From Stabat Pater to Prophetic Virgin: Harriet Beecher Stowe's Recovery of the Madonna-Figure

2009 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-121
Author(s):  
Kimberly VanEsveld Adams
Keyword(s):  
Virgin Mary ◽  
Religious Art ◽  
Uncle Tom's Cabin ◽  
Religious Writings ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Positive Valence ◽  
First Time ◽  
Christ Figures ◽  
Contemplative Life ◽  
Church Tradition

AbstractThis study of Harriet Beecher Stowe's Madonna-figures questions some influential arguments about the novelist's treatment of motherhood and domesticity. Critics such as Jane Tompkins, Elizabeth Ammons, and Gillian Brown have claimed that the novels privilege an alternative maternal culture and may even present the Christian Savior in feminized terms. But the early novels in fact reveal the gender restrictions of nineteenth-century Protestantism, which allowed no sanctified female roles. Uncle Tom's Cabin and Dred, for example, have Christ-figures but no Madonnas. Stowe's travels overseas, which exposed her to European religious art, and her gradual movement from the Congregational to the Episcopal church (documented by John Gatta), had a profound impact on two subsequent novels, The Minister's Wooing and Agnes of Sorrento. Here, for the first time, female characters are made Madonna-figures. But the novelist presents them as contemplative saints and prophetic virgins, rather than as mothers. Only in her late religious writings does Stowe portray the biblical Mary as not only prophet and poet but also mother—and then in an inimitable way. In The Minister's Wooing and Agnes as well as her religious writings, Stowe examines the New Testament sisters Martha and Mary of Bethany, who in church tradition represent, respectively, the active and the contemplative life. These discussions reveal the conflict the author experienced between her domestic responsibilities and artistic vocation, and her misgivings about many of the maternal characters found throughout her fiction. Stowe's contemplative and creative Mary-figures include Mary Scudder, Agnes, and the Virgin Mary herself. The contrasting Martha-figures are domestic geniuses but have “worldly” values, which sometimes threaten their daughters' happiness. These Marthas, who are increasingly subjected to authorial criticism, suggest some needed qualifications of arguments for the consistently positive valence of motherhood and domesticity in Stowe.

Iconostasis of the Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Nakonechne village - the most complete iconostasis ensemble of the XVI century

2019 ◽  
pp. 73-88
Author(s):  
Mariia Helytovych
Keyword(s):  
Virgin Mary ◽  
Xvii Century ◽  
Blessed Virgin Mary ◽  
History Of ◽  
First Time ◽  
The Church

The article contains an analysis of the iconostasis of the Assumption of Mary Church located in the vil. Nakonechne (Yavoriv district, Lviv region), which represents the most fully preserved iconostasis ensemble of the XVI century. For the first time, its reconstruction was completed taking into account all saved icons. The article deals with stylistic, iconographic and artistic features of this ensemble, as well as its connection with other iconostases of that time. More precisely, the dating of the monument is argued. In the article, the author suggests to consider an ensemble from Nakonechne as a phenomenon in the history of Ukrainian icon painting, which reflected the most characteristic tendencies that took place in the painting of the second half of the XVI century. The author traces his influence on the iconography of the end of the XVI – the beginning of the XVII century

The Situation of Catholic Instruction in Transylvania during the Communist Takeover

2020 ◽  
Vol 65 (2) ◽  
pp. 33-52
Author(s):  
László Holló
Keyword(s):  
Religious Education ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Virgin Mary ◽  
Educational Institutions ◽  
God's Will ◽  
School Network ◽  
One Year ◽  
The Moment ◽  
First Time ◽  
The Catholic Church

"In less than one year, the Catholic Church, just like the other denominations, lost its school network built along the centuries. This was the moment when the bishop wrote: “No one can resent if we shed tears over the loss of our schools and educational institutions”. Moreover, he stated that he would do everything to re-store the injustice since they could not resent if we used all the legal possibilities and instruments to retrieve our schools that we were illegally dispossessed of. Furthermore, he evaluated the situation realistically and warned the families to be more responsible. He emphasized the parents’ responsibility. First and foremost, the mother was the child’s first teacher of religion. She taught him the first prayers; he heard about God, Jesus, the Virgin Mary, and the angels from his mother for the first time. He asked for the mothers’ and the parents’ support also in mastering the teachings of the faith. Earlier, he already instructed the priests to organize extramu-ral biblical classes for the children and youth. At this point, he asked the families to cooperate effectively, especially to lead an ardent, exemplary religious life, so that the children would grow up in a religious and moral life according to God’s will, learn-ing from the parents’ examples. And just as on many other occasions throughout history, the Catholic Church started building again. It did not build spectacular-looking churches and schools but rather modest catechism halls to bring communities together. These were the places where the priests of the dioceses led by the bishop’s example and assuming all the persecutions, incessantly educated the school children to the love of God and of their brethren, and the children even more zealously attended the catechism classes, ignoring their teachers’ prohibitions. Keywords: Márton Áron, Diocese of Transylvania, confessional religious education, communism, nationalization of catholic schools, Catholic Church in Romania in 1948."

