scholarly journals Mathematical-geographical intention in orienting mediaeval churches of the Serbian monastery Gradac

2011 ◽  
Vol 91 (4) ◽  
pp. 141-158
Author(s):  
Milutin Tadic ◽  
Aleksandar Petrovic
Keyword(s):  
Virgin Mary ◽  
13Th Century ◽  
Christian Church ◽  
Patron Saint ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Exact Analysis ◽  
John The Baptist ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Church

The subject of the paper is an exact analysis of the orientation of the Serbian monastery churches: the Church of the Virgin Mary (13th century), St. Nicholas' Church (13th century), and an early Christian church (6th century). The paper determines the azimuth of parallel axes in churches, and then the aberrations of those axes from the equinoctial east are interpreted. Under assumption that the axes were directed towards the rising sun, it was surmised that the early Christian church's patron saint could be St. John the Baptist, that the Church of the Virgin Mary was founded on Annunciation day to which it is dedicated, and that St. Nicholas' Church is oriented in accordance with the rule (?toward the sunrise?) even though its axis deviates from the equinoctial east by 41? degrees.

scholarly journals Verses of Faith and Devotion. Seeing, Reading, and Touching Monumental Crucifixes with Inscriptions (12th–13th century)

2016 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 397-421
Author(s):  
Matko Matija Marušić
Keyword(s):  
Distinctive Feature ◽  
Main Argument ◽  
13Th Century ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Cross ◽  
The Church ◽  
Insight Into

The paper discusses a group of monumental crucifixes from the 13th-century East Adriatic and Italy, pained or executed in low relief, that display a verse inscriptions on the transverse limb of the cross. The main scope of the paper is to examine the provenance of the text inscribed in order to yield clearer insight into their function, use and original location in the church interiors. The paper specifically aims at analyzing three monumental crucifixes from the East-Adriatic city of Zadar which, although have already been the subject of a respectable number of studies, have not attracted attention as objects of devotion. My interest, therefore, is turned towards verse inscription as their distinctive feature and, as I shall argue, a key aspect in understanding their function. Examining the nature of the text displayed, iconography and materiality of these crucifixes, my main argument is to demonstrate how these objects provoked a multi-faced response from their audience, since were experienced by seeing, hearing and touching respectively.

ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE ‘ARIAN CONTROVERSY’ IN THE FOURTH CENTURY

2010 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 229-263
Author(s):  
David M. Gwynn
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Christian Church ◽  
Literary Sources ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Material Evidence ◽  
The Church ◽  
Archaeological Approach ◽  
Arian Controversy

The so-called ‘Arian Controversy’ that divided the Christian Church in the 4th c. has been the subject of considerable scholarly debate in recent decades. The literary sources from which the majority of our knowledge of the controversy derives are highly polemical and distorted, written almost exclusively from the perspective of those whose positions would come to be accepted as ‘orthodox’, and this in turn has directly influenced scholarly interpretations of the material evidence from this crucial period in the history of the Church. In this paper I wish to reconsider that material evidence and ask how an archaeological approach independent of the biases of our literary sources might broaden our understanding of the controversy and its impact upon the 4th c. Roman empire.

scholarly journals Tell us no secrets: St. Irenaeus’ contra-gnostic doctrine of communion

Vox Patrum ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 68 ◽  
pp. 85-94
Author(s):  
Don W. Springer
Keyword(s):  
Second Century ◽  
Church Fathers ◽  
People Of God ◽  
Mystical Union ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Union With God ◽  
The Church

Discussion related to the potential for mystical union with God was largely absent from the writings of the Church Fathers prior to the late-second century. Toward the end of that century, however, the concept of communion with God emerged as a topic of interest in both early Christian and Gnostic literature. St. Irenaeus of Lyons was among the earliest Christian writers to critically reflect on the subject. He argued that participation with the divine was possible only in the “orthodox” churches and required three key elements: a life lived in connection to the Spirit of God, in community with the true people of God, while bearing evidence of godly piety and virtue. Whereas Gnostic conceptions of communion frequently included an emphasis on the reception of an exclusive, secret gnosis, Irenaeus’ paradigm offered a public, progressive path of ascent to God.

