Antichrist Research Articles

„Vérnek mezeje ma az Istennek Anyaszentegyháza a mi édes nemzetünkben.”

“The Lord’s Holy Church Is a Field of Blood Today in Our Beloved Nation.” Protestant Martyrdom in a Manuscript Sermon from the Teleki Archives (1675). The sermon under scrutiny is found in the archival material of the Count Teleki of Szék family (P 658), kept in the National Archives of Hungary. It is not unknown to research, although it has mainly gained interest before as a source for the history of books and libraries. The 13 manuscript pages contain the date 1675 and the name of István Nemes, as well as reference to the Reformed College of Enyed/Aiud, but the author of the sermon is unidentified. The Biblical text used is the Song of Songs 2:2, and the topic is Protestant martyrdom. Similarly to other books of Protestant martyrdom (Foxe, Raabus, Crespin), it traces the persecution of the true Church from the Old Testament fratricide to his own time. It starts with the murder of Abel, going through the Egyptian captivity of the Jews, recalling the story of the prophets murdered by Jezebel, and the persecution of Christians under the Roman Empire, ultimately leading to the sacrifice of Christ. This list appears in a similar way with other authors of this decade of mourning too (Mihály Szőllősi, István Szőnyi Nagy); what is more, Szőllősi was Teleki’s court pastor until 1674. The sermon connects the pain felt over the trial of the pastors and teachers condemned to the galleys, the fleeing of the Reformed College of Sárospatak, the seizure of Protestant churches, and the expulsion of several pastors with the grievances of “our beloved nation”. Through this, the sermon is also a document of the political connections of the Transylvanian Reformed elite and the fugitives in Hungary, as well as the piety movements that underlie these connections.

Framing Manipur Violence: Assessing Right-Wing Inroads into the Syrian Christian Community of Kerala

The Syrian Christian community in Kerala has responded positively to the right-wing political outreach. Its digital manifestations are evident, especially on Facebook. But how do they respond to unfavourable external events? Through netnographic analysis of a select Christian Facebook page, this study explores the community’s framing of Manipur violence, which was characterised as Christian persecution within a majoritarian setting. The research probes the frame-building process, simplifying historical intricacies and reframing ethnic violence and tribal strife within the narrative. The analysis reveals the adoption of caste consciousness and the religious othering tropes to undermine the solidarity extended to Manipur Christians. The formats of multimedia content and the linguistic choices exemplify the rhetorical positioning of the community. The findings shed insights into the deliberations of minorities within and outside their communities in a majoritarian framework.

Dall’imago clipeata alla Theotokos Platytera Fenomeni di contaminazione e sublimazione nell'iconografia mariana dei primi secoli

The particular iconographic theme of the Theotokos Platytera is manifested as an iconic representation in which the infant Christ is always inserted inside a clipeo – a disc with a circular shape or an ellipsoidal almond – that she holds up as if it were a portrait on the shield to impose on the veneration of the bystanders. Although the meaning underlying the use of clipeo is original and entirely in line with the contemporaries written of the most important ancient Christian authors, its use is presented as the reuse of a much older portrait typology and reinterpreted over the centuries, that is the imago clipeata which is conferred a multiple semantic value. The way in which the Virgin supports the imago Christi in the oldest attestations is configured as a transmigration of gestures and meanings borrowed from previous female clipeophores representations, thus giving life to 'hybrid' visual constructions extraordinarily rich in variations. The images of the Platytera are similar, in terms of iconography and meaning, to the type of the Victoria in clipeo scribens and rarest images of Aphrodite hoplismene. The analysis and iconographic comparison of the most ancient figurative testimonies highlight numerous conceptual links that demonstrate the persistence and continuity of the symbolic value attributed to the presence of the clipeo which gave rise to new visual formulas in Christian art recombined with familiar elements.

