scholarly journals Antoni Messing- co-creator of the Blessed Virgin Mary's statue located in front of the Reformed Church and co-author of series of tombstones patterned after it and raised at the cemeteries of Warsaw

1970 ◽  
Vol 23 ◽  
pp. 214-227
Author(s):  
Marta Wiraszka

Antoni Messing (ca. 1821-1867) the owner of the stone workshop located in Warsaw on 6 Powązkowska Street (mtge. 27C) is currently most famous for one monument- the Statue of the Virgin Mary of Immaculate Conception which was placed in front of the Church of St Antony of Padua on Senatorska Street (1851). What made this monument different from other independently standing monuments was the use of lanterns which at evening time illuminated the statue of the Virgin (1853). The innovative idea spread not only around Warsaw, but also outside the city boundaries.             References to the monument elevated by Messing were not limited to the way and form of illuminating the statue. The inventory research conducted on Warsaw cemeteries enable the extraction of a group of tombstones imitating the shape and the decor of the plinth of the statue of the Virgin. The number of examples of this collection of tombstones numbers 19. Their execution dates back to the period 1853-1874 - with one exception only, all of them were elevated during the period of Antoni Messing’s ownership of the stone workshop. All of them represent the same commemoration in the form of a crucifix located on a plinth. Examples can be separated into two groups. One, comprising 8 tombstones, the closest to the original, the other, comprising 11 examples preserves the architectural structure without the sculptural decor. The origin of the formal concept is to be traced in the project of Henryk Marconi’s garden vase designed for Wilanowski Park (ca. 1845-1851) as well as the finishing elements of the Stanisław and Antoni Potocki’s tombstones. Consequently, the contribution of Messing consists in the creation of the series of tombstones modelled on the statue of the Virgin Mary rather than the originality of the project.  

2017 ◽  
Vol 23 ◽  
pp. 208-222 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marta Wiraszka

Antoni Messing (ca. 1821-1867) the owner of the stone workshop located in Warsaw on 6 Powązkowska Street (mtge. 27C) is currently most famous for one monument- the Statue of the Virgin Mary of Immaculate Conception which was placed in front of the Church of St Antony of Padua on Senatorska Street (1851). What made this monument different from other independently standing monuments was the use of lanterns which at evening time illuminated the statue of the Virgin (1853). The innovative idea spread not only around Warsaw, but also outside the city boundaries.            References to the monument elevated by Messing were not limited to the way and form of illuminating the statue. The inventory research conducted on Warsaw cemeteries enable the extraction of a group of tombstones imitating the shape and the decor of the plinth of the statue of the Virgin. The number of examples of this collection of tombstones numbers 19. Their execution dates back to the period 1853-1874 - with one exception only, all of them were elevated during the period of Antoni Messing’s ownership of the stone workshop. All of them represent the same commemoration in the form of a crucifix located on a plinth. Examples can be separated into two groups. One, comprising 8 tombstones, the closest to the original, the other, comprising 11 examples preserves the architectural structure without the sculptural decor. The origin of the formal concept is to be traced in the project of Henryk Marconi’s garden vase designed for Wilanowski Park (ca. 1845-1851) as well as the finishing elements of the Stanisław and Antoni Potocki’s tombstones. Consequently, the contribution of Messing consists in the creation of the series of tombstones modeled on the statue of the Virgin Mary rather than the originality of the project. 


2021 ◽  
pp. 123-146
Author(s):  
Mary Joan Winn Leith

‘Modern Mary—Reformation to the present’ looks at the Virgin Mary from the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century to the present. During this period Mary was often at the centre of conflicts over religious ideals that contributed to the Enlightenment. The Catholic Council of Trent reaffirmed Mary’s perpetual virginity, intercession, pilgrimage, and relics. Catholic Marian beliefs were shaped by some of the misgivings that Protestants had voiced about Catholic views of Mary. The rosary and apparitions of Mary illustrate Catholic views of Mary after the Council of Trent. The so-called ‘Marian Century’ began in 1854 with Pope Pius IX’s declaration of Mary’s Immaculate Conception effectively ended in 1965 with the church reforms of Vatican II. Marian spirituality in the 21st century have taken often surprising directions.


