Church History Research Articles

Программа росписей Пинтуриккьо в апартаментах Борджиа в Ватикане: библейские образы в политической репрезентации римских пап

Researchers cannot agree on the interpretation of the programme of the murals in the Borgia apartments executed by Pinturicchio in the 90s of the 15th century. Egyptian sub-jects, Turkish motifs, the theme of the salvific role of the Church, the Aragonese origin of the customer, etc., are on a display in the interior of the apartments in the Apostolic Palace. The frescoes were commissioned by Alexander VI (Rodrigo Borgia), one of the most odious Popes of the Renaissance. This paper focuses on the political aspect of the frescoes, particularly on the theme of the triumph of the Church as an institution. Pinturicchio’s painting was used to visualize the public image of Rodrigo Borgia with dominant motifs of Pope’s leadership in the Christian world. The pontificate of Alexander VI, the ‘warrior of Christ’, in whose hands both spiritual and secular powers were united, was glorified in the church history, and it is presented here as Borgia’s triumph. Such a public image was in line with other representa-tions of Roman pontiffs and secular rulers of Western Europe. It was created in the context of political confrontation of the Holy See with powerful royal houses of Italy, French kings, etc. We can thus talk not only about the visual programme of the apartments per se, but also about its connection with other imagery presenting Popes as political figures and created for Alexander VI’s predecessors as well as for his successors.

THE RELIGIOUS AND POLITICAL CONTEXT OF THOMAS HOBBES' THOUGHT

The article deals with the relationship between religion and politics in the context of Thomas Hobbes' elaboration of political theory, mainly in his works The Citizen (1642), Leviathan (1651), Behemoth or the Long Parliament (1680), in his Historical Account of Heresy and the Forms of Its Punishment (1680), as well as in works on the History of Political Thought, Church History and the History of Theology. The main purpose of the text is to demonstrate how the ecclesiastical institution controlled religion, politics, law and mentalities for several centuries, exercising undue dominance over society. In this way, it is as inevitable as it is partial to say that the Church has been de-characterizing itself as the Salt of the Earth and the Light of the World, and has become what Hobbes called the Kingdom of Darkness in the last part of his Leviathan. Influenced by the thinking of Luther and Calvin, the scholar Thomas Hobbes contributed to the definitive separation of Church and State, and although he is known as an advocate of authoritarianism, he stated that when the sovereign cannot guarantee civil peace, he should not be obeyed, because the State was designed for our peace and defense.

Kościół parafialny w Kokaninie w świetle spisów i wizytacji z przełomu XVIII i XIX stulecia

The Parish Church in Kokanin in the Light of Censuses and Visitations at the Turn of 18th and 19th Centuries The aim of the article is to present materials related to the history of the parish church in Kokanin, located near Kalisz. The materials are located in the Diocesan Archives in Włocławek and have never been published before. The presented documents come from 1790 and 1801 and present the financial condition of the parish at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries.

Completing the Circle: A History of Psychedelics and Harm Reduction.

Harm reduction officially entered the public health lexicon in the 1980s as a response to the HIV/AIDS crisis and its spread amongst intravenous drug users, but risk prevention has been an important part of psychedelic consumption in ways that predate this formal conceptualization.We look at psychedelic drug trials in the 1950s and 1960s to consider how people-first perspectives informed those early clinical studies, and how pioneering psychedelic researchers themselves approached risk management at a time that predates the formal recognition of harm reduction. Next, we follow psychedelic drugs out of the clinic and into music scenes and festivals that proliferated during the war on the drugs, where community-based organizations stepped up to support music fans who chose to combine psychoactive substances with dancing and drugs at all-day festivals. Finally, we reflect on the longer history and traditions of the Native American Church as one specific example of how Indigenous ceremonies involving psychedelic substances combined spirituality and healing in a community setting curated to promote wellness. Ultimately, we argue that psychedelic risk management has deep historical roots in psychedelic communities representing biomedical, cultural, and Indigenous perspectives - we might heed these historical lessons as we consider how to promote sustainable risk management strategies with psychedelics going forward.

