botezul unui simbolism uitat în Imnurile Sfântului Efrem Sirul

Author(s): Tudor-Dragoș Paraschiv / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 1-3/2022

The five hymns dedicated to the pearl make a distinct group among the most significant of St. Ephrem’s work. A symbol of the Kingdom of Heaven, and, in the New Testament, a symbol of the mystery of faith, the image of the pearl has a long history in Antiquity. Patristic literature records very few, brief reflections on the symbolism of the pearl, as expected – among early Christians interest for precious stones did not enjoy a good reputation, as they were the avatars of Greek and Roman paganism. In this context, the complexity of the symbolism of the pearl in the work of St. Ephrem appears even more intriguing. The Saint builds on the pre-existing symbolism of the pearl, as found in the New Testament, and develops new dimensions of the symbol, such as the Christological one, in a way that also relies on the cultural heritage of Antiquity. The “valorization” of Antiquity involves a thorough selection and purification of the former symbolism of the pearl, a process much similar to the fundamental mystery of Christianity, which is baptism. This is why I define this as “the baptism” of a forgotten symbol.Without a doubt, the genius and grace that were bestowed upon St. Ephrem translate as his unusual gift for symbolic thinking, and also as his skill of seeing even the most trivial aspects of life as “windows” open to the Kingdom of God. At the same time, his poetic gift is deeply connected to a special sense of the real, as noted by the researchers of his work. The set of poems dedicated to the pearl, a symbol of the Eucharist advances the idea that the poetic work itself becomes “the baptism” (of / into a symbol) that leads to the partaking of the Eucharist by the poet. The hymns dedicated to the symbolism of the pearls are not a kind of testament of St. Ephrem’s, but the expression of a subtle and unique ars poetica et theologica. This is what I aim to demonstrate in this study dedicated to an important but long-forgotten Christian symbol.

„Mówiący po hebrajsku”. Autobiografizm George’a Steinera

Author(s): Adam Krzyżowski / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2022

The text is the author’s attempt to present (crypto)autobiographical fragments in George Steiner’s work. The main axis of the article is the assumption that the intellectual’s origin and experiences strongly, though covertly, influenced his scientific activity. Consequently, the text traces the threads from Steiner’s life that resonate in his literary critic and philosophical decisions.

„Neznesiteľná“ farnosť ako spôsob perzekúcie kňaza v Hornom Uhorsku na začiatku 20. storočia

Prípad Karola Antona Medveckého v Bacúrove

Author(s): Ján Golian / Language(s): Slovak Issue: 3/2022

The aim of the article is to present the process of persecution of Slovak Catholic priests in Upper Hungary at the beginning of the twentieth century. Hungarian bishops punished politically active priests by making them forcibly serve in the poorest parishes across all the Hungarian dioceses. It was a strategic way of Hungarianizing the Hungarian church hierarchy, which involved bullying them to morally and socially breaking non­‑Hungarian priests. The article presents the priest Karol Anton Medvecký, who was in a dispute with the Bishop of Banská Bystrica, Wolfgang Radnai. The bishop left Medvecký to work in the parish of Bacúrov for almost ten years, despite many requests for a transfer. The priest in the parish faced unsatisfactory building conditions, thefts from their parishioners, crop failure, economic shortages and isolation. In addition, Radnai did not even provide Medvecký with the position of pastor and paid him late. The bishop kept his own promise and did not transfer Medvecký to a more ‘bearable’ parish. He only left Bacúrov after the founding of Czechoslovakia, when the bishop no longer had official power over him. After the First World War, the situation changed when Medvecký, as a ministerial secretary, personally oversaw the expulsion of Bishop Radnai from Czechoslovakia.

„Nie będziesz miał bogów cudzych przede mną”, czyli prawda jako problem polityczny

Author(s): Jarosław Merecki / Language(s): Polish Issue: 29/2022

Starting from the content of John Paul II’s homily delivered on 1 June 1991 in Koszalin, the author tries to answer the question: can a political community function only on the basis of formal procedures or must it recognise values which precede it and which are not its own creation? The modern conception of the state was based on the idea of a social contract, in which the parties give up some of their own freedom to a political community. The social contract involves an exchange of giving up the potential for danger to others. The disadvantage of such a contractual conception is that it leaves outside the realm of justice those who are so weak that they have nothing to offer in a contract conceived as an exchange. In his article, the author defends the concept of natural justice, which is not established by any community but is a consequence of the objective truth about the human person. A just state is a state governed by the rule of law, based on unnegotiable values that are an expression of the truth about the human person.