Narrating ‘Home’ in Early Christian Biography: Athanasius’ Life of Antony and Its Literary Predecessors

In this paper, I provide a close examination of early Christian biographical sources through the heuristic lens of “home studies”, tracing a thread from the New Testament Gospels to martyrdom texts, the apocryphal Acts literature, Eusebius’ biography of Origen in his Church History, and finally, Athanasius’ Life of Antony. I demonstrate that the lens of home allows us to see that in each of these discrete groups of texts, Christ’s call to discipleship is understood to redefine and reconstitute the meaning of home and relatedly, family: to be “home” required a great deal of displacement and mobility as one forsook one’s biological family and household for the sake of obedience to the call of Christ. I argue that three topics, typically examined separately, are fruitfully brought together through the lens of home: (1) the shaping of ancient Christian identity formation, as expressed by the characters’ use of familial language to identify other members of the early Christian movement; (2) the mobile nature of the person who joins the movement, providing insights about the mobility and travel of many of its members; and (3) ancient Christian eschatological thought concerning the final dwelling of Christ-believers in some form of otherworldly home after death.

Understanding the Good: Medieval Inquisitions and Modern Religion

Abstract This essay responds to scholarly arguments that “religion” arose in the particular circumstances of the modern West, distinct chronologically and conceptually from medieval religio. It argues that in the Middle Ages, Christian persecution helped to form that very notion of religion. It does so via the register of heresy inquisitions conducted by Bishop Jacques Fournier in Pamiers (1318–1325), which contains a curious and overlooked Occitan phrase: entendensa del be (“understanding of the good”). In three provocative ways, entendensa del be helps us to reconsider the origins of “religion.” First, one possibility is that the phrase represents an organic proto-religion among the heretics known as Good Christians. A second possibility is, conversely, that scribes presented an insignificant phrase as a technical term, helping to identify the group as heretical. This would highlight coercive inquisitorial agency in reinterpreting language and behavior, anticipating early-modern and modern constructors of “religion.” Third, by its links to troubadour culture, the phrase reminds us how in Occitania, conquest and resistance intertwined with inquisition's policing of “religious” behavior in a way that resembles claims for modernity. Regardless of which possibility, and most importantly, we discover how medieval persecution helped to form modern religion.

Late Ancient Christian Anxiety over Islamic Geographies of Containment: Two Examples

In the seventh and eighth centuries CE, Christians across the Mediterranean were experiencing the consequences of the rise of Islam and its expansion. With this challenge to Christian hegemony in the eastern Mediterranean, Christian writers began to ask about the effect of Islamic expansion on their own lives, practices, and worlds to come. In this article, I aim to contextualize two examples of how late ancient Christians questioned their ability to remain Christian in the face of both Islamic captivity and assimilation: 3 Apocryphal Apocalypse of John (3 Apocr. Apoc. John) and Anastasius of Sinai’s (d. ca. 700) Questions and Answers (Questions). I divide this article into three sections. First, I place Christian anxiety over Islamic rule in conversation with Stephanie Camp’s concept of the “geography of containment” to explore how some late ancient Christians understood themselves to be geographically and spatially limited by imprisonment or enslavement. I also provide an overview of recent scholarship on Christian responses to early Islamic expansion and anxiety over enslavement, imprisonment, captivity, and assimilation to Islam. Finally, I turn to 3 Apocr. Apoc. John and Anastasius’s Questions to analyze how late ancient Christians turned to monks and patriarchs to find answers regarding the uncertainty of Christian identity under Islamic rule.

Review Book: The Other Christ: Imitating Jesus in Ancient Christian Ideologis of Martyrdom

Review Book: The Other Christ: Imitating Jesus in Ancient Christian Ideologis of Martyrdom

Verso una rinnovata mistagogia L’impostazione della mistagogia basata sulla tipologia biblica

Biblical typology is the basis of any mystagogy because, through it, the Christian sees the entire plan of God unfolded, fulfilled in Christ, along with the persons, realities, and events that prophetically prefigured His coming. In various fields of theological reflection, the term „mystagogy”, so dear to the liturgical and spiritual tradition of Christian antiquity, has emerged with renewed vigour. In the great patristic mystagogies, the biblical passage takes center stage and shapes the very method of mystagogy: for the Fathers, mystagogy is nothing other than biblical typology applied to the liturgy. Therefore, in order to fully participate in the mysteries of Christ and his message, it is necessary to appropriate and adopt biblical typology. Only this enables us to move toward a renewed mystagogy.

