Immortality Of Soul Research Articles

Plato’s Shadow: The Encroaching Doctrine of the Soul’s Immortality in the Early Church

The influence of Plato’s concept of the soul as innately immortal and indestructible had a profoundly unbiblical influence upon many of the early church fathers’ views regarding human nature, the final judgment of the wicked, and God’s gift of immortality to believers. I will argue my thesis by initially defining the nature of the soul according to the Hebrew Bible and the Christian New Testament, with an emphasis on its mortality. I will primarily utilize Scripture itself, although secondary sources—such as commentaries on the Hebrew and Greek versions—are essential due to interpretational differences. This will help to demonstrate how the Biblical view differs significantly from the Platonic view. Likewise, I will explore the Platonic view of the nature of the soul through the use of various primary and secondary sources. Additionally, I will use the writings of many early church fathers to highlight various instances in which the early church adopted the Platonic view of the soul and applied it to areas of their theology. Lastly, I will use both primary and secondary sources to make the case that the adoption of Platonic doctrine on the immortal soul has had an ‘unbiblical’ influence on how many Christians have viewed human nature, which alters the views of the final judgment of the wicked as well as the concept of God’s gift of immortality to believers in Christ. Ultimately, I will argue that this issue is important because it affects how we see the character of God and is, therefore, related to how we worship him.

Immortality in Veda: An Analysis with Special Reference to the Rigveda

Abstract: The Vedas are regarded as one of the earliest instances of written literature and as the epitomes of Indian knowledge and philosophical tenets. The inherent philosophical framework of the Vedas is great facilitator of human insight about seminal issues like Life, Death, Mortality, and Immortality and so on. Vedas are always prescribing a balanced and measured way of life by bridging the gap between life and death. Life and Death are not two extremes; rather they are interrelated and co-existed. In the perspective of transitoriness of human body and the immortality of soul, the Vedas talk about the attainment of Immortality by understanding the truth about the cycle of life and death. Rigveda, in particular, does have significant instances and references about the idea of Immortality-its nature and the means of attaining the same. The present Paper looks into the idea of immortality represented in the Rigveda with a view of extracting the philosophical and pragmatic understanding of the same with the help of a descriptive and analytical approach.

The harmonious soul and the defence of music in sixteenth‐century England

AbstractThis article examines the history of the concept of the soul as a harmony—as opposed to merely being like a harmony—in sixteenth‐century England, demonstrating how debates over music's morality in sixteenth‐century England were a catalyst for theorising an increasing affinity between music and the soul. At the beginning of the sixteenth century, English writers valued music primarily for its restorative qualities or its potential to instil virtue, akin to arguments in Aristotle's Politics. As attacks on music intensified mid‐century, defenders turned to more Platonic views of music, gradually going as far as arguing that the soul itself was a harmony. As I demonstrate, however, music's defenders trod a fine line in using this concept, which had been challenged since classical times and caused problems for Christian theology and the notion of the immortal soul. Nevertheless, by the seventeenth century, the pervasiveness of the language of soul‐harmony was such that it continued to be influential in the seventeenth century as a tool for conveying the emerging new medical and cognitive theories.

Konstantin Grigorievich Grigoriev — the last professor of fundamental theology at the Kazan Theological Academy

The article is devoted to studying the theological heritage of the professor, the last teacher of fundamental theology at the Kazan Theological Academy, Konstantin Grigorievich Grigoriev (1875–1933). The work uses previously unpublished archival materials. The program of K. G. Grigoriev’s lecture course on fundamental theology, preserved in the State Archives of the Republic of Tatarstan, as well as some of his journal publications on the same topic, are analyzed, with special attention paid to his methodology of teaching fundamental theology and the basic section of the discipline — proofs of the main religious truths (existence of God and immortality of soul). It is revealed that in teaching fundamental theology, K. G. Grigoriev largely adhered to the method and subject structure developed by bishop Mikhail (Gribanovsky). It is demonstrated that this method had also been previously supported and developed by the Kazan Theological Academy professors V. A. Snegirev and V. I. Nesmelov. The results obtained in the course of the study allow us to speak of K. G. Grigoriev’s rather high scientific and apologetic potential, which, at the same time, did not remain fully realized. The Kazan professor’s main merit is that he managed to accumulate the best achievements of his predecessors in the field of fundamental theology. K. G. Grigoriev, contrary to the liberal trends in contemporary theological science, managed to maintain the teaching of fundamental theology not only at a high scientific level, but also in accordance with the Orthodox worldview.