scholarly journals Prilog poznavanju djelovanja Mateja Andrijina Moronzona*

Ars Adriatica ◽  
2016 ◽  
pp. 103
Author(s):  
Barbara Španjol-Pandelo
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Virgin Mary ◽  
Main Role ◽  
Huge Number ◽  
General Acceptance ◽  
Parish Church ◽  
Archival Documents ◽  
First Time ◽  
Selection Of

Matteo Moronzon, a member of the Venetian family of woodcarvers, was mentioned for the first time in 1407 according to the present known archival documents. Probably after being trained in his father's workshop in Venice, he moved to Zadar with his family – his wife Francisca and sons Pietro and Francesco. In 1418 he undertook the commission of furnishing carved choir stalls for the cathedral of St. Anastasia in Zadar. Various archival documents testify that Matteo lived and worked in Zadar for many years. Therefore it can be assumed that he probably founded his own workshop in Zadar where his son Francesco was trained too. Apart from the attempt to reconstruct Matteo's life and career, the aim of this paper is to interpret one important woodcarving work of art preserved in situ: choir stalls in the former cathedral of Rab, today the arch parish church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Rab. Without doubt Matteo was the master carver in the production of the choir stalls in Zadar. Since he lived in Zadar it was not unusual that he had the main role in carving the stalls. In Zadar the selection of motives is more balanced and there are no significant differences in the modelling of decorative elements. However, the question whether Matteo carved absolutely everything or he had assistants arises. Considering the amount of work that had to be done it must be assumed that he had assistants who participated in work and helped him to shape the stalls. However, in literature Matteo was considered the only and undisputed author of the choir stalls in Zadar, mostly because of the preserved document. The analysis of the choir stalls in Rab by Ivo Petricioli as well as their evident formal and stylistic similarities with the stalls from the cathedral in Zadar have led to the general acceptance of the hypothesis that they were carved at the workshop of Matteo Moronzon. However, a comprehensive comparative analysis that could confirm that hypothesis was still missing. The analysis of the details and the whole led to the overall conclusion that there were a huge number of similarities between the choir stalls in Rab and Zadar. Therefore it was concluded that Matteo was the principal designer of the choir stalls in Rab who also carved the best parts in Rab, while others, less successful parts, were made by his apprentices and assistants who at the time lived on the island of Rab. In this respect, if Matteo was accepted as the author of the choir stalls of the cathedral in Zadar he must also be accepted as the author of the choir stalls from the excathedral in Rab.

scholarly journals List apostolski Duodecimum saeculum Ojca Świętego św. Jana Pawła II z okazji tysiąc dwusetnej rocznicy Soboru Nicejskiego II. Miejsce ikony w wierze i rozumieniu św. Jana Pawła II

2020 ◽  
Vol 68 (4 Zeszyt specjalny) ◽  
pp. 57-71
Author(s):  
Urszula Mazurczak
Keyword(s):  
Religious Practice ◽  
Virgin Mary ◽  
Religious Art ◽  
Second Vatican Council ◽  
Vatican Council ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Many ◽  
The One ◽  
Spiritual Expression ◽  
The Church

The letter of the Holy Father John Paul II written in Rome in 1987, in the tenth year of His pontificate, on December 4th, on the day of memorial of Saint John Damascene, the doctor of the Church, on the Twelfth Centenary of finishing the controversy over the icon, is of great importance for the Pope’s program of ecumenism. The Holy Father indicated various directions of the dialogue, however, the one of the utmost importance concerned the agreement with the Orthodox Church, which was confirmed in the letters and in His other documents quoted in this paper. The image used to be essential for religious practice, for illustrating the word of prayer and of the song, in order to preserve the tradition of the Church. The strict prohibition introduced by the iconoclasm depreciated not only the artistic tradition of paintings but also the basic dogmas of Christ’s Incarnation and the one which introduced Virgin Mary as the Theotokos (the God-bearer). The ban constituted a threat not only for the icons but also for the Christian faith. In His Letter, the Pope underlined the important role of the Second Council of Nicaea which reintroduced icons and maintained and deepened the meaning of the cult in the faith of believers. Furthermore, the Holy Father indicated the connection with the Second Vatican Council in understanding the function and form of images in contemporary Church. Contemporary trends are overwhelmed by the impotence of the spiritual expression of sacral art, which is a great concern for the Pope. The Letter is, therefore, a dramatic warning of the threats for religious art in contemporary time, expressed by the Holy Father with these words: ‘The rediscovery of the Christian icon will also help in raising the awareness of the urgency of reacting against the depersonalizing and at times degrading effects of the many images that condition our lives in advertisements and the media.’ (DS, 11).

