scholarly journals Kurban in the Context of the Gagauz Orthodox Identity: History and Modernity

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 271-289
Author(s):  
Elizaveta N. Kvilinkova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Regional Identity ◽  
Religious Culture ◽  
Family Rituals ◽  
Important Place ◽  
Animal Sacrifice ◽  
Integral Component ◽  
Holiday Celebrations ◽  
The Church ◽  
Over Time

In this article, the Kurban rite (animal sacrifice), which occupies an important place in the Gagauz calendar and family rituals, is analyzed through the prism of Orthodox identity. The form and content of various varieties of this rite are considered, as well as its role and significance in the ethnocultural code of the Gagauz people. The author especially dwells on the study of the qurban of the church, in which the elements of Christian-pagan syncretism are clearly manifested. Based on the analysis, it is concluded that over time, the Kurban rite among the Gagauz people acquired the form of a ritual institution and became an important component of Orthodox rituals. The fact that it has survived is not a small merit of the Orthodox clergy. The article provides information that in the second half of the 20th – early 21st centuries. As a result, the ritual acquired a more Christianized form, but, despite this, some of its archaic features continue to be preserved. It is emphasized that in the Gagauz folk-religious culture this form of sacrifice is associated with the Old Testament tradition – the Abrahamic sacrifice, the plot of which is widely represented in the Gagauz song folklore. It is concluded that both the ethnic component of the Gagauz Orthodoxy and their characteristic Balkan cultural and regional identity are clearly expressed in private and general holiday celebrations, of which Kurban is an integral part. In conclusion, it is noted that the Kurban rite continues to remain an important part of the Gagauz Orthodox rituals and identity, being an integral component of their ethnocultural code. This is evidenced by the degree of preservation of this institution of sacrifice and its significance in the religious and folk ideas of the Gagauz people.

Fasting, Piety, and Political Anxiety among French Reformed Protestants

2007 ◽  
Vol 76 (2) ◽  
pp. 330-362 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raymond A. Mentzer
Keyword(s):  
Religious Culture ◽  
Latter Day Saints ◽  
Important Place ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Contemporary Christian ◽  
Religious Devotion ◽  
Abrahamic Religions ◽  
The Many ◽  
Roman Catholics ◽  
The Church

Fasting has an ancient and revered place in the many religious traditions that human communities have fostered throughout history and across the globe. In India, to take a modern example, Hindu women commonly carry out ritual fasts or vrats. Fasting, particularly in its collective forms, is also frequent and widespread among western groups that scholars have sometimes described as Abrahamic religions. Muslims annually observe Ramadan, a month of fasting, prayer, and celebration. Jews customarily fast, taking no food or drink from sunup to sundown, several days each year and, most notably, on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. For medieval Christians, preparation for the holy feasts of Christmas and Easter meant substantial periods of religious preparation, the well-known Advent and Lenten periods complete with fasting and abstinence from certain foods. In contemporary Christian circles, fasting may be less widely practiced, yet it retains an important place among Roman Catholics and members of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day Saints, to cite but two better-known cases. In short, the utilization of food for purposes of religious devotion and piety, whether through fasting or feasting, has been a long-standing custom within and without western religious culture.

scholarly journals Religious Uniqueness of Chinese Minority Da Hua Miao

2019 ◽  
pp. 80-90
Author(s):  
Igor V. Kurlyanov ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Field Research ◽  
Religious Culture ◽  
Guizhou Province ◽  
Christian Teaching ◽  
Fertile Ground ◽  
Surrounding Areas ◽  
The Church ◽  
Statistical Indicators ◽  
Official Information