From Text to Relics: The Emergence of the Scribe-Martyr in Late Antique Christianity (Fourth Century–Seventh Century)

Abstract: This paper delves into the conflation of two prominent figures of authority in the early Christian world: the scribe-scholar and the martyr. While previous scholarship has largely examined these figures separately, this study focuses on their association and argues that they were meaningfully combined to establish a new form of textual authority. The motif of the scribe-martyr is explored in a series of Christian texts, from Pseudo-Pionius to John Moschus and late ancient hagiographic texts, tracing its origins to the fourth century. This development emerged from the growing association between the authority of written texts as physical objects and the rise of the cult of saints and their relics. In parallel with Foucault’s concept of the author-function, a distinct Christian “scribe-function” emerged within this context, i.e., discourses of authority, fictitious or historical, involving the individuals who reproduced or corrected texts. The paper posits that the motif of the scribe-martyr was then strategically employed in legal, scholarly, and institutional contexts to express faithfulness, resistance, authorization, and legitimation. As a result, this conflation contributed significantly to the attribution of holiness and authority to texts, sacred places, and religious institutions. Thus, the scribe-martyr, connected to the revered relic-texts, assumed a particularly potent role as a figure of theological authority within late ancient Christianity.

On the Spread of Christianity in the Fayum Oasis

Abstract One of the most intriguing periods of Egyptian history, associated with the spread of Christianity, is still poorly understood. Recent excavations shed more light on this process. During excavations conducted by the Centre of Egyptological Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences on the Deir el-Banat necropolis in the Fayum an unusual burial was discovered. It contained the remains of a young man who had been subjected to a cruel punishment: an arrow had been shot into his body and he was hanged by the neck. According to the tomb’s inventory and the shrouds found in the grave, the man lived in the fourth century AD, when the persecution of Christians by Roman authorities was particularly virulent. Although it is currently impossible to clearly determine the cause of such a severe violent death, some findings suggest that the execution was caused by religious conflicts. If so, this case is a rare illustration of the death penalty on religious grounds imposed on the ordinary inhabitants of the oasis during Roman rule.

Viable Cooperation or Unscrupulous Service? Motivations for Albert Bereczky’s Activity in Church Governance

Albert Bereczky is one of the controversial figures in the 20th-century history of the Hungarian Reformed Church. Bereczky was a genuine and authentic leader of those who fought for the inner spiritual renewal of the church between the two world wars, a church organizer, a well-known and respected preacher, who saved many by risking his life during the deportation of Hungarian Jews to extermination camps, for which he was posthumously awarded the honorary title “Righteous Among the Nations” from the Yad Vashem. However, the communist state apparatus established after World War II found in him the person who, by placing him at the head of the Reformed Church, could bring about a radical reduction of the public and social role of the Church almost without any resistance. So, the question arises: how and why could Bereczky, whose Christian commitment was hard to question, become the servant of the dictatorial state apparatus with its atheistic ideology? Our study attempts to record the possible intrinsic and extrinsic motivations that might explain this dilemma, while also providing a general insight into Albert Bereczky’s life.

The Papacy as an Ecclesiastical Institution in the history of Early Christianity: aspects in the study of the issue

This article is dedicated to the Institute of the Roman Episcopate. When studying this topic, it often takes on tendentiousness and ideological shades, which contradicts the principles of scientific objectivity. At the same time, the period in the history of the Roman episcopate before the ecclesiastical schism of 1054 often remains without due attention. Meanwhile, this period is very diverse and filled with the spiritual exploits and large-scale intellectual work of the Roman bishops, some of whom are revered as saints in both Orthodoxy and Catholicism. The most famous of them (but far from the only ones) are Leo I Great and Gregory I Dvoeslov. Let us emphasize that before the Edict of Milan in 313, almost all Roman bishops suffered martyrdom due to the persecution of Christians that unfolded in the Roman Empire in the first three centuries of our era. At the same time, the bishops of Rome, in addition to the issues of the physical survival of the community, had to resist heresies, schismatic tendencies, maintain the correctness of worship and promote the growth of the moral consciousness of Christians. There are very few written sources about the life of the Roman bishops in the history of early Christianity, which complicates the study of this topic and leaves many blank spots, nevertheless it gives a special flavor to this scientific study.

