Pope Francis has announced a Bishops’ Synod for 2021–2023 on the theme of synodality. Discussions are to begin for the first time in Church history initially in parishes and dioceses, then at the ...national level, the continental level, and finally at the Synod of Bishops in Rome. This mode of deliberation raises some questionmarks that require some indication of an answer. Is this mode an expression of the supernatural sense (sensus fidei) of the people of God for the faith? Is synodality an essential characteristic of the Church? Is there anything similar in the Eastern Catholic Churches? How do the bishops in their pastoral letters understand this new way of dealing, and how do other writers comment on this mode of synodality? From a temporal, financial and legislative point of view, this is a challenging undertaking. However, from a pastoral point of view, this event can bring a revival of local ecclesial communities.
Protopresbyter Stevan Dimitrijević’s academic contribution to the Serbian Royal Academy is primarily evident in his preparation and submission of the archive materials for publishing. That ...cooperation took place during the first three decades of the twentieth century (1899–1929). The Serbian Royal Academy was a publisher of Dimitrijević’s paper about the Serbian–Russian Church relationships in the 17th century, as well as the archive materials from Russia about the Serbian Church history, and partially the archives from the Hilandar Monastery until the 18th century. The Hilandar Monastery archive materials from the 18th century, collected and submitted by Dimitrijević to the Serbian Royal Academy were never published. This paper follows the path of Dimitrijević’s work submitted to the Serbian Royal Academy, based on the materials from the Archives of the Serbian Academy of Science in Belgrade. Notes taken during the meetings of the Academy were often the only source of some Dimitrijević’s papers. The purpose of this research is to emphasize the contribution of Dimitrijević’s papers that are published by the Serbian Royal Academy, and to keep the memory of Dimitrijević’s attempt to prepare and publish the archive materials from Hilandar Monastery from the 18th century.
The article examines the exegesis of Michael Psellos on the most mysterious of the “difficult places” of the Ladder by John of Sinai — Step XXVІІ/2.13. This interpretation is one of the so-called ...Theologica treatises (Theol. I.30). It differs significantly from the rest of the Byzantine explanations of this “difficult place”. Michael Psellos decisively rejects the Christological interpretation of the “vision” and the questions of St. John. He also develops the doctrine of the accessibility to a human in present life of the vision of God in “symbols” and “forms” only. Higher contemplations are linked to the degree of detachment of the soul from the body. Unlike Michael Psellos, other interpreters, firstly, pay more attention to the context in which the chapter of the Ladder in question is located, secondly, they mostly prefer a Christological interpretation of St. John’s questions to the unknown interlocutor, thirdly, they ask themselves who this interlocutor was, an angel or Christ Himself. One of the anonymous Byzantine commentaries convincingly defends the point of view according to which John Climacus talked with Christ. This paper analyses all the extensive interpretations of the difficult passage, and on the basis of the handwritten tradition, draws the conclusion that the exegesis of Michael Psellos had much circulation in Byzantium along with other conceptions of the mysterious chapter. In addition, there has been noted the reception of Psellos’s interpretation in the first Slavic edition of the Ladder in 1647. Appendices I and II contain the edition of the Greek text of an anonymous Scholium and a fragment from the commentary by Elias of Crete respectively.
In this paper I explore Psellos’ attitude towards the Church Fathers’ exegesis with the focus on Theol. 1. 1 Gautier. Relative Theologica are also examined. His critical arguments and his enthusiasm ...for Proclus’ hermeneutics are analyzed systematic comparative and are contextualized through historical-comparative methods in the eleventh century’s conflict between philosophers and mystics.
Resources available for Byzantine scholarship in general and for studying Psellos in particular have improved greatly in recent years. Electronic databases assist editors of texts in isolating an ...author’s stylistic habits and in identifying parallel and source texts, while increasingly sensitive search engines provide wide access to scholarly articles, online manuscript catalogues, online publications of texts and translations and great potential for further expansion. Teubner has published Psellos’ extensive writings in genre-defined volumes such as poetry, philosophy, forensic orations and hagiographic orations that represent modern categories of literature but do not capture Byzantine conceptualizations. Two examples illustrate this observation. (1) Although the oration on the Miracle at Blachernae is among Psellos’ hagiographic writings, it contains a brief ecphrasis of a “living icon” prominent in art-historical discussions; however, the oration chiefly focuses upon the Byzantine court system and Psellos’ suggestion for designating a miracle to resolve a vexed legal case. (2) Psellos’ Encomion on Symeon Metaphrastes resembles a saint’s vita and his hymn/canon for Metaphrastes represents a step towards honoring a “new” Byzantine saint. This process continued for 400 years. The 14th-century Hesychast movement used Metaphrastes’ writings to validate their own views and expedited his inclusion in the Synaxarion of Constantinople in the 15th Century.
