Search Results (174)

This article presents the context and genesis of the Lord’s Army (Oastea Domnului), a religious movement of moral and spiritual renewal in Romania at the beginning of the twentieth century. The text outlines the missionary context within the Romanian Orthodox Church in the early twentieth century, as well as the influences that made themselves felt in the Romanian area both from beyond the country’s borders and from within, taking into account the new socio-political realities that followed the World War I. The context in which the Lord’s Army arose is presented in a nuanced and comprehensive manner, going beyond the formal framework of the evangelical influences that were more strongly experienced in Transylvania. The article also examines the genesis of the movement, closely connected to the Orthodox priest Iosif Trifa, whose missionary profile is briefly outlined in order to illuminate the manner in which he articulated the missionary vision that eventually materialised in a new spiritual movement, one that gained numerous adherents in Romania and continues to exist to this day. Furthermore, the article presents the spiritual, moral, and missionary directions through which the Lord’s Army established itself in Romanian society as a new movement of moral revitalisation in the first half of the twentieth century. Full article

This study examines the theological and liturgical significance of the biblical injunction to “sing a new song,” tracing its deployment across eras of Christian history as both a symbol of renewal and a tool of doctrinal contestation. Focusing on key moments of schism—the early Church’s response to Gnostic and Arian hymnody and Ambrose’s adoption of Eastern antiphonal singing, the article explores how musical form, meter, and performance practice became markers of orthodoxy and heresy long before Reformation-era musical reforms. Drawing on patristic commentary, heresiographical sources, and hymnological analysis, the study highlights how the popular style in various guises was alternately condemned and reclaimed. This suggests that Christian music has consistently evolved through interaction with popular and heterodox forms and that the “new song” in its exegetical form has functioned as a recurring strategy of theological self-definition. Ultimately, the paper argues that disputes over musical style mirror broader tensions between innovation and authority and that the history of hymnody offers a unique lens into the formation of Christian identity. Full article

The idea of hell entails a type of extramundane retribution, and such extramundane retribution is useful as a deterrent to antisocial behaviour. This functionalist view of extramundane retribution was, in fact, explicitly countenanced during pre-imperial China. Also, like many roughly contemporaneous pre-Christian cultures in western Eurasia, pre-imperial China had a notion of an “underworld”. For early China, then, the more relevant “problem of hell” might be this one: why does hell appear to be so marginal? This paper surveys the idea of hell in the pre-Qin and Han periods, and concludes that an answer may be found in the Ruist appropriation of Zhou ideas about acquisition of virtue-power (de) and the afterlife, which were promulgated as state orthodoxy during the Han. With the fall of the Han, however, this state orthodoxy crumbled, and the culturally-adaptive memetic power of hell reasserted itself in the interdynastic and Tang periods. During these periods, a mélange of Buddhist and Daoist ideas of hell more strongly informed popular belief, and the idea of hell was arguably thereafter marginal in appearance only. Full article

The life of Jerome of Stridon (d. 419/420), who was regarded as a father of the church and one of the most important authorities in the Middle Ages, has often been depicted as highly controversial: In modern reconstructions, Jerome is typically described as an outsider, constantly involved in controversies and frequently criticized and questioned by his contemporaries. This begs the question of how Jerome could have received such an esteemed reputation during the following centuries. While it has been acknowledged in previous scholarship that Jerome had an extensive reception in the Middle Ages, a comprehensive study of the transmission of his works in the first centuries after his death has not been undertaken. Likewise, the mechanisms involved in constructing an image of Jerome as an authority of exegesis and asceticism and as a defender of orthodoxy are yet to be studied. Combining philological and historical approaches, the present article seeks to contribute to Hieronymian scholarship by studying the reception of Jerome during his lifetime and during the first centuries after his death, taking into account two different but interrelated aspects of this reception: First, an analysis of manuscripts will answer questions concerning the transmission of Jerome’s texts. Secondly, the article will consider the earliest reception of Jerome’s works and how this was managed by Jerome himself, in collaboration with his friends and patrons, in addition to how he was commonly referred to and described during the first decades after his death. The article examines how these aspects of reception contributed to the creation of an image of Jerome, and an interpretation of his work that would become important in medieval Christianity. Full article