The article contains the basic information about the Chinese Miao people: population, the areas of compact settlement, major groups and their religious worldviews. Particular attention is paid to one group of this nation, called Da Hua Miao. Based on written and oral sources, the author identifies factors of the beginning of Christianity in Da Hua Miao culture. During the field study, verification of official information about this people published in Chinese information sources was carried out, and statistical indicators of religiosity were specified. Da Hua Miao mainly live on the mountains in the northwest of Guizhou province and in the surrounding areas of the northeast of Yunnan. Christianity was brought to these people by the Protestant missionary Samuel Pollard. Miao folklore contains images and plots similar to some Old Testament narratives. It cannot be excluded that the presence in the culture of Da Hua Miao some tales similar in content to the biblical stories served as fertile ground for the spreading of Christian teaching and contributed to a more organic inculturation of Christianity among these people. Widespread in modern publications that modern Da Hua Miao are for the most part (up to 80%) Christians is ambiguous. Field research data shows, for example, that of the 250 people living in one of the villages in Funin County, only 30 people regularly attending to the church services, which is about 12%. On the other hand, Christianity is now a typical characteristic of the religious culture of Da Hua Miao. Representatives of this ethnic group in the majority correlate the culture with Christianity, the official authorities of China recognize Christianity as religion of Da Hua Miao

Poland

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Detlef Pollack ◽  
Gergely Rosta
Keyword(s):  
Catholic Church ◽  
Agricultural Production ◽  
The State ◽  
Religious Culture ◽  
Key Factors ◽  
Pope John Paul Ii ◽  
National Values ◽  
The Impact ◽  
State Socialist ◽  
The Church

The chapter on Poland focuses on two questions. Why, in contrast to all other state-socialist countries, did the church’s capacity for integration actually increase rather than decrease despite persecution and discrimination during the communist period? And why has this capacity also remained more or less constant (albeit to a lesser extent) in the period since the end of communist rule? The authors have identified four key factors in the remarkable resistance of the Polish Catholic Church during the period of communist persecution: the fusion of religious and national values, the specific conflict dynamics of the church’s struggle with the state, the structural conservatism of agricultural production in Poland, and the actions of Pope John Paul II. Explanations for the surprising stability of religiosity in Poland after 1990 point to the behaviour of the Church itself, to the internal pluralization of Catholicism, and to the impact of a homogeneous religious culture.

The Minor Prophets as Christian Scripture in the Commentaries of Theodore of Mopsuestia and Cyril of Alexandria

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hauna T. Ondrey
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Full Range ◽  
Positive Role ◽  
Cyril Of Alexandria ◽  
Theodore Of Mopsuestia ◽  
Positive Account ◽  
Mosaic Law ◽  
Recent Tendency ◽  
The Church ◽  
Minor Prophets

This work compares the Minor Prophets commentaries of Theodore of Mopsuestia and Cyril of Alexandria, isolating the role each interpreter assigns the Twelve Prophets in their ministry to Old Testament Israel and the texts of the Twelve as Christian scripture. It argues that Theodore does acknowledge christological prophecies, as distinct from both retrospective accommodation and typology. A careful reading of Cyril’s Commentary on the Twelve limits the prospective christological revelation he ascribes to the prophets and reveals the positive role he grants the Mosaic law prior to Christ’s advent. Exploring secondly the Christian significance Theodore and Cyril assign to Israel’s exile and restoration reveals that Theodore’s reading of the Twelve Prophets, while not attempting to be christocentric, is nevertheless self-consciously Christian. Cyril, unsurprisingly, offers a robust Christian reading of the Twelve, yet this too must be expanded by his focus on the church and concern to equip the church through the ethical paideusis provided by the plain sense of the prophetic text. Revised descriptions of each interpreter lead to the claim that a recent tendency to distinguish the Old Testament interpretation of Theodore (negatively) and Cyril (positively) on the basis of their “christocentrism” obscures more than it clarifies and polarizes no less than earlier accounts of Antiochene/Alexandrian exegesis. The Conclusion argues against replacing old dichotomies with new and advocates rather for an approach that takes seriously Theodore’s positive account of the unity and telos of the divine economy and the full range of Cyril’s interpretation.

