Językowe drogi chrystianizacji Polski

The article presents the stages of the process of Christianisation and its progress in Europe and in Slavic-speaking lands. Then the selected Polish religious terms and other linguistic testimonies of Christianisation will be discussed. We can distinguish five stages in the process of the Christianisation of almost all European countries: 1. Evangelisational missions; 2. Martyrdom; 3. Conversion (the baptism of the ruler and his court); 4. Apostasy (pagan uprisings, heresies); 5. Re-Catholicisation, new evangelisation.W artykule zostały przedstawione fazy procesu chrystianizacji oraz jej przebieg w Europie i na Słowiańszczyźnie, a następnie omówione wybrane polskie terminy religijne oraz inne językowych świadectw chrystianizacji. W procesie chrystianizacji wszystkich prawie krajów Europy można wyróżnić pięć faz: (1) misje ewangelizacyjne, (2) martyrologia, (3) konwersja (chrzest władcy i dworu), (4) apostazja (bunty pogańskie, herezje), (5) rekatolicyzacja, nowa ewangelizacja

The Role of the Bible in the Formation of Philosophical Thought in Kievan Rus’ (as Exemplified by Ilarion of Kiev, Kliment Smolatič, and Kirill of Turov)

The article is an attempt to critically evaluate the manifestations of the philosophical culture sprouting in Rus’. With the baptism in the Byzantine Rite, Rus’ in the 10th century joined the family of Christian nations and defined the future direction of her own cultural development. The Middle Ages in Rus’ were eminently theocentric. Literature (which was mostly translated from the Greek in Bulgarian monasteries) had a religious character. Sacral content, assimilated in Rus’ mainly through the Old Church Slavonic (due to the scarce knowledge of Greek) had a decisive influence on formation of the philosophical worldview of Rus’ intellectual elite. The Bible thus became the main reference framework for the first Rus’ thinkers-philosophers: Ilarion of Kiev († 1055), Kirill of Turov († 1183) and Kliment Smolatič († 1164). Ilarion of Kiev, the first metropolitan of the Kievan Rus’ in his rhetoric work (which postulated the superiority of the New Testament to the Old) expressed a philosophical thesis of the equality of all Christian nations before God. Kliment Smolatič, the second metropolitan of Rus’, in his Letter to Presbyter Foma, defended the allegorical method of interpretating the Bible. Kirill of Turov, in his turn, in his Parable of the human soul and body allegorically tried to answer the question about the relationship of the body and the soul. For the Rus’ thinkers the content of the Bible served as a pretext for philosophical reflection, e.g. on the role of man in the universe, on the nature of reality, on the relation between matter and spirit. In their works we find the beginnings of the theory of knowledge, metaphysics, ethics, and aesthetics

István, a király: Rock-Opera As an Expression of Hungarian National Identity

The movie Istvàn, a kiràly presents themes which are not only universal, but also crucial for the process of building Hungarian national identity, such as the myth of origin, the insoluble conflict between the past and present, Christianity, and the valour of the fight for freedom and respect for tradition. These motifs make Istvàn, a kiràly worth watching not only for Hungarians, but also for all non-Hungarians who desire to understand the culture of Hungary. For them, Istvàn, a kiràly will be an invaluable insight into the Hungarian mind.This book was financially supported by the National Programme for the Development of Humanities: project “Cinema: Intercultural Perspective. Western-European Cinema in Poland, Polish Cinema in Western Europe. Mutual Perception of Film Cultures (1918–1939)”

Byzantine Missions among the Magyars in the Later 10th Century?

Byzantine missions among the Magyars during the later 10th century? For many 10th century Christian observers, as they frequently noted, the arrival of the conquering Hungarians at the end of the 9th century meant the beginning of the Apocalypse. Therefore it is hardly surprising, that in the eyes of Christian authors the newly arrived People of Gog and Magog appeared as the par excellence pagans of their age. This view is clearly attested by all extant historical writings of the time, whether Byzantine Greek, Western European Latin or Eastern European Slavic. On the other hand, archaeological excavations conducted over the last one and a half century in the Carpathian Basin, produced a number of cross finds, datable to 10th and 11th centuries that continue to provoke a lively debate among historians and archaeologists, most of whom have been speculating how these crosses are to be interpreted. Some leading experts of early Hungarian history were in favour of and others were against the presence and spread of Christianity in the Carpathian Basin before the time of the state-enforced conversion under Saint Stephen. The present paper aims to revisit the main arguments established by the debating parties and introduce new ones in order to better understand the background against which Saint Stephen’s efforts in Christianizing his kingdom are to be contextualized. My object is to question the usefulness of applying strict theological/canonical criteria when hints of an early evangelizing activity in the burials of the given period are searched for. On the other hand, by reviewing the known ecclesiastical regulations I argue that in the first century of official Christianization of the Árpádian Age, the Church left the question of burial up to the family of the deceased; a fact which, in my judgement, helps to explain why it is nearly impossible to find a criterion or a set of criteria for determining the burial of a Christian or a partly Christianized individual before the use of churchyard cemeteries

Exploring Continuities and Discontinuities Between Ælfric's and its Antique Sources

International audienceThis paper explores the extent to which the tenth-century English scholar Ælfric, author of a grammatical treatise known to us as Ælfric's , differed from his sources, the late antique grammarians Donatus and Priscian, (1) in his conception of grammar, (2) in his perception of the structure of Latin, and (3) in the descriptive apparatus he used. I argue for the transmission of a conceptual framework. The facts taken into consideration are those dealt with by Donatus and Priscian, and they are analyzed with the help of the self-same concepts: Ælfric does not introduce new concepts into the description, nor does he elaborate or refine those transmitted by the grammatical tradition. I also note the transmission of a descriptive apparatus, at which level, however, discontinuity appears in the partial re-organisation of the treatise so as to gain coherence and pedagogical efficiency, in the Christianisation and Anglicisation of the exemplification, in the systematic translation of Latin items into English and in the coinage of a vernacular grammatical terminology. Yet in the most important form of discontinuity, i.e. in Ælfric's decision not to use Latin as the medium of a Latin grammar, several elements point to a continuity, such as the technical terms being Latin loan words or functioning as glosses to Latin words

Religious transformations in the Middle Ages: towards a new archaeological agenda

The study of religious change in Europe between the collapse of the Roman Empire and the Reformation forms one of the cornerstones of medieval archaeology but has been riven by period, denominational and geographical divisions. This paper lays the groundwork for a fundamental rethink of archaeological approaches to medieval religions, by adopting a holistic framework that places Christian, pagan, Islamic and Jewish case studies of religious transformation in a long-term, comparative perspective. Focused around the analytical themes of ‘hybridity and resilience’ and ‘tempo and trajectories’, our approach shifts attention away from the singularities of national narratives of religious conversion towards a deeper understanding of how religious beliefs, practices and identity were renegotiated by medieval people in their daily lives