Holy Thursday Research Articles

«НАПРЯЖЕННОЕ» ЗВУЧАНИЕ В ОБРЯДНОСТИ И МАГИИ (НА МАТЕРИАЛЕ КУЛЬТУРНО-ЯЗЫКОВОЙ ТРАДИЦИИ КОСТРОМСКОЙ ОБЛАСТИ)

This article is devoted to studying Russian folk rituals, magic practices and beliefs, in which the sound component (namely “tense” sounds, too loud or, vice versa, too low voice, special intonation or tempo, etc.) plays a significant role; it also identifies vocabulary “serving” for these situations, features of communication acts and “tense” sound functions. Cultural and linguistic traditions of Kostroma region was selected for the research. Field records made in 1975–2003 by the Toponymical expedition of the Ural University were taken as the material for analysis; some other written sources containing local dialects were also involved. The analysis conducted allows concluding that “tense” ritual or magical speech is described mainly using words from the following families of the verbs klikat’ (to shriek), krichat’ (to scream), vopit’ (to yell), revet’ (to cry), vyt’ (to howl), sheptat’ (to whisper). After getting into the ritual field, words with initial “household” semantics obtain special features, which is reflected in their lexical meaning and syntax properties. “Tense” sounds are typical for some family rituals (funeral and prayer for the dead, bachelorette party the day before the wedding, after-wedding viyunishnik (ritual of celebration of a newly wedded couple)) and rituals associated with some calendar dates, such as Egoriev den’ (George’s Day in Spring), Velikiy Chetverg (Holy Thursday), Krestopoklonnaya nedelya (the Adoration of the Holy Cross); it can also be used during verbal magic and sorcery. The identified functions of this sound production method are as follows: emotive, social, apotropeitive, producing, malicious and healing.

Hasn't the time finally come for the establishment of a World Government?

On Holy Thursday, April 11, 1963, Pope John XXIII signed live on the world's television stations his last and long- awaited encyclical _Pacem in Terris_. Its writing prompted several world events in this period only 18 years after the end of World War II, the period also called the Cold War. Half a year earlier, on October 11, 1962, the Second Vatican Council began, and we still have before our eyes the ceremony with which Pope Francis commemorated the 60th anniversary of its opening in the Basilica of St. Peter with the exposed remains of St. John XXIII with his famous homily critically reacting to various ideological movements in the Church. However, the events of the so-called The Cuban crisis brought John XXIII to the idea of writing a radical anti-war Encyclical letter. Despite the fact that the very name of the Encyclical letter was misused by the communists to create the so-called the peace movement of priests in several countries of the Soviet bloc and therefore reminds us of the significant events of the given time, the Encyclical remains surprisingly relevant even 60 years after it was written.

Hasn't the time finally come for the establishment of a World Government?

On Holy Thursday, April 11, 1963, Pope John XXIII signed live on the world's television stations his last and long- awaited encyclical _Pacem in Terris_. Its writing prompted several world events in this period only 18 years after the end of World War II, the period also called the Cold War. Half a year earlier, on October 11, 1962, the Second Vatican Council began, and we still have before our eyes the ceremony with which Pope Francis commemorated the 60th anniversary of its opening in the Basilica of St. Peter with the exposed remains of St. John XXIII with his famous homily critically reacting to various ideological movements in the Church. However, the events of the so-called The Cuban crisis brought John XXIII to the idea of writing a radical anti-war Encyclical letter. Despite the fact that the very name of the Encyclical letter was misused by the communists to create the so-called the peace movement of priests in several countries of the Soviet bloc and therefore reminds us of the significant events of the given time, the Encyclical remains surprisingly relevant even 60 years after it was written.

Hasn't the time finally come for the establishment of a World Government?

