Great Schism Research Articles

ТЕОДОР СКУМИНОВИЧ: СПРОБА РЕАБІЛІТАЦІЇ ІМЕНІ

Background. In the article it is analyzed the dedication and preface to the work of the little-known in Ukraine polemicist-theologian of the 17-th century Theodore Skumynovych "Przyczyny porzucenia Disuniey przezacnemu narodowi ruskiemu podane" (1643), which is considered a bibliographic rarity. The relevance of the research of the creative work of Theodore Skumynovych is explained by the fact that it has not been studied in detail. Methods. The research uses cultural-historical, comparative-historical, descriptive and textological methods of analysis of monuments of literature. Results. The publication provides biographical information about Theodore Skumynovych, examines the objectivity of the accusations brought against him by former co-religionists, and outlines the main ideas of his polemical work. In the dedication of the work to the bishop of Vilnius Abraham Woyna and the foreword to the reader, Theodore Skumynovych briefly spoke about the reasons for his conversion to Catholicism, shared the details of his move from Volhynia to Vilnius and the difficulties he had to face. The image of Theodore Skumynovych, which appears in the introductory part of the work, contrasts with that how he is negatively presented in the complaints made by his opponents in the judicial books, which gives reason to question the credibility of the accusations made by them. The article clarifies the constants of theological and writing thinking of Theodore Skumynovych, reveals his point of view on the reasons of the decline of Byzantium. Conclusions. According to Kasiyan Sakovych, Theodore Skumynovych belonged to the most educated theologians of Ukraine in the 17-th century. Before converting to Catholicism, he was the Father Superior of the Orthodox St. Michael Monastery in Goshcha, the rector of the local school, and also a member of the metropolitan consistory. As an Orthodox clergyman, Theodore Skumynovych sharply criticized the dogmatics of the Roman Church. However, after reading the works of Patriarch Gennadius Scholarius, in which he explained the conquest of Constantinople by the Ottomans with the "Great Schism", reflecting on the Creed of Athanasius the Great, studying the works of the Greek fathers of the church and observing the crisis of monastic and church life in the Kyiv's Metropolitanate, he changed his opinion about the Catholics. The books written by Theodore Skumynovych were highly rated among famous scientists of Western Europe. In particular, his works were admired by Gottfried Leibniz, Jacob Masen and Plempius Vopisk Fortunatus.

Damnatio memoriae in the Christian Church in the West until the Great Schism (1054)

Using two examples: the condemnation of Theodore of Mopsuestia, Theodoret of Cyrus, and Ibas of Edessa at the Fifth Ecumenical Council (553) and the acceptance of the decisions of that council in Rome - a little later - by Pope Vigilius; and the condemnation of Pope Formosius (897), by analyzing the historical circumstances in which the described events take place, the application of the principle of damnatio memoriae will be investigated, and a conclusion will be drawn about how the Christian Church in the West treated controversial figures and their teachings and deeds in the period of the first millennium of Christ?s era. In this research, special attention will be directed to the political circumstances that influenced the decision-making on the implementation of the principle of damnatio memoriae in the Church, and the consequences of these events.

BYZANTINE ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTS: ÉPOQUES REFLECTED IN IMAGES AND BOOK DESIGN

In the article five illuminated manuscripts created in various periods of Byzantine history are analyzed as evidences of the attitude of the society and primarily its intellectual elite towards images and book culture, as it was reflected in the subjects and style of the miniatures and generally in the design of the codices. The Vienna Dioscorides manuscript, created in 512–513 for the imperial princess Juliana Anicia in order to express the gratitude of the inhabitants of the suburb of Honoratae for the construction of the church, was endowed with miniatures painted mainly in classical artistic manner apparently harking back to ancient herbaria. The codex is a testimony of preservation of many elements of the ancient culture in the Byzantine life of that time. In the miniatures of the marginal psalters written about the mid-9th century there are a few images related to the just finished iconoclasm, e.g. those of the Patriarch Nicephorus and his opponent iconoclast John the Grammarian. At the same time, we do not find there images of Theod ore the Studite, abbot of the Studious monastery in Constantinople, active defender of sacred images. His depictions appear in the marginal psalters and liturgical roll soon after the mid-11th century when the memory of the famous abbot was re-evoked owing to the discussions of studious monks with western theologians in the time of the Great Schism. The Tetraevangelion in the Russian National Library (gr. 801) represents a real masterpiece of the book culture typical of the second half of the 11th — early 12th century. In that time a book was probably considered not only as a source of knowledge but as a work of art and a sign of prestige of its owner. The Tetraevangelion of Karahissar written and illustrated soon after the mid-12th century reflects a different situation: the purpose of its creation seems purely utilitarian — transmission of the text and its decoration mostly with concise and artistically simple images. Miniatures of the Sinai Psalter (Saint Catherine’s monastery, cod. 38), a fragment of which is preserved in the Russian National library in Saint Petersburg (gr. 269), copied in the late 13th century from those of the famous Paris manuscript (BnF, gr. 139) of the mid-10th century demonstrate an interest to the art of Antiquity refracted through the prism of another conception of an image that is conceived as ideal and absolutely immaterial. Significant interest to the classical art always marks a cultural efflorescence, and copying of the miniatures of the Paris Psalter and of some other codices of the mid-10th century in the late 13th — early 14th century characterizes such a moment in the history of Byzantine society.