The fight against Jewish proselytism under Theodosius the Great by the example of the sermons of John Chrysostom and Egyptian papyri

The article is dedicated to the research of the new stage in history of Jewish-Christian relations in Roman Empire started in the second half of the 4th century. In this period, the influence of Jewish religious tradition on mass consciousness of Christians in the Middle East intensified again. The process was reflected in John Chrysostoms’ sermons «Agains the Jews» as well as in works of Church historians. However, besides literary sources, the evidences of popularity of Judaism among Gentiles and Christians in the age of Late Antiquity can be found in vast papyri material uncovered in Egypt. The current work traces the ties between these different types of historical sources, which permit to shed a new light on the topic of proselytism and Jewish-Christian conflicts.

Missionary activity of Orthodox brotherhoods in Greece and Serbia in 1918‒1941

The article is devoted to the study of the response of Greek and Serbian societies to the challenges of modernity faced by the Orthodox Church in the Balkans. Despite the fact that the reasons for the response in the form of the formation of non–church religious movements in the first half of the twentieth century had the same basis, both organizations – the Greek brotherhood of theologians “Zoi” and the Serbian worshipper movement – chose different methods of missionary activity. Their activities were aimed at reviving the Christian norms of morality in society. The purpose of this article is to conduct a comparative analysis between these methods, identify differences in relations with the official Church and characterize the consequences of the chosen course from a historical perspective. The missionary activity of both Orthodox organizations (“brotherhoods”) gradually faded away after World War II for similar reasons but left behind an important positive trace in the church history of the two Balkan states – Greece and Serbia. In Russian historiography these themes have not been studied sufficiently. This article is intended to shed light on the main milestones in the development of the movements the World Wars.

Transatlantic Religion: Europe, America, and the Making of Modern Christianity. Annette Aubert and Zachary Purvis, eds. Brill's Series in Church History 82. Leiden: Brill, 2021. xii + 260 pp. $140.

Transatlantic Religion: Europe, America, and the Making of Modern Christianity. Annette Aubert and Zachary Purvis, eds. Brill's Series in Church History 82. Leiden: Brill, 2021. xii + 260 pp. $140.

Spiritual Succor or Sacrilege? British Catholic Responses to and Interpretations of Wagner’s Parsifal

Abstract: Scholarly knowledge about the interplay of Wagnerian opera and British church history has advanced on an uneven front and has yet to reach lofty heights. Relatively little has been published about how Parsifal , Richard Wagner’s final and arguably most religious opera, was perceived in the United Kingdom. The present study begins to fill that gap by investigating how a spectrum of British Catholics diversely debated such crucial themes as the extent to which Parsifal was a Christian work, the possible mimesis of the Mass in the Holy Grail scenes, the construction of the title character as a symbolic Christ figure, and whether the staging of this work, whose spiritual content was widely acknowledged, could appropriately be performed in a secular setting like the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden.

Între așteptări și nedumeriri: Oliver Jens Schmitt, Biserica de stat sau Biserica în stat?

Much more than a mere book review, the following article critically presents Oliver Jens Schmitt’s recently published monograph and, starting from it, a heated polemic concerning the history and historiography of the Romanian Orthodox Church during the last century. Generous references to primary and secondary sources of the topic are suggested to the author of the reviewed book. Moreover, the reviewer also makes valuable considerations regarding the ethics and deontology of research in social sciences and humanities, the methods used by historians in general, and by church historians in particular. This elegantly written and scientifically based book review turns into a worthy model to follow in further cases of coping with ideologically marked pseudo-scientific approaches.