Author(s):  
Neal Robinson

Ibn al-‘Arabi was a mystic who drew on the writings of Sufis, Islamic theologians and philosophers in order to elaborate a complex theosophical system akin to that of Plotinus. He was born in Murcia (in southeast Spain) in AH 560/ad 1164, and died in Damascus in AH 638/ad 1240. Of several hundred works attributed to him the most famous are al-Futuhat al-makkiyya (The Meccan Illuminations) and Fusus al-hikam (The Bezels of Wisdom). The Futuhat is an encyclopedic discussion of Islamic lore viewed from the perspective of the stages of the mystic path. It exists in two editions, both completed in Damascus – one in AH 629/ad 1231 and the other in AH 636/ad 1238 – but the work was conceived in Mecca many years earlier, in the course of a vision which Ibn al-‘Arabi experienced near the Kaaba, the cube-shaped House of God which Muslims visit on pilgrimage. Because of its length, this work has been relatively neglected. The Fusus, which is much shorter, comprises twenty-seven chapters named after prophets who epitomize different spiritual types. Ibn al-‘Arabi claimed that he received it directly from Muhammad, who appeared to him in Damascus in AH 627/ad 1229. It has been the subject of over forty commentaries. Although Ibn al-‘Arabi was primarily a mystic who believed that he possessed superior divinely-bestowed knowledge, his work is of interest to the philosopher because of the way in which he used philosophical terminology in an attempt to explain his inner experience. He held that whereas the divine Essence is absolutely unknowable, the cosmos as a whole is the locus of manifestation of all God’s attributes. Moreover, since these attributes require the creation for their expression, the One is continually driven to transform itself into Many. The goal of spiritual realization is therefore to penetrate beyond the exterior multiplicity of phenomena to a consciousness of what subsequent writers have termed the ‘unity of existence’. This entails the abolition of the ego or ‘passing away from self’ (fana’) in which one becomes aware of absolute unity, followed by ‘perpetuation’ (baqa’) in which one sees the world as at once One and Many, and one is able to see God in the creature and the creature in God.


1922 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 467-474 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. A. R. Gibb

Nothing is more disconcerting to the student of early Muslim history than the way in which Tabarī and the other historians alternate between detailed and comprehensive narrative and jottings of the most meagre and involved nature, filled out, in some cases, by picturesque but obviously legendary tales. These faults, which are to a large degree inherent in the method of compilation from oral tradition, come out most clearly in the narrative of the brilliant series of campaigns by which the Arab general Qutayba ibn Muslim conquered and annexed the lands eastward from Herāt and the Oxus to the Pamīr, during the reign of the Umayyad Caliph Walīd I (a.d. 705–15). Thus we are given a fairly sufficient account of the long drawn out operations against Bukhārā, but none of the actual conquest and colonization of the city : much 'of the expeditions against various princes subject to the kingdom of Tukhāristān, but practically nothing of the annexation of Tukhāristān itself.