„Nie będziesz miał bogów cudzych przede Mną”, czyli prawdziwy humanizm. Jan Paweł II o pierwszym przykazaniu w homilii koszalińskiej (1.06.1991)

Author(s): Dariusz Kowalczyk / Language(s): Polish Issue: 29/2022

During the fourth pilgrimage to Poland in 1991, John Paul II based his teaching on the Decalogue, on the “ten simple words”. In his homily delivered in Koszalin, he referred to the first commandment that provides the foundations to understand all of them. God who presents the Decalogue to His people, is the same God who liberated them from Egypt. Therefore, Decalogue cannot limit human freedom, on the contrary, it helps the people to grow strong. The One who speaks to Moses on the Mount Sinai is God the Father who – as revealed in the New Testament – generates the Son from Eternity and sends us the Spirit. Thus, we could say that the Trinitarian dimension does not weaken the invocation: “You shall have no other gods before me”, but it enlightens and strengthens it. Decalogue allures not only to its goodness and truth, but also to its beauty. The first commandment presents the initial confrontation with the world which, in the name of deceptive humanism, places a human being before God. This false humanism will manifest itself in all sorts of ideologies. In the twentieth century it was Nazism, but above all, it was Communism, while today they are different versions of neo-Marxism that especially attack the biblical anthropology, closely related to the first commandment.

„Odbywa wspólną drogę”. Synody – punkty zwrotne w dziejach kościelnych

Author(s): Henryk Olszar / Language(s): Polish Issue: 18/2022

Synods were an opportunity for the Church to listen to and dialogue between clergy and laity at the local level. In antiquity, they raised important doctrinal and disciplinary issues in the Church in the context of emerging heresies. The documents of these synods still constitute a unique source of theological research. The Katowice synods of 1972-1975 and 2012-2016 expressed common concern “for being the Church and being in the Church”.

„Odlatujmy razem w wiry niebieskie”: miłość małżeńska w ujęciu Cypriana Norwida

Author(s): Dariusz Kulecki / Language(s): Polish Issue: 22/2021

The submitted article brings closer the theme of marital love as seen by Cyprian Norwid (1821 – 1883), which occupied a significant part of the author’s poetic horizon. He greatly appreciated the feeling between a man and a woman, seeing in it beauty and a divine spark. At the same time, he pointed out the rather common frivolous treatment of love, the immaturity of individuals and the materialistic approach to relationships, which seriously hinder, andsometimes even prevent, the formation of a mature marriage. Only the rejection of all conventions connected with this human covenant and solid preparation to enter a new stage oflife, is a chance to build a bond that will not stand the test of time and circumstances. Norwid linked marital love closely to the sacrament. In his conviction, God Himself enters betweenthe spouses and becomes the third person in this love dialogue of life. The sacrament also sets the husband and wife a goal to aim at. The writer completely disapproved of the practice of divorce, although he was aware of the difficulties connected with the common life of spouses. He believed that every crisis can be overcome and contribute to building a full marital happiness. Norwid’s particularly valuable – because pioneering – observations concern the mutual sanctification of the spouses and their building of a communion of persons.

„Relikwiarzowy” program architektoniczny fary św. Katarzyny w Brodnicy

Author(s): Jakub Adamski / Language(s): Polish Issue: 16/2015

The present paper is devoted to the reconstruction of the supposed liturgical and functional program of St Catherine’s Parish Church at Brodnica (German Strasburg), which during the times of Teutonic Order was an important centre of the veneration of Holy Cross. It was due to the donation of a gilded reliquary containing a particle of the True Cross by the Brodnica’s vicar Nicolaus Wolwelim in the year 1343. This event had an important impacton the shape of the architecture of the church, which was begun slightly before. In the easternmost bay of the choir a tall, double-bay structure was erected, which served probably as an elevated platform for the relic display during the most important feasts of the liturgical year. Probably the reliquary was kept normally in the double-storey chapel in the south tower, which was marked with a polygonal apse placed towards the town. The executed analysisshows that the closest comparisons for the supposed reliquary platform in the Brodnica choir are offered by the Grande Châsse of the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris, reliquary altar in St Ursula’s Church in Cologne and the western gallery in the Castle Church of Malbork, although the reliquary function of the latter is merely hypothetical. It shows the originality of the conception executed at Brodnica, in which the spatial program of the church was clearly dependanton the needs of expression of the cult of the relic.

„Serca zostały wypróbowane”. Wpływ pandemii COVID-19 na przepowiadanie słowa Bożego — inspiracje papieża Franciszka

Author(s): Leszek Szewczyk / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2022

Effective preaching of the word of God requires an appreciation of the circumstances of one another’s lives and a systematic effort to understand the world. Among the circumstances that have dominated Pope Francis’ teaching is the COVID-19 pandemic.

„Serce” a wiara człowieka. Funkcje religijno-moralne człowieka przypisywane ludzkiemu sercu w „Księdze Psalmów”

Author(s): Artur Woźniak / Language(s): Polish Issue: 22/2021

The submitted article is an attempt to describe the way in which the authors of the Psalms perceived the functioning of the religious-moral sphere of the human lēb, lēbāb (Hebrew:'heart') in relations with God, in which it is revealed as the setting of both triumphs and disasters of human freedom. The study presents three images: 1° the nature of the links betweenthe divine-human relationship and the 'heart'; 2° the attitude of man aware of the links of his being with the Most High and the Unknowable, who nevertheless makes himself known tothe hearts of those who faithfully serve him; 3° the sad fate of those who turn away from God with a decision made in the 'heart'.