Activity of Father Władysław Chotkowski (1843–1926) in the Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences

Władysław Chotkowski (1843–1926), a Catholic priest and patriotic activist, lectured on Church history at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków. The excellent preacher who addressed national and social issues from the pulpit, he delivered eulogies at the funerals of eminent Poles and notable Kraków figures. The article presents the relationship of Władysław Chotkowski with the Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 1883, he was elected a member of the Historical Commission, and in 1901 appointed to the Commission for the History of Polish Literature. Since 1907, he was a corresponding member of the Faculty of History and Philosophy at the Academy of Arts and Sciences. As a researcher of the Church history in Galicia, he participated in the meetings of the faculty, during which he presented the results of his research and scientific work that were published by the Academy of Arts and Sciences as dissertations and monographic works. The text, based on archival materials from the resources of the Archive of Science of the Polish Academy of Sciences (PAN) and the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences (PAU), fills the knowledge gap in the research on the scientific activity of prelate Władysław Chotkowski in the Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences.

THE STORIES OF LIVES: BIOGRAPHICAL TRADITION FROM “ROMAN” TO ARMENIAN LITERATURE

The first touchstone that comes to mind when considering the tradition of biographical writing in ancient literature is Plutarch’s Parallel Lives, although he was not the earliest example of this method. Much later, came the Vita Constantini, a panegyric written by the church historian Eusebius in honour of the Emperor Constantine, and Athanasius’ Vita Antonii. Moreover, further east, a patristic and encomiastic Armenian biographical tradition exists, albeit partly obscured in Armenian literature and overlooked by ancient authors. Surprisingly, existing literature has not dedicated sufficient attention to the transmission of literature between the East and West, despite the likelihood that the first written Armenian text was a biography. Therefore, this study will discuss the extent to which Armenian literature was influenced by its Roman predecessors in the biographical tradition, especially those who wrote in Greek, and how this tradition was shaped in Armenian literature.

"Flame of Truth": the global significance of Doukhobor Pacifism

The Doukhobors (Spirit Wrestlers), a heterogeneous group of Christians in Russia and Canada, whose anti-war stance became well known when they organized a Burning of Arms ceremony in 1895, inhabit an undisputed placein the history of the peace churches and religious denominations. We argue, however, that the connection between the Doukhobors and twentieth century pacifists such as Jane Addams (1860–1935), Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi(1869–1948), and George Woodcock (1912–1995), deserves more attention. We then aim to raise awareness of Peter Nikolaevich Maloff (1900–1971), who authentically carried on the pacifist spirit of the group as he interacted not only with Gandhi and Woodcock, but also with Alexander Berkman (1870–1936), Dorothy Day (1897–1980),A. J. Muste (1885–1967), and Scott and Helen Nearing (1883–1983 and 1904–1995), among others. We finally highlight some instances of Doukhobor relations with the War Resisters’ International and the International Vegetarian Union in Europe during the late–1920s and early–1930s. In all this we draw out "Christ’s law of nonresistance to evil by violence" (Leo Tolstoy) that may be obscured to the public eye, not only because the number of self-identified Doukhobors has continually decreased due to the forces of assimilation, but also because "the scourge of war"(Preamble, Charter of the United Nations, 1945) continues to threaten the survival of life on Earth.

DEVELOPMENT OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN ODESA REGION (LATE XX – BEGINNING OF XXI CENTURY)

