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W spotkaniu z polskimi biskupami Franciszek mówił: „Przychodzi mi na myśl – ale myślę, że jest to praktyka Ewangelii, gdzie zawarte jest nauczanie Pana – bliskość. Bez bliskości mamy tylko słowo bez ciała”. Słowo „bliskość” pojawia się 21 razy w przemówieniach Franciszka wygłoszonych w Polsce. „Bliskość” jest dla niego podstawowym antidotum na „kulturę odrzucenia”. Pojęciem, które nieustannie sąsiaduje z bliskością, jest „dotknięcie”. Oba te słowa wskazują na fundamentalną światopoglądową perspektywę Franciszka – jest nią spotkanie z konkretnym człowiekiem. Franciszek idzie dalej niż Jan Paweł II, który w Redemptor hominis powiedział, że „człowiek jest drogą Kościoła”. Zbyt często człowiek ten pozostawał jedynie ideą, postulatem, abstrakcją, ewentualnie teologiczną tezą. Franciszek przechodzi z teologicznej idei do namacalnego konkretu. Kościół nie spotyka przecież człowieka in abstracto, człowieka jako takiego, ale człowieka z konkretną historią, twarzą, imieniem i nazwiskiem. I to właśnie temu konkretnemu człowiekowi Kościół ma głosić i czynić miłosierdzie. Na zakończenie drogi krzyżowej na krakowskich Błoniach papież przestrzegał wręcz z: „W przyjęciu osoby usuniętej na margines, która została zraniona na ciele, i w przyjęciu grzesznika zranionego na duszy, stawką jest nasza wiarygodność jako chrześcijan. Nie na poziomie idei”. W pewnym sensie Franciszek objawia się tutaj jako liberał. Warto bowiem przypomnieć, że „pierwotna liberalna idea indywiduum nie da się oddzielić od chrześcijańskiej idei osoby, z której tamta pochodzi i która oznacza, że jednostka ze względu na swoje ostateczne znaczenie ma większą wartość niż gatunek”. Osiągnięciem filozoficznego liberalizmu było podkreślenie wartości jednostki wobec szerszych struktur: społeczności, państwa, ludzkości czy nawet Kościoła.
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Zgoda – obrona Kafki jest gestem ze wszech miar pretensjonalnym, ale czego się nie robi dla genialnego sąsiada z Pragi, zwłaszcza że nasze sugestie mogą przy okazji uchronić rozsierdzonego Doktora przed atakiem apopleksji. To są jednak dwa różne światy, choć zaistnienie w literaturze Muchołapskiego i Gregora dzieli zaledwie 25 lat. Muchołapski to wciąż jeszcze pozytywizm biblijny, z jasno określoną hierarchią stworzenia, obietnicą zgłębienia jego tajemnic, jeśli tylko badacz wykaże się dostateczną siłą woli, intelektu i prawdziwie monastyczną ascezą, przekierowującą wewnętrzne pasje na tory bezinteresownego poświęcenia w laboratoryjnych i bibliotecznych przybytkach Wiedzy. Zstępowanie Doktora Muchołapskiego pod postacią mocno skompaktowanego krasnala w niebezpieczne owadzie światy jest wciąż jeszcze radosnym hymnem na cześć żywych istot, zamieszkujących wciąż nieodkryte obszary, które wabią nie tylko szansą odnalezienia brakującego elementu w doskonale logicznej i funkcjonalnej przyrodniczej układance, ale i możliwością epifanii. Podróż Muchołapskiego, zakończona odzyskaniem przez naukowca swojej pierwotnej postaci, jest również skromnym przypisem do traktatu o ludzkim szczęściu, którego jednym z warunków – jak podkreśla Czesław Miłosz, entuzjasta pisarstwa Erazma Majewskiego – jest nieprzekraczanie skromnej ludzkiej skali.
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Pilgrimage has been one of the dimensions of the Christian life ever since ancient times. The desire to go to the places related to the activity of Jesus Christ, our Saviour, or to the life of the best-known saints of Christianity has always been present in the hearts of the faithful. Mount Athos and Jerusalem have become the most desired destinations of the Orthodox faithful. It is to these places that the Romanian pilgrims went to. This study presents the best-known pilgrimages of the Romanian Orthodox pilgrims and their travel impressions which they published for everybody to known about them.
