Hilandar Slavic Manuscript 280: Josephus' History of the Jewish Wars and the Tale of Constantinople

The presentation discusses the first South Slavic copy of a prominent work by Josephus Flavius, The History of the Jewish War. In order to understand hieromonk Grigorije’s roles as scribe and “translator” of HM.SMS.280 and as the monastery’s representative, as well as Hilandar Monastery’s interaction with the Muscovite court, it is important to understand Hilandar's crucial need for Russian support—especially (but not only) financial—at this time in its history. This also serves as another illustration of the new and expanding role of Russia and the Russian Orthodox Church at this time. This paper offers possible motives for the initiative to copy this work by a Serbian scribe, based on the promotion of the prominent idea of Moscow as the Third Rome, during the period of the late 16th century. The presence of the text of the Fall of Constantinople, within the same manuscript as that of the History of the Jewish War, strongly suggests a close relationship between the fall of Jerusalem and Constantinople. Presented at the Sixth International Hilandar Conference: Medieval Slavic Text and Image in the Cultures of Orthodoxy, July 19-21, 201

Higher Levels of Stress Are Associated with a Significant Symptom Burden in Oncology Outpatients Receiving Chemotherapy

Background: A cancer diagnosis and associated treatments, as well as the uncertainty of thedisease course, are stressful experiences for most patients. However, little information isavailable on the relationship between stress and symptom burden. The study purpose was toevaluate for differences in the severity of fatigue, lack of energy, sleep disturbance, andcognitive function, among three groups of patients with distinct stress profiles.Methods: Patients receiving chemotherapy (n=957) completed measures of general, cancerspecific, and cumulative life stress and symptom inventories. Latent profile analysis was used toidentify subgroups of patients with distinct stress profiles.Results: Three distinct subgroups of patients were identified (i.e., Stressed (39.3%), Normative(54.3%), Resilient (5.7%)). For cognitive function, significant differences were found among thelatent classes (Stressedevening fatigue, compared to the Normative and Resilient classes, the Stressed class reportedhigher severity scores. Compared to the Normative and Resilient classes, the Stressed classreported low levels of morning energy. Compared to the Normative class, the Stressed classreported lower levels of evening energy.Conclusions: Consistent with our a priori hypothesis, patients in the Stressed class had thehighest symptom severity scores for all four symptoms and all of these scores were above theclinically meaningful cutoffs for the various instruments

PSYCHIATRIA DANUBINA AND CHALLENGES OF THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC: THE ANSWER IS IN THE KNOWLEDGE, EMPATHY, COHERENCE AND GLOBAL ETHICS

The COVID-19 pandemic crisis is cruel but crucial lesson for the future of humankind. This crisis involves very complex events, complex in its origin, its spread, its effects and its consequences at multiple levels and fields with health. On the other side, the quality of our individual, collective and public mental health is very important for successful fighting against the COVID-19 pandemic and infodemic. For a better public and global mental health we need a common background, common values and virtues on which we agree and follow them. Knowledge, ethics, empathy, coherence, solidarity, cooperation and unity are the key factors to long-term survival and flourishing of humankind. COVID-19 pandemic and infodemic can be effectively overcome only in spirit of common ethic and mutual empathy, respect, trust and public/global cooperation sowing the seeds for humanistic self, compassionate society and empathic civilization, rather than blaming, scapegoating and xenophobia

COVID-19 PANDEMIA AND PUBLIC AND GLOBAL MENTAL HEALTH FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF GLOBAL HEALTH SECURITY

The Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic emerged in Wuhan, China and has spread all over the world and has caused huge threats to health and lives. It has affected different frontiers of lives and induced many psychiatric individual and collective problems such as panic, anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorders, suspiciousness, infodemia, cacophony, xenophobia, racisms, etc. The COVID-19 outbreak has induced public and global mental health crisis as well as a huge psychosocial experiment. Psychiatry and other mental health sciences can play very useful role in supporting the well-being of COVID-19 patients and their families, healthcare personnel and the society. For successful fighting with present and future pandemics we have to learn more about psychiatric and psychological aspects of COVID-19 from the perspectives of public and global mental health

IN SEARCH FOR BIOMARKERS, ENDOPHENOTYPES OR BIOSIGNATURES OF PTSD: WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED FROM THE SOUTH EAST EUROPEAN STUDY

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a complex mental disorder whose neurobiology, including epi/genetics, is still elusive. The South East European (SEE)-PTSD study has conducted an impressive amount of research on molecular mechanisms of PTSD. The results of the study make obvious the need of coordinated pluralism and transdisciplinary integrative approach in research on molecular mechanisms of PTSD and other stress-related disorders. The development of PTSD is influenced by a tangled and complicated interaction of inborn or acquired predisposition or vulnerability and environmental adversity which alters gene regulation producing effects on neurons and brain systems and inducing changes in cognition, emotion and behavior. There are still no identified objective biomarkers or tests which could confirm the trauma exposure or identify the real presence of PTSD. The puzzle how brain function enables the resilience to adversity and how brain dysfunctions lead to vulnerability to stress and development of PTSD and other stress-related disorders is still awaiting reliable explanation. Discovery of PTSD associated epi/genetic factors might provide reliable markers for pathogenesis, what could result in getting novel therapeutics and/or objective stratifying patients for research

PSYCHIATRY FOR BETTER WORLD: COVID-19 AND BLAME GAMES PEOPLE PLAY FROM PUBLIC AND GLOBAL MENTAL HEALTH PERSPECTIVE

Blame games tend to follow crisis, be they at local, national or international level related to political, financial or health issues. COVID-19 crisis from the very beginning has been followed by divisive and disruptive psychosocial and political blame games. Active or passive blaming is an inherent feature of human beings in order to shift responsibilities onto others, single out a culprit, find a scapegoat and pinpoint a target. Finger pointing, blame games and scapegoating are associated with creation of binaries that identify agency as good or bad, right or wrong, moral or immoral. The scapegoat is expectedly always bad, wrong and immoral, commonly black evil. The detrimental effects of the COVID-19 blame games are seen in a lack of cohesion and coherence in the anti-COVID-19 solving strategies. Fighting the COVID 19 crisis all countries and nations need to join efforts on defeating it and to shift from a destructive blaming and zero-sum type of thinking to a much more creative, systemic and humanistic type. Effective response to COVID-19 is related to sowing the seeds for humanistic self and empathic civilization, rather than blaming, scapegoating and xenophobia