Holy Fools in Byzantium and Beyond

Holy Fools in Byzantium and Beyond PDF Author: Sergeĭ Arkadʹevich Ivanov
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0199272514
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 492

Get Book Here

Book Description
The image of St Basil's Cathedral in Moscow's Red Square is a familar Russian landmark. Yet few people know what made Basil so famous. He was a saint who wandered about naked, bullied passers-by, brawled in the market-place, and once even smashed a revered icon. Saints such as Basil overturn the conventional concept of sainthood - what, we may ask, is saintly about them? This book aims to solve the mystery by exploring the figure of the holy fool in Byzantium and in later Russianhistory.

Holy Fools in Byzantium and Beyond

Holy Fools in Byzantium and Beyond PDF Author: Sergeĭ Arkadʹevich Ivanov
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0199272514
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 492

Get Book Here

Book Description
The image of St Basil's Cathedral in Moscow's Red Square is a familar Russian landmark. Yet few people know what made Basil so famous. He was a saint who wandered about naked, bullied passers-by, brawled in the market-place, and once even smashed a revered icon. Saints such as Basil overturn the conventional concept of sainthood - what, we may ask, is saintly about them? This book aims to solve the mystery by exploring the figure of the holy fool in Byzantium and in later Russianhistory.

Holy Fools in Byzantium and Beyond

Holy Fools in Byzantium and Beyond PDF Author: Sergey A. Ivanov
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191515140
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 492

Get Book Here

Book Description
There are saints in Orthodox Christian culture who overturn the conventional concept of sainthood. Their conduct may be unruly and salacious, they may blaspheme and even kill - yet, mysteriously, those around them treat them with even more reverence. Such saints are called 'holy fools'. In this pioneering study Sergey A. Ivanov examines the phenomenon of holy foolery from a cultural standpoint. He identifies its prerequisites and its development in religious thought, and traces the emergence of the first hagiographic texts describing these paradoxical saints. He describes the beginnings of holy foolery in Egyptian monasteries of the fifth century, followed by its high point in the cities of Byzantium, with an eventual decline in the twelfth to fourteenth centuries. He also compares the important Russian tradition of holy fools, which in some form has survived to this day.

Refiguring Theological Hermeneutics

Refiguring Theological Hermeneutics PDF Author: M. Grau
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137324554
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 319

Get Book Here

Book Description
Grau reconsiders the relationship between "logos" and "mythos" as a precondition to opening theological hermeneutics to discourse from other cultures and genres, other modes of telling and retelling.

Religion in Contemporary European Cinema

Religion in Contemporary European Cinema PDF Author: Costica Bradatan
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317860187
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 233

Get Book Here

Book Description
The religious landscape in Europe is changing dramatically. While the authority of institutional religion has weakened, a growing number of people now desire individualized religious and spiritual experiences, finding the self-complacency of secularism unfulfilling. The "crisis of religion" is itself a form of religious life. A sense of complex, subterraneous interaction between religious, heterodox, secular and atheistic experiences has thus emerged, which makes the phenomenon all the more fascinating to study, and this is what Religion in Contemporary European Cinema does. The book explores the mutual influences, structural analogies, shared dilemmas, as well as the historical roots of such a "post-secular constellation" as seen through the lens of European cinema. Bringing together scholars from film theory and political science, ethics and philosophy of religion, philosophy of film and theology, this volume casts new light on the relationship between the religious and secular experience after the death of the death of God.

The Trophies of the Martyrs

The Trophies of the Martyrs PDF Author: Galit Noga-Banai
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199217742
Category : Antiques & Collectibles
Languages : en
Pages : 257

Get Book Here

Book Description
In this pioneering study, the first of its kind, Galit Noga-Banai analyses silver reliquaries decorated with Christian figurative themes. She offers a clearer and more detailed picture of the beginnings of the cult of relics, which were an essential asset to the Church in its establishment of pilgrimage centres and local hagiographic heritage sites, first in Italy and later in other places around Europe and North Africa. At the same time, Noga-Banai highlights the identity of theobjects as portable art, treating the reliquaries as visual historical testimonies. The book is illustrated with nearly 100 finely reproduced drawings and photographs.

Insanity and Sanctity in Byzantium

Insanity and Sanctity in Byzantium PDF Author: Youval Rotman
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674057619
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 267

Get Book Here

Book Description
Prologue. Insanity and religion -- Part I. Sanctified insanity: between history and psychology -- The paradox that inhabits ambiguity -- Meanings of insanity -- Part II. Abnormality and social change: early Christianity vs. rabbinic Judaism -- Abnormality and social change -- Socializing nature: the ascetic totem -- Epilogue. Psychology, religion, and social change

The Firebird and the Fox

The Firebird and the Fox PDF Author: Jeffrey Brooks
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108484468
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 349

Get Book Here

Book Description
A century of Russian artistic genius, including literature, art, music and dance, within the dynamic cultural ecosystem that shaped it.

Saints and Virtues

Saints and Virtues PDF Author: John Stratton Hawley
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 9780520061637
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 288

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book explores a larger family of saints—those celebrated not just by Christianity but by other religious traditions of the world: Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, Buddhist, Confucian, African, and Caribbean. The essays show how saints serve as moral exemplars in the communities that venerate them.

The Reception of the Virgin in Byzantium

The Reception of the Virgin in Byzantium PDF Author: Thomas Arentzen
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108476287
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 381

Get Book Here

Book Description
Images and texts tell various stories about the Virgin Mary in Byzantium, reflecting an important cult with strong doctrinal foundations.

Caliphs and Merchants

Caliphs and Merchants PDF Author: Fanny Bessard
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192597833
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 389

Get Book Here

Book Description
Caliphs and Merchants: Cities and Economies of Power in the Near East (700-950) offers fresh perspectives on the origins of the economic success of the early Islamic Caliphate, identifying a number of previously unnoticed or underplayed yet crucial developments, such as the changing conditions of labour, attitudes towards professional associations, and the interplay between the state, Islamic religious institutions, and the economy. Moving beyond the well-studied transition between the death of Justinian in 565 and the Arab-Muslim conquests in the seventh century, the volume focuses on the period between 700 and 950 during which the Islamic world asserted its identity and authority. Whilst the extraordinary prosperity of Near Eastern cities and economies during this time was not unprecedented when one considers the early Imperial Roman world, the aftermath of the Arab-Muslim conquests saw a deep transformation of urban retail and craft which marked a distinct break from the past. It explores the mechanisms effecting these changes, from the increasing involvement of caliphs and their governors in the patronage of urban economies, to the empowerment of enriched entrepreneurial tāğir from the ninth century. Combining detailed analysis of a large corpus of literary sources in Arabic with presentation of new physical and epigraphic evidence, and utilizing an innovative approach which is both comparative and global, the discussion lucidly locates the Middle East within the contemporary Eurasian context and draws instructive parallels between the Islamic world and Western Christendom, Byzantium, South-East Asia, and China.