„Tak oto macie błogosławić Izraelitom”. Błogosławieństwo Aaronowe (Lb 6,22–27), jego źródła i znaczenie

Author(s): Janusz Lemański / Language(s): Polish Issue: 10/2022

Num 6:22–27 is a (post)priestly composition. Scholars, however, treated the blessing itself (Num 6:24–26) as a text borrowed from another, older source. In fact, one can find a number of analogies to the texts from Mesopotamia, Ugarit and even from Egypt and Hittite literature. This is especially true of epistolary texts. Nevertheless, the idioms and phrases used in it may also come from the native tradition. On the one hand, it does not change the fact that this native tradition could have been a cultural heritage taken over from those older civilizations, but on the other hand, the text shows clear traces of compositions from the Persian period. Mark Awabdy’s thesis is adopted in the article, namely, that the text could have been composed by the so-called Holiness School, which corrects priestly exclusivism, in direct access to God, but it is also possible that a part of the blessing could have been composed earlier and used in everyday life.

„Walka o wyobraźnię”. O ekumenicznych konsekwencjach pewnego aspektu interpretacji Biblii

Author(s): Bernard Sawicki / Language(s): Polish Publication Year: 0

This article addresses the role of imagination in the reception and interpretation of the Bible. It draws on two traditions of reading and understanding the Bible – the monastic one from the first centuries of ancient Christianity, which is still an important point of reference for Eastern Christianity today, and the Anglican-Presbyterian one. The starting point for the juxtaposition of these two traditions is a definition of imagination drawn from biblical Hebrew hermeneutics, which allows the topic to be framed in the context of spiritual warfare. On the part of the Eastern monastic tradition, this is discussed mainly on the basis of the writings of Evagrius of Pontus, expanded by the opinions of some Church Fathers. Western views are expressed on the basis of the works of Avis, Brookman, Ricoeur, Tacy and others. One of their aspects is the perception of the biblical discourse as myth and the consequences related to this. The conclusion emphasises the importance of imagination in Christianity today, but also shows the different approach to imagination in the two traditions.

„Буквален“ ли е готският превод на Библията (НЗ) от Вулфила?

Author(s): Emilia Dencheva / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 3/2009

The German literature on the Gothic translation of the Bible claims that it belongs to the „interlinear type“, characterized as an inferior translation technique which renders words rather than context. Our goal is to show that despite the attempt of the translator of the Gothic Bible to render the Greek original word for word, numerically and positionally, the translation should not necessarily by qualified as literal or inadequate. Parallels are made to show the similarity with the translation approach in St. Cyril’s Old Bulgarian version of the Bible five centuries later. The conclusion is made that Wulfila’s Gothic translation of the Bible is a highly prestigious text fully comparable with the Old Bulgarian translations as to its quality.

Ђаво и његови анђели : нова биографија

Author(s): Zoran Andrić / Language(s): Serbian Issue: 3/2015

Южнославянските преводи на словата за Богородица от Иоан Дамаскин по преписи от ръкописните сбирки в Румъния

Текстологически наблюдeния

Author(s): Cvetomira Danova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 2/2015

The present article presents textological observations on the Slavonic translations of the First Oration on the Dormition of the Theotokos (DT I) and the Oration on the Nativity of the Theotokos in translation A (NT А) by John Damascene, preserved in previously unstudied copies from Romanian manuscript collections. The focus is on textological problems of the two Slavonic translations and on the relation of the unstudied copies to their textual history. Manuscripts RAN152, RAN305, Drag. 791, containing DT I, and RAN151, RAN301, RAN678, comprising NT А are analyzed. The manuscripts from Romanian libraries give new evidence which expands the textological observations and conclusions made so far and reveal some new moments of the textual history of the two translated works. The translations of the Orations on the Theotokos by John Damascene and some of their textual variations, connected with the activity of the Tărnovo Literary School – NT А and the revised text of DT I – are preserved in Wallachia and Moldova. The observations on the copies of DT I and NT А from the Romanian libraries (manuscripts preserved in Romanian lands as well as manuscripts created in Moldova) and their relation to the textual history of the two translated texts can be described with the words of A. Turilov: “Tărnovo after Tărnovo”.

Явор Генов: „Латински песнопения за светци, почитани в Източната и Западната Църква (св. св. Кирил и Методий, Св. Николай от Мира, св. Георги и св. св. Козма и Дамян)”

Author(s): Kristina Yapova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 4/2016

Явор Милтенов. Златоструй: Старобългарски хомилетичен свод, създаден по инициатива на българския цар Симеон. Текстологическо и извороведско изследване. София: „Авалон“, 2013. 551 с. ISBN 978-954-9704-31-0.

Author(s): Iskra Hristova-Shomova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 53-54/2016

Явор Милтенов. Слова от колекцията Златоструй с неизвестен гръцки източник. София: Авалон, 2021. 250 с. ISBN 978-954-9704-40-2

Author(s): Tatyana Slavova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 63-64/2021