SFÂNTUL CIPRIAN AL CARTAGINEI, EPISTOLA: DE MORTALITATE - DESPRE CONDIȚIA MURITOARE A OMULUI- ATITUDINEA CREȘTINULUI ÎN TIMPUL PANDEMIEI ȘI PUTEREA CREDINȚEI. UN CUVÂNT ACTUAL PENTRU CONTEXTUL COVID-19 - TRADUCERE, INTRODUCERE ȘI NOTE

The epistle "On the Mortality" written in 252 AD, by St. Cyprian of Carthage is his most original moral writing. The Christians of the first centuries went through various plagues or epidemics, in which moments they proved the power of the faith by taking care of each other, without abandoning the sick. This prompted Saint Cyprian to write a work entitled De mortalitate. Plague reached a widespread, lasting from the year 251 until 254. The world was panicked. The epistle De mortalitate "On the Mortality" is addressed to Christians, through which he awakens in them the hope in future goodness and a dignified attitude towards death, which is a passage from exile to the heavenly homeland. In fact, the epistle „De mortalitate” contains an admirable doctrine of suffering and death, viewed from Christian viewpoint. This epistle is very actual for the contemporary time because we know the attitude of the Christians facing the epidemic and even more than the power of the faith assumed, all that is well affirmed for the current time, in the context marked by the Covid-19 pandemic.

EPISCOPUL ȘI / SAU RECEPTAREA SOBORNICEASCĂ A KATHOLICITĂȚII (ΚΑΘΟΛΙΚΉ) BISERICII

In the Symbol of Faith, we profess that the Church is Catholic. Therefore, we can understand this catholicity in several ways. First of them, the Church is catholic because it proclaims the apostolic faith in its entirety; she is the place where we meet Christ in his sacraments and receive the spiritual gifts needed to grow in holiness together with our brothers and sisters. The Church is also catholic because its communion embraces the whole human been, and she is sent to bring to the entire world the joy of redemption. Not eventually, the Church is catholic because it reconciles the wonderful diversity of God’s gifts to build up His People in love, unity and harmony.

SFÂNTUL SIMEON NOUL TEOLOG ȘI EXPERIENȚA PERSONALĂ A VEDERII LUMINII DIVINE

Saint Symeon is one of the most representative Eastern theologians and mystics. His speech on God and the knowledge of heavenly realities through direct, unmitigated experience would gain him the title of “the New Theologian”, which, until him, had only belonged to Saint John the Evangelist and Saint Gregory of Nazianzus. Therefore, his writings have greatly influenced the Christian East. Saint Symeon has been perceived as a renewer of the tradition of spiritual life and a restorer of the lost or rather neglected spiritual life. In this study, we aim to highlight his experiences in which he partook of the sight of divine light. These mystical episodes marked his life and decisively influenced the way he related to God and to the spiritual life to which Christians must adhere. We will first present these experiences of heavenly light from a chronological point of view, starting with those from the period when he was a layman and culminating with those from Saint Mamas Monastery. Our main aim is to see how each of these mystical experiences has marked his spiritual evolution. We will see that these experiences have helped Saint Symeon reach deeper within the mystery of communion to the One Who is Light and Who is calling everyone to be like Him.

UN REPER FUNDAMENTAL AL ESHATOLOGIEI: DISTINCȚIA DINTRE NECREAT ȘI CREAT, DAR NU ȘI INCOMPATIBILITATEA COMUNIUNII LOR

Orthodox eschatology is based, on the one hand, on the affirmation of the clear distinction between the uncreated nature of God and the created nature of His creatures, and, on the other hand, on the possibility of their union through divine Grace. Towards this eschatological union creation is called ontologically, through the divine reasons based on Reason-Christ, Who draws to Himself man and the universe, because He is at the same time Cause and Target, Alpha and Omega. The Church is working and preparing for the Feast of the Great Union, which will take place at the Second Coming of the Lord

PERSPECTIVELE SPIRITUALE ALE MINŢII UMANE LA SFÂNTUL MAXIM MĂRTURISITORUL

The human mind is the subject of research for various fields of activity. Socio-human research fields investigate the brain's relationship with the mind, its circumstantial and relational functionality, the biological support and the complex processes of the soul, the principles of its formation and the relationship with consciousness, as well as its mode of action at the level of the human communities. Besides these perspectives, there is a special domain of mind research: that of Christian patristic spirituality. But what are the research objectives of Christian spirituality with regard to the human mind? And why did the uman mind come to the attention of the holy Fathers of the Church? From the texts of Christian anthropology and spirituality it follows that the mind has become a subject of research because the most intimate union between man and God is at its level. This study is centered on the analysis of St. Maximus the Confessor's observations about the human mind and its spiritual possibilities. The research methods relate both to the relationship between St. Maximus' observations and the previous Greek and Patristic philosophical tradition, and to their comparison with the results of modern thoughts about the mind. It can be said that the spiritual perspectives described by St. Maximus fundamentally complements the current research of about mind, because it discovers her cognitive and sensitive ability to develop in personal relationship with God.

TEOLOGIA ȘI ȘTIINȚA ÎN DIALOG. REPERE ȘI PERSPECTIVE

One can note that science tends to turn man into a master of the external and material, yet at the cost of turning him, on the level of his inner and spiritual life, into a slave of instincts altered by sin. All these, without a moral norm, become a power of destruction for man and represent issues addressed not just by bioethics, where the opinion of ‘theologians’ is consulted as well, but especially by the Church and by the Orthodoxy. The pressure of events imposes the issue of the recognition or, according to some, reformulation of the bases of ethics. Yet, this ethics ought to be constrained to a revision founded neither just on the progress of science, whose truths are partial, nor on the principles of rationalist or positivist philosophy, which try to convince man that he is no different from all the other living beings and needs to be treated in the same way as them, but on the reality of the religious fact, and, moreover, on the evidence of God’s Revelation and, implicitly, of Christian anthropology, based on the fact that man bears God’s image, not the image of man himself, as a society attempting to exclude God in an absolute manner wills to herald. According to the Holy Church Fathers, one must pursue not a concordism or discordism of theology and science but their dialogue from a theological and, implicitly, eschatological perspective. The first, namely theology, relies on the knowledge of God and the receiving of the supernatural gifts by the action of the divine uncreated energies, by means of man’s collaboration with God, which supposes man’s commitment to advance on the steps of the spiritual life: cleansing, illumination, deification. The second, namely science, relies on knowing the surrounding world and on putting to use the natural gifts, also given by God to man, and by which man investigates the reasons of things, recognising God’s power, wisdom and presence. Therefore, to theology correspond the spiritual knowledge and wisdom from Above, while to science correspond lay knowledge and the wisdom from the outside or from below.

VALOAREA ŞI DEMNITATEA PERSOANEI UMANE ÎN LUMINA ÎNVĂŢĂTURII CREŞTINE

Life ruled by law and the legality of our culture have in common the oblivion of the right and the demand of saving yourself through your deeds. Life ruled by law deals only with individual saving, because it does not see the total good; it always balances, for its whole horizon is nothing but a changing, as it is the report between God and human being. Love has every virtue and it is contrary to all sins. This is the source of all forms of good. The one who has love is on his way to perfection. Between love and consciousness there is a real complementariness. Consciousness is the instrument through which law becomes operative in our being. Saint Apostle Pavel underlines the fact that a pure moral consciousness is kept by belief (Tit. 1, 15- 16). Christian love that springs from a pure moral consciousness and heart is what God wanted from his creation, man having the possibility to take the resemblance with God, as his nursing to “God’s image”