scholarly journals Catechesis and baptism in the early Christian church

1996 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
M. E. Nelson
Keyword(s):  
Early Church ◽  
Primary Sources ◽  
Christian Church ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Secondary Sources ◽  
The Church

This article which originated as a background study for what Augustine says about his own baptism, presents the facts, as far as they could be ascertained, on practices concerning catechesis and baptism in the early Christian church down to about 400 AD, without going into any doctrinal issues. Public confession of faith and baptism was preceded in the early church by lengthy preparations: catechetical, liturgical and ascetical. Baptism was also followed by mystagogical instruction. All of these are set out concisely, based on a number of primary sources, namely some writings by Augustine, Ambrose and Tertullian, the Traditio Apostolica by Hippolytus and the Didache. A number of secondary sources are also cited. Attention is drawn to the significance of the custom to baptise at Easter this explains why Easter was seen as the climax of the church year in the time of the early Christian church.

scholarly journals Writing Demetrias: Ascetic Logic in Ancient Christianity

2000 ◽  
Vol 69 (4) ◽  
pp. 719-748 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew S. Jacobs
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Women's Lives ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Male Authority ◽  
Ancient Christianity ◽  
Christian Men ◽  
The Church

In his influential discussion of early Christian ascetic renunciation, Peter Brown announced that “Christian men used women ‘to think with’ in order to verbalize their own nagging concern with the stance that the Church should take with the world.” Brown's statement encapsulates the particular difficulties facing students of the history of women in the early Christian period. The most basic difficulty is that we possess very few texts by women from this period until well into the Middle Ages. We can point to the diary of the third-century martyr Perpetua, the complex and recondite Vergilian and Homeric centos (“stitch-verses”) of the aristocrat Proba and the empress Eudocia, and perhaps one or two other arguable examples. With a dearth of women's own voices, can historians be expected to reconstruct women's lives? This paucity of “first-person” texts is coupled with a more serious theoretical difficulty facing historians of all periods whose main “evidence” consists of literary and rhetorically informed texts. Scholars are much less confident today in our ability to peel back layers of male rhetoric and find the “real” woman concealed underneath. Brown's comment underscores this rhetorical skepticism by asking whether these texts are even “about” women at all. Others following Brown's lead have understood texts that are ostensibly to or about women as concerned primarily with issues of male authority and identity. In Brown's words, women were good “to think with,” but the subject of that “thought” was inevitably male. Despite these technical and theoretical difficulties, however, I do not think we are witnessing the final and absolute erasure of women from ancient Christian history.

The Influence of Mother Wisdom on Augustine

Open Theology ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 238-247
Author(s):  
Kitty Bouwman
Keyword(s):  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Christian Faith ◽  
Wisdom Literature ◽  
Christian Church ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Ben Sira ◽  
Church Father ◽  
Wisdom Theology ◽  
Divine Mother ◽  
The Church

Abstract The Book of Ben Sira was popular in the early Christian church and influenced the Church Father Augustine (354–430). He adopts the person of Wisdom as a divine mother and adapts her within the context of the early Christian church. He links to Mother Wisdom a wisdom theology, in which Jesus is her envoy. Augustine describes Mother Wisdom as an eternal nourishing divine mother. She has a permanent revelatory status by continuously giving life-giving power, which she mediates through Jesus of Nazareth. He presents her grace which she has prepared for the competentes (the candidates for Baptism), who are working towards initiation into Christian Faith. Mother Wisdom serves as hostess in biblical Wisdom literature. For Augustine, Jesus Christ has taken this place. Mother Wisdom serves instead the angels and the spiritual persons as a representative of divine nourishment.

scholarly journals Posvetni latinski natpisi na crkvi sv. Ivana od Birnja

2010 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Vedrana Delonga
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Specific Area ◽  
13Th Century ◽  
John The Baptist ◽  
15Th Century ◽  
Late Middle Ages ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
12Th Century ◽  
Cultural Entity ◽  
The Church