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Temat eutanazji i lekarskiej pomocy w samobójstwie istnieje tak długo jak medycyna, jednakże w ostatniej dekadzie wywołuje on szczególne kontrowersje skutkiem legalizacji eutanazji i wspomaganego samobójstwa w kilku krajach Europy oraz obserwowalnej tendencji do liberalizowania zapisów prawnych w tej kwestii. Problem budzi żywe zainteresowanie mediów, staje się zapalnym punktem w dialogu państwo-kościół. Przepisy obowiązujące m.in. w Holandii, Belgii i Luksemburgu, a także projekty ustaw w Polsce, angażują w dyskurs zarówno środowiska medyczne, farmaceutyczne, prawne, teologiczne – jak i szerokie kręgi opinii publicznej
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The Apocrypha does not mention animals very often, but it does show their role and perception among the first Christians. Domestic animals can be converted, at the same time losing their predatory instincts. The Acts of the Apostles contain stories about miracles performed by animals, which they used in their sermons. In as much as the content of the Bible serious, the Apocrypha has no shortage of fantastic miracles and magical situations typical of this literature. It is essential to consider these stories in the context of the concepts prevailing at that time.
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In the XVII century, oratory accompanied all important political and private events. An opportunity to present one’s elocutionary artistry was, among others, the wedding. The most important orations are called giving a maiden away and giving acknowledgement for a maiden. Their composition and themes were determined by a convention which had been developed over the course of years. This paper aims to present the composition and the subject area of the two types of wedding speech and the analysis of chosen Andrzej Chryzostom Załuski’s orations, in terms of measures to laudation.
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The author examines the phenomenon of arranging antiphons of the Liturgy of the Hours by Gregorian tones (modi). The central question is whether or not the antiphons ad Magnificat, ad Nunc dimittis and ad Benedictus should be seen as part of a series of antiphons in modal order. According to the author, the accompanying examples confirm the thesis of those three antiphons being part of a series of modal order.
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T. Račiūnaitė. Vizijos ir atvaizdai. Basųjų Karmelitų palikimas. Vilnius: Vilniaus dailės akademijos leidykla, 2003. 288 p.
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The article analyses the provinience, iconography and style of the wooden sculpture of the Virgin Mary and Child from the parish church of the Assumption of Virgin Mary from Veliuona (called Veliuona's Madonna, Lithuania), exhibited at the National M. K. Čiurlionis Art Museum in Kaunas. The author affirms that the sculpture belongs to the mixed iconographical type of the Virgin Mary Queen of Heaven, with attributes of grapes and probably lost goldfinch, fruit or other attribute indicating the Passion of Christ. The crescent with a man's face near the feet of the Virgin symbolizes the Immaculate Conception of Virgin Mary. The gilded sculpture was undoubtedly made by a professional artist from the circle of Elbing (the Kingdom of Prussia) wood carvers, because similar stylistic features are visible in analogous sculptures of Virgin Mary with Child from the Holy Body church in Elbląg and St Ann and St Augustin church in Lidzbark Warmińsky (today's Poland). The late gothic sculpture with features of Renaissance from the church of Veliuona was created about 1500-1520. Historical sources, above all surviving inventories of Veliuona's parish church are not precise enough to allow identifying any of the descriptions of the Virgin's sculptures describing the Madonna of Veliuona. Therefore, it is likely that the sculpture was brought to Veliuona much later than it had been carved.
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The author introduces and provides a description of the gnomes, a unique phenomenon in Lithuanian culture, at the Jesuit novitiate in Vilnius. The inscriptions, with which the novitiate was decorated between 1611 and 1617 on the commission of the novice-master Father Laurynas Bartilijus SJ, have not survived or have not been uncovered, with the exception of one small detail (Illustration 1); the texts of the gnomes are published from the notebook of Father Mikalojus Kopecas SJ (c. 1615-1658).The main source of the inscriptions is the Scriptures; in addition to anonymous versified pieces on the cultivation of monastic virtues and perfection, there are three quotations from St Bernard of Clairvaux. The Holy Scriptures and St Bernard are cited employing accommodation, i.e. separate places, frequently taken out of context, are adjusted to a specific idea. The entries that appeared in the garden, corridors, staircase, anteroom, refectory, workroom, dormitories, near the doorkeeper's room, infirmary and kitchen of the novitiate should have encouraged a constant contemplation in the presence of God and should have helped the novices to acquire the essential monastic virtues. In accordance with the biographer, the novitiate's master Bartilijus made energetic efforts to accustom the novices from the very beginning to occupy their mind with praying and permanent concentration on the divine matters. As a mnemonic tool of training, gnomes were on the margins of the spoken and written culture: appearing in the written form, they had to be continuously read aloud so that it was possible to memorize them. Some inscriptions did not function independently; they acted in conjunction with a painted image – as emblematic entries – to reveal the real meaning of the inscription.
