Christian Europe Research Articles

“Filling in the Blanks”: Jaffa's Oranges, an English Suit, and the Rememorying of Palestinian History

Like great port cities throughout history, Jaffa has always welcomed strangers; enough of them to earn its sobriquet “mother of strangers” (umm al-gharīb). The gateway to Palestine and the Levant since ancient times, Jaffa is not only the site of multiple events of biblical or broader religious significance. With the incorporation of Palestine in the late 18th century into the still developing modern world system, Jaffa became a city of culture and commerce, with winding casbahs and tree-lined boulevards, Turkish baths and Jewish bordellos, sand dunes and orange orchards—lots of them, as we'll see—and some of the most striking architecture, never mind coastline, of the Eastern Mediterranean. North African Jews, Haurani Bedouins, Afghan traders, rabbis from Beirut, troubadours from Jerusalem, divas from Mansoura, and more than a few European Christian and Jewish pilgrims, all made their way to and through Jaffa over the centuries, joining a local population that septupled to over 17,000 during the course of the 19th century. They were joined by tens of thousands of Jews for whom Jaffa was a port of entry to Palestine with the onset of Zionist colonization. Jaffa, in other words, is the perfect locale for a novel, especially when, as with award-winning architect and writer Suad Amiry's first novel, Mother of Strangers, most of it happens to be rooted in truth.

Law and moral theology in Christian Europe: the limits of sacralization in the late works of Paolo Prodi

ABSTRACT This essay analyzes the work of Paolo Prodi (1932–2016), which is characterised by a constant reflection on secularisation. As a democratic Catholic, he explored the relationship between the Roman Church and the modern world starting from the Council of Trent and from the dual figure of the pope as a temporal ruler and spiritual guide. His original contribution concerned the conflict between law and conscience: a problem that led him to design a triptych of books on the foundations of the western world. He was influenced not only by Verfassungsgeschichte (German constitutional history), but also by Harold Berman. If for Weber the modern world was born from the Reformation, for Berman it was the ‘Gregorian revolution’ that changed the fate of Latin Europe. For Prodi, too, the medieval conflict between canon and civil law introduced a peculiar structure in Europe that would last until the triumph of the nation states and the so-called ‘political religions’. In his three books (the first dedicated to the oath, the second to justice, the last to economics), Prodi placed at the centre of his analysis the notion of forum; the history of moral theology and casuistry and the relationship between penitence and justice.

“In God We Trust”—The Contribution of Christian Trade Unions in European Integration

Since World War II, the countries of Western Europe have gradually gone towards economic, social, and political integration. This was influenced by states, institutions, social partners, and churches. The Christian trade unions also contributed to that end. This contribution was the result of the interaction between the laborers’ religion and their desire to act collectively. Those unions followed the social doctrines of the Catholic Church and/or Protestant Churches while strongly disagreeing with socialist or communist unions. During the Interwar period, their members were subjected to the violent actions of the totalitarian governments in many European countries. Those governments eliminated Christian unions and, in some cases, persecuted their leaders. After the war, Christian unions embraced the “Peace Project”, advocating for European and global peace. They also cooperated with many political and social leaders during the formation of the EEC. Christian unions aimed at improving political systems in Western Europe, promoting freedom of religion, and defending the Communist threat. In this article, we describe the ways in which the Catholic and Protestant labor unions tried to promote political, economic, and social cooperation in Europe. To this end, we will examine their pertinent material and actions on the Old Continent. Finally, we will discuss the current challenges faced by the Christian unions and their stance towards neoliberal capitalism and globalization—these new developments in the long history of Christian Europe.

Pietro Della Valle: Christian pilgrimage, antiquarianism and cosmopolitanism in the age of the Baroque

The Roman aristocrat Pietro Della Valle, who defined himself as a pilgrim and as a citizen of the world, can stand as a paradigmatic case of the emergence of the modern curious traveller out of a religious tradition of pilgrimage. Della Valle did indeed travel to the Holy Land as a pious Catholic, in the second decade of the seventeenth century. However, his pilgrimage was from the start conditioned by antiquarian and romantic concerns, and he eventually extended his journey beyond Ottoman lands towards Persia and India. This article will elucidate how the pilgrim fashioned and transformed himself around a multi-faceted idea of travel in his letters at different stages of his journey, and as a member of a learned academy upon his return to Italy. Looking back at his visit to the Holy Land as part of a project of aristocratic self-fashioning, it will argue that the transformation of a religious pilgrimage into a complex experience involving religious and political schemes, scientific erudition and love did not open a chasm between piety and worldly learning, but instead widened the scope of curiosity in more exotic and cosmopolitan directions. The case of Della Valle exemplifies how early modern European Christian identities, in this respect often at odds with late antique and early medieval antecedents, were frequently built around the idea that religion and knowledge of the world were largely complementary, in a manner that facilitated new attitudes of cultural accommodation that placed increasing emphasis on the universality of learned civility over strictly religious experiences.