The Great Schism Trend, life expectancy, and politics

The SchwartzReport tracks emerging trends that will affect the world, particularly the United States. For EXPLORE it focuses on matters of health in the broadest sense of that term, including medical issues, changes in the biospere, technology, and policy considerations, all of which will shape our culture and our lives.

The Nature and Characteristics of the Ecclesiastical Schism

There may be various criteria, characteristics, or signs to determine divisions in the Christian Church, on the basis of which it is possible to reveal and identify these schisms. The first sign of church division can be differences or contradictions between important doctrinal ideas. The second criterion of schism is the creation of a parallel hierarchy. There is another sign of real church schism. This is the antagonistic mood of the people towards those from whom they are religiously separated. This kind of attitude of the people further strengthens the division and gives it an irreversible character. Perhaps, this is not accidental because, according to the definition, the members of the church are not only clerics, representatives of the hierarchy, but also all believers. There is another important criterion of schism, which, unfortunately, is often ignored. This is a ‘sacramental relationship”, that is, the participation of members of formally separated churches in each other's sacraments. This kind of relationship between Latins (Catholics) and Greeks (Orthodox) was not always broken. It could be argued that, for example, the Great Schism of 1054 finally met all these criteria to be considered a full schism. Naturally, all the signs did not appear immediately. Their appearance took different periods of time. Thus, the Great Schism finally had all the real signs of a schism (distinctions in doctrine, the development of parallel hierarchies, the antagonistic mood of the believers, the severing of sacramental relations), but in certain regions, some of these "alienating" signs, due to historical circumstances, used to disappear (e.g., restoration of mutual participation in the sacraments). But since such events were temporary and unstable, they could not eliminate the general and permanent reality of church schism. In this context, it is completely irrelevant to appeal to such "mitigating" factors, namely, crusade cooperation, individual exceptional figures who did not share the radical positions of the supporters of the schism, the issue of mentioning or not mentioning in the diptych or mixed marriages.

Elective Affinities: Papal and Regal Privileges for Mount Athos and the Holy Mountain’s Relationship with the Medieval West

Abstract Though the self-presentation of the Holy Mountain as a bastion of Orthodoxy and implacable foe of church union is in some respects justified, popes and western rulers in fact played an important, and not always a hostile, role in the history of Mount Athos. Some of the founding figures of Athonite monasticism had Roman connections, and there were even periods in which the monasteries of Mount Athos sought the protection of popes and potentates from the West. While Athonite archives contain numerous charters stemming from Byzantine and other Orthodox rulers, and the monasteries’ vast Ottoman holdings have received increasing attention in recent years, charters issued by Latin Christian potentates and prelates have largely been overlooked. This contribution adds new information to previous studies of the relationship of Mount Athos with the Medieval West and applies the notion of interreligious founding to the Athonite context, attempting thereby to nuance the notion that Byzantine and Latin religious patronage operated in mutually exclusive spheres, even after the so-called “Great Schism” of 1054.

All Roads Lead to New Rome: The Canonical Origins and Status of the Orthodox and Greek Catholic Churches of Ukraine

This article provides a brief account of the historical origins and canonical status of the three modern Orthodox and Greek-Catholic churches of Ukraine: the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Moscow Patriarchate, and the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church. It contains four parts. The first briefly recounts the origins of Byzantine Christianity and the fused form of state and church governance that developed in Constantinople from the 4th to the 15th centuries. The second examines the Great Schism of 1054, which cleaved Eastern and Western Christianity, sending Eastern Orthodox Christianity down the path of territory- or nation-based churches constituted by eucharistic ecclesiology; this would ultimately give rise to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Moscow Patriarchate in the Slavic lands that would become Ukraine. The third part considers two modern schisms, the Little Schism of 1596, which produced the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church, and the Final Schism of 2018–2019, which brought into existence the Orthodox Church of Ukraine. Drawing upon eucharistic ecclesiology, the final part offers brief concluding reflections concerning the ongoing implications of these three schisms for Orthodox Christianity in Ukraine.

