Pilgrimage, Landscape, and Identity

Author(s):  
Marion Grau

The book explores the ritual geography of a pilgrimage system woven around local medieval saints in Norway and the renaissance of pilgrimage in contemporary majority-Protestant Norway, facing challenges of migration, xenophobia, and climate crisis. The study is concerned with historical narratives and communal contemporary reinterpretations of the figure of St. Olav, the first Christian king who was a major impulse toward conversion to Christianity and the unification of regions of Norway in a nation unified by a Christian law and faith. This initially medieval pilgrimage network, which originated after the death of Olav Haraldsson and his proclamation as saint in 1030, became repressed after the Reformation, which had a great influence on Scandinavia and shaped Norwegian Christianity overwhelmingly. Since the late 1990s, the Church of Norway participated in a renaissance that has grown into a remarkable infrastructure supported by national and local authorities. The contemporary pilgrimage by land and by sea to Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim is one site where this negotiation is paramount. The study maps how pilgrims, hosts, church officials, and government officials are renegotiating and reshaping narratives of landscape, sacrality, pilgrimage as a symbol of life journey, nation, identity, Christianity, and Protestant reflections on the durability of medieval Catholic saints. The redevelopment of this instance of pilgrimage in a majority-Protestant context negotiates various societal concerns, all of which are addressed by various groups of pilgrims or other actors in the network. One part of the network is the annual festival Olavsfest, a culture and music festival that actively and critically engages the contested heritage of St. Olav and the Church of Norway through theater, music, lectures, and discussions, and features theological and interreligious conversations. This festival is a platform for creative and critical engagement with the contested, violent heritage of St. Olav, the colonial history of Norway in relation to the Sami indigenous population, and many other contemporary social and religious issues. The study highlights facets of critical, constructive engagement of these majority-Protestant actors engaging legacy through forms of theological and ritual creativity rather than mere repetition.

Author(s):  
W. B. Patterson

In 1634 Fuller became the minister of the parish at Broadwindsor, in Dorset. This provided him the opportunity to know John White, the minister in nearby Dorchester. White, the spiritual and moral leader of the town became a pastoral model for Fuller. In this setting, Fuller wrote The Historie of the Holy Warre, the first English history of the Crusades. His use of medieval sources was extensive, and his analysis of the motives and tactics of western leaders is shrewd and persuasive. Elected to the clerical Convocation that met in 1640, during sessions of the first Parliament to be called in eleven years, Fuller dissented from the leadership of Archbishop William Laud, who sought to impose more stringent rules or canons on the Church of England. This Convocation, continuing to meet after Parliament was dissolved, passed canons whose legality was contested. War with the Scots ensued over religious issues, forcing the king to call what came to be known as the Long Parliament.


1973 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 331-366 ◽  
Author(s):  
Walter Zander

Disputes about the Christian Holy Places have played a major part in the history of the Middle East and indeed of Europe for many centuries. The main issues of these conflicts are still unsolved, and the fact that the Sanctuaries are now under the control of the State of Israel has added a new dimension to the problems.This study tries to investigate the question of the jurisdiction over the Christian Sanctuaries as it presents itself today. It does not deal with the Holy Places of Judaism and Islam since their treatment, in spite of many common elements, requires different considerations.The disputes about the Christian Holy Places are essentially disputes among Christian communities, and not, as might be assumed, controversies between Christians on one side and members of other religions—Moslems or Jews—or the government of the country, on the other. They spring ultimately from the divisions of the Church; and although political and national interests frequently played a part, they must be seen first and foremost in the context of the religious issues involved.


Author(s):  
Mykola TUНAI

The article deals with the scientific achievements of Priest Mуkhailo Zubrytskyі (1856–1919) in the study of church history and religious issues. He stated that he had based his research on the data of the diocesan and deanery archives and libraries, as well as on his own observations. It is noted that scientific work should be conditionally divided into three subgroups: archeographic, analytical and historical. The first group of works includes the publication of archival documents and materials, including a number of church acts and official documents the second – the coverage of church relations, relations between priests and between believers and clergy, according to the third group include works of historical content, in which the author provided information on history of the church in Galicia and neighboring territories, as well as the history of individual parishioners of the region. The archeographic and historical value of the materials found has been established. It is noted that Priest Mуkhailo considered the phenomenon of church affairs and history to be Muscophilic and the transitions of communities into Latin rites. He believed that this was a threat to the unity of the Russian people and also not conducive to its development. It should be emphasized that the historian at the same time stood up for the protection of the rural clergy, but criticized them for their weak connection with the local population and not active in social and cultural work. Note that the researcher was not critical enough to analyze the documents used. It is noted that this topic is only partially covered in the scientific work of domestic and foreign researchers. Keywords: Mуkhailo Zubrytskyі, church, Muscophilism, diocese, priest, Stavropigia, clergy.


