scholarly journals Criminal Offences of Turning and Conversion to Roman Catholicism in Dušan’s Code

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-120
Author(s):  
Stefan V. Stojanović

Dušan’s Code is the most important monument of Serbian medieval law. It contains a large number of provisions relating to Orthodoxy, the church, the clergy and monasticism. The first 38 articles are directly dedicated to the faith and the church. The Code also prescribes various criminal offences against Orthodoxy, and the most numerous are offences of Roman Catholic proselytism. The introductory part of the paper contains a brief analysis of the position of Roman Catholics in medieval Serbia, the relationship between Serbian rulers and popes, and especially emphasizes the role of Roman Catholic propaganda and the conversion of the Orthodox to Roman Catholicism, which was most prevalent during the reign of Tsar Dušan. The subject of the author’s legal-historical analysis is those provisions of Dušan’s Code that incriminate turning and conversion to Roman Catholicism. So far, it has been indisputably established in science that these are Articles 6, 7, 8, 9 and 21. In Article 6, the Code of Emperor Stefan Dušan proclaims: „And concerning the Latin heresy: Christians who have turned to the use of unleavened bread shall return to the Christian observance. If any fail to obey and do not return to Christian Orthodoxy, let them be punished as is written in the Code of the Holy Fathers.” Article 7 provides: „And the Great Church shall appoint head priests in all market towns to reclaim from the Latin heresy those Christians who have turned to the Latin faith, and to give them spiritual instructions, so that each one of them returns to Christianity.” Article 8 punishes the Latin priest: „And if a Latin priest is found to have converted a Christian to the Latin faith, let him be punished according to the Law of the Holy Fathers.” Article 9 prohibits mixed marriage: „And if a half-believer is found to be married to a Christian woman, let him be baptized into Christianity if he desires it. But if he refuses to be baptized, let his wife and children be taken from him, and let a part of his house be allotted to them, and let him be driven forth.” Finally, Article 21 prescribes: „And whoever shall sell a Christian into another and false faith, let him be crippled and his tongue cut out.” In the concluding remarks, the author points out the basic causes of prescribing these crimes, as well as certain historical data on Emperor Stefan Dušan’s anti-Catholic politics.

1947 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 221-233 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henry M. Shires

During the reign of Mary Tudor, Queen of England from 1553 to 1558, Roman Catholicism became the official religion of the English state; and the English Crown once again recognized the authority of the pope. English Roman Catholics were jubilant while the Protestants believed that all of the gains of the English Reformation had been lost. The religious and even the political future of England was therefore clearly in the hands of Queen Elizabeth when she ascended the throne in 1558. She was subjected to strong pressure from both the Roman Catholics and the Protestants, and for some years the ultimate issue was in doubt. The religious decisions which were made in England during this period were, however, vital for the cause of Protestantism and of extreme significance for Roman Catholicism. Much of the historical writing which describes these crucial events is, naturally enough, the product of Protestant or Roman Catholic apologetic; and the subject is one which has need of calm and reasoned study as well as of ordered presentation.


2020 ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
D. G. Hart

This chapter focuses on how Roman Catholics became prominent players in conservative circles and provides an understanding on the affinity and tension between national and Roman Catholic traditions and ideals. It describes John F. Kennedy's kind of Roman Catholicism, which Americans and the press found acceptable. It also mentions John Courtney Murray, who was considered a potential breakthrough for Roman Catholicism that harmonizes church teaching with national ideals, unlike Kennedy whose electoral victory was an example of religious indifference. The chapter talks about Pope Leo XIII's 1899 condemnation of Americanism or adjustment of the church to freedom, democracy, and popular sovereignty as Roman Catholics were still laboring under papal opposition to modernity in the 1950s. It refers to John T. Noonan, Jr., who authored important books about the church's evolving moral theology.


Author(s):  
Р. Райнхардт ◽  
R. Raynhardt

The article is dedicated to the 210th anniversary of establishment of diplomatic relations between the United States of America and Russia and casts light upon their genesis and development. It provides an acute insight into the key issues of US-Russian agenda within a time span of more than 200 years. Along with giving a holistic picture of the subject, the author focuses on specific cases crucial for understanding the current geopolitical juncture shaped by the interaction of the two nations. With an emphasis on differences in political culture, he outlines the important role of cross-cultural communication within the framework of the respective cases. The findings derived from the historical analysis give grounds for a certain degree of optimism in terms of further development of the relationship between the US and Russia.


2002 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 229-242 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Paul von Arx

Contemporary Roman Catholics have realized in the last thirty-five years that when an ecumenical council has concluded, it is far from over. The interpretation of the decrees of the Second Vatican Council has become today as critical and controverted as the formulation of the decrees was during the Council itself. The present controversies centre on ecclesiology—the nature of the Church—and questions at issue concern continuity and innovation. Did Vatican II, and especially the Decree on the Church in the Modern World, reform the structure and the governance of the Church toward a greater degree of consultation, subsidiarity, decentralization—‘collegiality’, to use the expression of the Council itself? Or was the vision of the Council for the Church in basic continuity with the centralized, papal-monarchial Church of the First Vatican Council? Around these questions centres most of the contention that engages the Church today: debates having to do with the rôle of bishops’ conferences, the operation of the Roman curia, the relationship of the magisterium or teaching authority to theologians.