The “land governance orthodoxy” that has dominated development circles for the past two decades posits that government-issued title deeds are a prerequisite for economic growth in Africa and elsewhere in the Global South. Anything other than formal certification is viewed as inadequate, informal, insecure and inanimate. In this paper, we explore the “institutional pluralism” that characterizes land formalization efforts in rural Tanzania. We find that the multiple (often competing) objectives, procedures, actors, justifications, technologies, and outcomes have produced a crowded and chaotic field of titling initiatives. Despite an investment of around USD 340 million, progress remains painfully slow—at a rate of ~1% per year—such that it will take the rest of this century to reach universal titling. And at what cost? Our study is based on appraisals of policy and project documents and interviews with government officials, donor agencies, project implementers and NGO staff. Discussion of the findings is supported by data from annual budget speeches, national-level statistics and survey data collected by our team from forty Tanzanian villages. We argue that it is time to return to a broader, integrated approach to rural development and recognize that local landholding systems offer high levels of security. Our findings have relevance beyond land formalization to other areas where duplicative efforts implemented in the name of progress might be counterproductive to achieving economic and social development goals. Full article

This paper examines the compound brāhmaṇasacca in several Buddhist texts from the Pāli Canon, as well as in their Sanskrit and Chinese adaptations. This paper challenges previous analyses of this term, arguing that the Buddha may have reinterpreted its meaning as a metaphor. However, his followers, influenced by Brahminical orthodoxy, understood and transmitted it as a genitive tatpuruṣa: ‘the truth of the (authentic) Brahmin’—the Buddha. The philological analysis presented in this paper shows that the metaphor of the Buddha’s teachings as brāhmaṇasacca not only reflects his pragmatic approach to affirming the value of embracing the truth over identifying with a religious tradition, but also his followers’ desire to praise him as the supreme Brahmin. Commentators of the Canon described the Buddha as someone who had a complete understanding of ultimate reality (paramatthasacca). Consequently, he was considered the ultimate Brahmin authority, defined as omniscient, representing the ultimate truth for Brahmins. The Chinese versions of brāhmaṇasacca recall the Buddha’s teachings and present them as his Indian followers assumed them to be, as part of his realization of the ultimate truth, even when the cultural baggage of describing the Buddha as the supreme Brahmin decreased. This study reveals the intended meaning of the compound brāhmaṇasacca (AN ii 176) and how the Buddha’s metaphor was transmitted under the influence of Brahmanical religious culture over time. Full article

The literary career of Lettice Galbraith (1859–1932) coincided with a transformative period in British intellectual history, when the boundaries between scientific rationalism and occult epistemologies were being vigorously contested. This paper argues that Galbraith’s supernatural fiction represents a sharp challenge to Victorian medical science, using Gothic tropes to expose its deeply gendered structures of power. Situating her work within what Alex Owen has termed “modern enchantment”, it contends that Galbraith does not merely use the supernatural as a metaphor for social critique, but treats spiritualist practice as a legitimate methodology, a way of knowing that privileges embodied experience, and the testifying power of the material world over the cold, isolating rationality of institutional orthodoxy. Through a close reading of “In the Séance Room” and “The Ghost of Vittoria Pandelli”, and by employing a theoretical framework that combines feminist theory with new materialist perspectives, this analysis demonstrates how Galbraith’s stories reconfigure the séance as a ‘feminist counter-laboratory’. In this space, women—both as mediums and as spectral presences—reclaim agency from male dominated medicine and psychiatry. Matter itself becomes an agential force: objects, sounds, and even atmospheres intra-act with human participants to produce truths that medical authority cannot access or suppress. Ultimately, Galbraith’s stories deliver a powerful and enduring claim, that systems of power designed to silence and erase will be undone by the vibrant presence of the material world itself. Full article

The influence of traditional Chinese ritual culture on courtyard spatial sequences is widely acknowledged. However, quantitative analytical methods, such as space syntax, have rarely been applied in studies of ritual–residential space relations. This study uses space syntax, specifically Visibility Graph Analysis (VGA) and axial maps, to conduct a quantitative study of the spatial relationship between ritual and residential areas in Prince Kung’s Mansion. The VGA results indicate a distinct gradient of visual integration, which decreases progressively from the outward-oriented ritual areas, such as the palace gate and halls, through the transitional domestic ritual areas to the inward-oriented residential areas, such as Xijin Zhai and Ledao Tang. This pattern demonstrates a positive correlation between spatial visibility and ritual hierarchy. The axial map results confirm that the central axis and core ritual spaces exhibit the highest spatial connectivity, reflecting their supreme ritual status. More importantly, spatial connectivity is intensified during ritual activities compared to in daily life, indicating that enhanced spatial connectivity is required during rituals. Ritual spaces are characterized by extroversion, high visibility, and connectivity, while residential spaces prioritize introversion and minimal exposure. The deliberately designed ritual–residential architectural spatial sequence of Prince Kung’s Mansion articulates Confucian ideological principles, such as centrality as orthodoxy, gender segregation, and hierarchy. This study visually and quantitatively illustrates the harmony between ritual and residential spaces in Prince Kung’s Mansion. It enhances our understanding of the mechanisms of expression of courtyard ritual cultural spaces, providing evidence-based guidance for functional adaptive transformations in heritage conservation practices. It also offers a fresh perspective on the analysis of courtyard ritual spaces. Full article

