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This study aims to investigate the promotion of digital transformation in Umrah and Visitation through the management of smartphone applications (such as Tawakkalna and Nusuk) in light of COVID-19. The research measures the impact of digital transformation on visits during COVID-19, in light of the Kingdom's Vision 2030 statement, in terms of pilgrims’ and visitors’ satisfaction with the services provided in Madinah. The study relied on the descriptive analytical approach to collect and analyse primary and secondary data as the basis for research findings. An electronic questionnaire was designed and distributed to pilgrims and visitors in Madinah. The study found a positive significant impact of digital transformation on visits during COVID-19 in light of the Kingdom’s Vision 2030 statement and pilgrims’ and visitors’ satisfaction with the services provided to them. The study recommends that decision-makers and employers emphasize the need to use Smartphone applications in Hajj and Umrah visits even after the end of the Corona crisis. Applications were found to be critically important in limiting the spread of the virus. There is a need for continuous improvements in digital transformation in Hajj, Umrah and visits.
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The article has systematized and analyzed the digital indicators of the evolution of the eparchial women’s colleges, which existed in the Russian Empire in the late 19th and early 20th centuries on the basis of the reports of the Chief Prosecutor of the Holy Synod. This made it possible to distinguish the main characteristics of the women’s education level, both secular and religious, as well as to go far beyond the study of the history of separate educational institutions of the spiritual ministry, to avoid a regional approach to the coverage of eparchial women’s education. The analysis of the digital indicators and the corresponding calculations gave the possibility to reveal the dynamics of the increase in the number of women’s colleges in eparchies throughout the country and the increase in the number of students in eparchial colleges. The general development of women’s religious education has shown that the Kyiv eparchy had the highest rates in this sphere. Furthermore, eparchial women’s colleges in Kyiv were more open to representatives of other social classes.
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The study examines the role of religious experience and faith in human life. It draws primarily upon the thought of Romano Guardini. The aim is to find the reason why, despite the secularization efforts in recent decades, we observe a return to spirituality and to religious experience. The starting point is the human being and its constitutive openness to something transcendent, to the sacrum, which enables him to live a religious experience. Then the study pays attention to the sources, subject and object of religious experience. The last section deals with the status and importance of revelation and faith for human life.
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The article presents a certain type of icons found on the territory of our country, especially in the Russian old believers communities. Bronze icons are on their own, as individual objects, but also as components of complex creations, they are usually positioned centrally, in spaces specially designed for their insertion in the main support of the object usually it is made of wood. The article describes the bronze icon but also the restoration operations performed to save it. The object presented is connected to certain customs of one of the existing ethnic groups in Dobrogea, an ethnic group that coexisted in harmony with other nationalities, this land washed by the waters of the Danube and the Black Sea being known for its varied interethnic mosaic.
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Father Raniero Cardinal Cantalamessa presents four periods of evangelization that have taken place in the history of the Church. He refers to them as „waves of evangelization”, indicating that these extraordinary periods of evangelization are reminiscences of the beginnings of the Church. Their appearance is related to the emergence of a new group of recipients unfamiliar with the message of the Gospel. Cantalamessa’s analysis indicates that the actual content conveyed to them is the kerygma. Appropriate pastoral reflection is also required by the choice of a keryx who is to effectively reach the recipients with the message of salvation. The four „waves of evangeliza- tion” are, according to the Italian theologian, a return to kerygmatic evangelization.
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Christian missions in Cameroon were quite closely related to European colonization. It came with noble slogans of bringing civilization and freedom. But it had primarily economic and political goals. Although missionary activity was born from other motives, it was nolens volens entangled in the politics of the colonial states. The Cameroonian coast nominally belonged for centuries to Portugal. At the end of the 18th century the missionary activity in Africa had almost completely disappeared. The beginnings of the mission in Cameroon were entangled in the intricate politics of England, Germany, and France in particular. Without this political dimension it is impos- sible to fully understand the contemporaneity of the various Christian denominations in Cameroon.