On Holy Thursday, April 11, 1963, Pope John XXIII signed it live on the world's television stations. his last and long-awaited encyclical _Pacem in Terris_. Its writing prompted several world events in this period only 18 years after the end of World War II, the period also called the Cold War. Half a year earlier, on October 11, 1962, the Second Vatican Council began, and we still have before our eyes the ceremony with which Pope Francis commemorated the 60th anniversary of its opening in the Basilica of St. Peter with the exposed remains of St. John XXIII with his famous homily critically reacting to various ideological movements in the Church. However, the events of the so-called The Cuban crisis brought John XXIII to the idea of writing a radical anti-war Encyclical letter. Despite the fact that the very name of the Encyclical letter was misused by the communists to create the so-called the peace movement of priests in several countries of the Soviet bloc and therefore reminds us of the significant events of the given time, the Encyclical remains surprisingly relevant even 60 years after it was written.

Blake in the Marketplace, 2022

John Windle provided an auspicious beginning for the 2022 Blake market with his February publication of catalogue 70, Present Joy. At 160 pages offering 809 items, this is the second-largest sale catalogue devoted to Blake and his circle, exceeded only by Windle’s October 2009 catalogue 46. The organization of Present Joy is unusual for its genre. The main section is arranged chronologically, with works listed by the year they were originally created, even for later reproductions. Thus, a 1955 facsimile of Songs of Innocence and of Experience appears in the subsection on Blake’s productions of 1789–​94. The catalogue includes three drawings from the smaller Blake-Varley Sketchbook, separate plates including “Chaucers Canterbury Pilgrims,” print series such as the Job and Dante engravings, a large group of Blake’s commercial book illustrations, ranging from his apprentice work in Jacob Bryant’s A New System, or, an Analysis of Ancient Mythology (1774–​76) to John Varley’s Treatise on Zodiacal Physiognomy (1828), and most of the William Muir and Blake Trust/​Trianon Press facsimiles of Blake’s illuminated books. All but a few works by Blake are illustrated. Many items are recorded as “Sold,” including “Holy Thursday” from Songs of Innocence copy W and “A Cradle Song” (both plates) from Songs of Innocence copy Y, and have been listed in earlier installments of these sales reviews. In the listings below, I have included all original materials for the record.

The Hours of Easter Sunday: Articulating a Full Day of the Paschal Triduum

The Easter Triduum has become the high point of the liturgical year for communities throughout the Roman Church thanks to the reforms of Pope Pius XII and those following the Second Vatican Council. Sometimes forgotten, however, is the establishment of a three-day Triduum of Easter rather than the previous Triduum before Easter, now beginning with evening Mass on Holy Thursday and comprising Good Friday, Holy Saturday and all of Easter Sunday. The post-conciliar reform of the liturgy of Easter Sunday is overlooked, especially the changes to Lauds and Vespers, which have made of Easter Sunday a full third day of the Paschal Triduum in three distinct parts reflecting three moments in the day of the Lord's resurrection. The articulated liturgical celebrations of Easter Sunday, especially due to the revised offices of Lauds and Vespers, are presented here. Considerations regarding future changes in the Triduum are also suggested such as restoring distinct elements of Tenebrae for Friday and Saturday, Baptismal Vespers, and emphasizing the ambo as the empty tomb.

Liturgiczna poetyka Triduum Paschalnego

Czy bez dostępu do publicznych celebracji Triduum Sacrum, odwołanych z powodu pandemii roku 2020, jest możliwe duchowe uczestniczenie w tych liturgiach? Esej wykazuje, że kluczowym sposobem udziału w liturgiach, pomimo nieobecności na celebracji, jest medytacja nad poetyckimi tekstami liturgii. Poezja liturgiczna daje możliwość wejścia w historię zbawienia za pośrednictwem słowa śpiewanego. Niniejszy tekst skupia się na trzech poematach liturgicznych Triduum: Ubi caritas z Wielkiego Czwartku, Pange lingua z Wielkiego Piątku oraz Exsultetu z Wigilii Paschalnej. W każdym z tych utworów słowa prowadzą chrześcijanin ku obecności misterium paschalnego Chrystusa, przygotowując ich do radości z duchowych owoców Triduum.