Challenges caused by secularization, ideological pluralism and the transformation of religious institutions in the modern world have raised the question of what role the Christian priesthood plays in a changing society. The focus of this study is the Orthodox priesthood in Russia in the context of its historical development and theological conception. The article analyzes the position of the parish clergy, which, despite its theoretically exalted and sacred status in the Russian Empire, remained socially vulnerable and dependent on both the state and the community of believers. Particular attention is paid to St. John of Kronstadt, whose ministry became a model for a new type of pastoral care. This combined ascetic strictness, Eucharistic revival, and deep involvement in the lives of the laity. An analysis of Fr. John’s diaries reveals the following: in contrast to the Western tradition, where the crisis of the priesthood is often associated with its excessive sacralization and separation from the laity, in Russian Orthodoxy the response to the challenges of modernity was the sacralization of both the clergy and the entire parish community. This author suggests that, under the circumstances of revolution and persecution, the ideal of the ascetic priest and spiritual father contributed to the formation of stable church communities, which remains relevant in the context of contemporary discussions on the place of religion in the secular world. Full article

This article investigates the theological and pastoral debate on the frequency of eucharistic communion in the Romanian Orthodox Church during the twentieth century and early twenty-first century. At the center of this discussion was a movement that promoted a return to the ethos of the early Church through the practice of frequent, even daily, participation in the Eucharist. Emerging in a period marked by communist repression, this initiative sparked both enthusiasm and controversy, as it challenged established patterns of ascetic discipline and sacramental preparation. The study analyzes the spectrum of responses that arose within Romanian Orthodoxy. On one side stood voices emphasizing strict preparation, prolonged fasting, and confession as indispensable prerequisites for communion. On the other side were those who regarded frequent participation as a recovery of authentic ecclesial life and a vital source of spiritual renewal. Between these poles, additional perspectives sought to balance reverence with accessibility, proposing nuanced forms of pastoral discernment that could adapt to contemporary conditions without undermining tradition. These debates, far from being resolved, remain relevant for contemporary Orthodox discussions on the pastoral meaning of communion and its role in renewing ecclesial life. Full article

As a representative form of popular religion in southern Fujian (Minnan 闽南), the Sanping Patriarch (Sanping Zushi 三平祖師) belief exhibits distinct transregional and cross-cultural characteristics in its dissemination across Taiwan and Southeast Asia. Taking the ancestral temples in Fujian 福建 as a point of departure, this article systematically analyzes the transmission routes and localization strategies of this belief system in Taiwan and Southeast Asia. Drawing on detailed archival research, fieldwork (including site visits), and interviews, the study reveals how the belief has continually revitalized itself in pluralistic societies through strategies of “orthodoxy preservation” and “localized innovation.” The findings suggest that in Taiwan, the Sanping Patriarch belief primarily relies on kinship networks to maintain traditional practices. At the same time, in Southeast Asia, it spreads across ethnic boundaries through commercial and trade networks. Differences are also evident in the realm of mythological symbols, core rituals, and social functions. This study pays special attention to often-overlooked mythological figures such as the “Serpent Attendant” and “Tiger Attendant,” shedding light on the multilayered structure of folk religious systems. Full article

