scholarly journals Making a Living in the Postsocialist Periphery: Struggles between Farmers and Traders in Konso, Ethiopia

Africa ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 76 (1) ◽  
pp. 70-87 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth E. Watson
Keyword(s):  
Land Tenure ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Addis Ababa ◽  
Local Level ◽  
The Political ◽  
Orthodox Church ◽  
Process Of Change ◽  
Ethiopian Orthodox ◽  
Policy Shifts ◽  
The Church

AbstractThis article explores the experience of one village in Ethiopia since the overthrow of the Marxist‐Leninist Derg regime in 1991. The new government introduced policies that have much in common with those dominating the international geopolitical scene in the 1990s and 2000s. These include an emphasis on democracy, grassroots participation and, to some extent, market liberalization. I report here on the manifestations of these policy shifts in Gamole village, in the district of Konso, once remote from the political centre in Addis Ababa but now expressing its identity through new federal political structures. Traditional power relations between traders and farmers in Gamole have been transformed since 1991 as the traders have exploited opportunities to extend trade links, obtain land and build regional alliances through participation in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. They have appropriated the discourse of democracy to challenge their traditional position of subordination to the farmers – and this, in turn, has led to conflict. While these changes reflect the postsocialist transition, they can also be seen as part of a continuing process of change brought about by policies of reform in land tenure, the church and the state, introduced during the Derg period. These observations at a local level in Ethiopia provide insights into the experiences of other states in postsocialist transition.

Time, Death, and the Next Generation: The Early Elizabethan Recusancy Policy, 1558–1574

1982 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 103-117
Author(s):  
John J. LaRocca
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Recent Article ◽  
Local Level ◽  
The Political ◽  
Privy Council ◽  
Next Generation ◽  
Social Composition ◽  
The Social ◽  
International Character ◽  
The Church

In a recent article, Caroline M. Hibbard noted that recent work on Tudor-Stuart recusancy has focused on the enforcement of royal and statutory policy on the local level and has examined the social composition of the recusant community. These studies have revealed that the recusant community was not dominated by priests, not subject to the political directives of the papacy, and not plotting rebellion. The problem inherent in these local studies, as Professor Hibbard points out, is that they do not explain why the English were anti-Catholic and they do not examine the international character of the English Catholic Community. This article is an attempt to view the recusant problem from the perspective of the monarch and the privy council, because both monarch and privy council were aware of the international character of Catholicism and both stated clearly in their policies toward recusants the grounds of their objection to the Catholic community. An analysis of the recusancy policy established by Elizabeth between 1559 and 1574 reveals that her primary objection to the recusants was not religious but political. The recusants denied a fundamental claim of the monarch: the headship of the church and, therefore, the claim that the monarch was the source of all power within the realm. This article, then, will examine the ways in which she wished to contain a minority who denied her supreme power in the realm and the circumstances which caused the queen and the council to change that policy.

scholarly journals Protocol of the Penza Diocesan Congress of the Clergy and Laity

2020 ◽  
pp. 149-180
Author(s):  
Радомир (Роман) Владимирович Булдаков
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
The Political ◽  
General Tendency ◽  
Russian Orthodox ◽  
Orthodox Church ◽  
Church Organization ◽  
Russian Orthodox Church ◽  
Local Council ◽  
Political Events ◽  
The Church