Severus of Antioch as Theologian and Ideologist

This paper explores the figure and theological legacy of Severus of Antioch, a founding father of the Oriental theological tradition. It delves into logical categories, which helped him rationalize Christ’s composition. The study focuses on the categories of common and particular natures, properties, and activities. Severus was engaged in polemics on many fronts: against real and imagined “Nestorianism,” Pope Leo, the council of Chalcedon, neo-Chalcedonians, and opponents from his own anti-Chalcedonian party. Some of his motives for such polemics were theological, and his ideological conservatism underpinned others. Severus seems to be one of the causes of the first great schism in the history of Christianity. Yet many of his own fights and fights against him were against shadows because he, in fact, often believed in the same things as those who fought him believed. His figure can be seen not only as divisive but as containing a potential for ecumenical reconciliation. The study concludes with suggestions about how Severan theological points and policies could contribute to the ongoing dialogue with the Oriental churches.

The place of Hungary on Europe's transplantation map

Introduction: The incidence of organ transplantation between the Eastern and Western part of Europe is quite dif-ferent. This has several reasons; the main cause may be the Great Schism (A. D. 1054) when the Byzantine Empire separated himself also religiously from Rome. Since then there has been a different historical development followable until our days. Later on, disintegration of four previous large empires into many smaller countries during the last 150 years, furthermore in the second half of the twentieth century the separation by the Iron Curtain in the middle of Europe led to different social-economic and infrastructural developments between the different parts of the conti-nent. In the new millennium, all transplantations for the routinely performed 5 organs were available for the Hungar-ian patients, but the real era-changing happened in 2012/13 by joining Eurotransplant. Objective: Our analysis is based on the transplantation numbers of the last pre-COVID pandemic year (2019). Results: The abovementioned differences can be traced well by the transplantation numbers: 28 Western-and Middle -European countries have 22.2 cadaveric donors per million population versus 3.8 for 10 Eastern-European countries and another 7 do not have any. The numbers of transplanted organs are the following: 39.5 vs. 12.0 for kidney; 14.8 vs. 5.5 for liver; 5.4 vs. 0.8 for heart; 4.6 vs. 0.2 for lung. Discussion: The statistics have also a rejoicing message because since the fall of the Iron Curtain, 10 Middle -Europe-an countries could reach the Western standards in organ transplantation. Their example is also good news for other Eastern European countries. Conclusion: Hungary was one of these countries who could benefit from the political changes and, by joining Euro-transplant, the quantity and quality of the transplanted organs was raised significantly: since then, there are by 40% more transplantations performed in our country.

The church and religious situation in Central and Eastern Europe in the first third of the 15th century

The church and religious situation in Central and Eastern Europe in the first half of the 15th century, which changed dynamically under the influence of both foreign policy and internal church factors, was analysed. The Western Church was able to emerge from the process known to historians as the Great Schism only after the proclamation of the principle of conciliarism at the Council of Constance (the idea of reviving the ecumenical (general) councils); a single pope was elected, which meant the victory of the synodal model in governing the Latin Church. The condemnation of Jan Hus’s views as heretical at this council and his burning caused a great resonance in Czech society, and gave impetus to the development of the Hussite movement, which had a reformist religious and political character. Hussies found a response in the Kingdom of Poland.From the end of the 14th century changes in church life on the Ukrainian lands were becoming visible. Kyiv gradually lost its role as the religious centre for the Eastern Slavs. At a time when the patriarchs of Constantinople insisted on preserving the unity of the Metropolitanate of Kyiv, Grand Duke Vytautas of Lithuania did not want to subordinate his lands to the metropolitan who came under the control of the Moscow princes, so he insisted on dividing the Metropolitanate of Kyiv into Lithuanian and Moscow. He sought the ordination of Gregory Tsamblak as Metropolitan of Kyiv and All Rus.During the first decades of the 15th century in the eastern territories of the Kingdom of Poland and in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, a network of Catholic parishes was formed, not only in cities but also in rural areas. Until 1430, all Catholic bishoprics on the Ukrainian lands were endowed with land holdings and other income.At that difficult time, the idea of the unity of the two Churches, the Western and the Eastern, did not disappear. It was argued that the unification of the Churches would make it possible to achieve the unity of the completely Christian world against the Turks. The Council of Constance launched a series of negotiations between Constantinople and the Apostolic Capital. King Wladyslaw of Poland and Duke Vytautas of Lithuania supported the idea of the unity of the Churches. Due to the threat of Turkish attacks on the Byzantine capital, a unification council proved impossible.

