Il pozzo della stella in Betlemme. Sulle tracce di un immaginario mediolatino

Author(s): Francesca Tasca / Language(s): Italian Issue: 2/2018

In medieval times, an idea emerged that the star of the Magi, a real physical body, had fallen into a well in Bethlehem near the place of the Nativity after carrying out its mission of leading and announcing the event, and that it would still be visible there under particular circumstances. The present article aims to examine how this story was born, how it spread, and how it influenced the Christian imagination. It does so in two ways: analyzing the oldest documented witness to the theme, included in the first chapter of the De Gloria Martyrum by Gregory of Tours (last quarter of the 6th century); and taking into consideration other types of sources, such as the (mainly Latin) Itineraria in the Holy Land and two hagiographic texts relating to the life of St. Willibald. The investigation thus brings to light possible cultural channels between the Medieval Latin West and the Middle Eastern world, emphasizing in particular a decisive chronological junction in correspondence with the events of Crusader times.

État de l’art des livres et objets sacrés ayant appartenu à saint Anthime d’Ivir

Author(s): Policarp Chițulescu / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2018

The life and work of saint hierarch and martyr Anthim the Iberian become gradually well-known as new testimonies bring forth further pieces of information or correct some approximate or erroneous ones. There are many known aspects concerning the typographical activity of this learned metropolitan of Wallachia. Less well known are the liturgical objects he donated to various holy places or the personal belongings of the great hierarch. Some of them have been mistakenly assigned, others have been recently discovered. This study presents an inventory of the most important cult objects and books, as well as the personal belongings which may be linked to the name of the saint hierarch and martyr, while advancing also some new hypotheses. An additional merit of this study is that of bringing to light a series of Anthimian testimonies kept in forgotten museums and libraries, inaccessible to the public.

The Psalters in Vernacular Languages. An exhibition June 27th-August 31st 2018, Museikon (Alba Iulia)

Author(s): Vladimir Agrigoroaei / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2018

Short history of the Church of Makuria (mid-6th–early 12th century)

Author(s): Włodzimierz Godlewski / Language(s): English Issue: XXVII/2018

The article outlines the history of the Makurian church from the conversion of the kingdom to Christianity until the death of the archbishop Georgios in AD 1113, focusing particularly on the relations of the Makurian Church with the Church of Alexandria, and emphasizing its independence from Byzantine and Coptic influence from the second half of the 8th century until the time of Georgios.

Stanko Andrić, Rudina – benediktinski samostan sv. Mihaela Arkanđela

Author(s): Petar Seletković / Language(s): Croatian Issue: 60/2021

Review of: Petar Seletković - Stanko Andrić, Rudina – benediktinski samostan sv. Mihaela Arkanđela, Slavonski Brod: Hrvatski institut za povijest, Podružnica za povijest Slavonije, Srijema i Baranje, 2020, 207 stranica

SUCCESS OF CHRISTIANITY IN KOREA AND GOVERNORATE OF LIVONIA: TWO CASES OF SPIRITUAL REORIENTATION IN THE 18TH–20TH CENTURIES

Author(s): Kaspars Kļaviņš,Chae-Deug Yi / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2021

The rapid spread of Christianity over the entire world in the 18th through the early 20th century was closely related to the Protestant movements of religious awakening (Great Awakening) in Europe and America, as a result of which Protestant missionaries extremely intensified their work by establishing communities and promoting their revivalist religious fervour. This time coincides with the spiritual-social transformation of society and modernisation trends both in Europe and Asia. Christianity was present in these processes alongside other spiritual and social teachings, and in certain cases played a very significant role, such as in Korea and the Governorate of Livonia of the Russian Empire. Although Christianity in Korea has been the subject of an extensive range of studies, comparative material is needed for its analysis in order to better understand common and differing phenomena in the intercultural context. In this regard the Governorate of Livonia is a good comparative example, clearly showing how in the context of particular geopolitical circumstances identical spiritual teachings may be, with great success, transplanted from outside into the suppressed layers of European and Asian societies due to their similar social situation.