In the early 1470s, Venetian artist Gentile Bellini painted Basilios Bessarion kneeling in front of the precious Byzantine reliquary that Bessarion donated to the Venetian Scuola di Santa Maria della Carità. This painting functioned as the cover to the tabernacle where the reliquary was stored. Rather than accurately depicting the sacred object, Bellini’s painting reworks the appearance of the reliquary in relation to the figures in the painting and reveals a disjunction between the relic and its cover. The reliquary becomes a somber, monumental object that has more presence as a looming entity than as a combination of parts and histories. This paper positions Bellini’s painted enclosure for the reliquary as a product of the blending of Venetian and Byzantine devotional practices and sacred objects. Bessarion’s reliquary was an aggregate object, and Bellini’s painting continues the reframing of Bessarion’s reliquary to serve as a visual contract of the connection between Bessarion and the Scuola di Santa Maria della Carità and, more broadly, Byzantium and Venice. Bellini’s painting ultimately seeks to capture the sacred mystique associated with Byzantine Orthodoxy while also establishing the reliquary within its Venetian, confraternal present. Full article

By the end of the nineteenth century, picture postcards had become ubiquitous not only as an inexpensive means of communication but also as objects for collection. Literary postcards were especially popular in Russia, and the rapid proliferation of cards featuring portraits of contemporary writers helped feed celebrity culture, turning those images into sought-after commodities for consumption. At the same time, celebrating Russian cultural accomplishments through picture postcards also helped shape contemporary perspectives of nation and national identity. As a rising star on the literary scene at that time, Maksim Gorky quickly became an icon of contemporary Russian youth culture and, consequently, a popular subject for picture postcards. With his floppy hair and distinctive clothing, Gorky’s image itself demonstrated his difference from established traditional norms for the profession of “writer,” and his revolutionary leanings and unconventional life challenged the dominant mores of the time. In the Soviet period, as picture postcards continued to serve this function of shaping national identity and values, Gorky’s image was frequently used on state-issued postcards, both before and after his death, but this time in service to the state as the “father of Soviet literature” (and regardless of his uneven and at times ambivalent attitude toward that state). This paper examines the evolution in the use and function of Gorky’s images on pre-revolutionary and Soviet-era postcards. As an early icon of non-conformism and liberation, Gorky’s image ironically was co-opted by the Soviet regime to serve as a symbol of political orthodoxy and conformity. Full article

Some of Spain’s greatest humanists—Juan Luis Vives, Antonio de Nebrija, Juan de Ávila, Luis de León, and Benito Arias Montano—were from a converso background. Recent scholarship suggests that two of the three most influential religious movements in sixteenth-century Spain—Juan de Ávila’s evangelical movement and Teresa of Ávila’s Barefoot Carmelites—were founded by conversos and presented converso membership, whose winds of religious innovation to tame Christian Orthodoxy and Counter-Reformation Spanish society, through the influence of Italian Humanism and reform, prioritized spiritual practice, social toleration, and religious concord. Indeed, Santa Teresa de Ávila, a major innovator within the Spanish Church, was herself from a converso family with Jewish ancestry. She became a key female theologist who transcended as an identity marker of the Spanish Baroque, conceived as quintessential of the Spanish Golden Age. Coopted in different periods, she “reappeared” in the 1930s as Patron of the Sección Femenina de la Falange y de las JONS, the women’s branch of the new radical right, turning into a role model of femininity for highly conservative religious women. Consecrated as “Santa de la Raza”, she became the undisputable womanized icon of the so-called “Spanish Crusade”, the slogan which General F. Franco implemented, with the approval of the Spanish Catholic Church, to re-cast in a pseudo-theological narrative the rebellion against the Spanish Second Republic in July 1936. This article examines different appropriations of the figure of Teresa de Ávila as a pillar of “Hispanidad”, in the last centuries within the changing sociopolitical contexts and theological debates in which this instrumentalization appeared. By highlighting the plasticity of this converso figure, the article suggests possible lines of research regarding the Jewish origins of some national icons in Spain. Full article

This article examines the epistemological and homiletical implications of postmodernity for Christian preaching. It addresses the communicative crisis introduced by postmodern skepticism toward metanarratives. It proposes a constructive theological response through the re-articulation of the gospel as a coherent, storied, and transformative metanarrative. Drawing on interdisciplinary scholarship in theology, homiletics, epistemology, and cultural theory, this study argues that a thoughtful engagement with postmodern critique can serve as a catalytic force for ecclesial renewal. The article advocates for a homiletic method that re-engages Scripture’s narrative form while emphasizing relational epistemology, incarnational witness, and contextual sensitivity. By utilizing narrative theology, post-critical epistemologies, and performative models of preaching, this study proposes a recalibrated approach to gospel proclamation, adapted for fragmented and skeptical audiences, while safeguarding theological orthodoxy. Full article