Models Of Sanctity Research Articles

GRAND KNEZ STEPHEN VUKANOVIĆ AND THE MORAČ A MONASTERY

The Morača Monastery was built in the mid-13th century by Grand knez (prince) Stephen Vukanović, a member of a cadet branch of the Nemanjić dynasty (1166–1371), as his burial place. Interpreting the actions its founder reveals interesting details about the relationship of the center of power with the political periphery, ruling ideology, and the monk’s place in society. The completion of the frescoes and other ornamentation at this monastic church of the Dormition of the Mother of God and Stephen’s withdrawal from his political life to take monastic vows partially coincides with the action of King Uroš I (1243–1276), who consolidated his royal power during this time by eliminating the principalities in the Serbian coastal regions. Prince Stephen’s transition to life as a hermit may have gone through two stages that included tonsuring and then admission into the Great Schema. These actions were motivated by his personal piety and his age or by a desire to emulate the Nemanjić dynasty’s model of sanctity–which was a key feature of the ruling dynasty’s political ideology–or were possibly the result of political upheaval.

Martyrs and Missionaries: Strategies of Jesuit Sainthood between the Suppression and the Restoration

Abstract This article explores the promotion of “Jesuit sanctity,” in the delicate passage between the suppression and the restoration of the Society of Jesus, as a reflection of the process of revival of the order. The strategies of sainthood that were fostered by the ex-Jesuits during the suppression and by the restored Society reveal fundamental information about the self-image that the order wanted to show to the world. These strategies emerge clearly from the activity of the General Postulation for the Causes of Saints of the new Society of Jesus, which in the nineteenth century focused in particular on two models of sanctity: martyrs and missionaries (and often martyred missionaries). Presenting important case studies of Francesco De Geronimo and Andrzej Bobola, this article investigates the reasons why the Society of Jesus promoted these typologies of sanctity in lieu of the trauma of the suppression, which emerges as “martyrdom” in Jesuit sources, and in the process of re-establishment of the order. It eventually explores how this “policy” of sainthood fits more broadly in the history of the Catholic Church in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Le Chiisme. Clés historiques et théologiques by Ameer Jaje

Reviewed by: Le Chiisme. Clés historiques et théologiques by Ameer Jaje Brian Welter Le Chiisme. Clés historiques et théologiques by Ameer Jaje, 2019. Paris: Domuni Press. 130 pp., £31.00. isbn: 978-2366480470 (pbk). Readers who are unfamiliar with Shi'a Islam or confused about its differences with Sunni Islam will benefit most from Le Chiisme. Clés historiques et théologiques, although first-hand accounts and the author's linking of ritual with belief make this book interesting and relevant for even more educated readers. The mixture of first-hand accounts and scholarly analysis provides a brief, yet at times, detailed overview of the history, practices, beliefs, and culture of Shi'a Islam. Jaje connects historical events with hadiths, rituals, and doctrinal development within this energetic and passionate branch of Islam. By the end of the book, readers clearly see that the religion has such a strong hold on believers because of the persons of Ḥusayn and the other Imams and members of the Holy Family. Shi'a Islam fosters an intensely personal relationship with God and God's servants, the Imams and Holy Family, to help believers in the here and now and at the time of the final judgement. According to the author, the Shi'a tend to emphasise the merciful nature of God. Jaje points out the many parallels with Christianity, but carefully highlights points of significant difference. People should not make too much out of certain similarities, in other words. Nonetheless, intercessory prayer is commonly practised by the Shi'i. The Imams and members of the Holy family such as Fātima receive these intercessory prayers. They receive great honour from the Shi'i in return for their roles. Faith in these intercessors plays a crucial part in each individual's salvation. Jaje details Shi'a beliefs about Ḥusayn and his pivotal role: "The Shi'i consider Ḥusayn as a model of sanctity. Many popular histories attribute miracles to him, which make him into an extraordinary personage who is assimilated to the prophets. He is compared to Jesus when he accomplishes miracles of healing and gives life to the dead" (43). Shi'a hagiography depicts Ḥusayn as a man who gave his life for God and the truth, like Jesus. The resulting sense of acute grief and guilt has led to an outpouring of writings on Ḥusayn's holiness over the centuries: [End Page 245] "The imaginations of writers run freely in all the stories of miracles that prove the extraordinary side of Ḥusayn's personality" (46). Such stories portray Ḥusayn's death as shaking all of creation, as even the animals weep. Ḥusayn continues to work miracles. His blood is healing. The author succeeds at showing us the tremendous religiously-inspired creativity generated by the tragedy at Karbalā. Shi'a Islam derives its beliefs, rituals, and sense of community from historical events and how these continue to be interpreted. The battle of Karbalā and the death of Ḥusayn there are the main historical events. The author helpfully notes the theological and spiritual significance of these events, which he sees as inspired by a revolutionary spirit. Ḥusayn aimed to correct the wrong direction that he believed the Muslim world, under usurpers, was taking. In this act, he became the focal point of the frustration of many Muslim peoples about the Umayyad caliphate, who in Shi'i belief are the chief antagonists. Ḥusayn voiced the disappointment of a certain group of Muslim people who believed that the Umayyads were betraying the Prophet and his work. The author leaves out the role of the other Imams, which would have enriched the discussion and perhaps shed light on the various branches of Shi'a Islam. These historical events led to the establishment of a sacred geography. The place of sainthood in Shi'a belief and spirituality turned the tombs of holy individuals into pilgrimage sites where ritual and religious feeling was and is most intense. They were the locations of profound grief, which is a central emotion for Shi'i. Pilgrimage sites became a vital and profound part of Shi'a identity, the author points out, in part because they were politicised. Shi'a...