The Textual Demiurge: Social Status and the Academic Discourse of Early Christian Forgery

AbstractThis article reconsiders the classed and gendered construction of the Author in the Roman Mediterranean, a construction that generates the intertwined notions of authorship and authenticity. Modern scholarly conversations about authorship and pseudepigraphy in the Roman Mediterranean often proceed from the uninterrogated assumptions that (a) ancient texts (including early Christian texts) were the monographic products of solitary authors and (b) everyone in antiquity, regardless of gender or class, had access to the status of being an ‘Author’. While conversations about (in)authentic textual production extend beyond the works that become part of the New Testament, these twin assumptions form the basis for modern debates about ‘forgery’ in New Testament literature. This article challenges both assumptions by first surveying the role of uncredited collaboration in Roman literary culture and then analysing ancient Christian discourses surrounding (a) illicit textual meddling and (b) inappropriate textual ascription. These two discursive categories reveal how the categories of class and gender are entangled with early Christian ideas of the Author. Ancient discourses of authenticity and authorship were not simply about who produced texts but about policing which acts of textual production count as ‘authoring’.

신이 아닌 부동의 제일원동자에 관한 성찰: 토마스 아퀴나스의 입장

This paper explores Thomas Aquinas's perspective on the prime mover of celestial spheres. In Latin medieval cosmology, all movements in the natural world are reduced to the rotational motion of celestial bodies. In traditional Aristotelian natural philosophy, the prime mover of celestial bodies is regarded as God-substance that thinks itself. However, Christian theologians also acknowledge the existence of immaterial angels besides both God and the material world. Ancient Christian thinkers attributed the cause of movement of celestial bodies to angels. Thomas synthesizes the positions of theological authorities, Aristotelian natural philosophy, and the universal principles of causality outlined in the Arabic “Book of Causes” to deduce the various substantial attributes of the prime mover of celestial bodies. The cause of all motions must be a self-moving principle, meaning it must possess a soul in the sense of the principle of life. However, the celestial soul exists as pure intellectual activity without sense-perception. If the soul of celestial bodies were characterized solely by its intellectual nature, it would not be distinguishable from another intellectual being, i.e. angels. They are distinguished only by the relative distance of participation in the First Cause, or in other words, by the difference in the grade of perfection of existence. Thomas acknowledges that the celestial soul is substantially similar to the lower angels confessed in Christianity but he doesn't argue for the complete exclusion of the term “soul.” Perhaps he wanted to preserve the concept of the soul as a purely philosophical concept corresponding with angels.

RELIGION AND POLITICS: BASIC IDEAS CORRELATION IN EUROPEAN POLITICAL DISCOURSE

The article is devoted to revealing the correlation of the basic ideas of reli- gion and politics, which have been embodied in the modern European politi- cal discourse. The origins of democratic values and principles of democratic government can be found in the discourse of Christianity (law of universal love, educational propaganda of Christianity, basic life values, creation of an open society, etc.). Democracy was born and developed in the West, in countries with an ancient Christian tradition, its secular humanism is based on the principles of Christian values. Freedom, equality and fraternity – the basic categories of democracy – are nothing but “evangelical values”. In Christianity, individual freedom is li- mited by commandments. The secular projection of this Christian principle involves the restriction of freedom by the provisions of laws, not by ethical commandments. The ideas of separation of powers, progress, etc. are also a kind of projection of Christianity. The attitude to time in European culture, being determined by the Christian paradigm of temporality, acts as a kind of secularization of the religiously shaped perception of eschatological time. Thus, the idea of the “Arrow of Time” directed from the past through the present to the future (“from begin- ning to end”) became a kind of prototype of the idea of progress. The problem of individualism – basic for modern liberal-democratic dis- course – also originates in the evangelical individualism of Christianity. At the political and cultural level, certain parameters of the European iden- tity correlate with the parameters of the Ukrainian identity. Considering, on the one hand, the Christian and democratic intentions of European culture, and, on the other hand, the dominant role of the ideas of Christianity and democracy in Ukrainian culture, it is possible to assert a close correlation of the specified parameters of European and Ukrainian identities. Perception of the ideas of freedom, equality, individualism, etc. relate Ukrainian and European identities.