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It is only in the modern age, especially since the time when the persecution of witches reached its climax in Europe, that the woman of En-Dor is called a witch, i.e. a woman who causes harm by using black magic. As a result of this development, the woman is commonly called the “witch of En-Dor” even to this day and is viewed in a negative light. However, in the story in the Hebrew Bible she acts as a necromancer, i.e. as a medium able to make communication with the deceased possible, who are as a rule ancestors. Even though this activity is regarded negatively in the Old Testament, the story does not polemicize against the woman, rather against Saul. Already the Septuagint and the Vulgate refer to her as a ventriloquist, placing her on a par with a fortune-teller, a move that had a strong influence on the reception this figure in Early Christianity.
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The contribution shows a dispute over periodization of Biblical Hebrew. A strong conviction of development from Early/Classical/Standard Biblical Hebrew to Late Biblical Hebrew still dominates in spite of problems, which were presented in many studies. Difficulties of the conventional periodization derive from source conditions: priority of the medieval MT, which calls for textual and literary criticism, questionable dating of biblical books and texts. In the last decades there were presented important studies in historical linguistics of Biblical Hebrew (variationist analysis) but there is still a need for collaboration between biblical studies (literary and textual criticism) and historical linguistics. For now the linguistic dating of biblical writings seems to be very doubtful.
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The topic of apocatastasis is one of the most important and most controversial theological questions in Christian teaching. This issue functions as a so-called theologumenon, which is a private theological opinion, which, however, does not gained universal acceptance among the faithful and the approval of the official teaching of the Church. However, apocatastasis moved the hearts and minds of several theologians, philosophers, writers, mystics and poets. Many of them were accused of heresy when they confronted the belief that sinners will be doomed to eternal torment with God’s will for universal salvation. The most predominant figure was Origen (c. 185 – c. 254), whose name is commonly associated with apocatastasis. It was he who gave it its particular form and gave it a consistent justification. Christian teaching about apocatastasis can be found even earlier. One of the early Christian writers and Fathers, in whose creative legacy can be found several statements referring to the idea of universal salvation, was Titus Flavius Clemens, also known as saint Clement of Alexandria (c. 140 – c. 215). It can be clearly stated that the Alexandrian scholar’s writings contain the idea of apokatastasis ton panton, both in cosmic and personal dimensions. It could also be said that he was the first Christian theologian and philosopher who moved in the direction of a concept of universal salvation. His writings accepted the form of the universal theory of God’s pedagogy, whose final goal is that “God would be all in all” (1 Cor. 15:28).
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Martin Luther considered it to be of particular importance that the sinner is justified by God’s acceptance and grace. He supposed that this frees people from sin and also serve their neighbours. People are enabled to do deeds as a consequence of their Christian faith but not as a premise for their faith. Christian freedom should be lived and exercised in social and personal relationships based on an inner attitude of gifted freedom and not be motivated by the wish to placate God or other persons.This freeing concept of liberty of the Protestant Reformers contrasts strongly with the prevalent concept of today’s society, “which interprets freedom as a manifestation of human performance or activities toward self-realisation”. In contrast, freedom in Luther’s sense is closely related to caring for one’s neighbour. My personal freedom is only achieved with other people – uplifting relationships with others empower personal freedom.
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The article deals with the new concept of “Pastoral Care at School” which has been developed in Public schools in Germany in the last years. There are persons at school teaching as well as counseling. In order not to confuse being a teacher and being a pastor it should be clarified what means to work at school in a didactic context but also in the field of Pastoral Care. Discussing this with Schleiermacher’s differentiation of effective and representing acting (“darstellendes und wirksames Handeln”) the article argues, that teaching and counseling as well are forms of effective acting playing their specific role at school.
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The History, the teaching and legal status of Old Catholic churches belonging to the Union of Utrecht has been the subject of research of the author of this article since 1971.n Since then the author has also put particular emphasis on the history of the Polish National Catholic Church in the U.S.A. and Canada and also on the Polish Catholic Church in Poland. This publication presents mutual relations between the Polish Catholic Churches in the U.S.A. and Canada and the Polish Catholic Church in Poland and also the position of the latter one in the Union of Utrecht. The author focuses particular attention on the influence of the first bishop Leon Grochowski on the history of the Polish Catholic Church in Poland, especially on the course of the session of the 5th all-Poland Synod and election of bishops.
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