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

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.

A Genealogy of Breakthroughs

Wong Tsing-yi (1869–1903) was a third-generation Christian woman from a South China family. Focusing on her life story, this study aims to show how her family’s connection and interactions with western missionaries generated new resources for her to reimagine family relations, learning, and social and gender roles, thereby transgressing prevalent social norms. Using the Chronicles of Wong’s family and missionary writings, this study demonstrates how interactions and exchanges with missionaries in practice far transcended the binary view of the hegemonic transmitter and passive receptor. Through a sustained process of exchanges, the family and missionaries engendered a new culture of mutual learning that gave rise to a genealogy of breakthroughs.

https://www.ijherjournal.com/journaldetail/comparative-religions-reality-and-challenges-methodological-approach_118#:~:text=COMPARATIVE%20RELIGIONS%2C%20REALITY%20AND%20CHALLENGES%3A%20METHODOLOGICAL%20APPROACH

The branch of comparative religions has developed during the poste-globalisation era, and has gained great popularity worldwide for several reasons, among the most important events related to terrorism, which the western media has been attributing to demonized religions, especially Islam. This was one of the most inciting cognitive motives for conducting this study. However the main motive was to contribute to the renewal of the comparative religions curriculum, and avoid the traditional teaching and researches approaches whether it is accredited in Islamic universities and in fundamental and western traditional theology, these institutions are working excursively on whitewashing their religion and condemning other religions while ignoring the historical and geopolitical context. In conclusion this was the essence of this study about the methodological approach of comparative religions, and its various challenges through the exemplary comparison between the conservative Jewish woman and the Christian woman. Keywords: History, Record, Curriul, Extremism

Erotic desire as a woman’s way of knowing the divine

This article examines a Japanese novel written by Arishima Takeo, A Certain Woman (first published in Japanese in 1919), in order to explore women’s ways of knowing, focusing on the body and erotic desire as a locus where the human–God relationship is embodied. This novel shows a way of knowing the Divine beyond language and the sanitized notion of love, describing the life of a modern Japanese Christian woman who refuses both Japanese colonial woman-hood and Christian (Victorian) sexual ethics. Depicting the divine presence in the protagonist’s promiscuous and stigmatized body, Arishima asks theological questions about the role of eros and violence in the pursuit of God, and seeks radically free God and humans who may go beyond any existing boundaries.

הכנפיים שנשברו דמות האישה הערבית הנוצרית ברומן " חוצוצרה בוואדי " של סמי מיכאל לעומת דמותה ב " יסמין " של אלי עמיר The Broken Wings: The character of the Arab Christian |Woman in Sami Michael's Novel "Trumpet in the Wadi" versus "Jasmine" by Eli Amir