Perichoresis ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 81-95
Author(s):  
Gregory W. Parker

Abstract Henri de Lubac’s treatment of the relationship between nature and grace will be critiqued by Herman Bavinck’s ‘grace restores nature’ theme. In two significant addresses, Bavinck critiqued a Roman Catholic approach to nature and grace. De Lubac’s influence upon Roman Catholic thinking addressing nature and grace occurred post-Bavinck and has altered Catholic thinking on the subject. Neo-Calvinist scholar, Wolter Huttinga admits that Bavinck and de Lubac offer similar critiques of Roman Catholicism (Huttinga 2014). The question remains then, do Bavinck’s critiques still hold? I propose that Bavinck’s account of grace restores nature still makes valid critiques of a post-Vatican II construction of nature and grace. The paper is broken into three sections: (1) an exploration of de Lubac’s nature and grace theme, (2) the framework of Bavinck’s ‘grace restores nature’ theme, and (3) a Bavinckian critique of de Lubac’s nature and grace theme.


2013 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 332-334 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Hill

Bob Morris' comment on the Succession to the Crown Bill invites the Church of England to ‘fresh, bound-breaking’ thinking about Church of England establishment in light of the role of the Supreme Governor of the Church of England and the statutory obligation for the Sovereign to maintain communion with the Church of England. Along with other writers he argues that, in effect, this leaves us with religious freedom in the UK but not religious equality. I hope that Morris' challenge will stimulate such fresh thought – my response is not yet this but concerns another matter that he raises in relation to Roman Catholic marriages. He repeats concern in both Houses of Parliament that children of ‘mixed marriages’ are obliged to be brought up as Roman Catholics, and he correctly questions the extent of such an absolute obligation contra an article in the Catholic Herald.


Author(s):  
D. G. Hart

This book places the rise of the United States' political conservatism in the context of ferment within the Roman Catholic Church. How did Roman Catholics shift from being perceived as un-American to emerging as the most vocal defenders of the United States as the standard bearer in world history for political liberty and economic prosperity? This book charts the development of the complex relationship between Roman Catholicism and American conservatism, and it shows how these two seemingly antagonistic ideological groups became intertwined in advancing a certain brand of domestic and international politics. Contrary to the standard narrative, Roman Catholics were some of the most assertive political conservatives directly after World War II, and their brand of politics became one of the most influential means by which Roman Catholicism came to terms with American secular society. It did so precisely as bishops determined the church needed to update its teaching about its place in the modern world. Catholics grappled with political conservatism long before the supposed rightward turn at the time of the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973. The book follows the course of political conservatism from John F. Kennedy, the first and only Roman Catholic president of the United States, to George W. Bush, and describes the evolution of the church and its influence on American politics. By tracing the roots of Roman Catholic politicism in American culture, the book argues that Roman Catholicism's adaptation to the modern world, whether in the United States or worldwide, was as remarkable as its achievement remains uncertain.


Author(s):  
W. M. Jacob

This chapter reviews how the Church of England fared at the local, diocesan, and parochial levels in England during the long eighteenth century from 1662, when the Church was re-established as an episcopal and liturgically ordered Church, to 1828, when, with the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts (and Roman Catholic emancipation in 1829), members of other Churches gained full citizen rights. The chapter examines the response of clergy and laypeople at the local level to contemporary intellectual and socio-economic changes and organizational reforms and renewal in the Church, noting regional variations. It considers the pastoral and disciplinary roles of bishops and clergy, and explores the focal role of the Church in communal life in towns and villages and the active engagement of laypeople, including women, with the Church. The relationship with Dissenters from the Established Church is also discussed, as well as the evidence for anti-clericalism.


2021 ◽  
pp. 097168582110159
Author(s):  
Sital Mohanty ◽  
Subhasis Sahoo ◽  
Pranay Kumar Swain

Science, technology and human values have been the subject of enquiry in the last few years for social scientists and eventually the relationship between science and gender is the subject of an ongoing debate. This is due to the event of globalization which led to the exponential growth of new technologies like assisted reproductive technology (ART). ART, one of the most iconic technological innovations of the twentieth century, has become increasingly a normal social fact of life. Since ART invades multiple human discourses—thereby transforming culture, society and politics—it is important what is sociological about ART as well as what is biological. This article argues in commendation of sociology of technology, which is alert to its democratic potential but does not concurrently conceal the historical and continuing role of technology in legitimizing gender discrimination. The article draws the empirical insights from local articulations (i.e., Odisha state in eastern India) for the understandings of motherhood, freedom and choice, reproductive right and rights over the body to which ART has contributed. Sociologically, the article has been supplemented within the broader perspectives of determinism, compatibilism alongside feminism.


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