БИБЛЕЙСКАЯ СОТЕРИОЛОГИЯ, УЧЕНИЕ М. ФИЧИНО О «ПИТАЮЩЕЙ ДУШЕ» В «ПЛАТОНОВСКОЙ ТЕОЛОГИИ» И СОНЕТ 146 ШЕКСПИРА

Sonnet 146 not only stands apart from Shakespeare’s sonnets, but, in fact, is a complete philosophical and theological poetic pamphlet. As for the soteriological context of sonnet 146, which represents the idea of abandoning the concerns of the body and saving the soul by “feeding” it with the body, one could, first of all, note the New Testament passages from apostle Paul about “mortification” of the flesh and fleshly passions for the salvation of the soul: Rom. 8:13 (cf. also: 7:5; 8:7); Col. 3:5 (cf. further, e. g.: 1 Cor. 3:1, 3); Gal. 5:24. But as for the allegory of the soul’s salvation through its “feeding” on the flesh — instead of feeding the flesh, as it is usually done by the people that death “feeds” on — one can see here a reflection and a kind of “reverse” reinterpretation of M. Ficino’s doctrine of the “nutritive/sc. feeding soul” (anima nutritiva), which he develops in his “Plato’s Theology”. Passages of “Plato’s Theology” VII, 9; XIII, 5; VI, 12; XVIII, 9 are particularly representative in this regard. In XVIII, 9 Ficino writes: “If at present the life of the composite man is subject to the conditions of his decay-prone body, in the future it will follow the conditions of the immortal soul. As a result, death will give way to life in accord with the most perfect kind of natural beginnings. Death, which has lost its power, as the prophets tell us, will be swallowed up by life... There will arise... eternal bodies.” By “prophets” here primarily Hosea (13:14), whom the apostle Paul quotes (1 Cor. 15:55 [cf. also: 1 Сor. 15:26; Rev. 21:4]), and Isaiah (25:8 [cf. its reminiscence in 1 Cor. 15:54]; cf. also, e.g.: Isa. 26:19, 41:14; Dan. 12:2, 13) are meant. The last line of sonnet 146 (“And death once dead, ther’s no more dying then” [сf. also: sonnets 55, line 13; 60, line 13; 122, line 4]) correlates with Rev. 21:4, as well as with the passage from Ficino XVIII, 9.

영혼의 그리스도론적 특성에 대한 종말론적 고찰

Human beings are not absolute beings that can enable themselves, but sort of accidental beings that airse from inevitable beings. Humans cannot find of themselves the reasons for their existence. The Bible teaches that humans are God’s creatures and ‘the image of God’ (Imago Dei) (cf. Gn 1:26-27). The first characteristics of human beings created in the image of God is that they are born with the spiritual and mental abilities which make them distinct and distinguished from the other creatures. Made of clay, humans are finite and limited, but as the breath (=spirit) of God is breathed into them, they can surpass themselves despite their limit. It is the teachings of the Bible as well as the Church that human beings are the union of the soul and the body, but the function and role of body and soul are not the same. Traditionally, the Catholic Church teaches that ‘the soul is the form of the body.’ Therefore, although humans are the whole unity of soul and body, the former is relatively regarded as more essential and unique.
 In this paper topics related with the immortality of the soul will be dealt with. It will be examined if the soul is immortal, and if so, how that is possible. Especially, this issue will be approached in terms of the relationship with Jesus Christ, who takes the second hypostasis of the Trinity. In this paper, the claim that immortality of the soul is impossible will be examined along with the opposite assertion that it is possible. Next, if the immortality of the human soul is considered possible, discussed will be the intermediate stage which is assumed to exist after the death of an individual, as well as a purgatory, which can be said to be a form of the intermediate state. The most important starting point that will lead and comprise the related topics is Christology. Therefore, this paper will be focused on developing various topics related with eschatology from the perspective of Christology. It is the teachings of the Bible and the Catholic Church that Christology should be the starting point, main concept and conclusion of all the Christian theology and faith. Hence, topics of the immortality of the soul and eschatological subjects thereof will be examined through christological contemplation.