Paştile în folclorul maramureşean

"Easter in the Maramureş folklore Based on direct field investigations, our research is meant to investigate the repertoire rich in traditions, customs, beliefs and superstitions, most of which make up the pre-Christian background of this religious feast day. We dedicated the first part to the preparatory acts of this feast day, giving priority to important traditions and customs due to their age: ritual sweeping, ritual lamb sacrifice, the Holy Thursday custom “piezărit”, and then to broadly approach the eggs’ painting and decorating. Following the fusion of the repertoire of pre-Christian and Christian traditions, we dedicated due space to the use of red and decorated eggs in the feast day ceremony, and we also reserved an extended space for the traditions of using eggshells and egg-reddening legends. We have permanently paid attention to pre-Christian customs performed on this feast day, such as ritual fires, customs and traditions related to the cult of the dead. We have extensively approached the custom of the Easter forefathers, in the Land of Lăpuş, which is individualized as compared to other country areas by its novelty, complexity and ethnographic elements, at Easter taking place during two days. I have reviewed the rich repertoire of beliefs and superstitions and I have treated traditions related to premonitions and folk medicine. In our research, we have dedicated an extended space to customs and traditions that take place on the second day of this religious feast day, completing its rich pre-Christian background: girls’ watering, boys’ dance, but the emphasis falls on the custom of celebrating the most diligent housekeeper, the first one to plow, in the versions from Şurdeşti and Cufoaia, which include sequences with unique ceremonial acts and rituals. Keywords: Easter eggs, Maramureș, feast day ceremony, customs "

Online Communion, Christian Community, and Receptive Ecumenism: A Holy Week Ethnography during COVID-19

A significant liturgical controversy of the COVID-19 pandemic is whether Christians should celebrate communion online. Much of the discussion of online communion has been based on theological and theoretical claims, rather than concrete observations and experiences, and much of this reflection has been directed toward specific denominational contexts. In contrast, this ethnographic study centers on participant observation of twelve worship services that included communion, or would ordinarily have included communion, that occurred between Holy Thursday and Easter Sunday of April 2020 in Free Church, mainline Protestant, Anglican, and Roman Catholic settings. It takes the approach of receptive ecumenism and asks what gifts Christians from various traditions can receive from one another in relation to online communion both during and beyond times of crisis. Rather than making a case for or against celebrating communion online, it explores the ways in which community is demonstrated and effected in online communion practices.

Blake’s “Holy Thursday” and “The Martyrdom of St. Paul’s”

The Comic Almanack of 1838 might seem an unusual place to find a writer thinking like William Blake, but a poem for the month of June gives two views of the charity children who attended an annual service in St. Paul’s Cathedral that have some interesting similarities to those represented by Blake’s two “Holy Thursday” poems. “The Martyrdom of St. Paul’s” and its background fill out the context for Blake’s poems of innocence and experience, suggesting that he was not entirely alone in wondering whether the children involved were being exploited rather than assisted. The 1838 poem read in context helps us to see Blake’s use of the title “Holy Thursday” as a calculated choice, and thus those who suggest that at the time of writing the first poem Blake himself identified closely with his narrator’s aesthetic response to the sight may be reading overinnocently. I will first outline what is known of the background to the “Holy Thursday” poems in Blake’s time, then use the poem from the Comic Almanack to understand what would have been expected of the children.

The Carabattola—Vibroacoustical Analysis and Intensity of Acoustic Radiation (IAR)

Among the studies of musical instruments, one important, sometime underestimated discipline, is represented by ethnomusicology. The acoustic analyses on ethnic musical instruments (M.I.) are much more infrequent if compared to those on classical M.I. This article deals with the vibro-acoustic analysis on one of the most unknown ethnic, Italian M.I., i.e., the carabattola (also called battola), which used to be played in Italy until the late 1960s during the Holy Thursday before Easter. The study includes modal analysis and Intensity of Acoustic Radiation measured on an original carabattola, which was played in the Romagna area until the early twentieth century. After a brief overview about the theory of acoustic and vibrational analysis on musical instruments, the Intensity of acoustic radiation and its correlation with modal analysis are recalled, based on previous studies. In the experimental part of the article, the measurements conducted on the carabattola are described. Afterwards, the results obtained both from modal analysis and IAR measurements are analyzed and compared with other measurements previously conducted on musical (particularly percussion) instruments and commented.