Ocjene i prikazi

Author(s): Vili Radman,Emir O. Filipović,Mato Nedić,Velimir Blažević,Hrvoje Žabić / Language(s): Bosnian,Croatian Issue: 55/2021

Reviews: Anđelko Barun, Franjevci među svojim pukom. Kratka povijest Bosne Srebrene, Svjetlo riječi, Sarajevo 2021, 179 str. (Vili Radman) Antal Molnár, Confessionalization on the Frontier. The Balkan Catholics between Roman Reform and Ottoman Reality, Roma: Viella, 2019, 266 str. (Emir O. Filipović) Fra Zvonko Benković, Pričam ti priču, Izbor iz usmene književnosti toliškoga kraja, Zaklada „Terra Tolis“ i Franjevački samostan, 594 str., Tolisa 2021. (Mato Nedić) Župa Čuklić od postanka do danas (uredio: fra Marijan Karaula), Svjetlo riječi, Sarajevo, 2020., 508 str. (Velimir Blažević) Dvije pjesničke zbirke Roberte Nikšić: 1.Otmica Europe, Društvo prijatelja knjige „Milivoj Cvetnić“, Hrvatska Kostajnica 2017, 50 str. 2. Patela, Društvo prijatelja knjige „Milivoj Cvetnić“, Hrvatska Kostajnica 2019, 56 str. (Hrvoje Žabić)

The economy of Syrian monasteries (fifth–eighth century)

Author(s): Ewa Wipszycka / Language(s): English Issue: XIX/2020

The economy of the monasteries of Greater Syria is not a subject of interest toresearchers of the three Churches of this vast area (pro-Chalcedonian, Monophysite, and Nestorian) for a very prosaic reason: few sources make it possible forus to research it. To make matters worse, the sources are dispersed both territoriallyand chronologically. Despite the flaws in the documentation I have gathered, thecomparison of information included in it gives us an image of the economy of various centres. Thanks to such case studies, divided by terrae incognitae, we drawcloser to the answers to primary questions: about the incomes of the monasteries,their expenses, and their cooperation with clerical hierarchy and secular elite, theauthorities of the Roman Empire, the Sasanian Empire, and the Arab Empire on aneconomic level. I paid particular attention to the involvement of (great and small)monasteries in land cultivation. The land offered to monasteries by monks joiningthem and by the representatives of the secular elite, as well as purchased land,underpinned the monastic economy. I also compiled data indicating that, contraryto popular belief, the monks of Greater Syria worked in the fields and workshops,helped erect buildings, and assisted in producing wine and olive oil.

FONTES MUSICAE IN POLONIA – SERIA C: ŹRÓDŁOWO-KRYTYCZNE EDYCJE MUZYKALIÓW

Author(s): Dariusz Smolarek / Language(s): Polish Issue: 12/2021

Review of: Dariusz Smolarek - Fontes Musicae in Polonia – Seria C: źródłowo-krytyczne edycje muzykaliów: http://fontesmusicae.pl/fontes-pl; http://fontesmusicae.pl/edycje-nutowe-seria-c

Piotr Kosicki, Catholics on the Barricades: Poland, France, and »Revolution«, 1891–1956.

Author(s): Maja Lukanc / Language(s): Slovenian Issue: 2/2020

Review of: Piotr Kosicki, Catholics on the Barricades: Poland, France, and »Revolution«, 1891–1956. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2018, xxviii + 392 strani. Reviewed by: Maja Lukanc.

Чији је космос Сиба Миличића? Употреба мотива земље и космичких тела у Књизи радости (1920) у митолошком и културно специфичним контекстима

Author(s): Rastko R. Lončar / Language(s): Serbian Issue: 52/2021

Josip Sibe Miličić (1886–1944), a Serbian and Croatian poet whose works covers the period from early modern times to the literature of the People's Liberation Fight, remains remembered in the history of literature as one of the main poets of cosmism in Serbian poetry, as well as a mysterious figure in Lament nad Beogradom by Miloš Crnjanski, while his works remain mostly unvalued. The reason for this may be found in the period of the “Second Yugoslavia” – where Miličić was considered a Yugoslav nationalist Yugoslav nationalist in the period of the old, royalist regime – while, after the disintegration of Yugoslavia, he remained n the interspace of Serbian and Croatian literature, not of particular interest to either one. The aim of this paper is to approach the manifest book of Serbian cosmism – Miličić’s Knjiga radosti (1920) – from the positions of culturally specific contexts, and to open the problematic areas of redefining the poetics of cosmism in Serbian poetry, as well as to evaluate Miličić’s poetry in communication with mythological, Christian and Slavic cultural specifics, while also paying attention to the poet’s unique approach to phraseology in Serbian literature – which make this book of poetry both translatable and untranslatable to other languages. This approach leads to results that raise fundamental questions regarding present results when it comes to poetry of Serbian cosmism, as well as opens new perspectives regarding reading, understanding and the reception of Miličić’s Knjiga radosti, as well as his work in general.