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The presented article takes up the issue of missionary accommodation on the example of the Church in Cuba. It is shown in both theoretical (theology, conciliar teaching, papal teach- ing with special reference to Pope Francis) and practical (consultation with missionaries and the author’s own experience) assumptions. The purpose of the article is to reflect pastorally on the involvement of missionaries in pastoral ministry and to identify the essential accommodative ways used by them. The final conclusions point to the need for missionaries to be creative and open-minded in their search for new ways to evangelize, and to overcome obstacles in the way of proclaiming the Good News.
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Review of: SUZANNA IVANIČ, Cosmos and Materiality in Early Modern Prague, Oxford 2021, Oxford University Press, 244 s., ISBN 978-0-19-289898-2
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The birth as a Romanian and Christian people, in a concomitant manner and time, gave rise to in-depth research on both the national origin and especially the apostolic origin of the Romanian people’s faith. Exacerbated nationalism and the phyletism of exaggerated faith still give rise to verbal disputes. Moreover, the idea of an ethnic messianity and the search for a true leader who must be strong, with intact morality, semi-authoritarian, but at the same time gentle and understanding, become increasingly hot topics in the syncretic space of Byzantine symphony (religious and political).
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This text presents the findings of a contextual analysis of Artapanos’ writing On the Jews. The peculiarity of this Alexandrian writer lies in his vivid depiction of the image of the Diaspora, which is unprecedented elsewhere. Artapanos tries to convince his reader of the closeness of Jewish culture to both the Egyptian heritage and Hellenistic culture. His Moses, shaped in the fashion of a hero, is shown as the greatest benefactor of mankind and, as such, mainly as the hero of Egypt. Of the various possible interpretations of the phenomenon of Artapanos’ work, this study points to a plausible thesis of a syncretic orientation of some part of the Alexandrian Diaspora. This would include the Jews, who lived in the conviction of being faithful to their tradition, while at the same time absorbing Hellenistic culture and relating with kindness to the Egyptians.
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The aim of this article is to show the spirituality and Marian devotion among Christians who belong to the Bantu ethnic group, living in most parts of East Africa. It turns out that many customs and traditions of the biblical chosen people, from whom Jesus and Mary came, still find their references and parallels among African tribes today. It is worth mentioning only such values as respect for life, love of family, protection of children and the elderly, remembrance of the achievements and traditions of ancestors, and interpersonal solidarity, especially in the face of suffering. These timeless values create a family and tribal community in Africa, and in the spiritual sense, a community of faith and the Church of Christ. Christianity, therefore, with all the richness of its values, has found good ground for growth and expansion. Respect for the mother and family as well as tribal ancestors is one of the most important values that African people cherish. Hence the great reverence for Mary, the Mother of Jesus, whom believers also consider their spiritual Mother. Africans have accepted Mary as their Mother, who consoles and gives hope in suffering and intercedes with her Son, Jesus.
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The conjugal relationship is sanctified only within marriage and only when the love that underlies it (the relationship) is anchored in eternity (everlastingness). Our corruption ridden society equates marriage with sexual privilege. Carnal relationship is a mystery. This is extraordinary, it is holy, it is blessed. Sexual intercourse is sanctified only within the family, within the marriage, since the Creator conceived sexual intercourse for a purpose, and when its purpose is not fulfilled or is overlooked the disastrous effects of this activity are evident. Individuals sanctify themselves in marriage. They become "one body". Love anchors them and gives them meaning.
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In The Equality of Men and Women, Marie de Gournay opens up new perspectives, while also elaborating on biblical and theological interpretations. It is interesting to study her commentary on the biblical passage on the creation of man and woman as well as her scriptural analyzes. How do they fit into the tradition of theological controversy? Are her explanations based on other texts that were the benchmark for women’s champions and detractors? Are Gournay’s interpretations within the framework of the deconstruction of traditional formulas or, to the contrary, a new explanation based on female religious sensibility?
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The aim of the research is to show the impact of religion, in this case Islam, on the finances and functioning of enterprises in the region of North Africa and the Middle East (MENA). The key issue is to answer the question whether religion can be decisive for the organisational structure and directly affect the decision-making process within an enterprise. Particular attention was paid to the financial sector, which introduced the greatest number of do’s and don’ts related to Islam. The first part of the article defines the relationship between culture, religion, and organisational culture. There are also terms referring directly to Islam and the division into what is allowed and forbidden (halal/haram). In the context of financial activities, terms such as riba, gharar, mudaraba, musharaka, murabaha were distinguished. The case of Spain and the importance of Islam in connection with the development of the halal industry were also referred to.
