Daily Routine, Food and Faith. To Yu.F. Samarin’s Thesis on “Formalism” of the Church Life in the Pre-Petrine Period

2019 ◽  
Vol 54 ◽  
pp. 268-279
Author(s):  
Abbot Vitaly Utkin

With reference to Yu. F. Samarin’s thesis on “Formalism” of the Church Life in the Pre-Petrine Period, the article examines the issue of the role of fasts, eating patterns and daily routine in general among most radical groups of Old Believers. The author of the article draws the conclusion that such conceptions were rooted in the Pre-Nikon Russian religious (monkish) traditions. The author pays special attention to the social and political aspect of the connection between food and payer for the Tsar in the context of the “spiritual Antichrist” teaching.

2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 160-173
Author(s):  
Lidia K. Gavryushina

The article deals with the spiritual aspects of life of Old Believers’ communities in contemporary Romania and the changes in their traditional culture, which took place during the second part of the last century. People whose stories we present here told us that faith was the foundation, on which both a person and the community could lean on in difficult situations. Оne of the main peculiarities of the church life of Lipoveni is the intercommunication of church ceremonies and folk traditions. One of the most interesting facts about them in Manuylovka (Bucovina) is the sequence of church and folk songs during the wedding dinner. Nowadays however the role of tradition has changed. For example, there is a difference between the attitudes of the old and young generation towards the marriage with heterodoxes. Life among the people of another nationality and religion had consolidated the Lipoveni during the past centuries, but now threatens with additional risks of disappearance of their own cultural space.


2019 ◽  
Vol 54 ◽  
pp. 235-246
Author(s):  
Alexey L. Beglov

The article examines the contribution of the representatives of the Samarin family to the development of the Parish issue in the Russian Empire in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The issue of expanding the rights of the laity in the sphere of parish self-government was one of the most debated problems of Church life in that period. The public discussion was initiated by D.F. Samarin (1827-1901). He formulated the “social concept” of the parish and parish reform, based on Slavophile views on society and the Church. In the beginning of the twentieth century his eldest son F.D. Samarin who was a member of the Special Council on the development the Orthodox parish project in 1907, and as such developed the Slavophile concept of the parish. In 1915, A.D. Samarin, who took up the position of the Chief Procurator of the Most Holy Synod, tried to make his contribution to the cause of the parish reforms, but he failed to do so due to his resignation.


Author(s):  
Beverley Haddad

The field of theology and development is a relatively new sub-discipline within theological studies in Africa. The first formal post-graduate programme was introduced at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, South Africa during the mid-1990s. In the early years it was known as the Leadership and Development programme and since 2000, as the Theology and Development programme. Over the past twenty years, this programme has graduated over 160 BTh Honours, 100 MTh, and 15 PhD students. This article outlines the history of the programme, addresses its ideological orientation, its pedagogical commitments and preferences in curriculum design. It further argues that theological reflection on “development” must seek to understand the prophetic role of the church in responding to the complexities of the social issues facing the African continent.  Key to this discussion is the contested nature of “development” and the need for theological perspectives to engage this contestation through a social analysis of the global structures of injustice. This requires an engagement with the social sciences. It is this engagement of the social sciences with theological reflection, the essay argues, that has enabled the students who have graduated from the Theology and Development Programme at the University of KwaZulu-Natal to assist the church and faith-based organisations to become effective agents of social transformation.


2018 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Leepo Johannes Modise

This paper consists of five parts. Firstly, a brief historical background of reformation will be discussed as an exercise to remember reformation. Secondly, we review the role of the ecumenical church (SACC) prior to democracy in South Africa. The purpose for focusing on the role of the church from this period is that it gives us a model to follow in our involvement in socio-economic transformation. Thirdly, the social and economic challenges facing the church and society in democratic South Africa will be discussed. Fourthly, we debate the role of the ecumenical church (SACC) in democratic South Africa. Fifthly, the article explores what role the Uniting Reformed Church in South Africa (URCSA) is playing (descriptive) and ought to play (normative) through all her structures to transform the socio-economic situation in South Africa.


2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gayda Bachmid

This article reveals the role of Burdah as an Arabic literary book that has become a regular practice of the Moslem community in Manado. The researcher tries to find out the social and cultural aspects through the Arabic text pertaining to concrete condition where the content of the book is practiced and this serves as the key to comprehend the users’ view and thinking pattern. The problems paralleled to the research objective is identifying and analyzing the social, spiritual and metaphysical reflection. The research findings indicate socially, there is a unitary perception in which the user community is called to set up an organization to learn about the book. The projected spiritual transformation of the book as a prophecy work toward a future hope makes it a routine regular practice at wedding ceremony, housewarming, and children under five thanksgiving. Metaphysical transformation is held as a miracle so that this regular practice can cure various diseases. This belief rooted in the user community perception has become a daily routine custom even though the Arabic language read is not understood. Key words: Burdah, spiritual, cultural and metaphysical transformation.