В настоящей публикации представлен ранее нигде не публиковавшийся Протокол Пензенского епархиального съезда духовенства и мирян, который проходил с 25 апреля по 1 мая 1917 г. Он отражает общее настроение рядового духовенства и мирян Русской Православной Церкви начала XX в. на примере конкретной епархии. Пензенский Съезд проходил одновременно с аналогичными Съездами многих других епархиальных центров, чьи постановления получили своё развитие на Всероссийском Съезде духовенства и мирян в Москве и далее на Поместном Соборе Православной Российской Церкви 1917- 1918 гг. Вопросы, рассматриваемые участниками Пензенского Съезда, касались как общецерковных проблем, так и внутренних дел самой епархии; часть постановлений вошла в состав решений Поместного Собора. Количество вопросов, поднятых на Съезде, превышает два десятка и относится к самым разным сферам церковно-государственных и церковно-общественных отношений, а также к внутренним преобразованиям самой Церкви, одновременно олицетворяя общую тенденцию к Её обновлению и являясь следствием этих перемен. Но среди них важнейшими, по мнению делегатов Съезда, считались вопросы об отношении к происходящим в стране политическим событиям и о поэтапной реформе церковной организации, начиная с прихода и заканчивая уровнем Поместной Российской Церкви. This publication presents the previously unpublished Protocol of the Penza Diocesan Congress of the Clergy and Laity, which took place from April 25 to May 1, 1917. It reflects the general mood of ordinary clergy and laity of the Russian Orthodox Church at the beginning of the 20th century by the example of a specific diocese. The Penza Congress was held simultaneously with similar Congresses of many other diocesan centers, whose resolutions were developed at the AllRussian Congress of Clergy and Laity in Moscow and further at the Local Council of the Russian Orthodox Church in 1917-1918. The issues considered by the participants of the Penza Congress concerned both general church problems and the internal affairs of the diocese itself; some of the decisions were included in the decisions of the Local Council. The number of issues raised at the Congress exceeds two dozen and relates to the most diverse spheres of church-state and church-social relations, as well as to the internal transformations of the Church itself, at the same time embodying the general tendency towards Her renewal and being a consequence of these changes. But among them the most important, in the opinion of the Congress delegates, were the questions about the attitude to the political events taking place in the country and about the gradual reform of church organization, from the parish level to the level of the Local Russian Church.

scholarly journals Everyday Life of the Russian Nuns in the Holy Land at the Time of Changes in the Middle East, 1940s–1950s

2021 ◽  
pp. 190-200
Author(s):  
N.A. Beliakova
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Russian Orthodox ◽  
Orthodox Church ◽  
Holy Land ◽  
Russian Orthodox Church ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Church

This study aims at providing an overview of the everyday life of Russian nuns in Palestine after World War II. This research encompassed the following tasks: to analyze the range of ego-documents available today, characterizing the everyday life and internal motivation of women in choosing the church jurisdiction; to identify, on the basis of written sources, the most active supporters of the Moscow Patriarchate to examine the nuns’ activity as information agents of the Russian Orthodox Church and Soviet government; to characterize the actors influencing the everyday life of the Russian nuns in the context of the creation of the state of Israel and new borders dividing the Holy Land; to present the motives and instruments of influence employed by the representatives of both secu-lar and church diplomacies in respect to the women leading a monastic life; to describe consequences of including the nuns into the sphere of interest of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the USSR; to show the specific role of “Russian women” in the context of the struggle for securing positions of the USSR and the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in the region. The sources for the study were prodused by the state (correspondence between the state authorities, meeting notes) and from the religious actors (letters of nuns to the church authorities, reports of the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission, memoirs of the clergy). By combining the methods of micro-history and history of the everyday life with the political history of the Cold War, the study examines the agency of the nuns — a category of women traditionally unnoticeable in the political history. Due to the specificity of the sources, the study focuses exclusively on a group of the nuns of the Holy Land who came under the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patri-archate. The majority of the Russian-speaking population of Palestine in the mid-1940s were women in the status of monastic residents (nuns and novices) and pilgrims, and in the 1940s–1950s, they were drawn into the geopolitical combinations of the Soviet Union. The Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in Jerusalem, staffed with representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church, becomes a key institution of influence in the region. This article shows how elderly nuns became an object of close attention and even funding by the Soviet state. The everyday life of the nuns became directly dependent on the activities of the Soviet agencies and Soviet-Israeli relations after the arri-val of the Soviet state representatives. At the same time, the nuns became key participants in the inter-jurisdictional conflicts and began to act as agents of influence in the region. The study analyzes numerous ego-documents created by the nuns themselves from the collection of the Council on the Affairs of the Russian Orthodox Church under the USSR Council of Ministers. The study shows how nuns positioned themselves as leading a monastic life in the written correspondence with the ROC authorities and staff of the Soviet MFA. The instances of influence of different secular authorities on the development of the female monasticism presented here point to promising research avenues for future reconstruction of the history of women in the Holy Land based on archival materials from state departments, alternative sources should also be found. The study focused on the life of elderly Russian nuns in the Holy Land and showed their activity in the context of the geopolitical transformations in the Near East in the 1940s–1950s.

