НАЗВАНИЯ ЗА ЖИЛИЩЕ В БЪЛГАРСКАТА ЕЗИКОВА КАРТИНА ПРЕЗ СРЕДНОВЕКОВИЕТО / NAMES FOR LIVING PLACES IN THE BULGARIAN LANGUAGE PICTURE OF THE WORLD IN THE MIDDLE AGES

This study presents the linguistic and semantic realizations of the concept of living places in the Old Bulgarian classical and original works from the 9th – 11th centuries and in the works of Patriarch Euthymius. A system of words and collocations and their use in different contexts are analyzed in view of their relation to Christian culture and the medieval picture of the world. The author traces the process of enrichment of the names for living places and the changes in the conceptual content of the studied words and collocations. Keywords: names for living places, medieval conceptosphere, history of the Bulgarian literary language

The Acts and Decrees of the Synod of Diamper and the Machinations of Religious Colonization

The Synod of Diamper is, arguably, amongst the most significant milestones in the history of St. Thomas Christians in Kerala. This Synod was convened in the church at Udayamperoor, Kochi, Kerala, from June 20 to June 26, 1599. As is documented, it was Archbishop Alexis De Menezes of Goa who convoked this Synod. 200 decrees were passed during the nine sessions which were held during the Synod; these decrees, in toto, became a turning point in the history of Christianity in Kerala. Primarily, the Synod of Diamper was a religious/theological one. However, its subsequent decisive role in the history and culture of Kerala also gave the Synod a social face. A close scrutiny of the canonas [canon] reveals that these decrees were formulated with a consideration of only Christian practices that were prevalent and familiar in the West [Occident]. In a grimly ironic sense, the canonas overtly attempts a coax-hoax, whereby the Christians of Kerala would be coerced to follow the rules of the occidental version of Christianity; and this disciplining would be aided by various methods including expulsions from parish, ex-communication, etc. One big fallout of this scenario was that the Christians of Kerala, who till then had a variegated co- existence with different cultures, were forced to take up an exclusive and singular notion of Christian culture. Through these canonas, many of the existing socio- cultural customs of the Christians of Kerala were abolished; an attempt to sculpt the socio-cultural life of this native populace and bring it in accordance with the image of the Christian that the West upheld. This article aims to reveal the methodology through which the Institutionalized Western Theological-agencies, by means of constant surveillance and an enforced seclusion-exclusion axis, exerted power on regional and native Christian group.

Editorial

Populism, like nationalism, can be found on the right as well as on the left-wing of the political spectrum. However, current political debates demonstrate how in recent years, nationalist and populist movements have advanced the preservation of Christian “roots” against a global cosmopolitanism. Right-wing populism thus tends to present itself as a guardian of Christian culture, or Judeo-Christian culture. However, there is a struggle over the definition and the ownership of this religious heritage. Whilst it is certainly possible to identify sources within the Protestant tradition that may legitimise support for right-wing populism, the questions this struggle raises often relate to particular intersections of culture, theology, perspectives on history as well as political thought. This special issue explores and critiques these intersections, employing theological, historical, and sociological methods. While the main perspective is that of cross-disciplinary reflections on the fraught relationship between Protestantism and right-wing populism, it also examines the evolution of broader connections between Christianity and nationalism through time.

Intercultural Dialogue in the Middle Ages: A Christian Cemetery in Pagan Vilnius

In Medieval Europe, Lithuania remained a pagan state the longest, officially accepting Catholic baptism only in 1387. But the country had already been influenced by Christian culture, Orthodox from the East and Catholic from the West, since the 11th century. It should be noted that this influence was not the same: Catholicism was mostly brought ‘by fire and sword’ in the role of the Teutonic Order while the spread of Orthodox Christianity could be more peaceful. It is frequently stressed that the Ruthenian Orthodox Christians were close neighbours of the pagan Lithuanians, settling in Lithuania as subjects of the grand dukes. While the Catholics needed to be invited, the Orthodox Christians from the Ruthenian lands were already subjects of the grand dukes. Thus, communities of both branches of Christianity: Eastern Orthodox and Western Catholic, had settled here and were interacting in a still pagan environment in pagan cities ruled by pagan dukes. This article, in seeking to present the circumstances of the settlement of one of the early Christian communities in Vilnius, the Orthodox one, and its development, examines this community through data from the burial site it left and the interpretation of those data.