2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 547-558
Author(s):  
Roman N. Lunkin

In the article analyzed the social and political consequences of pandemic of coronavirus for the Russian Orthodox Church in the context of the reaction of different European churches on the quarantine rules and critics towards the church inside Russia. The author used the structural-functional and institutional approaches for the evaluation of the activity of the Russian Orthodox Church, was analyzed the sources of mass-media and the public claims of the clergy. In the article was made a conclusion that Orthodox Church expressed itself during the struggle with coronavirus as national civic institute where could be represented various even polar views. Also the parish activity leads to the formation of the democratic society affiliated with the Church and the role of that phenomenon have to be explored in a future. The coronacrisis makes open the inner potential of the civic activity and different forms of the social service in Russian Church. In the same time pandemic provoked the development of the volunteer activity in the around-church environment and also in the non-church circles among the young people and the generation of 40th age where the idea of the social responsibility for themselves and people around and the significance of the civil rights was one of the popular ideas till 2019. The conditions of the self-isolation also forced the clergy to struggle for their parishioners and once again renovate the role of the church in the society and in the cyber space.


Author(s):  
Sverre Bagge

This chapter examines four themes that raise the question of the connection between cultural development and social change in the Scandinavian kingdoms: religious versus secular literature, the social importance of Christianity, the writing of history, and the formation of a courtly culture from the mid-thirteenth century onwards. In particular, it considers the extent to which cultural and literary expressions of these social changes were actively used to promote the interests of the monarchy, the Church, and the aristocracy. The chapter first discusses the role of the Church as the main institution of learning in Scandinavia and in the rest of Europe before assessing the extent to which Christianity penetrated Scandinavian society at levels below the clerical elite. It then turns to a charismatic figure, St. Birgitta of Vadstena in Sweden, and historical writing as a literary genre in medieval Scandinavia. Finally, it provides an overview of courtly culture in Scandinavia.


2019 ◽  
pp. 233-236
Author(s):  
Jana Riess

This concluding chapter argues that in the next few years at least, the polarization within Mormonism will continue, in which those who remain in the LDS Church will be ardent believers but those who don't fit in will pull up stakes and leave. How the Church chooses to finesse the social shifts—specifically, those regarding marriage, gender, racial diversity, and LGBT issues—will signal which trajectory it is going to follow: will it remain steadfast and become entrenched in the role of embattled subculture, or will it lean in, accommodating its message and positioning in order to retain cultural relevancy and attractiveness? The chapter then considers the acute tension the LDS Church is experiencing between assimilation into American society and retrenchment. This ever-present pendulum between assimilation and retrenchment has ensured that Mormonism has successfully maintained its distinctive edge even while making major theological deletions that might have been unthinkable to previous generations.


1992 ◽  
Vol 20 (01) ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Paul Valliere

The political role of the Orthodox Church in post-communist Russia is more difficult to assess than its social and cultural roles for several reasons. First, to offer any systematic observations on the matter one must attempt to construe the nature of the church-state relationship in Russia, a notoriously controversial subject. Second, one must make an educated guess concerning the part played by the huge internal security apparatus which only yesterday dominated the internal affairs of the Soviet Union, including religious affairs. The security establishment has been dislodged from its hegemonic role in the Soviet state as a result of the Gorbachev reforms, but there is little question that it continues to exist as a political force in the country. Reading the aims of this network is no easy matter, however, because by definition it operates in relative secrecy and by means of diversionary tactics. One also has to reckon with the possibility that the security network has been disrupted by the changes of recent years, and operates with less coordination than in the past.


2001 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 543-564
Author(s):  
Kester Aspden

It is ironic that it should have been the leader of the church with the greatest proportion of working-class members who took up the most hostile stance to the General Strike of 1926. While Francis Bourne (1862–1935), Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster, won the plaudits of the Establishment for his unambiguous denunciation of the strike, that cautious septuagenarian Randall Davidson, Archbishop of Canterbury, found himself cast in the unlikely role of the workers’ friend after his illstarred attempt to conciliate the two sides. Sheridan Gilley has highlighted another contrast: while in 1926 Bourne found himself sharply opposed to labour, in a 1918 pastoral letter he had been insistent that the Church should reach an accommodation with the ‘modern labour unrest’. While Gilley implies that his General Strike condemnation was uncharacteristic, Buchanan suggests that this was closer to expressing his ‘real political views’ than his 1918 statement. This article aims to provide a closer examination of the shift in Bourne’s attitude, and to consider the broader episcopal response to social and political questions during these fraught years.


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