Поп Петър, ученикът на поп Йоан Кратовски

Author(s): Tsveta Evlogieva-Katsarova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 2/2015

This study presents the known manuscripts by Priest Peter, who has lived until about the first decade of the seventeenth century. The first chapter of the article deals with the manuscript in which marginalia occur, being the main source to Priest Peter: Tetraevangelion, Church-Historical and Archival Institute, Sofia (CHAI) 28. Then comes another manuscript that is also attributed to the same scribe, but features no extant notes by the author: Tetraevangelion, CHAI 26. The last chapter of the work presents yet another manuscript containing notes by the same author: Tetraevangelion, Peć 18. The latter, though known, failed to stir research interest and has not been published for the time being as a manuscript by the same man of letters. The extant marginalia in the two author’s notes provide also biographical information about the scribe, while the information about the school, where he was trained and about his workplace, along with the changes in the representative types of decoration, of the signed manuscripts, provide evidence of the clout of the literary centre on the creative selection and the aesthetic choices of scribes/decorators.

Educational and Publishing Activity in the Ressurectionist Uniate Center in Edirne (Former Adrianople), 1863–1914

Author(s): Wojciech Józwiak / Language(s): English Issue: 1-2/2014

Members of the Congregation of Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ have been active in Edirne (f. Adrianople) for more than a half of the century, during which period they have used a variety of tactics to increase the number of Bulgarians recognizing religious sovereignty of Rome. Depending of the means chosen by the missionaries there were three main approaches leading towards that goal: religious propaganda, educational and informative way. Manuscripts and publications played essential part of pro-uniate activity in all three of those tactics. The authors, translators and often publishers of those documents were members of the mission (the printing house was established at the end of 1870's as a result of the efforts of the superior Tomasz Brzeski.

Неизвестни творби на Митрофан Зограф

Author(s): Alexander Kuyumdjiev / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 2/2003

Signs of Religious Affiliation and their Usage

Author(s): Evgeniya Troeva-Grigorova / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2015

The objective of this paper is to present an interesting example from Bulgaria – the Rhodope Mountains, which abound in visible and invisible boundaries. The paper focuses on the cultural elements which are selected by the communities as identifiers to distinguish themselves from others. The three basic ethno-religious groups inhabiting the mountains (Turks, Muslim Bulgarians, and Christian Bulgarians) possess a complex of cultural characteristics including language, names, self-identification, marriage patterns, traditional and ritual systems, religious affiliation, clothing, and so on, which are instrumentalized with the objective of achieving closer relations or drawing dividing lines between different communities. The process of the eradication and establishment of new boundaries is especially dynamic with regard to Muslim Bulgarians. They perceive themselves as a boundary community, and in fact they are regarded as such by both Christian Bulgarians and Turks. In their attempts to overcome that border situation, the middle and younger generations of Muslim Bulgarians in the Middle and Eastern Rhodopes have started to express a Bulgarian identity more frequently. The elder Muslim Bulgarians in the regions of Gotse Delchev, Madan, and Rudozem, as well as the younger ones, place their Muslim belonging more frequently at the center of their personal and group identity, which finds expression in the drawing of cultural boundaries to distinguish themselves from members of the other groups.

Тефтерите с рисунки на банските зографи

Author(s): Elena Genova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 9/2014

The latest special phenomenon in the nineteenth-century art was assuming a new attitude towards the preparatory stages in the work, an emanation of a Renaissance artist, being a quantum leap from the compulsory Hermeneia (Painter’s Manual also known as Painter’s Guide of an Orthodox icon-painter) in the painter’s non-commissioned artworks. The paper deals with three sketchpads of several generations of icon-painters from Bansko, kept at the Ivan Dujčev Center for Slavo-Byzantine Studies, University of Sofia. The firs and the most significant one is that of the founder of the Art Centre of Bansko, Toma Vishanov- Molera, dated personally by him form 1786. The second one has been signed by Mihalko Uvanov Golev, and the third one probably belonged to Dimiter Sirleshtov. The attribution of authorship is tentative, to a degree, as the other abovementioned icon-painters have made drawings on blank sheets along with Dimiter Molerov. Among the drawings, models for various subjects occur, some of them realized in murals or icons. A substantial part of these has been used for training.

Rękopisy liturgiczne źródłem do badań historycznych

Author(s): Franciszek Wolnik / Language(s): Polish Issue: 47/2016

From the Middle Ages some manuscripts are preserved from different ecclesiastical centres both in Poland and in Silesia. After the secularizations of the ecclesiastical goods in 19th century they were stored in different archives and libraries. Many of the Silesian manuscripts have been already described but others and are still waiting for further analysis. In the medieval liturgy they were in use many books: Graduals, Lectionaries, Gospel Books, the collections of homilies, Sacramentaries, Pontificals, Rituals, Martyrologies, Passionals, etc., and at the and of this period also the Missals and Breviaries. The most precious are the codes included among the sets of Liber Ordinarius.