Das Bild der tugendhaften Frau als Ehefrau und Mutter in ausgewählten lateinsprachigen Epithalamien und Epitaphien des 16. Jahrhunderts

A Virtuous Woman in the Renaissance In this article, I analyze selected texts of epithalamia and epitaphs, on the basis of which we can conclude that it is no accident that male poets paid so much attention to women in these two genres. This is so because in wedding songs they needed a virtuous wife, and in funeral songs they had to prove that they had found one. In both types of works, the catalogue and the laudatio of female virtues are very similar. The difference is visible in the description of appearance, which in epitaphs is of secondary importance, because the body disintegrates after death, unlike the immortal soul. In the sixth epitaph to Elżbieta Szydłowiecka, Piotr Rojzjusz emphasizes the grace and beauty of the deceased, but puts them between two other virtues: kindness and holiness. All virtue lay at rest in the grave with this beautiful woman. The funeral laudatio coincides with the laudatio in wedding songs. The woman was to be the model of a good wife, a mother, and a Christian. The topos of the good wife required of her: good birth, love for her husband, piety, decency, honesty, modesty, unconditional obedience to her husband, and lack of a quarrelsome disposition (the epitaphs lack pulchra and pecuniosa). The topos of a good mother, however, includes giving birth and raising children. A good mother had to be pious, modest, and caring for her family and children. In each of these roles, the description of virtues is strongly prescriptive. A woman becomes a being programmed by nature and patriarchal society to fulfill the role of an obedient daughter, a virtuous wife, a caring mother, and a good housewife.

GOD AND GOD’S WORLD IN A. I. SOLZHENITSYN’S SHORT NOVEL (POVEST’) “CANCER WARD”

The research is devoted to revealing the features of understanding of God and God’s world in A. I. Solzhenitsyn’s “Cancer Ward.” The heroes of the short novel travel a difficult path on which they have to think about God. At the beginning of the short novel there is a parable illustrating a legalistic understanding of God as Allah who punishes man, and at the end of the work the image of the Lamb, that is, Christ going to his death, appears, which means that the protagonist rises to the realization of Grace. A. I. Solzhenitsyn demonstrates how, having consciously separated himself from God, a person turns into an animal. The zoo visited at the end of the story by Kostoglotov is a model of the animal world that shows how people can turn into animals. An important place in the short novel is occupied by the parable about God endowing a person with extra years of life, taking them from a horse, a dog and a monkey. Images-symbols of these three animals are of great importance for understanding the characters of the key heroes of the story: Kostoglotov and Rusanov (dog), Vadim, Efrem, Roan, Doctor Dontsova and Asya (horse), Zoey (monkey). Turning away from God, man renounces his immortal soul and becomes similar to an animal immersed in incessant movement and leading a biological existence. He becomes a hostage to the cyclical model of time, which is steadily moving towards death. The symbol of this movement is a squirrel in a wheel, which Kostoglotov sees in the zoo. However, the short novel also sets a different trajectory of time: from the meat-eater through Maslenitsa and Lent to Easter, that is, to the Resurrection that awaits the immortal human soul. Aunt Stepha, cancer ward patient who believes in God, talks about this model of time. Images of plants also play an important role, serving as a reminder to a person about the happiness and harmony of God’s world. The short novel of A. I. Solzhenitsyn calls for understanding God as a merciful, Grace-giving Creator and calls for acceptance of God’s world.

Taking the Mick: Characters Named Michael in ARDEN OF FAVERSHAM, OTHELLO, and THE KNIGHT OF THE BURNING PESTLE

When Shakespeare bestows the name Michael Cassio on a character in Othello he would doubtless have been aware of some distinguised antecedents, including his friend Michael Drayton and two other authors whom he did not know personally but was fond of reading, Michel de Montaigne and Miguel Cervantes. Less immediately, several historical persons of the name, perhaps most notably the Emperor Michael Palaeologus, are mentioned in a number of early modern texts. Michael does not seem to have been a common name in England, and it was also a name not much found in plays, or at least not in extant ones. In this essay I focus on three plays in which characters called Michael appear, Arden of Faversham, Othello, and The Knight of the Burning Pestle, and I shall argue that each draws in one way or another on one or more of the inherently paradoxical associations held by the name Michael in the early modern period, which suggested simultaneously money and sanctity, corporeality and spirituality, and past and future. All three of these Michaels, whether unwillingly or unwittingly, have the same effect of either causing or participating in the disruption of domestic relationships and the pitting of family members against each other. In their own very different ways, each of these three characters could be seen as emblematising or underlining the effect of sin in the home, and also perhaps as drawing attention to the dual nature of humans as having both a mortal (social, familial, and material) life and an immortal soul, in something of the same way as Michael’s strange status as both saint and archangel makes him eligible to be simultaneously understood both as someone who was once alive and as an entity always wholly spiritual.