2004 ◽  
Vol 39 ◽  
pp. 280-297
Author(s):  
Jane Garnett ◽  
Gervase Rosser

We begin with an image, and a story. Explanation will emerge from what follows. Figure 1 depicts a huge wooden statue of the Virgin Mary, once the figurehead on the prow of a ship, but now on the high altar of the church of Saints Vittore and Carlo in Genoa, and venerated as Nostra Signora della Fortuna. On the night of 16-17 January 1636 a violent storm struck the port of Genoa. Many ships were wrecked. Among them was one called the Madonna della Pieta, which had the Virgin as its figurehead. A group of Genoese sailors bought this image as part of the salvage washed up from the sea. First setting it up under a votive painting of the Virgin in the harbour, they repaired it, had it repainted, and on the eve of Corpus Christi brought it to the church of San Vittore, close by the port. A famous blind song-writer was commissioned to write a song in honour of the image. Sailors and groups of young girls went through the streets of the city singing and collecting gifts. The statue became at once the focus of an extraordinary popular cult, thousands of people arriving day and night with candles, silver crowns, necklaces, and crosses in gratitude for the graces which had immediately begun to be granted. Volleys of mortars were let off in celebration. The affair was managed by the sailors who, in the face of mounting criticism and anxiety from local church leaders, directed devotions and even conducted exorcisms before the image. To stem the gathering tide of visitors and claims of miracles, and to try to establish control, the higher clergy first questioned the identity of the statue (some held it to represent, not the Virgin, but the Queen of England); then the statue was walled up; finally the church was closed altogether. Still, devotees climbed into the church, and large-scale demonstrations of protest were held. The archbishop instituted a process of investigation, in the course of which many eye-witnesses and people who claimed to have experienced miracles were interviewed (giving, in the surviving manuscript, rich detail of their responses to the image). Eventually the prohibition was lifted, and from 1637 until well into the twentieth century devotion to Nostra Signora della Fortuna remained strong, with frequent miracles or graces being recorded. So here we have a cult focused on an image of secular origin, transformed by the promotion of the sailors into a devotional object which roused the enthusiasm of thousands of lay people. It was a cult which, significantly, sprang up at a time of unrest in the city of Genoa, and which thus focused pressing issues of authority. The late 163os witnessed growing tension between factions of ‘old’ and ‘new’ nobility, the latter being marked by their hostility to the traditional Genoese Spanish alliance. Hostilities were played out both within the Senate and in clashes in the streets of the city. The cult of Nostra Signora della Fortuna grew up in this context, but survived and developed in subsequent centuries, attracting devotion from all over Italy.


1967 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 391-409
Author(s):  
Robert Friedmann

In the middle of May, 1527, a religious debate took place at the castle of the manorial Lords of Liechtenstein at Nicolsburg, Moravia, which aroused widest attention and strong passions. On the one side was Dr. Baithasar Hubmaier, highly respected by the Lords of Liechtenstein and by a large section of the city of Nicolsburg which Hubmaier not so long ago had congregated into a peculiar Anabaptist (mass-) church of his own creation. He was supported by his fellow believers Martin Göschl, formerly auxiliary bishop in Moravia, and Hans Spittlemayer, previously Catholic clergyman but now a coworker with Hubmaier.On the other side of the debate was Hans Hut, the outstanding Anabaptist missioner-apostle of South Germany and Austria, his friends and fellow-believers Oswald Glaidt, Hans Nadler, and several more, all of whom disagreed strongly with the way Hubmaier had guided the “radical reformation” in the city of Nicolsburg. We do not know exactly the topic of this debate and most likely will never know it with certainty. The Chronicle of the Hutterian Brethren claims that the topic had been the issue of the “sword,” that is, the question whether or not a Christian may serve as a soldier or as a civic magistrate who, too, is bound to use the “sword” to enforce law and order. It is said that Hubmaier defended the sword even for “radical” Christians while Hut was passionately opposed to it.


2009 ◽  
Vol 36 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 363-392
Author(s):  
Joseph Abraham Levi

Summary This study looks at some of the works produced by Catholic missionaries in Africa from the pre-dawn of the Modern Era (Fall of Constantinople, 1453), in particular the Fall of Ceuta (1415), to the Berlin Conference (1884–1885). Particular emphasis will be placed on the linguistic production of a few Franciscan, Augustinian, Capuchin, Dominican, and/or Jesuit clerics, working under the aegis of the Portuguese Crown, who – with the invaluable help of native assistants, usually members of the clergy or closely affiliated with the Church – compiled the first grammars, word lists, glossaries, and dictionaries of the indigenous languages with which they worked and interacted on a daily basis. Their endeavour, though meritorious and not always free from preconceived ideas of the ‘other’, paved the way for future studies in the field.