O casamento espiritual da beata Josefa do Sacramento: Análise de um processo inquisitorial do século XVIII

O artigo pretende analisar o processo inquisitorial da beata Josefa do Sacramento, irmã da Ordem Terceira do Carmo, sentenciada pelo Tribunal da Inquisição do Santo Ofício de Lisboa em 1732, sob a acusação de molinismo. Pretende-se: contextualizar o processo mencionado no campo religioso do período; analisar as relações que as irmãs terceiras beatas mantinham com seus confessores e diretores espirituais; analisar os delitos de heresia de que eram acusadas; e analisar o conjunto das práticas religiosas das beatas envolvidas, vinculando-as a modelos de santidade e à literatura mística difundida aos fiéis.

Practical Hagiography: James of Voragine’s Sermones and Vita on St Margaret of Antioch

In addition to his exceedingly popular Legenda Aurea, James of Voragine wrote in another hagiographical genre: sermons on the saints. The Sermones de sanctis likewise became immediately popular, as his Dominican brothers used James’s model sermons to learn to preach about the saints in a format that would provide the laity with intelligible and practical theological instruction. James’s corpus gives us a rather unusual opportunity to compare the ways in which a single author manipulates multiple hagiographical genres, and his writings on St Margaret of Antioch allow us to explore how a medieval preacher used a historically disputed saint — a dragon-fighter — to provide a practical model of sanctity to his lay audience. I compare the representations of Margaret in James’s sermones and vita, arguing that James adapted certain features of Margaret’s saintly example in the vita to instruct the audience of his sermons about proper Christian virtues and actions. As a point of comparison, I explore a sermon by Évrard of Val des Écoliers in which the Augustinian teaches his audience a practical skill — how to pray — through Margaret’s example.

The Life and Afterlife of St. Elizabeth of Hungary: Testimony from Her Canonization Hearings (review)

Reviewed by: The Life and Afterlife of St. Elizabeth of Hungary: Testimony from Her Canonization Hearings Lori Pieper The Life and Afterlife of St. Elizabeth of Hungary: Testimony from Her Canonization Hearings. Translated with notes and interpretive essays by Kenneth Baxter Wolf. (New York: Oxford University Press. 2011. Pp. xviii, 230. $74.00. ISBN 978-0-199-73258-6.) Wolf, the John Sutton Miner Professor of History at Pomona College, has provided something that students of medieval hagiography have long awaited—a good English translation, with notes, of all the testimonies from the canonization process for St. Elizabeth, carried out between 1232 and 1235. This important work is one of the earliest and most complete examples of the formal papal canonization process that took shape in the early-thirteenth century. Along with the testimonies on Elizabeth’s life by her four closest female companions, known as the Dicta, and the summary of her life by her confessor, Conrad of Marburg, the records include official depositions on 130 miracles worked through her intercession. Wolf says that the only previous partial English translation of these testimonies was done in the 1950s by Nesta de Robeck; he missed my translation in The Greatest of These Is Love: St. Elizabeth of Hungary (New York, 2007). Although his is still not a complete edition of the process—it lacks the letters of Pope Gregory IX to the commissioners and the bull of canonization—Wolf’s is the first to contain all the miracle testimonies. In addition to the clear and readable translation, notes, and solid bibliography, Wolf has included two essays—one on the witnesses to the saint’s virtues and one on the miracle testimonies. He draws a sharp distinction between the “life” of the saint, or the reconstruction of her personality by those who knew her, and the “afterlife,” in which the witnesses to the miracles see her as a supplier of healing cures rather than as a real person whose virtues should be imitated. [End Page 104] Wolf indicates a range of possibilities for the way different models of sanctity might have affected the testimonies of the witnesses to Elizabeth’s life. His comments about the similarities between her social concerns and those of the Beguines are particularly good. The witnesses show her reflecting some aspects of Franciscan life, such as penitential preaching, that fall outside of the usual hagiographic conventions. He successfully brings out the way that the miracle testimonies indicate the varying degrees of sophistication in ordinary people’s understanding of the theology of saintly intercession. However, Wolf could have dealt more with the nature of the existing text of the Dicta; some scholars believe that the work does not represent the original depositions but a Vita based on them, in which the words of the witnesses were rearranged and possibly cut. This certainly would have affected his approach to the text. He also fails to take into account the additional testimonies from the process discovered in the Anonymous Franciscan life. Wolf also never states his criteria for determining when omission of something in the testimonies is significant. He believes people were uninterested in Elizabeth’s personality or virtues, but the questions asked by commissioners did not even broach the issue, and people might have been reticent about commenting on the personal traits of a member of the nobility before officials. One witness recounted that hearing a German song about Elizabeth’s farewell to her husband moved her while she was on her pilgrimage. How many other people heard it, were moved, and yet did not testify about it—and why? In spite of some shortcomings, Wolf’s book is a valuable resource. Lori Pieper New York, NY Copyright © 2012 The Catholic University of America Press