Richness, Fatness, and Salvation: The Movement of the Holy Spirit in the Blessings of the Holy Oils and Consecration of the Chrism during the Chrism Mass

During the Chrism Mass of Holy Thursday, when the oils of the sick and of the catechumens are blessed and the chrism is consecrated, the whole church assembles to celebrate these symbols of the human journey to God. That the oils and balsam used in the rite are derived from creation signifies the role of creation (specifically nonhuman creatures) in salvation. Indeed, the holy oils, fashioned from creation and blessed and consecrated before the whole church, are destined to mark and enable the journey of human beings toward union with God through the church. The consecration of the chrism is considered the foundation of all other blessings in the church, making it an appropriate lens to consider the relationship among creation, the church, and salvation. These prayers of blessing and consecration during the Chrism Mass indicate the movement of the Holy Spirit in creation, drawing human beings into heaven.

Celebração e vida: dois momentos inseparáveis da celebração eucarística

A Eucaristia é a celebração do Mistério Pascal de Nosso Senhor Jesus Cristo. Nela faz-se memória da Páscoa de Cristo e da páscoa dos cristãos. Olhando para a sua história, percebe-se que nos primórdios do cristianismo a celebração eucarística tinha um desdobramento prático na vida do cristão. Com o passar do tempo, a relação celebração e vida foi se perdendo, e a celebração tornou-se um rito, muitas vezes, distante da vida. Hoje, um dos nossos maiores desafios é restabelecer esta unidade: celebração e vida são dois momentos inseparáveis da Celebração Eucarística.Abstract: The Eucharist is the celebration of the Paschal Mystery of Our Lord Jesus Christ. In it we remember Christ’s Easter and the Christians’ Easter. Examining its history we see that in the early days of Christianity the Eucharistic celebration had a practical development in the Christians’ lives. As time went by, the relation between celebration and life started to fade away and the celebration became a rite, often far from ordinary life. One of our greatest challenges today is to re-establish this unity: celebration and life are two inseparable moments of the Eucharistic Celebration.

Episcopus, presbyter, sacerdos, diaconus: niektóre wyjaśnienia papieża Innocentego I w Liście do Decencjusza, biskupa Gubbio

In his Letter to Decentius, Bishop of Gubbio, Pope Innocent I discusses some liturgical questions and specifies the competences of the representatives of the clergy of the time in this regard. First of all, however, he demonstrates the par­ticular link of the community of Rome with the figure of St Peter, which gives rise to the very special role of the Bishop of Rome in relation to other communities, especially in the West. He then concentrates especially on the duties and rights of bishops (episcopi), the principal shepherds and administrators of the divine gifts; on the basis of Sacred Scripture and Tradition he places them at the head of the ecclesiastical hierarchy. Presbyters (presbyteri) are then considered; to them the author of the Letter attributes a significant role especially in teaching and in the celebration of the Eucharist and Baptism. Confirmation is celebrated by the bishop; presbyters, even though they are priests (sacerdotes), do not possess the fullness of the priesthood. The term sacerdos is usually used in reference to bi­shops and presbyters; however, at times it is reserved to bishops, as, for example, in the discussion on the theme of the beginning of public penance and the admis­sion of the repentant Christian to the community on Holy Thursday.

Obřad umývání nohou v liturgii Zeleného čtvrtku: anamnésis nebo mimésis?