Vjerski prijelazi s pravoslavne na rimokatoličku i grkokatoličku vjeru u vrijeme Nezavisne Države Hrvatske na području Bjelovarskog dekanata

Author(s): Filip Škiljan / Language(s): Croatian Issue: 10/2016

In the paper, the author gives data on religious conversions from the Orthodox to the Greek-Catholic and the Roman-Catholic religions in the area of the Bjelovar Archdeaconry. Following introductory remarks on the attitude of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and the Serbian Orthodox Church towards the Roman-Catholic Church, the author gives data on the sufferings of the Serbs and their coercive emigration from the Bjelovar area in 1941. The central part of the text analyses statistical data on religious conversions from the Orthodox to the Roman-Catholic religion between 1941 and 1945, collected from the Archdiocesan Archives in Zagreb, and includes examples of these religious conversions. A special chapter tackles religious conversions from the Orthodox to the Greek-Catholic religion. No accurate data exist about the number of religious conversions. Nevertheless, 2,235 submitted applications in correlation with the number of Orthodox inhabitants witness to the frequency thereof.

„Más nemzeteknél, mint a szászoknál…” - Ortodoxia és lutheranizmus kölcsönhatásai a dualizmus kori Erdélyben

Author(s): Barna Ábrahám / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 04/2017

With their well organized economic and social life, mentality, and particular system of values, the Saxons have played a distinguished role in the nation-building process of Romanians in Transylvania. While until the middle of the 19th century the relationship had been dominated by antagonism and the struggle of the Romanians living on the Saxon territory for political emancipation, the emergence of modern, bourgeois Hungary brought about a positive turn in this respect. The Romanian elite recognized and tried to adopt the organization of Saxon cooperatives, schools and scientific life, and to use their experience, generally showing up the Saxons’ solidarity and democratic way of thinking as a model to be followed, especially as they identified as one of the main sources of such virtues the public activities of the Lutheran pastors. They were convinced that the Romanian priests would not emerge as the effective leaders of their own communities unless they were elevated to the social status and prestige of Saxon pastors (or Hungarian and German Roman Catholic priests, for that matter), and, last but not least, equal them in modern and comprehensive education.

FOLKLORE PROJECTIONS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT FEAST

Author(s): Albena Georgieva / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2019

In the ecclesiastical Christian calendar, Holy Trinity or Holy Ghost is a moveable feast and is celebrated on the Monday after Pentecost, in May or June. In the folk calendar, this holiday marks the beginning of the so-called Whitsuntide or Midsummer Week (in Bulgarian Rusalska nedelya). It is believed to be the period of wood nymphs’ special activity – during the week those supernatural creatures, who personify vegetation and greenery in the fields and the woods, provide the fertility of crops and vineyards. The analysis focuses on those notions and the respective practices, outlining that to a great degree Whitsuntide corresponds to the Dirty or Pagan days in the winter – the period between Christmas and Epiphany. As this is one of the most important periods in the agricultural calendar, it is bound with people’s efforts to ensure fertility and water balance in their inhabited territory by offering sacrifices and propitiating the supernatural powers who are owners and hosts of vegetation and water resources.

RUSKA IDEJA

Author(s): Nikola B. Popović / Language(s): Serbian Issue: 2/1994

The Russian idea as a topic falls in the domain of the history of philosophy. The author has presented a specter of opinions regarding this question, from the time the term was initially used to this day. The idea revolves around the concept of the Russian people’s uniqueness and it’s characteristic course in the creation of its own civilization, different from that of West Europe. The question was initially introduced by a dispute between Slavophiles and the so-called »westerners« in the last century regarding the need for Russia to follow the Western model in its development or to find its own way based on its specific national identity. This dispute has been revived in the intellectual circles of modern Russia, arousing the attention of the public and giving rise to new viewpoints regarding the whole problem. According to N. Berdyayev, the Russian idea is in the contemplation of brotherhood among men and peoples. The essential elements of the Russian idea are to be found in the Orthodox religion, characteristic parliamentarism and spiritual communitarism. V. Solovyov held the view that »a nation’s idea is not what the nation thinks of itself in time but what God thinks of it in eternity«. Critics of the Russian idea, such as A. Yanov, declared it to be a defense of slavery, despotism and imperial expansion. It is indeed a comprehensive ethic and ideological system of thought, of political, moral and spiritual principles and a call for the rebirth of the great values of Russian parliamentarism, humanism and personal spiritual purification.