Revelation, Tradition, and Inspiration

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerald O’Collins, SJ
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
Holy Spirit ◽  
The Self ◽  
Divine Revelation ◽  
Self Disclosure ◽  
Present Experience ◽  
Living Tradition ◽  
The Church

This chapter spells out the complex interrelationship between the divine self-revelation, the tradition that transmits the prophetic and apostolic experience of that revelation, and the writing of the inspired Scriptures. Primarily, revelation involves the self-disclosure of the previously and mysteriously unknown God. Secondarily, it brings the communication of hitherto unknown truths about God. Revelation is a past, foundational reality (completed with the missions of the Son and Holy Spirit), a present experience, and a future hope. Responding with faith to divine revelation, the Old Testament (prophetic) and then New Testament (apostolic) witnesses initiated the living tradition from which came the inspired Scriptures. Tradition continues to transmit, interpret, and apply the Scriptures in the life of the Church.

Canons to the Left of Him: Brevard Childs, his Critics, and the Future of Old Testament Theology

1997 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Iain Provan
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Biblical Theology ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Probable Origin ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Church

It is well known that the seeds from which the modern discipline of OT theology grew are already found in 17th and 18th century discussion of the relationship between Bible and Church, which tended to drive a wedge between the two, regarding canon in historical rather than theological terms; stressing the difference between what is transient and particular in the Bible and what is universal and of abiding significance; and placing the task of deciding which is which upon the shoulders of the individual reader rather than upon the church. Free investigation of the Bible, unfettered by church tradition and theology, was to be the way ahead. OT theology finds its roots more particularly in the 18th century discussion of the nature of and the relationship between Biblical Theology and Dogmatic Theology, and in particular in Gabler's classic theoreticalstatementof their nature and relationship. The first book which may strictly be called an OT theology appeared in 1796: an historical discussion of the ideas to be found in the OT, with an emphasis on their probable origin and the stages through which Hebrew religious thought had passed, compared and contrasted with the beliefs of other ancient peoples, and evaluated from the point of view of rationalistic religion. Here we find the unreserved acceptance of Gabler's principle that OT theology must in the first instance be a descriptive and historical discipline, freed from dogmatic constraints and resistant to the premature merging of OT and NT — a principle which in the succeeding century was accepted by writers across the whole theological spectrum, including those of orthodox and conservative inclination.

Charlemagne as a Patron of Art

1992 ◽  
Vol 28 ◽  
pp. 43-77
Author(s):  
Henry Mayr-Harting
Keyword(s):  
Catholic Education ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
Roman Catholic ◽  
Church Art ◽  
Catholic Schooling ◽  
The Church ◽  
Looking Back

The lesson that people hold radically differing views about church art is the harder to learn when one comes to it from the iconodul-istic side. Looking back on my own Roman Catholic schooling, and the place of statues and holy pictures in the religious devotions of that milieu, I realize that once sacramental awareness develops, it is not always easily confined to the matter of the theological sacraments themselves. The beheading of the statues in the Lady Chapel at Ely, which I visited at the age of eleven, seemed a shocking circumstance whose motivation was totally incomprehensible, even allowing for the fact that it was the work of Protestants, and the Old Testament, which might have brought the dawn of understanding, was, of course, no part of an ordinary Catholic education at that time. In short, the author of Charlemagne’s Libri Carolini would have found much upon which to make adverse comment in me, my fellows, and the monks who taught us. With the first artistic love of my student days, which was Romanesque sculpture, came an awareness of the voices and practice of those great medieval Protestants, the Cistercians. But only in the later encounter with Charlemagne was I forced to listen seriously to the moral and theological arguments against the unbridled use of figurai art in the service of the Church.