Ut unum sint: Constantinople and Rome in Ruthenian Historical Narrations of the Seventeenth Century

As it is broadly known, the history of the Church began to be one of the most potent elements in Early-modern controversial literature. Ruthenian polemical writings were not an exception; both Uniate and Orthodox authors broadly used facts of Church history considering themselves as the continuators of the Kyivan Christianity. Understanding historical narrative as a logically consistent sequence of events with implicit causal relations, this article presents the analysis of the appearance and transformation of two important historical narrations: on a Great Schism and on the Unity of Florence. Both historical narratives were written with polemical purposes and are closely connected with each other. Playing with names, dates, and sources, Ruthenian early-modern intellectuals in more or less skillful ways tried to give a historical overview of the relations between Rus, Constantinople, and Rome.The medieval Byzantine and Slavic polemical traditions were not reliable anymore. A different attitude to historiographical authorities provoked the shift of the hierarchy of the quoted sources. Ruthenian tradition, represented by the hagiographical texts and Russian Chronograph, is mostly quoted by the Uniate authors, not by orthodox ones. For them it is the most important historical proof that their own historical choice — the Union with Rome — does not contradict but continues the faith of their fathers: Kyiv metropolitans of the pre-Mongolian era.

Divine-Mediated Development in Coptic Christology


 
 
 Coptic Christology developed rapidly in a timespan of eight centuries between St. Cyril of Alexandria (fifth century) and al-Makīn (fourteenth century), a well-renowned Coptic historian and theologian. Prior to the Council of Ephesus (431), Cyril established his Alexandrine Christology on the theological grounds of the Trinity, image and likeness, and subsistence. Thus, his model posits that the humanity of Christ is the express image of the divinity in the fullness of time. The imprints of humanity are contained within the divinity, yielding a ‘divinity-derived humanity’, which is characteristic to Cyrillian Christology. His Christological views were slightly modified by the Nestorian controversy causing him to inadvertently amend his Christology to adhere to a more Antiochene-friendly paradigm. Post-Ephesus witnessed an unprecedented shift in Cyrillian Christology, which later became a source of great schism in the Apostolic Church. Following Chalcedon and with the Arab conquest in Egypt, Coptic Christology developed tremendously. Al-Makīn, unlike Cyril of Alexandria, expands his Christology to discuss the peculiarities of anthropology and theology. His Christology veered towards Chalcedonianism, and, in some instances, Nestorianism. This development in Coptic Christology can be viewed as a providentially paved road towards ecumenism between the Oriental and Eastern Orthodox Churches.
 
 

The Geopolitical Context of the Rus’ Raid on Seville

The article offers a possible explanation for the raid of the Rus’ on Seville in 844 and also attempts to compare this event with the embassy of the Rus’ to Constantinople and Ingelheim, and with their raid on Amastris. These events, taken as a part of a complex geopolitical picture of the “long middle” of the 9th century, show the origin and nature of the emerging group of the Rus’ people. This period started with the renewed Muslim onslaught on Europe through the Byzantine holdings in Asia Minor and Italy in the 820s–830s, and finished in the middle of the 860s with the Byzantine victory over the Abbasids. Other important events of this time were the Great Schism; victories of the Byzantine Orthodoxy over Catholicism and heretics in Great Moravia, Bulgaria and Asia Minor; and the first baptism of the Rus’. This geopolitical background was complemented by the collapse of the Carolingian Empire and the beginning of the German Drang nach Osten. During this time, a small group who identified itself as the Rus’ first in 838, came into being. Its main goal was to explore new trade routes to the Muslim world bypassing Khazaria. However, eventually they discovered an opportunity of pillaging Byzantium and its allies in Andalusia. The result of their actions, which were probably coordinated form one center in Southern Denmark, was their acquisition of “homeland” in the North of Eastern Europe: a land that was given its accidentally emerged name “Rus’”.

