GB 4-6/2021

This study aims to present a peculiarity of Italy from the 11th century, that of the existence of Italian-Greek monasticism alongside Latin monasticism. This monasticism was born in the southern territories, which at the time were part of the Byzantine Empire. Noting its characteristics from the mode of manifestation and the role played, the conclusion that emerges is that this monasticism is Byzantine in its essence. The contribution of Italian-Greek monasticism to spiritual and economic growth and the integration of southern Italy into the Empire is undeniable. The sanctity of the Italian-Greek monks made Italian-Greek monasticism strongly anchored in South Italian society, even after the Norman conquest. Italian-Greek monasticism could have contributed to the reconciliation of the West with the East after the Great Schism, but the papacy used it to reinforce the ideology of the papal primate instead of healing the wound produced by the religious rupture.

The Byzantin and the Syrian historiography mentions an encounter between the two Great Fathers of the Eastern Church, sometime in the fourth century, an encounter that modern critical historiography deems very unlikely to have happened. Whether the actual encounter happened, or not, its meaning appears overwhelmingly important to the state of the Ecclesiastical conscience of the time, which shadows the factual. The apocryphal narratives provide information of a tacit intention to promote the equality in rank of the two Great Fathers, their spiritual unity, a shared theological vision on doctrine during the post-Nicene period, and, not the least important, the complementarity of their methods; St. Ephrem the Syrian opts for a symbolic-poetic approach, whereas St. Basil the Great for a dogmatic-conceptual method. They both struggled to dismantle the rationalist, neo-Aryan theology, and to ensure the preservation and transmission of the unaltered mystery of faith. In this study, I demonstrate that both Great Fathers opted for the apophatic metaphor Word-Silence to transfer the antinomic pair Hidden-Revealed into discourse. St. Ephrem the Syrian poeticized the ontological abyss of Creator-Creature, and forbids humans to gain access to what has not been revealed. He also finds that the only accepted reaction to Divine Love is angelic doxology. On the other hand, St. Basil the Great develops an entire theology of mystery and of the silence that makes the very core of Revelation, by operating a difference between dogma and kerygma. „The margin of silence” of the sacred Word, a theological metaphor coined by Lossky, means that the mystery and silence of the Revelation elude those outside the Church. At the same time, being inside Tradition, entertaining a permanent communication with the living mystery of faith belongs to those who are already inside. Thus, St. Ephrem the Syrian and St. Basil teach us that theology is not a sterile, intellectual discourse on God but living Word that appears within this burning, vivid silence.

The article addresses the topic of the spiritual use of cemeteries. From the multitude of aspects for which cemeteries are of spiritual use, we have chosen the following: (1) the cemetery – the place of many soul-building miracles; (2) the cemetery – a place of light and comfort; (3) the cemetery – a place to gain humiliation, crying, tears; (4) the cemetery – a place of obtaining the thought of death; (5) the cemetery – a place to learn to die, to move from death to life. It is concluded that a cemetery of hundreds of years, in which they are buried generation after generation, it represents – next to the church – the most precious spiritual treasure of a parish.