Christian Tradition and (Post) Modernity in the Context of Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński’s Personalist Concept of Culture (2)

The subject of this article is to present the Christian cultural tradition in the context of (post) modernism from the perspective of the personalistic vision of culture presented by Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński. The author’s interpretation of source materials aims to show Christian culture as a “sphere of earthly reality” shaping the human person in its integral dimension, i.e., both in the individual and social dimensions and the temporal and supernatural. In the personalistic-praxeological sense, Christian culture is rooted in the biblical-traditional values, which – perceived as a gift and obligation – are developed primarily in the sphere of the daily Christian life, especially in the dimension of family and nation. The author of the article asks whether the aretology of Cardinal Wyszyński’s personalistic concept can be applied to the specific realities of the up-to-date fact of cultural life? The answer to such questions is essential, especially in the context of the currently proclaimed “ideological pluralism” characteristic of the contemporary post-modern culture that emphasizes the moral ambivalence of “liquid” postmodernity.

Religion and Orthodox Eastern Europe, 700–1500

Taking the Byzantine (East Roman) Empire as its focus, this chapter paints in broad brush strokes the theological developments over the course of eight centuries, from the outbreak of Iconoclasm in the eighth century to the Hesychast debates of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. It was from Byzantium that the earliest Christian missionaries spread the Gospel and Byzantine Christian culture to the various Slavic lands. The chapter also includes a note on the role of the Jews and Manichean sects in Orthodox Europe. Overall the chapter argues that it was the Orthodox Church, and especially the Patriarchate of Constantinople, that was the primary creator of culture in Eastern Europe during the Middle Ages.

The Protection of the Interests of Future Generations in the 10-Year-Old Hungarian Constitution, With Special Reference to the Right to a Healthy Environment and Other Environmental Issues

The present study is inspired by the tenth anniversary of the new Hungarian Constitution, known under the name of Fundamental Law, which was adopted in 2011 and entered into force in 2012. In this study we analyse the ten-year old Fundamental Law and its constitutional practice with regard to the important challenges and tasks of the 21st century, namely how the protection of the interests of future generations and the environment are reflected in it. Particularly important elements of the study are (a) the institutional guarantees of the relevant provisions, such as the provisions relating to the Constitutional Court and the Advocate of Future Generations, (b) the concept of GMO-free agriculture in the Fundamental Law, (c) the theses of the Constitutional Court practice on the prohibition of retrogression and the precautionary principle, (d) new interpretative frameworks and possibilities arising from other values of the Fundamental Law, such as the provisions on Christian culture, (e) the open questions of interpretation of the Fundamental Law on waste and the environmental liability regime, (f) the priority protection of natural resources, which are the common heritage of the nation, and last but not least (g) the particularly forward-looking integration of the interests of future generations in the rules on public finances and national assets.

The Emotive Component of the Genre Categories and Style in the Artistic Canon of Christian Culture (based on the works of medieval books)

The article examines the character and function of emotiveness in the structure of the “poetics of Truth”, as well as the artistic means of creating emoticons in emotively neutral subjects. Using the fragments of the chronicle, the prologue and the solemn sermon, the author shows how, depending on the degree of spiritual enlightenment of the addressee, the same artistic image can have different content and have an emotional impact of different intensity, acting as an “archetypal emotive”, “(biblical) emotive key”,“emotive symbol”.

Introduction

The graphic design of this issue of The Ignatianum Philosophical Year- book front cover includes the entrance gate to the Wawel Royal Castle in Krakow. The gate itself is transformed into a triumphal arch opening towards the road recognizable to every person who feels a bond with the cultural heritage of the Western world. This road is the via Appia, once built by the will of Appius Claudius Caecus, and considered one of the oldest Roman tracts. Called “the queen of all roads” by the Romans them- selves, it is inseparable from the Eternal City for everyone raised on the values of Western civilization. Mikołaj Sęp-Szarzyński wrote about it in his famous epitaph: “today in Rome defeated, Rome invincible,” express- ing this way the overwhelming awareness of connecting the past with what we experience as the present. It was on this road that the legendary scene recalled by Henryk Sienkiewicz took place, in which the question: quo vadis, Domine? is asked by the apostle Peter, fleeing from the Eternal City, to Christ he meets on the Appian Way. The power of this question is understood by anyone who is able to see in the roots of Classical and Christian culture all that is the most important for the Western culture not only in terms of its past, but also in terms of its future.