Політичні та Етнокультурні передумови автономістських рухів у православній церкві Бессарабії (ХIХ – поч. ХХ ст.)

Author(s): Gennadij Mykhaylovych Nadtoka,Inna Volodymyrivna Horpynchenko / Language(s): Ukrainian Issue: 2/2019

The purpose of the article is to reconstruct the advancing process of the ethnopolitical and ethnocultural prerequisites of the autonomy of the Orthodox Church in Bessarabia in XIX-early XX century and attempts of their implementation. Methodology. The research is based on the principle of methodological synthesis. It provides the consolidation of the instrumental findings of famous scientific schools, in particular, the civilization approach to the analysis of the historical process and the methods of social and anthropological history along with the mentality discourse. That has enabled to take account of the features of stage development of state and religious institutes, the extent of civilization likeness of states and peoples, possibilities of their cultural and religious self-identification in the polyethnic society. The scientific novelty is in finding out the conceptual approaches to the interpretation of the history of the Orthodox Church in Bessarabia in XIX-early XX century, determining the dominant factors of the development of the national and foreign models of Orthodoxy, substantiating the fact that there were necessary ethnocultural prerequisites for beginning of the autonomy process in the country in the early XXth century. Conclusions. In spite of over hundred-year Russian colonization and serial russification of Orthodox Church in Bessarabia, it preserved ethnocultural and ethnoreligious principles of national identity. Russian bourgeois-democratic revolutions naturally aroused not only the country autonomy movement but also autocephalous one violently ceased by Romanian conquest of Bessarabia.

What of the Land with Bows? Archers of “Meshech” and the Allusion to Genesis in Isaiah 66:19

Author(s): Selim Ferruh Adalı / Language(s): English Issue: 6/2019

This paper seeks to interpret the term "Meshech of the bow", a unique gentilic in the Book of Isaiah. Placed within a part of the Book of Isaiah referred to in redactional methodology as Trito-Isaiah, Isaiah 66:19 lists several gentilic names: “I will set a “sign” among them and will send survivors from them to the nations: Tarshish, Put, Lud, Meshech of the bow, Tubal, and Yavan, to the distant coastlands that have neither heard my fame nor seen my glory. They will declare my glory among the nations.” Among them is a certain Môšḵê qešet, translated as "Meshech of the bow". Meshech is a reference to Phrygia between Lydia and Tubal/Tabal in Central Anatolia. The term "Meshech of the bow" is not a recognized ancient Near Eastern gentilic name. The reference to the "bow" in Isaiah 66:19 can be understood as a marker for a literary allusion to Genesis 9:13: “I have set My “bow” in the cloud, and it shall be for a “sign” of a covenant between Me and the earth”. The use of another marker in the Masoretic text, the word "sign" (ôt) in both Isaiah 66:19 and Genesis 9:13 further strengthens this interpretation.

Autokefalia prawosławia ukraińskiego wbrew prawosławiu rosyjskiemu

Author(s): Jarosław Moskałyk / Language(s): English,Polish Issue: 19/2019

Otrzymanie autokefalii z Konstantynopola przez prawosławie na Ukrainie w 2019 r. oznacza dla niego przede wszystkim zmianę jakościową zarówno w sensie organizacyjnym i prawnym, ale także świadomościowym i mentalnym. To rzeczywiste nawiązanie do spuścizny historycznej oraz perspektywa całkowitego uwolnienia się od niechcianego podporządkowania. Teraz pozostaje jedynie kwestia właściwego zagospodarowania wartością, jaką jest pełna autonomia i możliwość kształtowania niezależnej wizji eklezjalnej. Jeśli zostaną prawidłowo wyciągnięte wnioski z niedalekiej i dawnej przeszłości, wówczas zaistnieją wszelkie podstawy ku stworzeniu zjednoczonej wspólnoty prawosławnej o niewątpliwym autorytecie moralnym.