This study attempts to describe and comment on the latest development in the area of the ceremony (the so­-called mandatum) which is now part of the evening mass on Holy (Maundy) Thursday. The fundamental subject is the issue of the relationship between its anamnestic and mimetic dimension wherein the latest official decision, based on the direct impulse of Pope Francis (2016), tends to the first mentioned characteristic. The text describes the relatively complicated development from the original mandatum hospitum and pauperum towards the mandatum fratrum and clericorum, and also mentions the baptismal washing of feet in non­‑Roman western liturgies. On the basis of the Lucan and Johannine texts, the study concludes that this ceremony is not a mimetic after­‑piece of the Gospel text in John 13:1–15, but a celebrative anamnesis on Jesus’ serviceable love, which goes to the very end.

Из наблюдений над текстом утреннего чтения на четверг Великой недели в Архангельском Евангелии 1092 года

The article is an attempt to analyze the text of the morning reading for Holy Thursday in the 1092 Archangelsk Gospel referenced to the oldest Slavonic traditions of the Holy Bible translations. So far, researchers have focused on the morning reading for Holy Wednesday, which played an important role in the study of the complete edition of Aprakos Gospel. Less attention has been paid to the reading for Holy Thursday, a text which although textologically close to the reading for Holy Wednesday, is very different in the lexical dimension.

Cyrillona: A Critical Study and Commentary by Carl Griffin

Reviewed by: Cyrillona: A Critical Study and Commentary by Carl Griffin Jeanne-Nicole Mellon Saint-Laurent Carl GriffinCyrillona: A Critical Study and Commentary Gorgias Eastern Christian Studies 46 Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2016 Pp. x + 337. $118.30. Who was the Syriac poet Cyrillona, what were his works, and what is his place in early Christian literature? In this book Griffin sheds light on this compelling theologian-poet from late ancient Roman Mesopotamia. Cyrillona is a familiar name to students of Syriac literature because of his presence in Symbols of Church and Kingdom: A Study in Early Syriac Tradition, by the late Robert Murray, SJ. Many scholars of late antique Christianity, however, remain unacquainted with the beautiful poetry of this fourth-century Syrian. Griffin, therefore, has done a great service in writing this book that contextualizes this author and analyzes his writings. Griffin introduces each of Cyrillona’s poems, analyzes their literary features, and comments upon their content. This book complements Griffin’s edition and translation of the writings of Cyrillona: The Works of Cyrillona, Texts from Christian Late Antiquity 48 (2016). Those who read Cyrillona are advised to have Griffin’s edition of his Works so that they can follow the analyses of the poems that Griffin offers in this book. In Chapter One, Griffin introduces Cyrillona and his corpus. He reviews the scholarship on Cyrillona and then discusses hypotheses concerning the author’s identity (3–8). Griffin demonstrates why a late fourth-century date can be attributed to Cyrillona based upon a reference Cyrillona makes to an invasion of the Huns (31). Each of the five subsequent chapters contains an analysis of the poems that are authentically Cyrillona’s: On the Institution of the Eucharist (Chapter Two), On the Washing of the Feet (Chapter Three), On the Pasch of Our Lord (Chapter Four), On the Scourges (Chapter Five), and On Zacchaeus (Chapter Six). Each chapter could be studied as a self-contained unit. Griffin offers an interpretative framework for understanding Cyrillona’s poetic discourse, and he delineates the strident features of Cyrillona’s symbolic theology and exegesis. This book excels in situating Cyrillona in relationship to other Syriac authors, showing where Cyrillona’s language and theological imagery is unique to him and where it mirrors others, such as Ephrem and Aphrahaat. This book teaches us much about Cyrillona’s exegetical method and sacramental worldview. Griffin notes the author’s affinity for the Gospel of John. In the poems studied in Chapters Two, Three, and Four, Griffin underscores Cyrillona’s talent for dramatizing the events of the Last Supper. These, in Griffin’s interpretation, present an imagined mystagogy that Jesus gave his disciples (60–61). Cyrillona portrays Christ as a type of the High Priest in the lineage of the Levitical priests who dons mysteries, parables, figures, and prophecy (61). In Chapter Three Griffin studies Cyrillona’s homiletic poem On the Washing of the Feet and shows how Cyrillona imagined the events of the Last Supper in the Upper Room. The poet, as Griffin highlights, directs his listeners to wonder at Christ’s lavation of his apostles’ feet. Griffin proposes a baptismal context for the delivery of this sermon. He suggests that Cyrillona may have written it for the [End Page 670] liturgy of Holy Thursday, since Holy Thursday was the day on which baptism was performed in the Syrian world in Cyrillona’s time. On the Washing of the Feet may even be an early explanation for the practice or rite of the washing of the feet in the Syriac world (98), but, as Griffin cautions, that remains conjecture. Like other patristic authors, Cyrillona identifies Christ’s washing of the feet of the apostles as an example of humility and service that his apostles should imitate. Yet Cyrillona also interpreted the washing of the feet as Christ’s way of preparing his apostles for a life of preaching and delivering the sacraments. Griffin argues that the entire poem was meant to inspire wonder in the minds of the faithful both at Christ’s act of servile lavation and at creation’s cosmic reaction to Christ’s self-abasement. Griffin’s sophisticated analysis of the first three poems...

