Christians in and from the Middle East: Lessons from the World Christian Encyclopedia

This article considers the history and contemporary reality of Middle Eastern Christianity in light of new demographic information available from the World Christian Encyclopedia. For readers interested in church history and World Christianity, it identifies key lessons to be learned about Christians in and from the Middle East today. It focuses on understanding the region’s Christian diversity, the complexities of recent demographic decline, the relationship between Middle Eastern and global Christianity, and the interreligious realities of Christian life in the region.

Der Religionsdisput in Feofan Prokopovyčs Vladimir

Summary Usually Feofan Prokopovyč’s tragedokomedija Vladimir is considered an early example of the author’s ecclesiastical reform concerns, which he realized in the Russian Empire from 1716 onwards. However, a detailed analysis of the religious dispute, which is at the center of the play, and its literary sources gives rise to a more biographical reading, according to which the young author recommended himself to the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy for his work as a professor in rhetoric. He, the former supporter of the Union, emphasizes the Greek roots of Eastern Christianity and presents himself as a loyal representative of Moscow-orientated Orthodoxy. There is no evidence that he disagreed with Hetman Mazepa on the political position of Ukraine at the time.

The Depiction of ‘Orthodoxy’ in Post-Soviet Space: How Vladimir Putin Uses the Church in His Anti-Western Campaign

This article seeks to examine Russia’s recent interest in uplifting the status of Orthodox church as a pivotal factor in the state. Most importantly, the position of Orthodox Church has grown rapidly during Putin’s administration as a solacing factor to fill the gap emerging from the fall of the Soviet Union. The sixteenth-century doctrine propounded by Filofei called ‘Third Rome’, which profoundly portrayed Moscow as the last sanctuary for Eastern Christianity and the nineteenth-century nationalist mantra of ‘Orthodoxy, Nationality, and Autocracy’, is rejuvenated under Putin as the new ideological path to move away from the Western influence. Specifically, it is an evident factor that ideological movement that rigidly denies Russia’s hobnobbing with the Liberal West is rather intensified after the Crimean crisis in 2014. Under this situation, Putin’s usage of Orthodoxy and Russia’s spiritual legacy stands as a direct political tool, expressing Russia’s uniqueness of the global affairs. This article will critically examine the historical trajectory of the Orthodox Church in Russia as an indicator of its distinctiveness.

„Wspólnota kosmologiczna”. Natura i sacrum w liryce Jerzego Harasymowicza

The paper is dedicated to the issues of nature, religion and sacral architecture of Polish–Ukrainian borderland, as well as the metaphysical understanding of nature in Jerzy Harasymowicz’s poetry. In addition to that, the article refers to the question of the unique cosmological communion between humans and other parts of God’s creation according to Christian perception of the world. The first chapter contains some general theses, which deal with the subject of nature in Harasymowicz’s poetry, but the issue of sacrum is also mentioned. The second part of the essay brings a reflection dedicated to pantheism and hylozoism present in the large collection of poems written by the poet from Puławy. Metaphysics, which is a crucial part of his achievements, is also mentioned here. The last part of the article discusses the relations between nature and culture located in the wider context of Eastern Christianity as well as Slavic paganism. The text, written in the year of the twentieth anniversary of Harasymowicz’s death, includes some crucial issues of the poet’s achievements from his whole life.

The Problem of Ethno-Religious Nationalism in Georgia

This research aims to demonstrate the range of Georgian Orthodox Church constructing the Georgian ethnoreligious nationalism. How ethnoreligious identity affects the functioning of a modern state? The pre-modern tradition of identity was based on religion and dynasty. Religious identity, under the church (mostly in eastern Christianity), could be associated with some ethnos. For example, Kartvelian”, in the middle ages, is determiner not for ethnos but faith. From this derived the term – Kartvelian (Georgian) by faith. Ethnoreligious nationalism and liberal nationalism are different. According to the tradition of state nationalism, religion is not a determinative factor for nationalism. Even non-Christian can be Georgian. The ethnoreligious nationalism is a non-modern project created during the modernity. In the period of nationalism religious identity, in some cases, was transformed into an ethnoreligious identity that contradicts a liberal understanding of the modern nation by which the idea of nation is not limited by religion or ethnos. Georgian Orthodox Church is an important factor forming Georgian ethnoreligious nationalism. Based on this, we can claim that the church’s anti-western trends, often, hinder the functioning of the modern state. This trend was formed in the period of the Russian empire and the Soviet Union. This point of view is dramatically different from the 1918-1921 years’ church’s aspiration for which western and liberal values were natural and vital setting.

Digitization of Bibles in Greater China (1661–1960)

Bible translations in (or for) Greater China may be classified into three categories: Chinese, Han dialects, and indigenous languages. All these language groups witness translation activities by Protestant missionaries. However, in its earliest history, Bible translation was pioneered by missionaries of Eastern Christianity in the seventh century or even earlier, whereas from the Catholic side, clear historical narrative has recorded Bible translation work in the thirteenth century by John of Montecorvino (1247–1328) into a Tatar language. Sadly, this work was not preserved. The earliest extant Bible translation in this vast area was published in 1661 in the Siriya language of Taiwan. This article reports on two major digitization projects: digitization of old Chinese Bibles (1707–1960), including 51 translations in total, and digitization of Bibles in Han dialects/fangyan and indigenous languages (1661–1960)—about 50 languages (including dialects) and 60 translations. These two projects represent the largest and most systematic full-text digitization of the Bible heritage of the area ever undertaken.

A FASCINATING SYNTHESIS OF SCIENCE, THEOLOGY, AND SPIRITUALITY: ST. GREGORY PALAMAS

As a prominent Church father, mystical theologian and incisive polemicist, St. Gregory Palamas has realized a «Summa Theologica» of his epoch, but one that has surpassed not only the thinking of contemporaries, but remained, to this day, a synthesis of philosophical and theological knowledge, at least for the Eastern Christianity. He pointed out with clarity the independence of theology from philosophy or from any other field of research. One of the most important instruments with a view to knowing God is prayer and Palamas began to write under the pressure of defending the hesychastic method of prayer. He proves that true communion with God was possible through sanctification and that God's vision through prayer was a sign of this spiritual communion. In Palamas' very coherent theological thinking, Christology corresponds to his anthropology, and both to his mysticism. St. Gregory strongly depreciated the value of intellectual effort, maintaining the primacy of direct illumination over scientific reasoning. Thus, prayer and asceticism engender love, which leads to illumination by God and participation in the divine life. He tries to make sense of mystical experience in the scientific and philosophical language of his day. Paradoxically, almost every attempt arrives at establishing that the spiritual cannot be grasped by man's natural intellectual capacity, nor expressed in philosophical language. But the spiritual man can be the partaker of this experience through the experience of grace, as divine uncreated energy, the true "face" of God accessible to human contemplation. The Archbishop of Thessaloniki, who realized a synthesis of Science, Theology, and Spirituality outlines the relation between them as follows: Science explores the world and leads to technological inventions; Theology interprets reality within the Christian framework, evidencing the glory of God as reflected throughout his creation; and Spirituality is the privileged path toward personal transformation. The debate about Palamism is likely to continue for some time. His version of theosis (deification) was enshrined in Orthodox teaching as a result of his canonization, but among the intellectuals for whom it was intended it remained controversial, despite its grandeur.