PSELLOS’ COMMENTARY ON THE JESUS PRAYER Lauritzen, Frederick
Studia Universitatis Babeș-Bolyai. Theologia orthodoxa,
2021, Volume:
LXVI, Issue:
1
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
The commentary on the Jesus Prayer published by Sinkiewicz in 1987 is a genuine work by Psellos. It is ascribed to him in a number of manuscripts and is not eccentric in relation to his interests. ...Indeed, he wrote a commentary on the ‘Kyrie Eleison’. Moreover, the theological points in the commentary echo those he described in Poem 4 Westerink. The commentary contains a previously unidentified verse which contains eleventh century expressions. Psellos’ commentary was used by Markos Eugenikos when he wrote his own commentary on the same prayer which was published in the Philocalia. Psellos’ commentary was transmitted in a number of manuscripts preserved today on Mt. Athos also under his name.
In this contribution I tried to show that Psellos has a complex understanding of the ontology of the being of incorporeal entities that is shaped mainly from a Christian position but also ...supplemented by the methodological use of positions from ancient philosophy. There is surely a lot more to say about this problem, but I think the classical notions of soul or forms cannot be very easily included into Psellos philosophical framework. His discussion with the pagan philosophy is not only complex but depends also on the circumstance and context of the problems he is discussing in specific texts. Regarding incorporeal beings, he seems to advocate the existence of angels and souls while forms do not seem to have an own ontological realm between God and sensible cosmos. The question of Platonic forms as the thoughts of gods is tricky. On the one side Psellos points to God as direct cause of creation, on the other side he holds back on characterizing God’s thoughts.
The church has had to accept the national division of Europe since the Middle Ages and adapt to this situation. This issue is relatively unclear in the case of Transylvania. N. Iorga stated about the ...Orthodox Christian consciousness that “it was so strong that it hindered the creation of a strong national consciousness”, and this would allow us to see in the ecclesiastical organization a form of expression of unitary organization of Romanian ethnicity in Transylvania. The time of Transylvanian principalities and voivodeships shows us that most often the ecclesiastical leaders were also the political leaders (see the case of Prince Andrew Báthory who was Archbishop of Warmia – Poland); so, the two concepts of ethnicity and confession reflected the same historical reality during those times. The two concepts will become separated only later, after the emergence of confessions other than the Eastern rite. In support of our statement, we have the correspondence between the Hungarian kings and officials and the papacy. Before dealing with these perspectives, we shall pin down the terminology to grant the reader the possibility to understand the historical situations through a kind of thinking marked by the imprint of the Holy Scripture.
Based on recent research, we aim to present the current global religious configuration, the religious demographic evolution during the twentieth century, and the main trends for the first half of the ...twenty-first century. From a methodological point of view, we chose to present only those religions that register a share of 1% of the global population, among which we paid increased attention only to Christianity and Islam. The only exception to this rule is Judaism, the reason for advancing this exception being the desire to compare the evolution of the three religions of the Book: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.The purpose of this presentation is to provide a more nuanced picture of the geographical distribution of each religion and, on the other hand, to illustrate the global religious diversity. From a chronological point of view, the landmarks are the years 1910, 1970, 2000, 2010, 2014, 2030, and 2050. The data collected for the years 1910–2014 is the basis of the forecasts for the years 2030 and 2050. The former ones describe the religious realities, while the latter two open up perspectives on the trends in religious demography.We would like to draw attention to the potential of religious demography in deciphering the religious image of the world in which we live. On the other hand, we consider that exploring the global religious profile and the way it evolves, as well as the factors that bring forth change, is not only an opportunity generated by the organic development of religious demography research but also a necessity for rethinking the pastoral and missionary strategies of the church.Religious demographics provide valuable data about the past together with nuanced knowledge of the present, helping us anticipate and even influence the future. The church, at any time, assumes the past, manages the present, and prepares the future. From this perspective, we believe that a strategic pastoral thinking, regardless of religion or denomination, can be organically outlined, starting from the data provided through the means available to religious demography. While religious demography provides specific data, it does not explain the phenomena behind this data; it notes and invites questions, debates, and explanations about religious affiliation, religiosity, and religious behaviour.
With half a mind to George Bacovia (1881-1957), early onset dysthymia with melancholic features is associated with alcohol abuse and complicated by episodes of major depression in 1913, 1928, 1930, ...1936 – at such grim times the clinical diagnosis being “double depression.” And yet, notwithstanding such a chore-like life of quiet desperation, Bacovia was able to write an exquisite poetry ranking him, with Tudor Arghezi, Ion Barbu and Lucian Blaga, as one of the four “greats” of modern poetry in Romania. Our research, nomothetic in the main, draws mostly on the poems that provide a continuum to the inner life and thus help the clinician to accurately diagnose.