Author(s):  
Polina S. Antonenko

The article considers the changes in the position of the Catholic Church in Spanish society caused by the democratic transition. The beginning of the reign of Juan Carlos I was marked by the rethinking of the dialogue between the state and the Catholic Church. The king introduced the initiative to revise the provisions of the Concordat, thereby limiting the power position of the Spanish Catholic diocese. This decision looks like an intention to divide the history of Spain into Franco and democratic periods in the political and public consciousness. But the full-fledged democratization of society would have been impossible without the modernization of the church institution. The Constitution of 1978, being the main law of the country, reflects the state's attitude to religious issues, emphasizing the secular status of Spain and the pluralism of religion of the Spaniards. Despite the restrictions imposed on the Catholic Church, caused by the transition to democracy, the position of the religious institution remains high due to the pressure of the historical memory of Spain, in which Catholicism is a nation forming factor. As a result, the democratization of the Catholic Church was successful, and the church institution took a harmonious position in the conditions of democratic Spain.


1975 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
pp. 355-365
Author(s):  
Keith Robbins

The modern ecclesiastical historian is an uncertain and hesitant creature; an acute case, it may be thought, of status deprivation. He looks with envy at his august and serene colleagues who have the history of the medieval church as their field of study. He knows that they are in process of uncovering the different layers of belief in medieval or early modern society. It is, no doubt, an illusion to suppose that an ‘age of faith’ ever existed. Nevertheless, at all levels of society, the church seems to be central to the life of the time. If we consider the reformation or counter-reformation periods, church questions seem to be in the forefront. The ‘Wars of Religion’ may not be at bottom about religion, but we cannot avoid some consideration of religious issues.


2015 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
pp. 259-288
Author(s):  
Tom Cunningham

Abstract:In this article I use oral and documentary evidence gathered during recent fieldwork and archival research in the UK and Kenya to explore the ways in which the Church of Scotland Mission to Kenya attempted to use sport to “civilize” and “discipline” the people of Central Kenya. I make a case for the important contributions the topic of sport can make to the study of African and colonial history, and offer a comprehensive critique of the only book-length work which explores the history of sport in colonial Kenya, John Bale and Joe Sang’sKenyan Running(1996).


2021 ◽  
Vol 77 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Steve G.C. Gaspersz ◽  
Nancy N. Souisa

The archipelago context of Maluku represents the living dynamics of Christian communities in that area, which becomes an ecclesiological foundation of the Gereja Protestan Maluku (GPM). Christianity, the embryo of the GPM, is the fruit of the evangelical works by European missionaries, particularly Dutch missions from the 18th century onwards. The Dutch-type Christianity had been adapted into models so that the form of institution and Protestant teachings in Maluku moved dynamically following socio-political and cultural changes along with the colonial and the post-colonial history of Indonesian and Malukan society. It attempts to describe the manifestation of the Calvinism-model of Christianity that is continuously being contextualised through absorbing various elements of worldview, tradition, and the religiosity of the archipelago society. Cultural hermeneutics is used to interpret the socio-cultural phenomena in which the church lives in and to construct its theological understanding about Christian identity. The ecclesiological construction of GPM, in turn, is structured by plural social orders. The reality also influences the perspective about GPM from many different worldviews of the Malukan archipelago society. The contextual ecclesiological perspective, therefore, is constructed based on intermingled understandings that theology of the church can only be built by considering multifold dimensions of a particular society. The result of this research pertains to the constructive understanding of a specific ecclesial context of the GPM in their struggles for theologising their existence as God’s people and, at the same time, as an integral part of certain society in Maluku and Indonesia.Contribution: As the living contextual church that struggles for proclaiming God’s love, the GPM has a theological responsibility to conduct its church mission based on its ecclesiological understanding and practices contextually. The article contributes to the enrichment of the theological discourse on the crucial roles of a church in Maluku, in the eastern part of Indonesia.


Somatechnics ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 88-103 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kalindi Vora

This paper provides an analysis of how cultural notions of the body and kinship conveyed through Western medical technologies and practices in Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ART) bring together India's colonial history and its economic development through outsourcing, globalisation and instrumentalised notions of the reproductive body in transnational commercial surrogacy. Essential to this industry is the concept of the disembodied uterus that has arisen in scientific and medical practice, which allows for the logic of the ‘gestational carrier’ as a functional role in ART practices, and therefore in transnational medical fertility travel to India. Highlighting the instrumentalisation of the uterus as an alienable component of a body and subject – and therefore of women's bodies in surrogacy – helps elucidate some of the material and political stakes that accompany the growth of the fertility travel industry in India, where histories of privilege and difference converge. I conclude that the metaphors we use to structure our understanding of bodies and body parts impact how we imagine appropriate roles for people and their bodies in ways that are still deeply entangled with imperial histories of science, and these histories shape the contemporary disparities found in access to medical and legal protections among participants in transnational surrogacy arrangements.


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