Within the archaeological-historical complex at the hillfort of Biranj (Kaštel Lukšić), the ancient church of St. John the Baptist stands out in particular as a cultural entity. Three architectural phases (Romanesque, Late Gothic, and Modern period) can be perceived in its present appearance. The façade of the church bears a group of late medieval inscriptions in Latin: a donative inscription on the lintel, dated 1444 and also by the reign of the Venetian Doge Francesco Foscari (today placed in the interior of the church), as well as four consecratory inscriptions from the same time on the corners of the church. They were placed by donors (church juspatronatus) on the structure of the church on the occasion of the dedication of the thoroughly renovated original church of St. John, which had been built in the Romanesque period, at the end of the 12th or in the early 13th century, as the endowment of the Ostrog free villagers. From the donative inscription on the lintel it is learned that the ruinous Romanesque church was renovated from the foundations up by the juspatronus and plebanus Grgur Nikolin, the archpresbyter and canon of the Trogir diocese, in the name of a personal vow and the vows of all the juspatroni of St. John of Biranj. The four consecratory inscriptions with the text + Christus venit in pace et Deus homo factus est on the corners of the Late Gothic church from the same period are particularly interesting. On the basis of the contents it is hypothesized that they represent some kind of reminiscence of the possible original epigraphic dedications from the period of the construction of the Romanesque church at the end of the 12th century or in the early decades of the 13th century. The inscriptions and the sacred structure to which they belong are considered in the framework of the site as a cultural-historical complex and multi-century religious shrine and are analyzed in terms of the formal and contextual epigraphic traits. Their context is explored in the framework of the historical and religious-spiritual conditions related to the specific area in the period of the developed (12th and 13th centuries) and late Middle Ages (middle of the 15th century).

scholarly journals On the donors' composition and the new dating of the fresco painting of the Church of the Holy Virgin in Mateic

Zograf ◽  
2002 ◽  
pp. 181-190 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeta Dimitrova
Keyword(s):  
Orthodox Church ◽  
Traditional Role ◽  
14Th Century ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Patron Saint ◽  
John The Baptist ◽  
Byzantine Period ◽  
The Church ◽  
Southern Wall ◽  
Eastern Wall

The painted decoration of the Church of the Holy Virgin in Mateic, the second largest fresco ensemble from the 14th century in the Balkans' region comprises one of the most interesting donors' compositions of the Late-Byzantine period. The figures comprised by the donors' composition are united by the conception of the Deesis scene, composed by the image of Christ in the lunette of the southern wall, the representation of the Virgin Hodegetria above the entrance to the diaconicon and the figure of John the Baptist, depicted in the southern part of the eastern wall of the naos. The broader context of the donor's composition, in addition to the images of the donors - tzarina Jelena and young king Uros, who in the presence of tzar Dusan, present the model of their endowment to the patron saint, contains also the image of the patriarch Joanikije, depicted as the head of Serbian Orthodox Church. Within the donor's composition, one can see the images of Makarije, the abbot of the monastery and St. Stephan the great martyr dressed in deacon attire, represented with his traditional role as a defender of the rulers and donors from the Nemanjic dynasty...

Another Look at a Composite Office and its History: The Feast of Susceptio Reliquiarum in Medieval Paris

1988 ◽  
Vol 113 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca A. Baltzer
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Virgin Mary ◽  
Recent Discussion ◽  
John The Baptist ◽  
Gothic Cathedral ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Excellent Article

The feast celebrated annually on 4 December as the Reception of the Relics is one that was peculiar to Notre Dame of Paris in the later Middle Ages. It commemorated the reception of relics of five saints into the still unfinished Gothic cathedral, including several hairs of the Virgin Mary, three teeth of John the Baptist, an arm of St Andrew the Apostle, some stones from the lapidation of St Stephen the Protomartyr and a large part of the head of St Denis. The event that prompted this feast in Paris took place during the reign of King Philip Augustus, who was on the throne from 1180 to 1223, and it has been the subject of occasional comment, debate and research ever since, with the most recent discussion coming in the excellent article by Craig Wright in the Festschrift for John Ward.

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