Kwestia prokreacji w prawosławiu

Author(s): Krzysztof Leśniewski / Language(s): English,Polish Issue: 19/2019

W Kościele prawosławnym prokreacja jest postrzegana nie tylko jako aktywność ludzka mająca na celu przedłużenie gatunku, ale również jako dar Boga, który jest absolutnym i jedynym Władcą życia człowieka. Zrozumienie prokreacji, z chrześcijańskiego punktu widzenia, wymaga odniesienia do sakramentu małżeństwa. W ramach małżeństwa sakramentalnego, które jest monogamiczne, heteroseksualne i pobłogosławione w Kościele, popęd seksualny podlega bowiem transformacji. Poczęcie i zrodzenie potomstwa jest owocem miłości obojga rodziców. Początek istnienia duszy i ciała każdej osoby ludzkiej dokonuje się równocześnie. Liczne świadectwa pochodzące z tradycji kanonicznej, liturgicznej i patrystycznej chrześcijaństwa wschodniego dowodzą, iż od pierwszych wieków aborcja była traktowana jako zabójstwo i grzech ciężki, wymagający długotrwałej pokuty. Współcześnie Kościół prawosławny podejmuje wyzwania związane z rozwojem technologii wspomagania rozrodu. W oficjalnych dokumentach prawosławnych podkreśla się, że podejmowanie decyzji skorzystania ze wspomaganej prokreacji powinno uwzględniać zarówno nauczanie doktrynalne, jak i sytuację egzystencjalną danej pary małżeńskiej. Szczegółowe zalecenia dotyczą pozaustrojowego zapłodnienia in vitro. Prawosławni bioetycy wypowiadają się przeciwko stosowaniu technik klonowania oraz eksperymentom z komórkami ludzkimi z grupy zarodkowych.

Pogrzeb nieochrzczonych dzieci w praktyce liturgicznej Cerkwi prawosławnej

Author(s): Marek Ławreszuk / Language(s): English,Polish Issue: 19/2019

Artykuł podejmuje zagadnienie praktyki liturgicznej związanej ze śmiercią nieochrzczonych dzieci. W historycznej liturgicznej tradycji Cerkwi prawosławnej obrzęd pogrzebu nieochrzczonych dzieci nie funkcjonował. Niniejszy artykuł analizuje zmiany w praktyce liturgicznej lokalnych cerkwi w Grecji i Rosji dotyczące modlitwy za nieochrzczone dzieci. Uzupełnieniem rozważań liturgicznych i pasterskich jest obrzęd pogrzebowy nieochrzczonego dziecka, przygotowany w oparciu o aktualne greckie i rosyjskie teksty.

„Sutry Jezusa” – pierwsze syntezy chrystologiczne Dalekiego Wschodu

Author(s): Dariusz Klejnowski-Różycki / Language(s): English,Polish,Chinese Issue: 19/2019

Artykuł prezentuje badania dotyczące zabytkowych „dokumentów nestoriańskich” zwanych „Sutrami Jezusa”, które powstały podczas pierwszej misji Kościoła Wschodu do Chin w VII w. pod przewodnictwem Alopena. Teksty te są syntezą chrystologii oraz elementów teologii chrześcijańskiej istotną z punktu widzenia misji w Chinach. Opisują dogmaty chrześcijańskie za pomocą taoistycznej i buddyjskiej terminologii, filozofii, antropologii, kosmologii i symboliki. Są świadectwem rozwoju Kościoła w Chinach w ciągu trzech wieków za panowania dynastii Tang. „Sutry Jezusa” są odpowiedzią na pytanie: Co i w jaki sposób opowiedział Kościół o Jezusie Chrystusie po raz pierwszy Dalekiemu Wschodowi? Większość omawianych tekstów odkryta została w 1900 r. i jest przedmiotem badań teologów i sinologów głównie japońskich, chińskich i amerykańskich. Jednocześnie badania te zupełnie są nieznane w polskiej myśli teologicznej. Artykuł przedstawia pełną listę tych dokumentów, proponując polską nazwę oraz krótkie ich omówienie jako przyczynek do dalszych badań nad nimi. Wśród „Sutr Jezusa” na szczególną uwagę zasługuje kamienna Stela z Xi’an z wyrytym tekstem doktrynalno-historycznym, istotnym także z punktu widzenia rozwoju doktryny chrześcijańskiej w Chinach. Wnioski podkreślają wagę studiowania teologii nieeuropejskich kodowanych w innych systemach kultury i filozofii oraz pewne możliwości przekazu chrześcijańskiej doktryny także w symbolice innych religii (taoizm, buddyzm) z zachowaniem istoty doktryny chrześcijańskiej.