סמי מיכאל ואילי עמיר - שני סופרים ישראליים ילידי עיראק ובני אותו דור (סמי מכאיל נולד בבגדד בשנת 1926 ואלי עמיר ב-1937). כתבו ברומניהם, בין השאר, על המזרחיות ועל האהבה ונשיות.ושניהם חיו חיים פרועים, מוחצנים. לא נרתעו מהתנסות בכל דבר חדש שנקרה בדרכם, מרדו במוסכמות ונהג באופן פרובוקטיבי, הם נהנו מהזעזוע והתדהמה, שהם מעוררים סביבם. מנסים למצוא את מקומם במסגרות משפחתיות שונות, לכן הם בחרו להציג שתי גבורות ערביות .ושתי הגיבורות הן בחורות נוצריות ערביות והן והדובר ברומן "יסמין" הוא דובר- בגוף ראשון , ב"חצוצרה בוואדי" הדוברת היא הודא הגיבורת , אך ביסמין הדובר הוא נורי – אלי עצמו. שניהם עצמאיים ולשניהם יש תחביב שהם משקיעים בו רבות; הקריאה. המשפחות של שתי הגיבורים עוברות שינויים חברתיים במהלך העלילה, ובשעת הצורך שניהן עובדות לממן צרכים שהמשפחה אינה יכולה לממן. ברומנם במחקר זה ואתעניין בספרם של סמי מיכאל: "חצוצרה בוואדי"" (2008) ובין ספרו של אלי עמיר: יסמין( 2005). מחקר זה מבקש לבדוק כיצד מצטיירת דמותה של האישה הערבית הנוצרית בשני רומנים מפורסמים של השניים . תחילה אתייחס למקומו של הערבי בספרות הישראלית , ואציג את תמצית שני הרמנים עם חיי הסופרים, ואדון בדמות האישה ודרכי איפיונה בהסתמך על ספרות תיאורטית. בפרק השיני אתעניין לדמותיוהן של הודא ויסמין כמייצגות את התקופה, ולבחון את הקווים הבולטים בדרכי עיצובה. ,ואשווה בין הדמות הערבית הנוצרית החוזרת בשני הרומנים, ואבדוק מהי עמדת המוצא שלהם, כיצד הם מתארים את שתי הדמויות ובמה הם בוחרים להתמקד.מפאת תחומו המצומצם של הדיון, העיסוק בנושא יתמקד במבחר דוגמאות נבחרים מן שני הרומנים. Abstract Sami Michael and Eli Amir - two Israeli writers born in Iraq and of the same generation (Sami Makhail was born in Baghdad in 1926 and Eli Amir in 1937). They wrote in their novels, among other things, about Orientalism , love and femininity. They both lived wild, extroverted lives. They did not shy away from experiencing anything new that came their way, rebelled against conventions and acted provocatively; they enjoyed the shock and amazement that evoked around them. While trying to find their place in different family settings, they chose to present two Arab Christian heroines. The narrator in Jasmine is the speaker Noori-Eli himself. While the narrator of “Trumpet in the Wadi” is Huda the heroine herself. Both are independent and both have a hobby in which they invest a lot; which is reading. The families of the two protagonists undergo social changes during the plot, and when necessary they both work to provide the family needs. First, the study sheds light on the importance of the Arabs in Israeli literature as reflected in Sami Michael's book: "Trumpet in the Wadi" "(2008) and Eli Amir's: Jasmine (2005). It, also, provides summaries of the two novels and discusses the character of the Arabic Christian woman as described in both novels. Chapter two debates the characters of Huda and Jasmine and similarities of the two in representing their time. The chapter also compares the recurring image of the Christian Arab character in the two novels, the concept of racism, characters description, as well as the subjects discussed throughout the books with an number of citation taken from the book.

Epilogue

The Epilogue turns briefly to Byzantine reception of Pythagorean women in five short witty letters composed in the persona of Theano. Theophylact Simocatta’s Theano to Eurydice is compared to four anonymous notes “by Theano”: (yet another) To Eurydice, To Timonides, To Eucleides, and To Rhodope, preserved in a one manuscript only, along with explicitly Christian texts. All five notes present Theano as an exemplar of ancient ethics and debate whether or not ancient morals are compatible with Christian values. While Theophylact’s To Eurydice and the anonymous To Timonides endow Theano with virtues that mirror Christian ideals, others present her as a foil to the model of a Christian woman and offer a satirical response to the earlier paraenetic letters. These notes, which evoke the pagan woman philosopher playfully, at times maliciously, draw attention both to some ethical shortcomings of the paraenetic letters and to common pitfalls of Pythagorean interpretation.

Meanderings in the Arabic Literary Genizot

The Cairo genizot (plural of Geniza) provide not only new Arabic literary texts but also new contexts. This study explores different kinds of context by presenting several examples of Arabic literary material found mostly in the Ben Ezra Geniza (BEG). The examples include three tales that also appear in the Arabian Nights literature, a Judeo-Arabic fragment of a Šīʿī kitāb al-ğafr, a Muslim historical work dealing with Muḥammad’s letters to foreign rulers, a playful romantic polemical exchange between a Jewish man and a Christian woman and more. Thinking about different kinds of context is one of the ways to reconnect the study of the documentary and the literary genizot.