History of emergence of Freemasonry in the early XVIII – late XIX centuries

This article is dedicated to the history of emergence of the Masonic lodge in England and disclosure of the concept of “freemason”. The author reveals and describes the peculiarities of the emergence of Freemasonry, tracing its evolution from the antiquity until the XIX century. Its ancient history is divided into the two main periods (prior and after 1717, i.e. the creation of the Grand Lodge in England). The article describes such events from the history of Freemasonry as the establishment of the First Grand Lodge in England; creation of the Premier Lodge, Anderson’s Constitutions, and the Third Degree; the Great Schism of Freemasonry that tool place 1877; the Taxil hoax. Analysis is conducted on the relationship between the English and French factions of Freemasonry. The obtained results are accurate, since the analysis of the history of Freemasonry was carried based on the wide range of historical facts. The comprehensive analysis of the history of emergence of Freemasonry is carried out for the first time within the Russian-language historical literature, which defines the scientific novelty of this work. The author outlines the further prospects for studying the history of Freemasonry, such as accumulation of the reliable scientific information on the early history of the lodge, examination of the history of other Masonic factions (French, Italian, etc.), as well as the origin of Freemasonry in Russia.

The fate of man in the era of the “great schism”. Review of the monograph by I.P. Potekhina “How to become an antipope. Baltasar Kossa and his time” (SPb.: Nauka, 2020. 191 p.)

Рецензия на биографическое исследование, посвященное известному деятелю Римско- католической Церкви, занимавшему престол римского первосвященника в 1410-1415 гг. и смещенному решением Констанцского собора.

Multiplicative Speculations: What We Can Learn from The Rise and Fall of Hopepunk

Multiplicative Speculations:What We Can Learn from The Rise and Fall of Hopepunk Cecilia Mancuso (bio) I. INTRODUCTION "The opposite of grimdark is hopepunk / pass it on."1 In August 2017, this two-line Tumblr post by blogger and author alexandra rowland launched a viral campaign for the establishment of "hopepunk" as a new subgenre of speculative fiction. Although the original post was little more than a joke, a play on words, rowland found themselves bombarded with calls to seriously expand on the term and its definition, which they did in a 2019 online article, "One Atom of Justice, One Molecule of Mercy, and the Empire of Unsheathed Knives." Offering itself as a radical but happy medium between the paralyzing resignation and cynicism of nihilist "grimdark" fantasy and the passivity, false sense of security, and [End Page 459] "chosen one" underpinning of "noblebright" fantasy, hopepunk became a rallying cry for a wide range of speculative fiction judged to be weaponizing hope against an overwhelming wave of hopelessness in contemporary media and life.2 groundswell of support that only grew in the following year after journalistic explainers revived the term, earning praise for its self-organization around affects like hope and its proposed mechanisms for surviving and resisting the logics of capitalism. However, hopepunk also garnered several recurring critiques as it grew in popularity, including its incoherency as genre or movement in the traditional sense; the confusion of tones, moods, and affects it purported to encompass; and its failure to acknowledge the indebtedness of its survival mechanisms to the experiences and work of marginalized people thinking and living alternative futurisms. Hopepunk, while imperfectly executed as a phenomenon, nonetheless unearthed important truths about contemporary affect, genre, and the nature of speculation that deserve to outlive it. First, by defining itself in opposition to a current trend of hopeless speculative fiction, hopepunk uses the colloquial language of "hope"—no doubt drawing on the use of this term, at least in the American context—as a rallying point for progressivism, as in the optimistic call to action of Barack Obama's 2008 "Yes We Can" platform. "Hope" also describes/evokes the opposite or antidote to a complex network of hopeless and doomed affects following the 2016 U.S. presidential election and the systematic disassembly of human rights and rule of law that followed. Hopepunk astutely uses this colloquial formation to diagnose something warped in the fabric of contemporary dystopia—a trend only made legible in the scholarly sphere by triangulating the concerns of three scholarly discourses (utopian studies, affect theory, and alternative futurisms) but that nonetheless inspired widespread popular engagement because of hopepunk's accessible colloquial presentation. Second, by proposing itself as a relatively loose collection of texts united by a fluid set of affects and ideologies, hopepunk strives to model one possibility of what categorical intertextual relationships might look like in a postgenre world [End Page 460] that is moving away from traditional spatial and mutually exclusive models of genre and toward defining textual identity and relationships in terms of what texts do or enable for their readers. However, as previously stated, hopepunk's vital contributions are mired almost inextricably in its blind spots and weaknesses as a phenomenon. The rise and fall of hopepunk occludes a larger issue at stake within contemporary modes of speculation—namely, that there is a great schism in contemporary dystopia, with various factions vying to mandate the goals of dystopia as solely utopian, anti-utopian, or anti-anti-utopian under the guise of aesthetic judgment. First, through a synthesis of popular, journalistic, and scholarly engagements with hopepunk from its inauguration through its heyday, I identify the factors that made hopepunk virally resonant. Next, through an equal and opposite analysis, I identify the shortcomings that ultimately hamstrung the fledgling movement. In order to make clear hopepunk's position in and contribution to a larger sine wave phenomenon between dystopianism and utopianism, I reframe this longstanding back-and-forth as one between future-multiplying and future-limiting impulses within speculative media over time. I then turn to developing terminology to support this lens, defining "multiplicative speculation," speculation which expands one's future imaginaries, in opposition to "predictive speculation," which...

