Hagiographies and the History of Medieval Ethiopia

1981 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 107-123 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven Kaplan
Keyword(s):  
Reliable Information ◽  
Orthodox Church ◽  
Christian Church ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Potential Value ◽  
Ethiopian Orthodox ◽  
History Of ◽  
Local Traditions ◽  
Lives Of The Saints

The hagiographic literature of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church may be divided into two major categories: the translated lives of the saints and martyrs of the early Christian church and the lives of local saints. The essentially foreign works, which constitute the first of these groups, will be of only peripheral concern in this paper. While books such as Barlaam and Joasaph, The Life of St. George, and The Conflict of Severus did serve as models for the traditions dealing with local saints, they are of little interest to the student of Ethiopian history.The most interesting of these local hagiographies are those about saints who lived between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries. These traditions, which recount the lives of some kings and many monastic leaders, are of great importance for the reconstruction of the history of medieval Ethiopia. As Conti Rossini has written, The more I preoccupy myself with the history of Ethiopia, the more I realize the importance of the study of local traditions. Only when we are a little more informed of these traditions with their accounts of the movements of peoples, with the advent (even if sometimes legendary) of successive chiefs, will we have an accurate idea of the history of Ethiopia.However, while specialists in Ethiopian literature and history have long realized the potential value of these gadlāt (singular: gadl) as sources for the study of Ethiopian history, the tendency towards idealization displayed in these works, as well as their abundant miracles and anachronisms, have left historians uncertain as to how to extract reliable information from them.

scholarly journals The Ethiopian Orthodox Church and its role in the State before 1974

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 5-22
Author(s):  
Nigusie Wolde Michae Kassaye ◽  
Yu. N. Buzykina
Keyword(s):  
Public Administration ◽  
Russian Federation ◽  
Orthodox Church ◽  
Transfer Of Knowledge ◽  
Christian Church ◽  
Orthodox Christian ◽  
Ethiopian Orthodox ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Russian Federation ◽  
The Church

The aim of the study is to consider the role and place of the Ethiopian Orthodox Christian Church in preserving the ancient traditions and culture of the peoples of Ethiopia. The history of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church is closely related to that of the Alexandrian Orthodox Church, but for a significant part of its history it fought for autocephaly, which was achieved only under Emperor Haile Selassie I. The most important function of the Church in Ethiopia was education and spread of literacy, the preservation and transfer of knowledge in the field of religion and public administration. The objective of the study is to analyze how this function was implemented during the first half of the XX century. The research is based on the documents of the Archive of Foreign Policy of the Russian Federation and of the Ethiopian Microfilm Laboratory EMML.

scholarly journals The authority of the ecumenical patriarch in the Orthodox Church: A historico-canonical analysis

2010 ◽  
pp. 301-322
Author(s):  
Vasilije Vranic
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Canon Law ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
Vital Role ◽  
Eastern Orthodox ◽  
Orthodox Church ◽  
Christian Church ◽  
Exact Role ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Right

During the 20th century, the exact role and the scope of jurisdictional authority of the Ecumenical Patriarch was an object of attention of both theologians and historians. The problem of defining the Patriarch was reactualized through the intensification of conciliar negotiations of Orthodox Churches. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate that the pretensions of the Ecumenical Patriarch for universal jurisdiction over the entire Orthodox Diaspora, and the pretensions for the right of final arbitration in the ecclesial matters of the entire Orthodox communion, do not have a support in the Orthodox Ecclesiology. This will be argued in a historical analysis of the relevant prescriptions of the Eastern Orthodox Canon Law, which will be placed into the context of the history of the Christian Church, primarily of the Patristic period, since there disciplines play a vital role in the Orthodox understanding of Ecclesiological Tradition.

Early Christian Mosaics in Context

2019 ◽  
pp. 274-295
Author(s):  
Karen C. Britt
Keyword(s):  
Short Discussion ◽  
Regional Approach ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Mediterranean World ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
Local Traditions ◽  
Universal Themes ◽  
Selection Of

This chapter provides an introduction to early Christian mosaics that emphasizes the important role played by archaeology in improving our understanding of their geographical and architectural contexts. After a short discussion of the position of early Christian mosaics in the history of the medium, a brief review of the most productive methodologies used in research on mosaics is undertaken, followed by a survey of mosaic technology that includes the workshops and artists involved in mosaic production. In the rest of the chapter, a selection of mosaics in churches, martyria, chapels, and Christian mausolea located in various parts of the Mediterranean world is examined. The evidence from archaeology demonstrates that although early Christian mosaics share universal themes, the diversity reflected in their iconography and the presence of secondary themes rooted in local traditions necessitate a regional approach to their interpretation.

scholarly journals Fra huskult til basilika

2004 ◽  
Author(s):  
Per Bilde
Keyword(s):  
Lecture Hall ◽  
Christian Church ◽  
Near Eastern ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Christian Churches ◽  
Dwelling House ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Church Building ◽  
History Of ◽  
Dining Room