The purpose of the study is to highlight certain aspects of the development of the Roman Catholic Church (RCC) in Odesa region in the context of its problems and achievements at the end of the 20th – beginning of the 21st century. The scientific novelty of the work lies in the fact that, for the first time, a comprehensive study of the peculiarities of the development of the RCC in Odesa region against the background of historical events of the late 20th – early 21st centuries is proposed. On the basis of archival documents, the main stages of the activity of the RCC in Odesa region in the specified period are considered. It was found that the first stage on the way of the revival of the Church fell on the 1990s. Its characteristic features were the return of buildings previously confiscated by the Soviet authorities to Catholic communities, their reconstruction and restoration. During this period, it was possible to create a network of religious communities adapted to the conditions of activity in the plane of a multi-confessional environment. It is indicated that this process was under the control of the Department for Religious Affairs, which operated under the Odesa Regional State Administration during 1996-2005. It has been proven that the second stage of development of the RCC began at the beginning of the 21st century, which was due to the arrival of Pope John Paul II in Ukraine. The main achievements of this period are analyzed: the foundation of the new Odesa-Simferopol diocese headed by Bishop Bronislav Bernatsky, the increase in the number of believers, the activation of educational and charity work, activities aimed at improving inter-religious relations in the region. The intellectual and religious ties of the RCC with representatives of state structures and the public have been clarified. In the conditions of full-scale Russian aggression, the RCC took an active position in supporting the population of Ukraine and providing them with appropriate humanitarian aid. Further studies of church history include research on the construction of Christian churches in the south of Ukraine.

Examples of conceptualisation of morality in emerging Christianity

Against the background of current interdisciplinary discussions in philosophical and theological ethics and discourses on morality, this interdisciplinary essay explored the conceptualisation of morality in emerging Christianity. It illustrated how the early Sayings Source Q and the Gospel according to Mark recollect Jesus of Nazareth’s reception of the Jewish Torah. Then it sketched how Paul’s understanding of God’s and Christ’s compassion serves as guide to integrate basic notions from Hellenistic ethic in his moral exhortation.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: Taking cognisance of modern discussions on ethics and morality, the essay placed Early Christian morality within the context of the Law (Jewish Studies) and highlighted Christian reception of virtues in the Graeco-Roman world as studied by ancient philosophy. In conceptualising morality, emerging Christianity borrowed cardinal moral guidelines from its social environment. This foundational procedure studied by the History of the Early Church (within its Jewish and Graeco-Roman context) can serve as a model for Systematic Theology and Ethics to guide contemporary Christianity in their adaptation of moral principles from their cultural environment.

A.N. Muravyov, the Younger Brother of M.N. Muravyov-Vilensky, as Phenomenon of Russian Religious Life

The article is devoted to the study of life and work of Andrey Muravyov (1806–1874) who was one of the signifi cant spiritual Orthodox writers, church historians, pilgrims and poets. He was Honorary Member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences since 1963 and contributed substantially to Kiev historical center preservation. He can be considered a unique phenomenon of theological thought of the Synodal period.

A Hermeneutical Diverse Matrix of Peace, Justice, and the Gospel

Though peace is the most important theme in human history and also in church history, it is not so easy to lead to peace or to discuss on peace. In the previous discussions on peace, there have been some diverse positions such as holy war, just war, pacifism and so on. And recently a new discussion on just peace has been increasing especially centering around the World Council of Churches (WCC). This article explores a brief trajectory of the new discussion on just peace centering around the WCC and its subsequent relation to Korean church. Then this article investigates theological discussions on peace in Korean church, by taking a close look at four famous and influential figures, each of whom represents one position of the whole spectrum. This article pays special attention to the gospel in those discussions, because it is obvious that the gospel of the Scripture is about peace, which is ‘ shalom’ (םולשָ‎) in the Old Testament and ‘ eirene’ (εἰρήνη) in the New Testament. In so doing, this article argues that a robust theological discussion on peace in the future requires a more elaborate matrix of peace, justice, and the gospel, though with an open hermeneutical diversity.

Diversity of Monastic Life in the Historical Perspective

In the history of the Catholic Church, various ways of implementing the consecrated life and its specific type in religious life have been revealed. To this day, there are monastic orders, cloistered orders, canons regular, hospitaller orders, mendicant orders, and congregations performing works of mercy. The author briefly presents the history of the evolution of these orders, from antiquity to the present day. The article shows how they have changed throughout history and how they undertake contemporary tasks in a new way. The nature of religious life is still the same, but, depending on the circumstances, it constantly takes new forms to implement the ideal of imitating Christ by pursuing the evangelical counsels in the present times.