Seven Sacraments Compositions in English Medieval Art

1929 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 83-100 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. McN. Rushforth
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
Religious Art ◽  
Medieval Art ◽  
Christian Art ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Great Tradition ◽  
Speculum Humanae Salvationis ◽  
Church Art ◽  
The Church

Émile Mâle says that medieval Christian art in its last period had lost touch with the great tradition of symbolism which had been so important in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and still largely dominated the art of the fourteenth. But there was one great symbolical idea which survived, and that was the harmony of the Old and New Testaments; and so we find among the most popular subjects of fifteenth-century Church art the concordance of the Apostles and Prophets in the Creed, and the series of parallels between the life of Jesus and episodes of Old Testament history, which were summed up and digested in the Biblia Pauperum and the Speculum Humanae Salvationis. The reason for the popularity of these subjects was, no doubt, their didactic value, and though Mâle does not develop this side of the subject, we may say that one, though not the only, characteristic of the religious art of the fifteenth century was that, instead of being symbolical, it became didactic. We find in this period a whole series of subjects which reduced the articles of Christian faith and practice to pictorial form, and seem to have been intended to illustrate the medieval catechism by which the teaching of the Church was imparted.

scholarly journals Ritual Lamentation in the Irish Penitentials

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 207
Author(s):  
Alexandra Bergholm
Keyword(s):  
Social Control ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
Religious Observance ◽  
Intellectual Context ◽  
The Church ◽  
Previous Scholarship

Some of the earliest references to ritual lamentation or keening in the early Irish sources are found in the penitential handbooks dated to around the seventh and eighth centuries. In previous scholarship, these passages have commonly been interpreted as evidence of the continuous attempts of the Church to curb pagan practices among the ‘nominally Christian’ populace, thus assuming that such regulations were primarily used as a means of social control. This article examines the wider theological and intellectual context of these texts, by focusing in particular on the influence of the Old Testament on early Irish ecclesiastical writing. It will be argued that the demonstrable preoccupation of these sources with issues such as ritual purity and proper religious observance suggests that the stipulations pertaining to lamentation were not solely intended to regulate lay behavior.

Die koninkryk van God in die Ou Testament: ’n Kort oorsig

2021 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel F. O'Kennedy
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Kingdom Of God ◽  
Church Leaders ◽  
Real Difference ◽  
Central Concept ◽  
The Past ◽  
To Come ◽  
Psalm 22 ◽  
The Church ◽  
Technical Terms

The kingdom of God in the Old Testament: A brief survey. The kingdom of God is a central concept in the teaching of Jesus, but the question posed by this article is the following: What does the Old Testament say about the kingdom of God? Several Old Testament terms convey the concept of kingdom, kingship and rule of God. This article focuses on the Hebrew and Aramaic ‘technical’ terms for kingdom: mamlākâ, malkût, mělûkâ and malkû. One finds only a few Old Testament references where these terms are directly connected to God, most of them in the post-exilic literature: 1 Chronicles 17:14; 28:5; 29:11; 2 Chronicles 13:8; Psalm 22:29; 103:19; 145:11–13; Daniel 2:44; 3:33 (4:3); 4:31 (4:34); 6:27; 7:14, 18, 27; Obadiah 21. A brief study of these specific references leads to a few preliminary conclusions: The kingdom of God refers to a realm and the reign of God, the God of the kingdom is depicted in different ways, God’s kingdom is eternal and incomparable with earthly kingdoms, the scope of the kingdom is particularistic and universalistic, the Old Testament testifies about a kingdom that is and one that is yet to come, et cetera. It seems that there is no real difference when comparing the ‘kingdom of God’ with the ‘God is King’ passages. One cannot unequivocally declare that ‘kingdom of God’ is the central concept in the Old Testament. However, we must acknowledge that Jesus’s teaching about the kingdom of God did not evolve in a vacuum. His followers probably knew about the Old Testament perspective on the kingdom of God.Contribution: The concept ‘kingdom of God’ is relevant for the church in South Africa, especially congregations who strive to be missional. Unfortunately, the Old Testament perspective was neglected in the past. The purpose of this brief survey is to stimulate academics and church leaders in their further reflection on the kingdom of God.

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