The Abbreviated Matrimonial Process before the Bishop and Ecclesiastical Divorce in the Orthodox Churches

The article presents a critical examination of the abbreviated process before the bishop and ecclesiastical divorce in the Orthodox Churches. The basic point of departure for the analysis is the post-synodal Apostolic Exhortation Amoris laetitia promulgated by Pope Francis. Article 244 in the subsection entitled “Accompaniment after breakdown and divorce” explains Pope Francis’ motivation behind the modifications to the briefer process before the bishop in line with his Apostolic Letter motu proprio Mitis et misericors Iesus. Using a combined method of analysis, synthesis and comparison, the article aims to present a comprehensive theological and judicial view on the abbreviated matrimonial process before the bishop and on the practice of the Orthodox Churches in the process of ecclesiastical divorce. The textual analysis revealed that the primary reason for the modifications was the length of the process as it posed considerable difficulties and exhausted the parties involved. Pope Francis’ recent documents on the subject have resulted in simplification of the procedures eventually granting the declaration of nullity of marriage. These documents have highlighted a very important component of the Second Vatican Council’s teaching that the bishop himself, in his local church over which he has been appointed shepherd and head, is at the same time a judge of the faithful entrusted to him. The article also emphasizes that bishops do not delegate the said ministry entrusted to them to other structures within their eparchies but exercise their ministry personally for the salvation of immortal souls.

Life after life: Mullā Ṣadrā on death and immortality

AbstractThe purpose of this article is twofold: first, I will reconstruct Mullā Ṣadrā's complex arguments for the soul's immortality based on its immaterial nature. Second and finally, I will briefly probe and assess various epistemological and metaphysical objections against Ṣadrā's immaterialist conception of the soul. Ṣadrā contends that our bodily death marks an awakening to the reality of our consciousness on the plane of the imaginal realm (the imaginal world is an isthmus between the sensible world and the world of intelligible forms). For Ṣadrā, ‘death’ does not mark an end or discontinuity in human consciousness, rather it signifies an awakening to a new mode of existence in which the soul, having once been the active principle controlling the actions of the physical body, now manifests itself as the passive recipient of the form given to it by its imaginal reality – a reality shaped by the actions it had performed in its earthly, embodied state. Thus, death is seen as the passage of the soul from the sensible to the imaginal world, until the soul unites with the intelligible world (ʿālam al-ʿaql).

STUDENTS’ TRANSLATION OF ENGLISH TEXT INTO INDONESIAN TEXT AT THE FIFTH SEMESTER OF KHAIRUN UNIVERSITY

This study aims to find out: (1) students' difficulties in translating English texts into Indonesian, and (2) the causes of difficulties in translating texts at the fifth Semester students of English Language Education Study Program of Khairun University. This study applies a qualitative descriptive method and in analyzing data using content analysis. This study involved 12 participants. The research instrument used a test in the form of a literary text entitled "An Immortal Soul". The results showed that students had difficulty understanding the meaning of the text, because lack of vocabulary mastery, grammatical issues, and difficulty translating literary texts. The causes of these difficulties include a lack of background knowledge about literary texts, most of the students are still translating word for word and also cultural differences. This shows that fifth semester students still have difficulty translating English texts into Indonesian, especially in literary texts. As a result, students need more practice to get a good translation.

Physiology, Vitalism, and the Contest for Body and Soul in the Antebellum United States.

In the early nineteenth century, physiology became an increasingly popular and powerful science in the United States. Religious controversy over the nature of human vitality animated much of this interest. On one side of these debates stood Protestant apologists who wedded an immaterialist vitalism to their belief in an immaterial, immortal soul - and therefore to their dreams of a Christian republic. On the other side, religious skeptics argued for a materialist vitalism that excluded anything immaterial from human life, aspiring thereby to eliminate religious interference in the progress of science and society. Both sides hoped that by claiming physiology for their vision of human nature they might direct the future of religion in the US. Ultimately, they failed to realize these ambitions, but their contest posed a dilemma late nineteenth-century physiologists felt compelled to solve: how should they comprehend the relationship between life, body, and soul? Eager to undertake laboratory work and leave metaphysical questions behind, these researchers solved the problem by restricting their work to the body while leaving spiritual matters to preachers. In attempting to escape the vitalism and soul questions, late nineteenth-century Americans thus created a division of labor that shaped the history of medicine and religion for the following century.

