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From the Ancient Near East to Christian Byzantium
This book combines concepts from the history of religions with Byzantine studies in its assessments of kings, symbols, and cities in a diachronic and cross-cultural analysis. The work attests, firstly, that the symbolic art and architecture of ancient cities—commissioned by their monarchs expressing their relationship with their gods—show us that religiosity was inherent to such enterprises. It also demonstrates that what transpired from the first cities in history to Byzantine Christendom is the gradual replacement of the pagan ruler cult—which was inherent to city-building in antiquity—with the ruler becoming subordinate to Christ; exemplified by representations of the latter as th...
Exploring Christian Identity from Late Antiquity to the Middle Ages
This book challenges the popular understanding that all Byzantines regarded the Christian faith, Hellenic cultural legacy, and Roman imperial tradition as inextricably linked. To this end, it outlines and explores the patristic resistance to the emperor’s involvement in ecclesial affairs as evidenced by the writings of St. Maximus the Confessor and his disciples, in addition to their martyrial and monastic influences. It therefore considers what the orthodox Christians of the Early Byzantine period perceived as their identity capital, including the virtues defined by the New Testament and such Late Antique texts as the Acts of Justin and the Sayings of the Desert Fathers. Factoring in the theological crisis of the seventh century, this investigation highlights how the Confessor’s clerical and lay accusers reclaimed the Greek legacy to distinguish themselves from the defenders of Christ’s two wills residing in “Old Rome”. Contrary to the conviction of many scholars, this book discloses that many Byzantines did not recognise anything holy about the office of the emperor (with the church fathers especially rejecting imperial trappings).
Humankind and the Cosmos: Early Christian Representations
In this volume, Costache endeavours to map the world as it was understood and experienced by the early Christians. Progressing from initial fears, they came to adopt a more positive view of the world through successive shifts of perception. This did not happen overnight. Tracing these shifts, Costache considers the world of the early Christians through an interdisciplinary lens, revealing its meaningful complexity. He demonstrates that the early Christian worldview developed at the nexus of several perspectives. What facilitated this process was above all the experience of contemplating nature. When accompanied by genuine personal transformation, natural contemplation fostered the theological interpretation of the world as it had been known to the ancients.
Mariology at the Beginning of the Third Millennium
Since the Second Vatican Council the place of Mary in theology and generally in the life of the Church has been at times muted. This is perhaps understandable given the debates concerning Mary's "place" in the documents of Vatican II. In an ecumenical age, it was argued, the church needed a less triumphalist Mariology and piety with a greater focus on Mary as model disciple. In certain respects this has led to a dichotomy between the continued Marian piety of many faithful (and, truth be told, the piety of the post-conciliar popes) and a theological timidity concerning Mary. This collection of chapters seeks to address the current situation of Mariology. Taken as a whole these chapters represent a welcome call for renewal and reawakening in Mariology. The collection is also delightfully eclectic, both in terms of topics covered and in terms of the denominational and academic backgrounds of the authors.
A Short History of the Orthodox Church in Australia
The history of Orthodox Christians in Australia is that of immigrant communities which, mostly for political and economic reasons, left their countries of origin in Eastern Europe and the Middle East from the nineteenth century. Since the mid-twentieth century large numbers of Eastern Orthodox have settled in Australia, chiefly Greeks, Russians, Serbs, Antiochians (from Syria and Lebanon), Romanians, Bulgarians, Ukrainians, Macedonians and Byelorussians. This book presents five Orthodox Churches in Australia: the Greek, the Russian, the Serbian, the Antiochian and the Romanian. Christine Chaillot is the author of numerous articles and books on the Oriental Churches in the fields of history, theology, and spirituality. She is Swiss and Orthodox (Patriarchate of Constantinople).
Alexandrian Legacy
This volume brings together contributions exploring a range of aspects of the Alexandrian patristic tradition from the second half of the second century to the first half of the fifth century, a tradition whose complex and significant legacy is at times misunderstood and, in some quarters, wholly neglected. With contributions by both Australian and international scholars, the fourteen chapters here highlight that, behind the complexity of this tradition, one finds a vibrant Christian spirit – granted, one that has successfully put on the flesh of Hellenistic culture – and a consistent striving towards the reformation and transformation of the human being according to the gospel. Furtherm...
The Image of God in the Theology of Gregory of Nazianzus
Provides the first full-length analysis of Gregory Nazianzen's multifaceted account of the image of God against the backdrop of biblical themes.
Remembering the Future
Common to both Judaism and Christianity is a heightened engagement with time within liturgical practice, in which collective religious memory and anticipation come together to create a unique sense of time. Exploring the nebulous realms of religious experience and the sense of time, Remembering the Future charts the ways that the experience of time is shaped by the traditions of Judaism and Christianity and experienced within their ritual practices. Through comparative explorations of traditional Jewish and Christian understandings of time, contemporary oral testimonies, and discussions of the work of select twentieth-century Jewish and Christian thinkers, this book maps the temporal landscapes of the religious imagination. Maintaining that the sense of time is integral to Jewish and Christian religious experience, Remembering the Future makes a notable contribution to interreligious studies and liturgical studies. It sheds light on essential aspects of religious experience and finds that the intimacy of the experience of time grants it the capacity to communicate across religious boundaries, subtly transgressing obstacles to interreligious understanding.
City of Echoes
In Rome the echoes of the past resound clearly in its palaces and monuments, and in the remains of the ancient imperial city. But another presence has dominated Rome for 2,000 years -the pope, whose actions and influence echo down the ages. In this epic tale, historian Jessica Wärnberg tells, for the first time, the story of Rome through the lens of its popes, illuminating how these remarkable (and unremarkable) men have transformed lives and played a crucial role in deciding the fate of the city. Emerging as the anonymous leader of a marginal cult in the humblest quarters of the city, less than 300 years later the pope sat enthroned in a gilt basilica, endorsed by the emperor himself. Eventually, the Roman pontiff would supplant even the emperors, becoming the de facto ruler of Rome and pre-eminent leader of the Christian world. Shifting elegantly between the panoramic and the personal, the spiritual and the profane, this is a fresh and often surprising take on a city, a people and an institution that is at once familiar and elusive.
The Making of Syriac Jerusalem
This book discusses hagiographic, historiographical, hymnological, and theological sources that contributed to the formation of the sacred picture of the physical as well as metaphysical Jerusalem in the literature of two Eastern Christian denominations, East and West Syrians. Popa analyses the question of Syrian beliefs about the Holy City, their interaction with holy places, and how they travelled in the Holy Land. He also explores how they imagined and reflected the theology of this itinerary through literature in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, set alongside a well-defined local tradition that was at times at odds with Jerusalem. Even though the image of Jerusalem as a land of sacred...