"lc augt ƥolye more": Models of Sanctity in two legends of Saints Chrysanthus and Daria

Among the didactic and devotional genres of the Middle Ages, vitæ and passiones of the saints offer particular advantages to the study of medieval holy pedagogy. Collections such as the Old English Ælfric's Lives of Saints and the Middle English South English Legendary reflect contemporary didactic concerns in a focused, even intimate, pedagogical genre. Throughout the Middle Ages proliferating redactions of the legends of saints attest to the evolving role of the saints in Christian pedagogy and devotion. If we compare the redactions of a particular vita or passio, we find one group of pedagogical concerns stands out in relief against another version's specific, historically-contingent concerns. This is precisely the case when the late tenth-century Old English Passio Chrisanti et Darie sponse eius, found in Ælfric's Lives of Saints, is compared to its fifteenth-century counterpart Seint Crissaunt and Darige, found in only one of the late manuscripts of the South English Legendary. From the earlier to the later English version, the shape of sanctity foregrounded for readers undergoes a considerable shift. While suffering, quite predictably, plays a crucial role in each passio's representation of sanctity, the versions reflect very different attitudes towards suffering, consequently offering different pedagogical models for the saints' sufferings. The Middle English version concentrates upon a desire for suffering that wholly differs from the fundamental feature of the Old English saints' faith and sanctity, their married chastity.

Il concilio di Trento e il moderno ed. by Paolo Prodi and Wolfgang Reinhard

II concilio di Trento e il moderno. Edited by Paolo Prodi and Wolfgang Reinhard. [Annali dell'Istituto storico italo-germanico, Quaderno 45.] (Bologna: Societa editrice il Mulino. 1996. Pp. 575. Lire 58.000.) This volume presents the atti of a week of study and discussions held to celebrate the 450th anniversary of the opening of the Council of Trent. Twin introductions by the organizers (Paolo Prodi and Wolfgang Reinhard) reveal the focus of meetings that week: the history of the Council against the backdrop of contemporary politics and law on one hand, and against the backdrop of modernizing religious persons and institutions on the other. In his introduction, Prodi explained that the organizers hoped to move forward the study of the long-range significance of the Council in relation to the birth of modern western political culture. From firm conviction that the old controversy concerning Reformation, Counter-Reformation, and Catholic Reform has been overcome, he argues nicely for a more complex picture of the Council and the forces behind it by pointing out the research-including his own-that illustrates the impact of the modern state upon the Church. It is no longer possible to maintain that the Council was a simple battle between reformers hoping to purify the Church and conservatives attempting to defend traditional ecclesiastical prerogatives against the reformers. Rapport between the papacy and other sovereigns allowed the formation of an equilibrium, albeit one retaining areas of potential conflict, that was epitomized, for Prodi, in the distinction between doctrine and statements of positive law in conciliar decrees. Reinhard's essay on Trent and the modernization of the Church as a social institution begins with far less optimism, asserting that Catholics today still see that Council as either an assertion of authentic orthodoxy or as a ruinous victory of conservatism and reaction. He maintains that Trent was characterized by defensiveness and reaction to Protestantism while arguing that the Council still contributed to both the relative and the absolute modernization of the Church. The published results of the week of study Prodi and Reinhard envisioned should provide the grist for much discussion in graduate seminars on the political, social, and religious history of early-modern Europe. What follows in the volume are essays that, in the main, present the state of current scholarship on a set of topics permitting reconsideration of the connection between the Council and emerging modernity. Some, like Konrad Repgen's essay on the religious law of the Holy Roman Empire, Umberto Mazzone's on the bureaucratic structure of Trent, Peter Burschel's on the modernity of post-Tridentine models of sanctity, plus those by Volker Reinhardt and Carlo Poni on scientific thought in the era of Trent, do little for me other than raise problems. Their suggestions concerning modern political, religious, and intellectual commitments demonstrate the reason for my lingering doubt about the very intent of the conference itself. …

'O mihti meiden! O witti wummon!': the early English Katherine as a model of sanctity

'O mihti meiden! O witti wummon!': the early English Katherine as a model of sanctity