It is still an astonishing fact that no material remains of early Christian churches have been found antedating the building in Dura-Europos at the Euphrat River in present day Iraq. It was a usual private dwelling house that in 241 was rebuilt and transformed into a Christian cult place. This building, however, in no way resembled the magnificent Christian basilicas that were built from the time of Constantine the Great (ruling 306/324-337), and only the baptistery in the rebuilt houses proves that it actually was a Christian building. In the present article I briefly scetch the history of the development of the Christian cult building from the private meeting places at the time of the New Testament to the Constantinian basilicas. The main purpose, however, is to discuss the character of the Christian cult house in relation to a number of related earlier and contemporary types of buildings such as the classical Hellenistic-Roman temples, the Jewish synagogue and a number of Graeco-Roman buildings that can be reagrded as historical forerunners of the Christian church building: the Greek counsel hall (bouleutêrion), the hall of initiation (e.g. Eleusis), the lecture hall (such as gymnasium and stoa), the Greek and Near Eastern cult theatres, the roman basilica and the Roman mithraeum. From the beginning, obviously, the Christian cult building  was a meeting house like the Greek counsel hall, the roman basilica and the Jewish synagogue. But it was also a dining room, and, at least from 241, with thebatistery in Dura-Europos, it also became a hall of initiation. Thus, the Christian cult building developed by uniting a number of eatlier types of buildings, secular and sacred, and from the time of Constantine, the Christian basilica united the secular Greek meeting house, which was continued and further developed in the Jewish synagogue, the Greek hall of initiation, and the classical Graeco-Roman Temple.

scholarly journals Witnesses of the Resurrected Messiah

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 671-696
Author(s):  
Janusz Kucicki
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Christian Church ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
History Of ◽  
New Israel

The dominant classification of Acts as the history of the early Christian Church whose main aim is to present the spread of the nascent movement from a less important part of the Roman Empire (Judea) to the very heart of the Empire (Rome), seems to be supported by Ac 1, 8 which is often taken as a kind of very general a table of contents. However, the rather unexpected end of Acts (a short and laconic account regarding Paul’s period in Rome), and Luke’s approach to and use of his sources, allow us to assume that Luke was aiming rather at a great story involving some main hearos and many other participants than are involved in just one thematic story. Following this assumption, based on the content of Acts, it is possible to individuate two main heroes (Peter and Paul) whose fate is somehow connected with many other persons that are also involved in giving witness to Jesus the Resurrected Messiah. In this study we look at Acts as the story concerning the two the most important witnesses, Peter and Paul, in order to determine their contribution to establishing the structural and doctrinal foundation of the New Israel.      

The religion of the first ages: primitivism and the primitive Church

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert G. Ingram
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
North African ◽  
Short History ◽  
Christian Church ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
History Of

This chapter illustrates how the history of the early Christian church was not an abstruse subject during the eighteenth century but a topical one. For the primitive church remained the standard for both orthodoxy and orthopraxis well into the eighteenth century. This chapter demonstrates how that was the case by focusing especially on two pieces by Zachary Grey — his Examination of the fourteenth chapter of Sir Isaac Newton’s observations upon the prophecies of Daniel (1736) and his Short history of the Donatists (1741). Grey’s engagement with Netwon’s work on prophecy centred osn Newton’s treatment of saints and of God’s nature. In writing about these subjects, Newton had aimed to show that the post-fourth-century church was infested with theological impurities; Grey’s rejoinder aimed to show that the eighteenth-century Church of England understood both the saints and God’s nature in a primitively pure way. Grey’s treatment of the ancient Donatist heresy similarly related to contemporary concerns. For he tried to show that Methodism was not novel but, instead, a revival of an ancient heretical sect which had almost rent asunder the fourth-century North African church.

Review: Michel Foucault, Histoire de la sexualité 4: Les aveux de la chair

2018 ◽  
Vol 35 (7-8) ◽  
pp. 293-311 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stuart Elden
Keyword(s):  
Michel Foucault ◽  
The State ◽  
History Of Sexuality ◽  
Church Fathers ◽  
Christian Church ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Fourth Volume ◽  
History Of

In February 2018 the fourth volume of Michel Foucault’s History of Sexuality was finally published. Les aveux de la chair [Confessions of the Flesh] was edited by Frédéric Gros, and appeared in the same Gallimard series as Volumes 1, 2 and 3. The book deals with the early Christian Church Fathers of the second to fifth centuries. This essay reviews the book in relation to Foucault’s other work, showing how it sits in sequence with Volumes 2 and 3, but also partly bridges the chronological and conceptual gap to Volume 1. It discusses the state of the manuscript and whether it should have been published, given Foucault’s stipulation of ‘no posthumous publications’. It outlines the contents of the book, which is in three parts, on the formation of a new experience, on virginity and on marriage. There are also some important supplementary materials included. The review discusses how it begins to answer previously unanswered questions about Foucault’s work, and offers some suggestions about how the book might be received and discussed.

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