Mögliche Funktionen der mittelalterlichen Heiligen Gräber

Possible Functions of Medieval Holy Sepulchres. In Western Christianity, the tomb of Christ and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem not only served as an influential architectural precedent throughout the Middle Ages, but also became a defining element of the Good Friday and Easter liturgies. Liturgical sources inform us that in some parts of the Latin Church, beginning in the second half of the tenth century, it was customary on Good Friday to place the Cross and/or the consecrated Host from Holy Thursday into the sepulchrum, the symbolic tomb of Christ. The Crucifix and the Sacrament would be removed from the sepulchre at dawn on Easter Sunday, and the empty tomb became the semantic centre of the Easter ceremony, as evidence of the Resurrection. Sculptural representations of the Holy Sepulchre from as early as the thirteenth century have survived, and it is possible to deduce that they were used to fulfil the function of the sepulchrum during the ceremonies of Holy Week. Liturgical texts do not usually make reference to figural Holy Sepulchres, so they cannot be used as direct sources for this purpose, although they do help us to understand liturgical sepulchres and to determine the role they performed in the liturgical space. The sepulchre was, on the one hand, a tool used in liturgical practice, and the ceremony itself defined the object, its status and its interpretation. A deeper examination of the activities carried out during the Triduum Sacrum, meanwhile, may enable us to determine the active role of the Holy Sepulchre, as an image, as part of the ceremony and for the duration of the ceremony. The use of sepulchres was not limited to liturgical or ritual practice, for certain examples remained visible at other times of the year, and may have provided an opportunity for the images to be used for individual devotion. The unrelated written and material sources may, in the final analysis, lend us the chance to identify the conceptual functions of the liturgical-ritual Holy Sepulchre and the Holy Sepulchre as an image.

Interrelation/Coexistence between Human/Nonhuman in Nature: William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience

This paper considers the interrelation and coexistence between human and nonhuman in nature in William Blake’s (1757-1827) Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience (1789-1794). The paper looks at his poems in the light of ecocentrism, especially the theories of Lawrence Buell (1939- ) and Ashton Nichols (1953- ), who articulate ecocentrism as a word which expresses the interconnection between human and nonhuman in nature and environment. The word, ecocentrism, denotes nature and environment as the central and essential parts of the world to represent them as a web or system wherein all members and parts, including human and nonhuman, are related and connected to each other so closely that they cannot exist and live separately and lonely. By human, it refers to who is a creature in the web, who links to other creatures and entities so closely that he cannot be isolated from them. The linkage and coexistence are the matter which can be viewed in some of the poems of William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience. Blake watches environment and nature carefully, and in some of the poems of two mentioned collections such as “The Echoing Green,” “Nurse’s Song,” “Holy Thursday,” “The School Boy,” to name just a few, he illustrates a situation of life in which human has close relation and connection to other creatures. According to Blake, human and nonhuman have such a vital relationship so that no one can live without the others. All creatures and beings in an organism have an effect on each other, and they are interrelated. The paper shows interconnection and coexistence between human and nonhuman in Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience due to portrayal and representation of nonhuman creatures in the world. It defines some nonhuman terms such as nature and environment and then focuses on the interrelation and coexistence between human and nonhuman in Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience in accordance with ecocentrism.