Unraveling immortality and the genesis of human soul in st. Augustine’s selected works

The article intends to explore topics concerning the eternal nature and the origin of the human soul. Augustine’s ontological perspective on humanity upholds the truth of its existence. In ancient philosophy and Christian theology, the doctrine of the immortality of the soul and its origin has been an ongoing area of interest and debate. Saint Augustine, one of the most important theologians and philosophers in the history of the Catholic Church, addressed this issue in his works, considering both philosophical and theological aspects of the existence of the human soul. The author justifies his views by referring to the Holy Bible and to the vital functions of man. Also, he points to the dissimilarity between sensual and mental cognition. As part of its consideration, it relies on the Latin phrase anima rationalis which refers to the rational soul (animus). What speaks for immortality of the soul is the argument of evidence of the lack of a quantitative element, as well as the concepts of truth and life. The foregoing command gives grounds to believe that a human being remains a unique whole of physical and spiritual unity. Also, one of the the key thinks is the certainty of self-knowledge derived from the continuation of gnoseology, which proves that humans are capable of reflective, mind and abstract thinking, and the cognitive activity of the soul shows the ability to transcend the mortal body. This approach does provide a deeper understanding of the role of the soul in human life and in the context of eternity, an important topic in Christian theology and philosophy.

Divine Pedagogy in the Face of Educational Crisis. On the Approach of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI

Joseph Ratzinger – Benedict XVI, one of the greatest thinkers of mankind and the greatest Pope-theologian in the history of the modern Church, has devoted much attention to a critical analysis of the spirit of the age and the spiritual condition of modern people, living as if God did not exist. The Pope’s diagnosis is unequivocal and utterly pessimistic. He writes openly about the spiritual void, the drama of the times and even the tunnel in which humanity has found itself. At the core of this condition, according to Benedict XVI, there are two postmodern phenomena: relativism and secularism, leading people, above all young people, into spiritual regress and deformation. In the face of these threats and their disastrous consequences, the Pope from Germany proposes that the spiritual development of young people become the most urgent challenge and priority task to be carried out jointly by all the different groups of educators: parents, teachers, pedagogues, catechists, and the clergy. Of the many tasks and remedies needed to achieve success, which Benedict XVI outlined for educators in his speeches and writings, three aspects are particularly fundamental: personalism, theo- and Christocentrism, and integrity and reference to conscience. The perception of a young person as a subject through his or her ontological relationship with the living God revealed in Jesus Christ and the formation of a conscience, through which a young person may take responsibility for himself or herself and co-responsibility for others, guarantee authentic education and can restore hope to contemporary people and the world.

Between Lwów and Rome: Armenians in Transylvania and Armenian Catholic Archeparchy of Lwów (1681-1691)

In 1988, the renowned Polish-Armenian church historian Gregorio (Grzegorz) Petrowicz published a book in Italian about the history of the Armenian Catholic Archbishopric (1686-1954) in Lwów (Lemberg; now Lviv, Ukraine). In his book, he dedicated a subchapter to the church-union of Armenians in Transylvania in the late 17th century, principally based on the documents kept at the Historical Archive of the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of Faith (Sacra Congregatio de Propaganda Fide) in Rome. At the same time, the scholarship has analyzed this book critically during the past two decades, and unfortunately, his subchapter proved to be very sketchy and poorly elaborated. His argumentations, however, regarding the history of the Armenians in Transylvania were based upon old, obsolete books published in the 19th and 20th centuries. Therefore, my article also deals with this problem from an ecclesiastical-historical perspective concerning the church-union of the Armenians in Transylvania. Furthermore, my study also aims primarily at analyzing the role of the Armenian Catholic Archiepiscopacy in Lwów in creating the process of the church-union of the Armenians in Transylvania in the years 1681- 1691. With regards to the methodology of my article, it is mere critical analysis focusing upon the incomplete as well as newly discovered manuscript sources kept in archives in Armenia, Austria, Hungary, Italy, Romania, and the Vatican.