1970 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
pp. 283-294 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olaf Steen

The sarcophagus in the church of S. Ambrogio in Milan is dated to about 390. The lid of the sarcophagus shows scenes and symbols connected to the New Testament. On the front and rear sides, we find Christ represented among the Apostles. Figures from the Old Testament are shown on the two short sides. In this way, the narrative scenes are well arranged, and the arrangement differs from other early Christian sarcophagi in which scenes from the Old and New Testament are places together without any apparent connection between the scenes. Rows of city-gates run around all four sides, forming the background for the reliefs. The city-gates invite the beholder to read the images not as isolated scenes, but as parts of a connected whole. In this paper, I will argue that the iconography of the sarcophagus can be interpreted as a complete programme. The programme emphasizes the teaching of Christ and the Apostles’ teaching-mission given by Christ. Taking into consideration the monument’s funerary context, the programme of the sarcophagus focuses on the Word or the teaching of Christ as the way to salvation.


2021 ◽  
Vol 77 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
José-Alberto Garijo-Serrano

This article considers Edward W. Said’s proposals on ‘imaginative geographies’ as suggested in his leading work Orientalism as a tool to analyse the ideological circumstances that shape geographical spaces in the Bible. My purpose is to discuss how these imaginative geographies are present in the patriarchal narratives of Genesis and how they have left their mark on the history of the interpretation of these texts and on the not always easy relations between members of the religious traditions inherited from the Bible (Hebrews, Muslims and Christians). I propose four types of ‘imaginative geographies’: (1) ‘Equalness’ is the way to represent what is considered as sharing the own identity. The geography of ‘Equalness’ defines the spaces of Isaac, Jacob and their families. (2) ‘Otherness’ is the way to represent the ‘Other’ as opposite or juxtaposed to one’s own identity. A common border is shared, thus kinship relationships can be established. It defines the spaces of Ishmael, Esau/Edom, Lot (Ammon and Moab) and Laban. (3) ‘Foreignness’ is the way to define what is strange, odd or exotic considered as external to the own identity, in a space set beyond even the space of the ‘Other’. Egypt is in Genesis a land of ‘Foreignness’. (4) ‘Delendness’ encompasses whatever claims our same space and therefore threatens our survival and must be destroyed (delendum). As such, processes of annihilation and dominion of Israel on Canaanites and Sichemites are justified.Contribution: The article applies Said’s ‘imaginative geographies’ as an identity mechanism for the creation of biblical literary spaces. A quadripartite classification (‘Equal’/‘Other’/‘Foreigner’/‘Delendum’) instead of the usual bipartite one (‘Equal’ vs. ‘Other’) is proposed and the consequences for the current coexistence between religious identities inherited from Abraham are shown.


Author(s):  
Lehel Peti

Seuca became a known place for pilgrimage due to a blind Gypsy woman's public visions about the Virgin Mary in the first years of the new millennium. The author presents both the history of the ethnical and confessional co-existence in the village and the economic and social problems which affected the whole community. Then, the attitudes towards the apparition of the different denominations are highlighted by also presenting the way the seer attempts to question the different denominational opinions. The legitimating strategies of a Gypsy woman significantly influenced the aspects of the vision of the Virgin Mary from Seuca. In the history of Seuca, we find the practice of ethnic groups making well-defined boundaries between them, functioning as important parts of the communities. The artificial change of the ethnic structure during the Communist dictatorship changed the patterns of relations between the ethnic groups and made ethnic coexistence more problematic. The local parish that tried to expropriate the Marian apparitions has successfully integrated their messages into the ideology of ethnic reconciliation. The traditional onto- logical systems of religion in the communities still work and the frequent crossing of the ethnic and denominational boundaries have also promoted the strategies of the Church. In addition, the apparitions in Seuca earned the village a distinguished reputation in the region where enormous changes have taken place and where people have been forced to develop more complex strategies, or ways of life, without any pre-existing concrete models.


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