The politics of Thomas More's A Dialogue of Comfort against Tribulation

Thomas More's early writings provide both a defense of his vocation in politics and a political theory for a Christian polity, attempting to harmonize Christendom with the best practicable political order. But More's A Dialogue of Comfort against Tribulation reflects upon this vocation in light of the anti-Christian political order. He uses the specter of Turkish tyranny sweeping into Hungary to reflect on the open persecution of Christians. Where other scholars have focused on the pedagogy, history, and theology of More's Dialogue, this paper focuses on its political teachings. More shows his readers the essence of political tribulation, the necessity of supplementing pagan philosophy and virtue with a distinctly Christian courage, and how the Christian citizen should behave in the face of death. The Christian's virtue is the source of his comfort and the bulwark for Christendom's final victory.

Prostitution og oprejsning

In this article, I conduct a diachronic cultural-historical analysis of the phenomenon of prostitution in pagan and Christian antiquity. My prime focus is how the spread and consolidation of Christianity in the Greco-Roman world effected the social attitudes towards prostitutes and their prospects in terms of social and spiritual rehabilitation. I begin with an introduction to the issue of prostitution in pagan roman antiquity, highlighting some of the social, legal, and economic aspects pertaining to it. I then examine the perspectives on social and spiritual rehabilitation in The Shepherd of Hermas and the stories of the repenting prostitutes, Mary of Egypt, and Pelagia of Antioch. Finally, I discuss and sum up the differences between the pagan and Christians attitudes towards prostitutes and their rehabilitation

Political Intertheology

ABSTRACT The following paper introduces the concept of political intertheology as a post-secular counterpart to Carl Schmitt's notion of political theology. It elaborates this concept by examining two interpretations of the New Testament narrative regarding the choice between Jesus and Barabbas. Both interpretations revolve around the relationship between Christianity and Judaism. The first, anti-antisemitic reading, emphasizes the identity between Jesus and Barabbas. The second, anti-anti-Christian interpretation, intensifies the political-theological antagonism. This article proposes a third, guilt-political interpretation. This perspective enables us to acknowledge both the inevitability of the distinction between Christians and what they perceived as Jews, and the fact that a politico-intertheological intensification (the accusation against the Jews of demanding the crucifixion of Jesus) was not inevitable. Understanding how it unfolded facilitates overcoming this fateful accusation at its core, without succumbing to a new accusation (against early Christians) and thereby replacing anti-Judaism with potential anti-Christian sentiment.

Americanized discourses of religious freedom and Christian persecution during the 2022 Ottawa trucker convoy

In this article, Hannah Dick draws on Stewart Hoover’s concept of mediated imaginaries to help explain the transnational circulation of Americanized discourses during the 2022 Canadian trucker convoy protest in Ottawa. She examines the mediated objects produced by the convoy participants, including physical signs erected throughout downtown Ottawa and also those that circulated on social media platforms and in official communications published by convoy leaders. Using textual analysis, she explores the role of Americanized Christian discourses in charging the Canadian convoy movement with both political and existential meaning. It is argued that while the convoy does not represent a simple importation of American religio-political organizing consistent with theories of cultural imperialism, the symbolic resonances of Americanized discourses of freedom and Christian persecution nevertheless provide a flexible and robust affective infrastructure that is adaptable for the Canadian context.

False accusations, arrests, and persecution of Christians. Formative factors and impact of state laws of religious freedom in India

This article provides a critical analysis of state laws on religious freedom in India and their effect on minority communities, especially Christianity. It identifies the formative factors underlying these laws, along with the role played by religious political parties in their formulation. It also examines the motives behind the enactment of these laws and how they obstruct minorities’ rights to propagate their religion and stand as a threat to their survival. The article further explores religious violence, false accusations and arrests inflicted on Christians because of these laws.