Жизнь с любовью как смысл бытия в экзистенциальной парадигме отношений

Background. \e article focuses on the notion of love from the standpoint of Christian psychology and anthropology as well as on its impact on the change in existential meaning of life and interpersonal relationships. Such an attributive principle of life as “living with love” is considered in the context of the existential meaning of being, professional activity and interpersonal relationships in line with the concept developed by Professor Elena Olegovna Smirnova. An understanding of the concept of “life with love” is presented and the main properties of Christian love in the existential paradigm of relationships are indicated. Objective. \e main aim of the study was to analyse life and professional work of the famous scientist, Professor Elena Olegovna Smirnova, from the standpoint of Christian love as the meaning of being in the existential paradigm of relationships. Results. It has been shown that love, considered from a Christian position, changes a person as a personality. \is process includes change in the attitude towards other people as well as towards oneself, and also gives a special meaning to life. It is asserted that life with love is life with God in soul, with the joy of life and with the desire to make this World a better place for close people and humanity as a whole. Life with love is an understanding of the meaning of your life and gaining strength of mind for the responsible implementation of your mission, as well as a state of calm happiness, silence in the heart and peace of mind. Conclusion. \e results obtained made it possible to show the psychological representation of the lifestyle and professional creativity of the outstanding scientist E.O. Smirnova in accordance with the attributive principle of Christian love “life with love”. \e study also demonstrates the possibility to ]nd new meanings of life and relationships through Christian Love.

Death and the idea of individualization in Athenagoras of Athens as a refutation of the modern understanding of death as the death of personality

The article is about the critical analysis of the modern understanding of the “death of personality”. The point of view of the early Christian teacher of the Eastern Church Athenagoras of Athens is taken as the basis of this consideration. His heritage “On the Resurrection of the Dead” tells us that man is an immortal being. The author introduces a certain terminology to describe the process of immortality to human nature. According to Athenagoras, death is an ordinary process, like a comparison with sleep. Death is not the final stage of human life, rather it is a phase of change from corruption to incorruption. To provide evidence, Athenagoras discusses the judgment of God, where each person personally needs to answer for the actions committed during lifetime. There is no precise definition of personality in the author’s work, but his arguments about the immortal soul and the resurrection of the human body as an integral part of the human hypostasis allow us to imagine a person as a hypostasis, which means a personal creation of God. The meaning of all described is the contemplation of God. In total, the hypostasis is a person who is not subject to death.

The memory engram: beginning the search.

Some of the earliest conceptual milestones in memory research with relevance to the physical means through which its preservation is made possible, namely, the 'memory trace' or 'engram', are analysed in this study. The fundamental notions were laid down by Platon and Aristoteles. While Platon regarded memory as an imprint on a 'wax block' in the immortal soul, Aristoteles considered memory a modification in the mortal soul, imprinted like a cast at birth time. The Roman orators were interested in mnemotechnics, and Cicero is credited for the term 'trace' (vestigium) used for the first time. Much later, Descartes described the (memory) 'trace' (trace), linking psychic, and physical processes. Finally, Semon posited innovative concepts and terms centralized by the 'engram' (Engramm). The search of this important question, which begun about two and a half millennia ago, continues in focus, as can be seen through the growing rate of published papers on the subject.

Cultural Assimilation Creating Third Culture in Sumnima

Sumnima, a psychological love story between Aryan boy and Kirati girl raises some cultural and philosophical issues of cultural reality of Nepal. Cultural values in Nepal are conflicting but there is a unique understanding and co-ordination between the differing cultural and religious philosophies. Sumnima stands for Kirat's cultural philosophy and Somadattafor Aryan philosophy. Sumnima thinks body to be more important than soul. She believes on materialism, living life and real world. She wants to live with nature discarding all sorts of artificialities and formalities. She does not believe in the life after death. Sumnima is a symbol of materialism whereas Somadatta is of spiritualism. A blind follower of Aryan dogmatic principles, he is guided by Aryan religious, spiritual and cultural philosophy. He believes on eternity and immortality of soul. In course of time, he realizes the importance of Sumnima's culture, her philosophy of life and world. He is serious about his spiritual goals but succumbs to the charms of materialistic world. His son, an Aryan boy, marries Sumnima's daughter, a Kirati girl. Marriage between a boy and a girl of two opposite cultures signifies cultural assimilation and harmonization along with the unity in diversity. It connotes cultural liberalization and reformation in the ancient cultures of Nepal. Abstract ideas of Aryan culture and factual ideas of Kirat culture are integrated to create a new culture that brings the philosophy of materialism and spiritualism, or body and soul together. Cultural liberalism defeats the cultural and religious orthodoxy.