Anglicans in the Horn of Africa

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Grant LeMarquand
Keyword(s):  
Addis Ababa ◽  
South Sudan ◽  
Refugee Camps ◽  
Orthodox Church ◽  
Horn Of Africa ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Ethiopian Orthodox ◽  
Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries ◽  
Ethiopian Jews ◽  
Western Ethiopia

In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Anglican missionaries attempted to bring renewal to the ancient Ethiopian Orthodox Church by teaching the Orthodox clergy and people the content of the Bible. Other Anglican missionaries attempted to reach Ethiopian Jews with the gospel of Christ, and then encouraged Jewish converts to be baptized in the Orthodox Church. In major cities (such as Addis Ababa and Asmara) Anglicans established chaplaincies for British expatriates. Recently, Anglican refugees from South Sudan planted churches in western Ethiopia, especially in the regions of Asosa and Gambella. These churches of Nuer, Anuak, Opo, Mabaan, and Jieng (Dinka) people are found both in refugee camps and in many local villages and towns. This chapter examines these different endeavours as part of one Anglican story.

scholarly journals Romanian musical creation of Bizantine source in the period 1918–2018

Arta ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 22-31
Author(s):  
Elena Chircev ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
The Political ◽  
Orthodox Church ◽  
Totalitarian Regime ◽  
National State ◽  
Musical Works ◽  
Centennial Anniversary ◽  
Last Stage ◽  
Political Turmoil ◽  
The Church

Written in the year of Romania’s centennial anniversary as a national state, this paper intends to offer a panorama of the monodic music of Byzantine tradition of the period, composed by the Romanian chanters. Although the entire twentieth century was characterized by the harmonization of the already established church chants, the musical works written in neumatic notation specific to the Orthodox Church continue to exist, albeit discontinuously. Based on the political changes that occurred in the Romanian society, three distinct periods of psaltic music creation can be distinguished: a. 1918–1947; b. 1948–1989; c. 1990–2018. The first period coincides with the last stage of the process of “Romanianization” of church chants. The second one corresponds to the communist period and is marked by the Communist Party’s decisions regarding the Church, namely the attempt to standardise the church chants. After 1990, psaltic music regains its position and the compositions of the last two decades enrich its repertoire with new collections of chants. Thus, we can see that in the course of a century marked by political turmoil and changes, psaltic composition went on a hiatus in the first decades of the totalitarian regime, to gradually resurge after 1980, enriched with numerous works bearing a distinct Romanian stamp.

The Ethiopian Orthodox Church: A Study in Indigenization

1988 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 259-278 ◽  
Author(s):  
Calvin E. Shenk
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Orthodox Church ◽  
African Christianity ◽  
The People ◽  
Indigenous Church ◽  
Ethiopian Orthodox ◽  
Hebrew Culture ◽  
The Church ◽  
Ethiopian Church

The Ethiopian Orthodox Church is a fascinating study in indigenization. Its deep rootage in the lives of the people is evidenced by the way in which the Church has been preserved since the fourth century in spite of repeated threats from enemies within and outside of Ethiopia. The church has Christianized important aspects of Old Testament and Hebrew culture as well as certain remnants of primal religion. It adapted beliefs and symbols which reflected and reinforced African traditions, and either absorbed or transfigured that which suited its purposes. The Ethiopian Church is an indigenous church, not an indigenized one. The process of its indigenization is described and important lessons from this rather natural development are identified that help in understanding the importance of critical contextualization. The successes and failures of the Ethiopian Church provide perspective for contemporary attempts at contextualization. This study is significant for understanding African Christianity but also has missiological implications for the wider world.

A Tradition Co-opted: Participatory Development and Authoritarian Rule in Sudan

2017 ◽  
Vol 51 (2) ◽  
pp. 233-252 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne-Laure Mahé
Keyword(s):  
Local Government ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Participatory Development ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Development Projects ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Authoritarian Rule ◽  
Sudan I

AbstractThe concept of participation is a cornerstone of development and democracy discourses, but studies on participatory development rarely examine the political regimes those policies are embedded in. Yet, in authoritarian contexts, participation is ambiguous, potentially threatening—as it can be connected to democratic ideals—and it also can be used as a resource, a tool for domination. Through an analysis of participatory development projects implemented in Sudan, I explore how power relations are renegotiated at the local level. Relying on data collected during fieldwork in Khartoum and the state of North Kordofan, where the projects are located, I highlight the disconnect between the discourse surrounding the participatory devices, which establishes an horizontal relationship between citizens and the local government, and the actual practices that strengthen the latter's power. In doing so, the article challenges a linear, top-down conception of authoritarian power and reveals the tensions that exist between institutional levels.