Paralelismos tematológicos e imaginarios entre «La hechicera» de Teócrito de Siracusa (III a.C) y el Auto de fe contra Paula de Eguiluz (1623-35)

In this article, we examine how an Auto de fe from seventeenth-century Cuba shows us a historical mirror of life, society and imagination. Through it we witness the story of Paula de Eguiluz, a black slave owned by the Warden Mayor of Santiago de Cuba, who was tried under the accusation of witschcraft by the Inquisition in Cartagena de Indias between 1623 and 1635. The document, considered a contextual proof in its time, today becomes a proof of historicity. Its thematic, symbolic and anthropological scope connects it to the legacy of magical and hidden rituals that survived in the Hispanic Caribbean, and whose origin dates back to Classical Antiquity. Among the texts that testify this connection, we will consider the poem “The Sorceress” by Theocritus of Syracuse , author of the Idylls. This poem tells how Simeta prepares an elixir for the young man she desires, and describes the ritual, and the emotional circumstances that surround it, in detail. In this article, we introduce the connections between the magical imaginary described by Theocritus, and the beliefs that in seventeenth-century Christian Europe were still part of popular culture and that, transferred to America, were hybridizing with indigenous traditions and beliefs coming from Africa through the Atlantic slave trade.

Contested Religious and Cultural Issues

Abstract This article discusses the encounter between the missionaries of the Glasgow Missionary Society (Free Church of Scotland, hence Presbyterians), and the Wesleyans (Methodists) in the nineteenth century and the AmaXhosa in the Eastern Frontier of the Cape Colony. It specifically highlights the AmaXhosa’s contestations of some European Christian teachings, cultural values, and a way of life, which the Presbyterian and Wesleyan missionaries tried to impose on them in the process of ‘Christianizing’ and ‘civilizing’ them. The study illustrates that contrary to the commonly held conception that the Xhosa readily embraced the gospel, conversion to Christianity was a long and drawn-out process that entailed contestations and resistance on many levels and in many forms.

Ever Hear of Feuerbach? That’s Why American and European Christianity Are in Such a Funk! , by Mark Ellingsen

Ever Hear of Feuerbach? That’s Why American and European Christianity Are in Such a Funk! , by Mark Ellingsen

From the Palace of Ryswick to the Sultan’s Seraglio: The Ottoman Translation and Interpretation of a Christian European Peace Treaty

The inclusion of peace treaty articles between Christian powers in an Ottoman historical work of the late seventeenth century is unquestionably distinctive. The article presents an Ottoman translation of the Treaty of Ryswick (1697) concluded between the French king and the German emperor. This translation is included by the late seventeenth – early eighteenth-century Ottoman historian and palace official Silāḥdār Fındıklılı Meḥmed Aġa in his historical work called ‘The Book of Victory’ (Nuṣretnāme). With this unique text as its basis, the article will first attempt to place the translation in its historical context and explain the possible reasons for its inclusion by Silahdar in his history. Secondly, to morphologically evaluate the text to bring to the fore the translation strategies adopted and to explore the reception and the degree of understanding by the Ottoman side of the basic terms and linguistic topoi of a Christian European peace treaty. And lastly, to analyse the specific interpretation ascribed to the Ryswick agreement by the Ottoman leadership.

Simplify and Doctrinalise, Historify and Personalise: How Two Less-Known Works of Anti-Islamic Polemic fromc. 1370–1440 Adapted their Sources

Throughout the long history of Christian-Muslim engagement, finding reliable information on Islamic faith has always been a challenge for European Christians, and existing sources were often re-used. This contribution focuses on two little studied works who both use parts of Jacobus de Voragine's Legenda Aurea and Riccoldo da Monte di Croce's Contra legem Saracenorum in order to formulate their own views. The two texts, Peter de Pennis's Tractatus contra Alchoranum and the anonymous Epitome bellorum sacrorum, re-use their pretexts extensively, but they also display very specific strategies in selecting, adapting, and arranging the borrowed passages. Studying these derivate works can therefore help to reconstruct the late medieval image of Muhammad and the Qur’an in Europe and to understand what role such knowledge played in a broader context.