Icelandic Baroque: Poetic Art and Erudition in the Works of Hallgrímur Pétursson by Margrét Eggertsdóttir

Reviewed by: Icelandic Baroque: Poetic Art and Erudition in the Works of Hallgrímur Pétursson by Margrét Eggertsdóttir Gracia Grindal Icelandic Baroque: Poetic Art and Erudition in the Works of Hallgrímur Pétursson. By Margrét Eggertsdóttir. Translated by Andrew Wawn. Islandica: A Series in Icelandic and Norse Studies, vol. LVI. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Library, 2014. 570 pp. The little Lutheran countries, and Iceland is the littlest, have traditions which rarely are brought to the attention of the wider poetic or scholarly world, unfortunately, until a truly great writer breaks out of the national boundaries. Iceland reigned supreme in European literature at one time. Snorri Sturluson (1179–1241) whose eddas, sagas and histories were the greatest European literature of his day, was the high point for Icelandic letters for the next four hundred years. With a few exceptions, its tradition of literature and thought has remained on the island nation without much purchase from the wider European world of letters. One glorious exception is the poetry and hymnody of Hallgrímur Pétursson (1614–1664). While many outside of the Icelandic world of literature have known of him and his rather exotic biography, they have not been able to access his poetry in any meaningful way unless they learned Icelandic. Pétursson, born in the north of the island, in Gröf on Höfðaströnð, was marked early as a gifted young man. The bishop of Hólar, Guðbranður þorlákson, noticed him and made sure he received a good education. As a very young man, Hallgrímur went to Europe, probably Germany, where he became apprenticed to a blacksmith, but due to the good graces of his cousin, Brynjólfur, the head of the Latin School at Roskilde, Denmark, Hallgrímur, ended up studying at the cathedral school in Copenhagen. While there he was assigned a strange task—reeducating some Icelandic natives who had been captured by Barbary pirates and enslaved in Algiers. When they finally could pay the ransom for their release, they came to Copenhagen where the Danish government [End Page 474] determined they should be retaught their Lutheran faith. Hallgrímur was chosen to be the teacher. As he taught his class, he fell in love with Guðriður, one of the released captives. She returned his affections, and even if she was still married to a man in Iceland, she became pregnant. Fortunately for them, her husband had died years before, so Hallgrímur's sin was not punished by the usual harsh sentence when he returned home with Guðriður. After some time of troubles over this transgression, Hallgrímur took holy orders and began serving the Hvalsnes parish near Keflavik. There they suffered the death of their beloved daughter, as they eked out a living in this impoverished parish on the weather beaten heaths on the western seacoast. After some time he was transferred to another parish, Saubær, by comparison a much richer village. While there, he began writing, among other things, his collection of fifty hymns, Passíussálmer, which have been the center of Icelandic piety ever since they appeared in 1666. About that time he contracted leprosy and died eight years later after great suffering. These fifty Passion Hymns are intended to be sung and meditated on during Lent. Rich with Baroque poetic and sermon traditions, they are the best of Icelandic poetry. The poet has skillfully used its conventions of alliteration—somewhat like the poetic genius of the Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf—and the rich number of rhymes available in Icelandic. Poetic sermons, hymns, on the events in Jesus' life from Holy Thursday and the institution of the Lord's Supper until Easter Saturday and the resurrection of our Lord, they are still treasured by the Icelandic people. Still the most frequently published work in the country, they are read each day during Lent on the radio, they are sung in churches, at home, and remain the basis for fine modern compositions, such as Hallgrímurspassía by one of Iceland's most accomplished composers, Sigurður Sævarsson, written for the four hundredth anniversary...