scholarly journals Political Events of February 1917 in the Diocesan Periodicals of Western Siberia

2020 ◽  
pp. 227-238
Author(s):  
A. A. Valitov ◽  
D. Yu. Fedotova
Keyword(s):  
Western Siberia ◽  
The Political ◽  
Russian Orthodox ◽  
Orthodox Church ◽  
Russian Orthodox Church ◽  
Historical Justice ◽  
Political Events ◽  
First Time ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Church

The events of February 1917, presented on the pages of the church periodicals of Western Siberia, is examined in the article. The relevance of the study is due to the fact that for the first time in Russian historiography the political upheavals of this period have been analyzed on the basis of materials from regional diocesan records. The authors note that the diocesan records are an important historical source. A detailed analysis of the content of articles of Omsk, Tobolsk, Tomsk periodicals (“Diocesan Gazette”) on the presentation of the political events of February 1917 in them is carried out. The novelty of the research lies in identifying the attitude of the regional clergy to the revolutionary events in the period from February to April 1917. The presented results of the comparative analysis can be grouped according to the chronology and significance of the events that took place. The article concludes that it was during this period that one could hear the opinion of the Russian Orthodox Church on political changes in the country. It is noted that of particular interest were the issues of the relationship between the Church and the Provisional Government, this topic remained the most acute after the fall of the monarchy. It is shown that the representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church wanted to restore historical justice and receive autonomous government and independence from the secular authorities.

scholarly journals FELLOW TRAVELERS FROM SERBIA: LGBT-IDENTIFIED PERSONS AND THE CHURCH IN THE PROCESS OF EUROPEANIZATION

2020 ◽  
pp. 027
Author(s):  
Miloš Jovanović ◽  
Nemanja Krstić
Keyword(s):  
Political Elite ◽  
The Political ◽  
Orthodox Church ◽  
Power Elite ◽  
Sexual Freedom ◽  
Dominant Position ◽  
International Support ◽  
Lgbt Issues ◽  
Depth Interviews ◽  
The Church

The paper deals with the question of the dynamics of relations between the political power elite, the LGBT population and the Serbian Orthodox Church in the overall context of the Europeanization of Serbia. An insight is provided into the mechanism(s) through which the political elite in Serbia reproduces its dominant position. Serbian society is depicted as a captured one, and this is illustrated by empirical findings from a survey and in-depth interviews. This is followed by a focus on the political elite’s instrumentalization of the issue of sexual freedom in obtaining international support for maintenance of power through “tactical Europeanization”. After this the position of the Serbian Orthodox Church vis-à-vis the state and its alleged support for LGBT issues is considered. The Church seems to have “realized” that being silent on the LGBT issue is more profitable in a symbolic, as well as, in a material sense.

Shaping Church-State Relations After Constantine: The Political Theology of Hilary of Poitiers

2017 ◽  
Vol 86 (2) ◽  
pp. 287-310
Author(s):  
Eric Wickman
Keyword(s):  
Political Theology ◽  
The Political ◽  
Orthodox Church ◽  
Half Century ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Hilary Of Poitiers ◽  
Constantius Ii ◽  
State Relations ◽  
Church Councils ◽  
The Church

Writing in the half-century after the “conversion” of Constantine, Bishop Hilary of Poitiers wrote two works regarding Emperor Constantius II. The first,Ad Constantium, is a polite and formal letter, seeking an audience with the emperor. The second,In Constantium, is a harangue against the emperor. Some scholars have proposed that the difference in tone between these two documents indicates that Hilary had come to advocate for the emperor to be completely uninvolved in the affairs of the Church. Closer analysis reveals that Hilary always endorsed a position in which the emperor should be involved in ecclesiastical affairs, so long as he submitted to the higher authorities of scripture and the ancient apostolic faith. Hilary would have had no concerns with a pro-Nicene emperor enforcing proto-orthodox church councils and creeds. Prior to Hilary, most of Christianity had accepted imperial involvement in the Church. But the involvement of the Roman emperors in ecclesial matters caused many to have to consider the problems of someone outside of the Church making decisions for the Church. Hilary's efforts stand as one of the first western attempts to nuance and limit the emperor's ecclesiastical role.

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