Special Dossier: The New Politics of Existence

Special Dossier: The New Politics of Existence William Egginton and Yi-Ping Ong When the editors of this special issue first met in 2019 to discuss hosting a conference on the topic of “The New Politics of Existence,” a world-wide pandemic that would kill tens of millions around the world, devastate economies, and exacerbate divisiveness and conspiracy mongering never crossed our minds. We focused instead on the apparent rise in the appeal of existentialist thought among students, colleagues, and even the general public. Sarah Bakewell had made a splash with a book on freedom, being, and apricot cocktails called At the Existentialist Café. Martin Hägglund’s This Life, an attempt to re-envision our political and economic order in light of mortality and finitude, had just come out. Yi-Ping had recently published The Art of Being, in which she analyzed the power of novelistic form to reorient existentialist philosophy towards the nature of human freedom and the meaning of life. Bill’s most recent graduate seminars on existentialism had attracted suspiciously large enrollments, and our colleague and contributor to this volume Jennifer Gosetti-Ferencei reported similar numbers in her classes devoted to the subject. While we certainly speculated on the reasons for the upsurge our (admittedly minuscule) sampling suggested, the emergency whose most minor consequence would be to postpone our meeting for nearly three years ended up laying open what could be the primary driver: our abiding precarity. The sense that all we have rests on a razor thin sheet of ice over an abyss of the unknown leads us to reach for the illusive security of essences: the national and ethnic substances that anchor our identities amidst the rush of cultural differences; the sexual relation that reassures [End Page 853] half the world’s population of its nature-given dominance; the marching-orders given straight to our immortal souls regarding who is damned and who is saved. And when such essences are ascendant, the philosophy we call existentialist strives to break the fever dream in which one group’s salvation lies in the oppression, exclusion, or death of others. The six essays we gather in this volume were delivered at Johns Hopkins University on September 24, 2022. They represent a small but decisive intervention in our intellectual culture’s return for guidance to thinkers from Kierkegaard through de Beauvoir, while also making arguments for existentialist perspectives on philosophers and authors not traditionally associated with that canon. We collect these not in the spirit of self-satisfied complacency, but in the modest hope that even such minor efforts to revisit this tradition will constitute a modicum of inoculation against the ideologies that would divert us from our own fragile existence. William Egginton and Yi-Ping Ong, November 2022 [End Page 854] Copyright © 2023 Johns Hopkins University Press

The issue of training students in teaching orthodox culture

The article is devoted to the study of the issue of learning students the teaching of Orthodox culture. The issue of goal-setting in the teaching of Orthodox culture, as well as the issue of the content of the lesson of Orthodox culture, is considered. The study showed that the Federal State Educational Standard singles out spiritual and moral education and the formation of the value-semantic sphere of the individual as one of the most important goals. The risks that may arise in the situation of the formation of the value-semantic sphere of children were analyzed. The inadmissibility of violating the freedom of the child and any kind of violence in matters of the spiritual and moral development of students was emphasized. The essence of the culturological approach in teaching Orthodox culture is considered. It is emphasized that the core of the culturological approach is the goal of acquiring a value-semantic core by students. The conformity of the content of the lesson of Orthodox culture with the age specificity of students is analyzed. It is noted that in the 4th grade the thinking of children is visual-figurative. The image of God cannot be anthropomorphic; a child can perceive God only in His manifestations in relation to a person. Fifth graders enter adolescence and rethink everything. The themes of the origin of our world, the creation of man, the immortal soul, and the like are becoming topical again. Sixth graders are looking for a role model. Therefore, it is important for students of the 6th grade to get acquainted with bright moral personalities. Also in the 6th grade it is important to give students a feel for the Orthodox understanding of time, which is characterized by the existence of Eternity. 7th grade - the time of the formation of self-consciousness. At this age, it is advisable to give a course aimed at the student himself, at his internal problems. For the 8th grade, the content of an integrated nature is interesting: for example, the integration of Orthodox culture and literature. In the 9th grade, the search for one's life path begins, thoughts about the profession. Also important to consider are issues of relationships between representatives of different sexes and family issues.

Dialogue and religious plurality – challenges of contemporary society

Starting from the premise that man is a dichotomous being, with a material body and a spiritual, immortal soul, today's society is looking for answers to perhaps the most important question that refers to salvation, namely: how can we know today's religions, Christian and non-Christian, the authentic meaning of the human soul and implicitly its path in eternity? For such answers, in the context of religious pluralism, interreligious dialogue is imperative, through which Christian and non-Christian religions offer their answers, so that the result can be experienced by society.