Rites of Initiation in the Early Irish Church: The Evidence of the High Crosses

Rites of Initiation in early medieval Ireland have been studied only with reference to contemporary texts; recourse to other sources, most notably the substantial corpus of extant high crosses, has not been made. Here it will be demonstrated that the iconography and programmatic arrangement of the depictions of Noah’s Ark, the Baptism of Christ, and the Three Hebrews in the Fiery Furnace can significantly advance theological and liturgical understanding of the early medieval rites of baptism and ordination in this region, indicating the central role of these biblical events and their associated literatures in these contexts. It will be further suggested that this relationship between text, image, and ritual points to the role of the high crosses in facilitating the liturgical rites of the early medieval Irish Church.

West Africa: The evolution of traditional institutions of power. Africa: occult practices in civil wars and conflicts

The paper considers the influence of traditional beliefs on political processes and the nature of military operations during armed conflicts in contemporary Africa. The authors’ attention is focused on the administration of magic rituals and rites of initiation and immunization to members of tribal militias and rebel groups, aimed at maintaining their cohesion, commitment, fearlessness and, ultimately, achieving military success.

It is about time: Birthdays as modern rites of temporality

What do birthdays mean? Why are they so obligatory for modern people? Based on neo-Durkheimian perspectives on ritual, this article suggests the anthropological history of the western birthday as a key to understand its meaning. The article points at the unique ritual system developed by modern industrial culture, such as birthdays, jubilees, and other anniversaries—designated here as Rites of Temporality—which latch on to the numerical milestones marking the passage of time to which the celebrant (individual, institution, settlement, state, and so forth) is subject. Comparing the birthday with classical rites of initiation then reveals how over and above individualism, consumer culture, state bureaucracy, and historical consciousness, the birthday honors time’s most noticeable markers since the industrial era—numbers—thus objectifying conventionalized time as a central meaning maker for modern people.

Participation in Divine Light and Church Membership in De Spiritu Sancto of Basil of Caesarea

The imagery of light plays a key role in Basil of Caesarea’s narrative of God and salvation. Curiously, the communal aspects of this imagery have received little attention in scholarship. A systematic analysis of “De Spiritu Sancto” reveals that in Basil’s understanding, participation in divine light functions as a parallel concept to Church membership. To begin with, the corporate nature of participation in divine light is evident from the ecclesial rites of initiation whereby this participation is bestowed. Furthermore, Basil uses the imagery of light to underscore the corporate nature of both the mystical union between God and the baptized, and the outward expressions of the believers’ lives in the divine light: worship and public witness. In addition to shedding new light on the Basilian notion of Church membership, the study o#ers a fresh outlook into the ecumenical dialogue between the Orthodox Church and Lutheran Church bodies on the theology of initiation.

A Liberal Psycho-theology

The chapter discusses Butrus al-Bustani’s Nafır Surriya (The Clarion of Syria) pamphlets and his translation of DeFoe’s Robinson Crusoe. Throughout these pamphlets, and using Crusoe’s story as an allegory for civil society in a post-war temporality, Bustani formulated a form of liberal nationalism in defence of the ‘true religion’ (diyana haqiqiya), Protestant in spirit and corresponding with a political economic logic that ties it to the history of capitalism. This wedding of religion and political economy is most strikingly evident in the way the concepts of guilt and debt were used to separate out a universalistic conception of religion from sectarian political identities. The political theology that underlies Bustani’s liberal logic, and which is the focus of the analysis throughout this chapter, raises the question of the nature of the rule of law in relation to violence; in other words, it exposes the fine line between law-making violence and law-preserving violence. Furthermore, Bustani’s worldview provides us with an understanding of the kinds of symbolic investiture that iterate the performative nature of rites of initiation into community in fin de siècle Beirut, ones that restrict the potentialities of politics from within a ‘psycho-theological’ framework.

The Photisterion in Late Antiquity: Reconsidering Terminology for Sites and Rites of Initiation

What is a photisterion? Translators usually render the Greek word phōtistērion (site of illumination) as ‘baptistery’ (site of immersion in water). This article reopens the study of phōtistēria, arguing that being ‘immersed’ or ‘illuminated’ evokes different senses of the concomitant meaning of the sites and rites of initiation. It situates late ancient phōtistēria from epigraphic and literary sources in their theological and liturgical contexts. The evidence from Galilee, Syria, Jordan and Cyprus corroborates the idea that many Christians of late antiquity preferred ‘illumination’ to express the composite rite of initiation in a phōtistērion, within which ‘baptism’ was one part.

Rites of Passage and the LDS Temple

This chapter looks at Mormons' experiences in the Latter-day Saints (LDS) temple. Whereas regular Sunday services are open to the public at thousands of LDS chapel meetinghouses around the world, temples are rare—there are just over 150 around the globe—and closed to everyone but the most committed Latter-day Saints. The Next Mormons Survey (NMS) data shows that most Mormons who have been to the temple do have a good first experience. Six in ten current Mormon respondents reported that they had been to the temple for the initiatory followed by the endowment ceremony, which are the two essential rites of initiation for the LDS temple. However, it is possible there is a disconnect between what millennials say about loving their first time in the temple and what some of them actually felt in real time. Overall, the temple emerges as a complex site of contention for many former Mormons.

The “Classic” Age of Christian Worship, 4th–6th Century

The 4th–6th centuries can be considered a classic period in the development of Christian worship. During this time many of the liturgical forms that are still recognizable today were consolidated: the architectural disposition of church buildings, the shape of the Eucharist and the various traditions of the eucharistic prayer, the rites of initiation, the annual liturgical cycle (calendar), and the rites associated with ordination, weddings, the anointing of the sick, penance, and the burial of the dead. This was the period in which the great diversity and variety that characterized the first Christian centuries gradually settled into the basic structures that are familiar today. At the same time, it was the period of the development of the great rites of Christian worship that were centered on the major cities of the Roman Empire: Antioch, Alexandria, Constantinople, Edessa, Jerusalem, and Rome. The new diversity of these rites often corresponded to the various languages in which they were celebrated: Greek, Syriac, Coptic, and Latin.

The Bar and Bat Mitzvah in the Yishuv and Early Israel: From Initiation Rite to Birthday Party

This article is an anthropological history of the bar/bat mitzvah ceremony in the Yishuv and Israel of the 1940s and the 1950s, when this ceremony radically grew in terms of the space, time, and economic resources devoted to it, as well as expanded to include girls. To explain that shift, I suggest distinguishing classic rites of initiation from the system of life-cycle ceremonies typical of modern consumer culture, which emphasizes the transition between temporal markers rather than social statuses and imposes no task on the birthday celebrant. The article reconstructs the process by which, during the 1940s and the 1950s, the bar/bat mitzvah ceremony came to function more as an elaborate birthday party than as a rite of initiation. The historical reconstruction demonstrates how, during the late Mandate period and early years of statehood, a new grassroots Israeli culture emerged, shaped by the accommodation of Western consumer culture to Jewish traditions rather than by Zionist ideology or established religion.