Pentecostrafical Christian?

Pentecostrafical Christian?

Christianization of Europe in the I-XI centuries. Milestones of history

Christianization of Europe in the I-XI centuries. Milestones of history

The Long Shadow: A Historical Perspective on Racism in Medical Education.

To dismantle racism in U.S. medical education, people must understand how the history of Christian Europe, Enlightenment-era racial science, colonization, slavery, and racism shaped modern American medicine. Beginning with the coalescence of Christian European identity and empire, the authors trace European racial reasoning through the racial science of the Enlightenment into the White supremacist and anti-Black ideology behind Europe's global system of racialized colonization and enslavement. The authors then follow this racist ideology as it becomes an organizing principle of Euro-American medicine and examine how it manifests in medical education in the United States today. Within this historical context, the authors expose the histories of violence underlying contemporary terms such as implicit bias and microaggressions. Through this history, they also gain a deeper appreciation of why racism is so prevalent in medical education and how it affects admissions, assessments, faculty and trainee diversity, retention, racial climate, and the physical environment. The authors then recommend 6 historically informed steps for confronting racism in medical education: (1) incorporate the history of racism into medical education and unmask institutional histories of racism, (2) create centralized reporting mechanisms and implement systematic reviews of bias in educational and clinical activities, (3) adopt mastery-based assessment in medical education, (4) embrace holistic review and expand its possibilities in admissions, (5) increase faculty diversity by using holistic review principles in hiring and promotions, and (6) leverage accreditation to combat bias in medical education. These strategies will help academic medicine begin to acknowledge the harms propagated throughout the history of racism in medicine and start taking meaningful steps to address them. Although the authors have focused on racism in this paper, they recognize there are many forms of bias that impact medical education and intersect with racism, each with its particular history, that deserve their own telling and redress.

REGULATORY AND TECHNOLOGICAL CHALLENGES TO URDU JOURNALISM IN KHYBER PAKHTUNKHWA, PAKISTAN

Introduction: In the sub-continent, journalism in Urdu and the other native languages began significantly later than journalism in English. Employees of the East India Company and European Christian Missionaries founded the Indian newspaper. The native Indian people first showed interest in this commerce in the third decade of the 19th century. The media in the NWFP (Now Khyber Pakhtunkhwa), like the national media, was crucial in helping Muslims vent their frustrations while also fostering increased awareness of and cooperation around the concept of Muslim nationhood in the past and playing a viral role in shaping public opinion in present as well.
 Objectives: In recent years, social communication channels throughout the world have been dramatically impacted by the expanding usage of digital media. Information technology is changing the media and communication work in Pakistan. The avenues of communication are altered owing to the amazing growth of digital media devices. The objective of this study is to explore the experts’ opinions about the past, present and future prospects of Urdu Journalism in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The central questions of this research is that what were, are and will be the causes and problems to Urdu journalism of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (Previously NWFP).
 Methodology & Analysis: In-depth interviews were conducted under the qualitative research design for data collection. Data was collected from the academicians and journalists of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Convenient sampling method was adopted, while data was collected from 10 experts i.e.,5 academicians and 5 journalists. Thematic and descriptive methods of analysis were adopted. One of the interviewers didn’t give us time due to busy schedule. It is found that one of the reviewers was critical, while rest of the others were agreed that Urdu Journalism played a vital role in the past in the development of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Currently, Urdu journalism is practicing commercialization instead of professionalism due to emergence of new media technology. Urdu journalism is facing financial problems, policy threats, and limitation of advertisement, slow media, and commercialization. Additionally, they explored that currently Urdu journalism nothing but just commercialization in the province. They suggest that Urdu Journalism needs freedom of expression, de-militarization, and usage of new technology, need quality news instead of quantity and trainings & facilities to the journalists in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Иконографические особенности образа Непорочного Зачатия Богородицы – «Жена, облеченная в солнце»

