Oriental Churches

Prezentul volum, ajuns repede după apariţie un titlu clasic în domeniu, cuprinde istoria Bisericii născute în timpurile apostolice la răsărit de Imperiul Roman. Aproape necunoscută în creştinismul apusean, Biserica Siro-Orientală a traversat cele două milenii de creştinism ajungând până în zilele noastre, printre puţinii ei reprezentanţi cunoscuţi în afara graniţelor sale numărându-se Sfinţii Efrem Sirul şi Isaac Sirul.
    Cartea lui Raymond le Coz urmăreşte meandrele pe care le-a parcurs istoria teologică, monahală, liturgică, didactică şi culturală a creştinilor din fostul Imperiu Persan, ajunşi succesiv sub stăpânire arabă, mongolă, otomană. Nu sunt trecute cu vederea nici influenţele pe care creştinismul siriac le-a exercitat asupra culturii arabe şi nici rolul creştinilor în formarea elitei intelectuale şi a literaturii ştiinţifice arabe, care, prin traducerile latineşti din Evul Mediu, va înrâuri simţitor cultura, teologia şi ştiinţa europeană.
    Prezentarea situaţiei bisericeşti actuale a creştinilor sirieni completează în mod fericit această istorie, permiţând cititorului român să-şi formeze o imagine generală şi bogată în detalii asupra unui univers creştin apostolic, păstrător şi mărturisitor al învăţăturii Bisericii primare.

Les conciles œcuméniques de Nicée, Constantinople et Chalcédoine ont fixé et promulgué des professions de foi chrétiennes valables universellement. Pourtant, l’évolution de l’Église latine a conduit à modifier, avec le Filioque, un Symbole qui était tenu pour sacré et invariable par les Églises orientales. Dès lors, l’instrument même de la communion devient objet de discorde et de polémique, surtout quand il s’agit de formaliser l’Union des Églises. De la fin de la période byzantine jusqu’au XVIIIe siècle, les controverses qui en découlent donnent lieu à diverses professions de foi qui sont ici analysées. Certains chapitres proposent une approche collective des implications de l’Union sur l’expression du Credo, tant à Byzance, Kiev, Rome ou Paris, que chez les chrétiens arabes. D’autre part, une attention particulière a été portée à des cas individuels, ceux d’empereurs ou d’impératrices comme Jean V Paléologue et Théodora Paléologina, ou de patriarches comme Jean Bekkos, Cyrille Loukaris et Dosithée de Jérusalem. De nouvelles éditions critiques de ces textes figurent en annexe de plusieurs chapitres.

An interdisciplinary conference, 26 &27 May 2016
University of Amsterdam.
The Holy Land has played an important role in the definition of the identities of the three major Abrahamic religions. Constitutive narratives about the past of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam were largely bound to this shared and contested space. As put forward both by Maurice Halbwachs and Jan Assmann, memory adheres to what is ‘solid’, stored away in outward symbols. The Holy Land is a focal point around which the shared memories of these different groups formed, and has been crucial for defining their identities. Accordingly, the definition of this shared memory can be traced as a process of elaborating a cultural memory: an ‘artificial’ construction of developed traditions, transmissions and transferences. This process of construction was pursued through different media that cast the past into symbols. The period between the age of Constantine and the late Renaissance was formative for constructing this memory. It saw the valorization of Christian holy places under Constantine, the birth of Islam, the construction of an important Jewish scholarly community in the Holy Land, the Crusades, the massive growth of late medieval pilgrimage involving Jewish, Christian and Islamic groups, as well as other crucial events. The conference aims to bring together scholars who study the memories of the holy places within these religious galaxies from various disciplinary perspectives, in order to achieve a constructive exchange of ideas. Scholars of all so-called Abrahamic religions are invited to submit proposals, including scholars of Western and Eastern Christianity, Judaism and Islam. The call is open for historians, art historians, literary scholars, theologians, philosophers working on topics ranging from Late Antiquity to the Renaissance.
This conference is organized by the team of the research project Cultural Memory and Identity in the Late Middle Ages: the Franciscans of Mount Zion in Jerusalem and the Representation of the Holy Land (1333-1516): Michele Campopiano, Valentina Covaci, Guy Geltner and Marianne Ritsema van Eck. The project is funded by the Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NWO).
Papers should be 30 minutes long, and will be followed by 15 minutes of discussion. Participants are asked to send an abstract of 300 words to [email protected] before 1 December 2015, together with information concerning their academic affiliation. Travel costs and two nights of accommodation will be financed by the project. Please do not hesitate to contact us for additional information.

This freely available online interactive map (link under the Files menu) visualizes a database of Christian baptisteries built between the 3rd and 12th centuries. The database is a digital adaptation and formalization of the most complete (as of 2018) catalogue of baptisteries by Sebastian Ristow (Frühchristliche Baptisterien, Münster: Aschendorffsche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1998).