Appraisal of Steven Pinker’s Position on Enlightenment

Steven Pinker presents four ideals of Enlightenment in his popular book Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress. He argues his case brilliantly and convincingly through cogent arguments in a language comprehensible to the reader of the present century. Moreover, whether it is reason or science or humanism or progress, he defends his position powerfully. He justifies his views by citing 75 graphs on the upswing improvement made by humanity in terms of prosperity, longevity, education, equality of men and women, health, political freedom and medical breakthroughs. Though Pinker makes an excellent case for the positive contributions of Enlightenment; however he ignores the negative aspects that are responsible for causing a great schism between the white race and others who are black and brown. The paper highlights some of these negative comments made by such Enlightenment thinkers as Montesquieu, Voltaire, Chambers, Down and Down and others. Through their literary and scientific writings, these scholars and researchers downgraded the black and brown races, thus causing a rift that led to slavery, colonialism and apartheid. The paper reveals these negative aspects ignored by Pinker in his otherwise well-researched book on Enlightenment. Since Pinker presents a one-sided case by including only the positive contributions of Enlightenment, I recommend that he should write a sequel to his present work outlining the negative aspects responsible for numerous political, social and environmental problems facing humanity today. By using dialectical logic in place of logic of contraries, he might be able to synthesize both the positive and negative aspects of Enlightenment. He can then argue that humanity might be propelled to make progress more efficiently at a faster pace toward humanism and world peace.

Iohannes Hus, Constantiensia, ed. Helena Krmíčková, Dušan Coufal, Jana Fuksová, Lucie Mazalová, Petra Mutlová, Jana Nechutová, and Libor Švanda. Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis, 274. Turnhout: Brepols, 2016, xcii, 350 pp., 15. color ill.

Abstract: Before his immolation, the Bohemian theologian Jan Hus spent the final 242 days of his life as a prisoner in the lakeside imperial city of Constance. That was 1415. More recently, and partially in anticipation of the sixth centenary of his execution at the Council of Constance, the past decade has seen a marked increase in attention, popular and scholarly alike, paid to all things Hus and Hussite. Jan Hus, one could say, is ‘hot.’ This relative uptick in Hus’s visibility is not, however, simply commemorative; it has as much to do with trends in the study of the later Middle Ages as it does with public history. Much like his contemporary Jean Gerson, Hus left behind an extraordinary written corpus that exemplifies the world in which he lived, and scholars have made a concerted effort to resituate Hus within the complexities of European society during the Great Western Schism. Instead of repeating the narrative of Hus as the forerunner of a Reformation to come, some of the most compelling studies on the Hussite milieu have focused on an increasingly wide range of topics: the history of political thought, literary networks and communication, book history, vernacular preaching and literature, and even the notoriously under-studied wilderness of late-medieval canon law. And yet regardless of the path one takes to get to Hus, and wherever one thinks that path may take them, all roads lead to Constance in one way or another, to his trial, his death, and to its aftermath in the decades and centuries that followed.

The Great Schism of Geo-politics in 21st Century

The Great Schism of Geo-politics in 21st Century

The Cult of St. Olaf in the Latin and Greek Churches between the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries

Abstract This study aims to investigate how the cult of St. Olaf, the most famous Nordic saint, was instrumentalized after the Great Schism. We can observe a theological tendency of the papacy to centralize and standardize the Latin rite in Scandinavia by eliminating all Orthodox influences within the Scandinavian churches. This measure would ensure the Catholicization of the cult of St. Olaf by passing over in silence any Eastern ecclesiastical connection. In what follows, we will see that as St. Olaf was increasingly assimilated by the Latin church, the Byzantines in Constantinople reduced his spiritual power within the imperial political ideology.