FROM MONK AGATON TO HIEROSCHEMAMONK DANIIL.THE CLANDESTINE STAGE OF „RUGUL APRINS” („THE BURNING BUSH”)

Author(s): Carmen Ciornea / Language(s): English Issue: 21/2019

After 1990, „Rugul Aprins” (“The Burning Bush”) constituted a research topic that aroused the interest of theologians, historians and people of letters in the Romanian cultural space. The topic is very broad, but in this study we will only follow the configuration of the open warrior destiny of Father Daniil (Sandu Tudor), this `homo religiosus`, who, defying the „culture” of the totalitarian communist state, remained on the coordinates of a `modus vivendi` subordinated to a transcendental order. We also emphasize that the purpose of focusing on Father Daniil Sandu Tudor is, in general, the reconstruction of the complete picture of the totalitarian communist society’s dynamics and, in particular, of the resistance of the Romanian Orthodox Church under the atheist persecution. The sections of the present research approach were, in large part, constituted as an updated radiography of the realities of those times from the perspective of confessors Nicolae Rădulescu and Emanoil Mihăilescu. We believe that the analogy between the two angles of remembrance, mediated by the former students who composed the group „Teodorescu Alexandru and others” represents an efficient technique of reconstructing the historical truth.

Поиски «национального характера» в контексте социокультурной реальности России рубежа XIX—XX вв. (На примере образа Сергия Радонежского)

Author(s): Farida Tagirovna Akhunzyanova,Peter (Eryshalov) Hegumen / Language(s): Russian Issue: 4/2019

The authors of the article set a goal of presenting the main directions of the quest for a «national character» in the context of the socio-cultural reality of Russia at the turn of the 19th — 20th centuries. This theme is relevant for several reasons. First, the solution of questions about the formative principles of the Russian cultural-historical type brought together representatives of the intelligentsia of the beginning of the 20th century to a correlating understanding of the real — inward — nature of the Russian people, and, accordingly, the cultural phenomena created by this consciousness. This led, among other things, to a peculiar dialogue of cultures — the culture of Ancient Russia and the culture of the turn of the 19th — 20th centuries, reflected in various forms of art: literature, painting, music. Secondly, the apocalyptic sentiments that prevailed at the end of the 19th century in Russia demanded the revival of such values, images and signs that they were able to rediscover the acquired the God’s grace on the Russian land. There is a real discovery by the intellectual elite of the world of the Russian holiness: thinkers of the turn of the 19th — 20th centuries actively convey their subjective perception of the orthodox experience. Something similar is happening in modern Russia — hence the keen interest in the «frontier stages» of cultural development, in the diversity of trends and the meaningful semantic searches of a century ago. According to the authors of the article, a number of metaphysical, spiritual and religious foundations of Russian culture are historically personified in the image of Sergius Radonezhsky. In the conditions of intense spiritual searches for thinkers of the turn of the century, it was important to know not a private fragment of conditional life, but a real, overgrown struggle to restore the integrity and fullness of a human being. In this sense, the history of Sergius Radonezhsky, as the history transformed by the feat and grace of the Holy Spirit of the human person, becomes both the embodiment of the ideological complex of Orthodoxy, and the realization of the ideological and aesthetic concept of deification as a movement to the highest point of spiritual development.

Originea muncii reflectată în Biblie și în folclorul românesc

Author(s): Andrei Prohin / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 31/2019

The paper is dedicated to the traditional regard on labour, a regard based on two fundamental domains of the traditional society: the main book of Christianity (Bible) and the literary creation, both having a great age and a considerable impact on the social representations. The author analyses how labour is presented in the Holy Writ: as a duty that was assigned by God to the first humans, in Paradise. It later became a means for supporting life and a source of pain due to the original sin, committed by first humans, and their expulsion from Paradise. The author traces this biblical motif in several Romanian folk creations – wedding orations, Christmas carols, creation legends. In the traditional imaginary world, the episode of the original sin sometimes misses or it contains extra-biblical details. One of the frequent ideas is that God has taught Adam and Eve the main domestic occupations and has given them the necessary implements. Labour proves thus the Creator’s care for humans. The folk sources also support the idea that when humans, during their earthly life, had broken God’s commands, their labour became a tiresome occupation that does not always culminate with results corresponding to the invested effort.

Демоничните образи на Баба Марта и Дядо Коледа

Author(s): Irina Kolarska / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 1/2020

Baba Marta and Santa Claus are two characters who are usually related to a series of positive emotions because of the expectation to receive gifts bringing joy, hopes and expectations. The dark side of the character of Baba Marta has been studied many times but it has not been investigated or analyzed in regards to Santa Claus. This text will make an attempt to present a different point of view to the two characters, which has never been in the focus of attention of folklore studies – the one of evangelical Protestantism. The reason for it is the feeling of its followers that their opinion is not taken into consideration and is thus silenced and suppressed. I will make an attempt to draw impartial theses and antitheses, as well as to do an analysis and summary of the results. In addition, I will seek to find if these two characters belong to paganism or to folklore and to outline the reason for their demonization according to evangelical Protestantism.