W KLASZTORZE WIEŚĆ ŻYCIE PIELGRZYMA – INTERPRETACJA ARCHITEKTURY I WNĘTRZA KOŚCIOŁA ŚW. RICHARIUSZA W CENTULI (ST. RIQUIER) W CZASACH ANGILBERTA (799-814) W KONTEKŚCIE LITURGII STACYJNEJ I KULTU RELIKWII

Author(s): Janusz Nowiński / Language(s): Polish Issue: 2/2021

By the decision of Charlemagne in Centula, over the tomb of St. Richarius was erected one of the finest churches in the Carolingian state characterised by innovative architecture. The church has an impressive collection of relics, representing the holy objects of totius christianitatis, among which the largest group are the relics of Christ the Savior. The relics were meant to give the foundation a unique quality and the attribute of a “holy place”. The description of the liturgy celebrated in Centula informs that the relics deposited in eleven altars and four memorials presented the most important places and events from the Holy Land related to vita Christi, as well as the saints. As part of the practice of circuire altaria, the monks visited altars and their relics like pilgrims. The example here was the Roman station liturgy and the Iro-Scottish practice of peregrinatio.

Parafie online w Polsce w dobie pandemii COVID-19. Studium przypadku

Author(s): Józef Kloch / Language(s): Polish Issue: 37/2021

After the initial shock caused by the sanitary restrictions during the pandemic, parish communities quite quickly found their way into the digital pastoral realm. The creativity of the lay faithful and the clergy in this regard was extremely high. Sixteen categories of church-based online activities during the COVID-19 period can be identified: charity (including crowdfunding), theological research activities, evangelisation, funding (for missionary works, parishes, and other entities), information (news), catechesis/religion (school activities), culture, prayer, Masses and religious services, periodic pastoral meetings, pilgrimages, Holy Scripture, preparation for the sacraments, retreats, volunteering (including online management of real volunteering), and online management of Church entities. There were not many pastoral and liturgical guidelines from the Holy See or the Polish Bishops’ Conference during the pandemic. However, the teaching of the popes or the Pontifical Council for Social Media on the Church’s digital presence has been so abundant that the importance of the role that the Internet could and did play within the Church during the successive lockdowns cannot be doubted

Kultura cyfrowa jako kontekst współczesnej katechezy

Author(s): Radosław Mazur / Language(s): Polish Issue: 37/2021

Digital culture, as a common phenomenon closely related to the everyday life of children, adolescents, and adults, has an impact on the upbringing of the younger generations, including education to mature faith. Thus, it becomes a catechetical challenge. The influence of digital culture on catechesis is mentioned in both the new Directory on catechesis and the latest papal documents. Digitalism appears as a new kind of culture that changes language, shapes a new mentality, or changes the hierarchy of values (see DK 359). This article undertakes the task of characterising digital culture, as well as considering its impact on the area of education and formation of a young person. This article highlights the positive impacts, especially those related to overcoming barriers related to distance or the inability to speak freely, as well as the threats and dangers it brings, which are primarily the result of objectifying relationships and prioritising participation in the virtual world over creative presence in the real world. An important feature of the described phenomenon is a certain kind of ambivalence, which consists of a simultaneous positive and negative impact in many areas, indicating the need for appropriate media education enabling a critical and reasonable use of the benefits and avoiding dead-ends. The last part of this article also identifies some practical challenges for teaching religion at school and parish catechesis resulting from the universality of digital culture and its possibilities for methodology and didactics, as well as indications concerning the application of cyber-means for catechetical activities.

La questione dei divorziati alla luce dell’ecologia integrale di papa Francesco

Author(s): Paweł Sambor Ofm / Language(s): Italian Issue: 37/2021

Pope Francis’ theme of integral ecology offers a broader look at the issue of divorce, which not only allows us to move away from an overly “moralising” discourse that fails to see the suffering of people living in “irregular” situations but also to insert the pastoral care of the divorced into the broader context of the Church’s responsibility for creation. First, Pope Francis emphasises the interdependence of the elements that make up the human environment. Since “everything is linked,” social phenomena, including separation or divorce, cannot be considered in isolation. In this article, we propose to rethink the question of separation and divorce from a broader perspective, both in terms of its causes and its consequences. Since “everything is linked,” the culture of profit harms not only the natural environment in which human persons live but also the human environment of relationships. Therefore, when dealing with the causes of a break-up (of a marriage), we must not lose sight of the factors that can weaken emotional relationships (even indirectly), including, for example, the precariousness of employment and the role of mass media in creating a consumerist and therefore more selfish mentality. This article also asks whether the condition of the divorced is not one of the forms or an expression of “disposable culture,” which can be translated into a real material impoverishment through family, community, or social marginalisation. Finally, the re-reading of the question of people living in an “irregular” situation, in the light of integral ecology, highlights not only the importance of the pastoral care of the divorced but also its “reintegrating” function.