The Purple Triangle and Blue Madonnas: The Virgin Mary

2018 ◽  
pp. 165-185
Author(s):  
Jane de Gay
Keyword(s):  
Role Model ◽  
Virgin Mary ◽  
Religious Art ◽  
To The Lighthouse ◽  
The Waves ◽  
The Way

This chapter examines Woolf’s appreciation of the complex role played by the Virgin Mary in Western cultures, particularly as she has been represented in art from the Renaissance to the modernist era. The chapter shows that Woolf was deeply critical of the way in which society has used the Virgin Mary as an impossible role-model for women, but also interested in ways in which Mary can be regarded as an empowering figure. The chapter focuses particularly on Woolf’s allusions to the figure of the Madonna in Renaissance religious art in To the Lighthouse and The Waves, and also considers her encounters with ritual and art on her visits to Italy.

“Born of the Virgin Mary”: Toward a Sprachregelung on a Delicate Point of Doctrine

2001 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 121-143
Author(s):  
Frans Josef van Beeck
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Virgin Mary ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
Infancy Narratives ◽  
The Church

This essay offers an interpretation of the traditional catholic teaching that “Jesus Christ, conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit, was born of the Virgin Mary”. The author reviews recent exegesis and theology, then revisits the tradition of the church, then discusses the contrast between the physiological “facts” involved in human conception as they were understood in the classical periods — and thus at the place and time of the composition of the infancy narratives — and the accepted modern, scientific account of the same “facts”. He argues that neither the New Testament nor the Church teaches that Jesus' virginal conception is a cosmological miracle: rather this is a conclusion of the data of the faith, not an article of faith in and of itself. This should guide our speech in ministry.

Jews, Blacks and the Cold War at the Top

Worldview ◽  
1972 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 30-40
Author(s):  
John Murray Cuddihy
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
New Testament ◽  
Central Theme ◽  
Bernard Malamud ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Christian Love ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Christ Figures

That Bernard Malamud passes as a Jewish author is a commentary on the cultural and theological illiteracy of our times. Jewish by descent, his literary themes and values are Christian, echt Christian, sometimes nauseatingly so. "Malamud's themes," Stanley Edgar Hyman informed us long ago in The New Leader, "are the typical themes of the New Testament: charity, compassion, sacrifice, redemption…." He added: "these Christian themes are thoroughly secularized." Malamud's central theme, with variations, is not merely redemption, but redemption through love, through sacrificial, universal, altruistic, agapic, Christian love. His heroes are Christ figures. But the d£cor of his novels and their characters are largely Jewish. And that's where the confusion begins.

Mary in the Hymnody of the East

2019 ◽  
pp. 105-121
Author(s):  
John Anthony McGuckin
Keyword(s):  
Literary Tradition ◽  
Virgin Mary ◽  
Eastern Orthodox ◽  
Christian Tradition ◽  
Orthodox Church ◽  
The World ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Unbroken Line ◽  
The Church

Beginning with a notice of the major Marian hymnal elements in the New Testament text, this study goes on to consider how the most ancient Christian tradition of celebrating the role of the Virgin Mary in the salvific events the Church commemorates at prayer runs on in an unbroken line into the earliest liturgical examples from the Byzantine Greek liturgy. The study exegetes some of the chief liturgical troparia addressed to the Theotokos in the Eastern Orthodox Church ritual books. It analyses some of the more famous and renowned poetic acclamations of the Virgin in Byzantine literary tradition, such as the Sub Tuum Praesidium, the Akathist, and the Nativity Kontakion of Romanos the Melodist, but also goes on to show how the minor Theotokia (or ritual verses in honour of the Virgin), taken from the Divine Liturgy and from the Eastern Church’s Hours of Prayer, all consistently celebrate the Mother of God’s role in the salvific work of Christ in the world.

scholarly journals Lexical Aspects of Russian Bible Translations

2021 ◽  
pp. 59-77
Author(s):  
G. A. Kazakov
Keyword(s):  
Public Perception ◽  
English Language ◽  
Bible Translation ◽  
Bible Translations ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Central Asian ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
The One ◽  
Church Tradition

The article is devoted to the study of the lexical aspects of Russian Bible translations of the 19th—21st centuries in comparative coverage and is a continuation of a study pre-viously conducted by reference to English Bibles. A historical overview of the existing Russian translations is given (the Synodal translation and the texts preceding it, the New Testament of Bishop Cassian, the Bible of the World Bible Translation Center, the “Central Asian translation”, the translation of Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Bible of the Inter-national Bible Society, the modern translation of the Russian Bible Society, the “Zaoksky Bible”). Special attention is paid to modern editions. Samples of texts are compared according to the lexical parameters of adaptiveness, terminologicalness, style and literalness. On the basis of this comparison, a classification of the considered translations is proposed, and their typological features and interconnections are established. The lexical nature of translations is interpreted in terms of their sociolinguistic effect (public perception). The data obtained confirms the pattern previously found in the English-language Bibles — the inverse relationship between adaptiveness on the one hand and terminologicalness, high style and literalness of the translation on the other.  In terms of lexical characteristics, the Synodal and the “Central Asian” translations differ most from each other, which is probably due to their focus on church tradition and missionary goals, respectively. 

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document