The article is dedicated to the analysis of the formation and typological features of the iconography “The Women clothed with the Sun” that became the main type of the image “ The Immaculate Conception” in the European Christian art of the end of XVI – XVII centuries. A lot of specialists are sure that this iconography is stable and undeveloped but it’s wrong. The image of the Immaculate Conception as the Woman of Apocalipse has a long way of evolution and exists in the art in various iconographical types. The basic material are the works of the Spanish painting of the XVII-th cent.in which the iconography is very rich and various. In this article there is the analysis of a lot of works by the best painters of the “Golden Age” of the Spanish school: El Greco, Diego Velasquez, Fransisco Zurbaran, Bartolomeo Esteban Murillo. Also we research the genesis of this iconography in the art of the Late Gothic and Renaissance of France and Italy XVI- XVI centuries in the works by Giorgio Vasari, Piero di Cosimo, Ludovico Chigoli (Cardi). The evolution of the iconography developed from the use of a lot atributs and symbols with theological content to the so called mystical image where this content is demonstrated only by means the mode of painting.

“By custom and devotion to the Passion of Christ our lord”: Medieval emotion, Enlightenment reason, and Nahua performance

ABSTRACT The emotive fixation on the Passion of Christ that developed in Western European Christianity during the later Middle Ages passed into the devotional practices of Nahuas and other Indigenous people in New Spain. A Nahuatl-language Passion play tradition, recorded in six surviving variants from approximately the first half of the eighteenth century, reveals how Nahuas adopted and adapted the Passion story, aligning it, for example, with their views of gender complementarity and deity embodiment. The plays faced ecclesiastical censure, especially after the mid-eighteenth-century, as Enlightenment-inspired religious reformers sought to suppress all manner of emotional and elaborate religious practices.

The perils of national narratives

The perils of national narratives

Britain in the Awareness of Muslim Literature; Early Historical and Geographical Knowledge until the time of al-Idrīsī (217 AH/ 833 CE – 560 AH/ 1165 CE)

Muslim authors paid a significant interest in European peoples and countries in the view of growing the relationship between Muslim World and Medieval Christian Europe and the flourish of authorship in Muslim scholarship. In fact, a part of the Muslim's interest was given to the British Isles in spite of it is far distance of Muslim lands. Therefore, the present article focuses on principle significant questions; what was Britain for early Muslim authors? and what were the most important reasons for interesting those Muslim authors in it, and what were the most effective factors contributing in developing such interest until the mid-6th AH/ 12th century CE when the geographer al-Idrīsī was alive. Hence, the researcher has to investigate the beginnings of the term "Britain" in Muslim traditional sources since the establishment of authorship in the Muslim world, particularly during first quarter of the 3rd AH/ 9th CE century when the first reference to "Marṭāniyah" was recorded. The al-Idrīsī's account on the British Isles is worthy to examine since he sheds light on its major islands, described in detail the most important British towns and cities in his time, and some of its well-known rivers. He also tried to determine the distances between some of these cities and towns by the mile, with some references to political and economic conditions in the British Isles in his time. All that clarifies the extent of early Muslim interest in the British Isles, seeming limited to the geographical knowledge among most Muslim writings during the period under study.

Bloom syndrome: an oral potentially malignant disorders aiding in malignancy vigour.

Bloom syndrome: an oral potentially malignant disorders aiding in malignancy vigour.

Reactions to Skepticism

In modern continental philosophy, nihilism has taken place as an important train of thought, both as a consequence of Christian European society and as a novel skeptic argument. It calls for the total removal of current society because humanity has now metaphorically taken the place of God and thus should create its own values and structure. The replacement of God can be attributed to skepticism, which refutes the possibility of certain knowledge. This paper compares two opposite reactions to skepticism: nihilism and pragmatic skepticism. It explores the societal and individual implications of the fulfillment of both views, contrasting the potential danger of radical change with that of conformity. The modern trend of perfectionism and how it influences these philosophies is also explored. Inalienable rights are discussed and their legitimacy or implementation is put into question. Hedonistic consequences and their effect on rational thought are also mentioned to analyze the potential shortcomings of any skeptical view. The structure of society, values, and their evolution raises questions about their validity, origins, and use.

Two Perceptions of Süleyman’s ‘Magnificent’ Navy during the Later Italian Wars

Contemporary European perceptions of Sultan Süleyman the Magnificent’s naval power inflated its actual strength. Using accounts of ambassadors and spies, this article juxtaposes the ‘fear of the Turk’ that captured Christian Europe’s imagination to the observation of the Ottoman navy. It will be argued that the sultan’s relationship with the North African corsairs and their judicious application of military power lent itself to exaggerated perceptions of Suleyman’s naval strength and his military reach.