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In Muslim culture, “white magic” occupies a special place. Although prohibited by Islam as such, there are some areas of it that have been used for centuries and prove to be stronger than the official prohibitions. Love magic belongs to them. Its methods have been practiced in Muslim cultures “since forever” and included both pre- and extra-Muslim elements, as well as those related to Islam. These methods range from physical activities to magic formulas that incorporate Muslim elements, as well as texts that are only understood by a narrow group of magicians. These were therefore amulets, talismans, magic squares and special formulas and prayers, as well as strings of letters and secret signs known from classic Arabic magic books. All these elements can be found in the love magic of Polish-Lithuanian Tatars, and their examples are the methods of love magic included in the 19th-century Aleksandrowicz’s khamail. In this study, I will present 13 magical texts, transcribing them from the record in Arabic and providing an appropriate religious and anthropological commentary. I will also try to find sources and analogies to the methods and formulas used by the Tatars both in the old Arab-Muslim texts and in the people’s beliefs of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.
More...Česká katolická publicistika v letech 1945‒1948 mezi marxismem a liberalismem
The article presents the approach of Catholic journalism towards cultural, social and political issues as can be found in Catholic periodicals from the years 1945‒1948. One of the main characteristics of this approach is its focus on personal human dignity and its connection to the fact of the creation and redemption of the human person. Personal dignity forms an opposition towards the reductive approach of modern ideologies, which are understood as an instrumental construction of humanity leading to the limitation of the uniqueness and richness of human life. The critique of ideology is not anchored in an unambiguous left‑ or right‑wing political orientation. Catholic authors are also critical for the liberal and Marxist vision of social and political life. The way out of ideologized thinking is therefore found in the richness and depth of the religious, Christian tradition.
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The article discusses the coexistence of the sacred and the profane in the public space of a residential environment – in the light of research on public life and urban composition. The research problem concerns the existence of the need for a sacred space in the traditional form of an urban square in large housing estates. The study regarded the relationship between sacrum and profanum and its impact on the living conditions in the housing estate, exemplified by the square in front of the Church of the Ascension in North Ursynów district in Warsaw. The research subject included the genesis of the form of the square, the local legal background, participa- tory practices, and activity in the space of the square based on the on-site observations made in the years 2004-2022. The study results show the need for public urban space, not addressed in current urban and participatory practices.
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The paper's objective is to shed light on the issue of sacralisation and desacralisation of space in cities with Kraków and Lviv as examples. The cities had been part of Poland for hundreds of years. They jointly suffered from the Partitions of Poland and were separated politically after the Second World War. Lviv joined the USSR and Kraków remained a Polish city. After 1990, Lviv became a major city of independent Ukraine. Several decades of Soviet (Lviv) socialism and Polish communist (Kraków) socialism have left a profound impression on their ‘sacred’ spaces, including the creation of new and the devastation of existing ones.The historical analysis of Kraków's and Lviv's urban spaces exhibited a continuous process of sacralisation, desacralisation, and sacralisation of some areas according to the current prevailing ideology or sociopolitical or religious doctrine. At the same time, a city, Kraków for example, can have certain ‘holy’ places that have remained unaffected by times of turmoil. To demon- strate what an urban sacred space is, the authors attempted to propose a scientific methodology for identifying such places.
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The sacred in the habitation space depicts respect for the unseen. The people underlined their fear and hope for safety, comfort, and well-being in the sanctuaries inside their homes or roadside crosses and chapels. But contemporary shrines are different; architectural and urban means and solutions differ from those from previous ages. At the same time, they refer to or even use the same elements to express the holy. An expanded analysis of theoretical works and design examples based on longtime research and observations of the described phenomenon allows the author to formulate a thesis about a stron- gly changing paradigm in what one can describe as the sacred in a housing environment.
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