Dekret o wolności sumienia i wyznania z 5 sierpnia 1949 roku jako przykład szykanowania duchowieństwa Kościoła gorzowskiego w latach 1949–1969. Zarys problematyki

Author(s): Dariusz Śmierzchalski -Wachocz / Language(s): Polish Issue: 37/2021

The release of the decree on the freedom of conscience and faith from 5 August 1949 was the consequence of the struggle between the communist government in Poland and the Catholic Church. A decree – in the hands of the officials of the time – was a tool used primarily to repress the faithful and the clergy. Extensive actions on the side of the communist authorities aimed to transform the country, with its deeply rooted Catholic traditions, into a lay state like the USSR. The decree announced on 5 August 1949 was in force until 1989, and, in 1969, its records were typed into Art. 192–198 of the Penal Code. From 1949 to 1956, violations of its rules were subject to draconian sanctions, although these were eased over time. This article presents the genesis of the decree and its reception in the Gorzów Church area, whose jurisdiction in the years 1945–1972 covered one-seventh of the area of post-war Poland. The author focused on analysing cases of repression of the Catholic clergy working in the Gorzów Church in the name of respecting the rules of the decree from 1949.

Evolutionary theology: a new chapter in the relations between theology and science

Author(s): Wojciech P. Grygiel / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2020

Despite many arduous attempts to reconcile the separation between theology and science, the common ground where these two areas of intellectual inquiry could converge has not been fully identified yet. The purpose of this paper is to use evolutionary theology as the new and unique framework in which science and theology are indeed brought into coherent alignment. The major step in this effort is to acknowledge that theology can no longer dialogue with science but must assume science and its method as its conceptual foundation. This approach successfully does away with any tensions that may arise between the two disciplines and establishes a firm ground on which neither of them will turn into ideology. Moreover, it enables the dialogue with contemporary scientific atheism on solid grounds and the restoration of the credibility of theology in the secularist culture of the day.

Filozoficzne aspekty teorii duchowości ekologicznej papieża Franciszka w świetle filozofii tomistycznej

Author(s): Kazimierz Mikucki / Language(s): Polish Issue: 4/2020

This article is an attempt to isolate and describe the philosophical aspects of Pope Francis’s theory of ecological spirituality and compare them with Thomistic thought, as developed by Polish philosophers in modern times. This is something philosophers have already noticed, because this type of spirituality is about man’s relationship with the most generally understood reality, i.e. himself, nature, culture and religion. Our examination of both positions will reveal numerous analogies as well as some differences in their understanding of nature, the human person, culture (ethics) and religion, which at least partly can be explained by the ambiguity of some papal formulations.

ТЕОКРАТИЧНІ ІДЕЇ АВГУСТИНА БЛАЖЕННОГО ТА ЇХ СЕРЕДНЬОВІЧНА ІМПЛЕМЕНТАЦІЯ

Author(s): Svitlana Borysivna Zhdanenko / Language(s): Ukrainian Issue: 1/2017

In the article it is illustrated by theocratic ideas of St. Augustine that the political thought in the Middle Ages was closely connected with theology. According to Augustine the course of human history is determined by Divine Providence and is a struggle between Good and Evil. Deity is just a source of goodness, the evil emerges of free will of a human. In accordance with the struggle between Good and Evil the World History is divided into two directions: God ’s believers build the City of God, Satan’s followers build secular terrestrial State. In his teachings of two Cities Augustine comes out of the theory of the unity of the human being. He explains that the main principle of the political thought of the Middle Ages which has been reflected in the XIII century is theocracy, superiority of supreme value – God – over the ideas of government and identity embraced as values. Augustine emphasized that all kingdoms on Earth are under the authority of God. Augustine tried to distinguish between the running of the country from the point of view of Christian governor and usual terrestrial lords. In terms of the City of God the happiness of the lords consists in that they rule for a long while, die a natural death transferring power to sons, to conquer the enemy countries, to placate or avoid rebellions. Another matter is mission and responsibilities of the Christian emperors which belong to the Kingdom of God. Augustine said we call them happy if they rule fair, fear and worship God, use the power to widespread respect for God and serving His Majesty. It is noted that Augustine attributed to the Christian rulers such qualities as modesty in the manner, a desire to rule over bad inclinations rather than the heathen, offering sacrifices of humility for the sins to God, repentance and prayer. Augustine sure that those people who are truly pious and lead a Christian life, should master the art of managing nations. If by the grace of God they get power, it would be the best for mankind.

ANDRZEJ MAZAN, PEDAGOGIA ZWIĄZKU SODALICJI MARIAŃSKICH UCZNIÓW SZKÓŁ ŚREDNICH W POLSCE W LATACH 1919-1939

Author(s): Piotr Jaworski / Language(s): Polish Issue: 27/2020

Review of: Andrzej Mazan, Pedagogia związku sodalicji mariańskich uczniów szkół średnich w polsce w latach 1919-1939, łomianki 2013, p. 200, isbn 978-83-938374-0-3