GB 7-9/2021

„Pravila cea Mare” or „Îndreptarea Legii” (1652) is a book that contains both church law (canonical) regulations, as well as civil law rules, for instructive and educational-moral purposes. Our study aims to emphasize only those canonical norms and guidelines which refer strictly to the administration of the Holy Sacraments and other offices, to the Holy Liturgy, as well as to the place of worship and the symbolic mystical significance of liturgical objects used in the service. The instructions and dispositions concerning worship and the notions of liturgical practice set forth in „Îndreptarea Legii” are founded on the canon laws of the Orthodox Church and on the commentaries and nomocanonical works of the most authoritative interpreters of civil and church law, so that we can argue with certainty that the prescriptions and the liturgical guidelines recorded in this book are normative for the clergy.

The contemporary Euchologion contains only one prayer for them that offer firstfruits, namely “O, Master, Lord our God, Who commandest everyone to bring as an offering Thine own of Thine own…”. Surprisingly, this prayer does not contain an explicit thanksgiving addressed to God for the firstfruits of the earth. However, this was not the case regarding the oldest prayer for the firstfruits, mentioned in the Apostolic Tradition (3rd c.). The purpose of this paper is to uncover the initial ethos of the ritual of presenting the firstfruits to God and to present the evolution of this rite, starting from the ancient church orders of the early Christian centuries until the latter testimonies of the medieval Euchologia.

From a theological perspective, time has soteriological value, because every moment of time carries in it the possibility of eternity. Time represents the consummation of being through the acquisition of eternity. And eternity is acquired through life in Christ, renewed by the grace of the Holy Spirit through the mystery of the Church in the world.

The ancient period when Aristotle wrote his work, Nicomachean Ethics, exposes different philosophical-ethical visions, having as common point the status of the human individual in society, the harmony of the individual’s social life, lived in a virtuous way, through profound ethical implications. The proximity of the historical period of time between the functioning of Plato’s Academy, Aristotle’s Lykeion and the University of Costantinople (Πανδιδακτήριον τῆς Μαγναύρας) makes the ethical-moral debates between Ariatotelian ethics and Christian morality fully justified. The values of cosmopolitanism and individualism appear as philosophical-social paradigms through their cultural content, but make explicit the conception of philosophy as a way of life, and not just as a theorizing. Or not only theology but also economy of salvation, in the Christian sense. Just as the Stoic philosopher Zeno of Kition educated his disciples about boldness in the face of life’s trials, so the Holy Fathers urged their disciples not only to boldness, but especially to live an authentic life at the cost of martyrdom sacrifice, in the service of the virtue of God’s love and of His creation. Both Nicomachean ethics and Christian morality refer to the happiness of the human being, in addition to Christian morality is added the virtue of spiritual love, boundless and projected to eternity, following the model of divinity.

Knowledge plays an essential role in the theology thinking of Saint Maximus the Confessor. In this study we analysed in an analytical-critical manner how Saint Maximus presents knowledge of the world as a step in the process of deification that aims at knowing God through love. As shown in this study, the three stages of the progress of deification are complementary and support each other in the process of knowing God. We need to be aware and present in the realities of the world, and at the same time, to detach and surpass the reality towards the mystical union with God through direct knowledge

The great Austrian novelist and philosopher Stefan Zweig wrote The Right to Heresy: Castellio against Calvin [Castellio gegen Calvin] as a manifest against all the compulsions of violence, outlining a paradigm of the horrors committed by Adolf Hitler. In fact, Castellio against Calvin addresses, among a multitude of other topics, the theme of the man who believes himself to be the holder of the absolute truth and who, when not listened to, becomes extremely dangerous to society, choosing the path of physical violence to impose his ideas. In the case of this monograph, the main character is the famous Protestant theologian, John Calvin, whose religious paradigm has had its own share of tragic consequences – certainly on another level, but psychologically, falling into the same category – comparable to the Nazi excesses imposed on society. This monograph highlights Jean Calvin’s attitude in relation to other sixteenth-century theologians and to the inhabitants of Geneva, the city where he carried out most of his work and where, from the cathedral’s pulpit, he advanced his theological ideas. However, the main idea that pervades the whole monograph – a veritable red thread that connects the various threads of the text – regards the intolerance that Calvin exhibited towards the theologians of the time who tried to have other ideas than those promoted by him. Earthly suffering is the way God shows us that He loves us even if it might seem paradoxical. This is because through this suffering – which we just have to embrace – God forgives our great and many sins. That is why I would dare to say that there are two kinds of pain in this world: pain that hurts and pain that changes…

The issue of reception into the Orthodox Church of the Roman Catholics since the 11th century was marked, over time, by a controversy regarding the manner of reception and, respectively, the principles of implementation of the Canon Law in this context: (1) by (re)baptizing (the principle of akribeia) or (2) by chrismation and libellus of faith, or only by libellus (the principle of economy). Customary for 11th-12th centuries, recorded on a individual level, was the (re)baptism of the Latins, on the main basis of their deviation from the Apostolic manner of performing this Mystery. Considering that in West, at that time, three types of Baptism co-existed (by triple immersion, by single immersion and by affusion / aspersion), the economical custom of chrismating the Latins baptized by triple immersion appears by the end of 14th century. The Synod of Constantinople in 1484 records at a conciliar level, for the first time, an (economical) manner of reception of the Latins, by chrismation and libellus of faith, without issuing any reference to the validity or invalidity of the Latin baptism. Another Synod of Constantinople, summoned in 1755 because of the Western proselytism, decides a return to the principle of akribeia in receiving of the Roman Catholics, by (re)baptism, considering the breaking of the Western type of Baptism with the Apostolic practice (after the sanction of aspersion by the Council of Trent in 1545-1563). Although the synodal decree of 1755 continued to be normative in 18th-19th centuries, it didn’t mean a pan-Orthodox consensus was acquired: in Russia, a statement of the Synod of Moscow in 1620 demanding the (re)baptism of the Roman and Greek Catholics was reversed at the Synod of Moscow in 1667, which decreed the use of economy, a decision remaining in force until nowadays; in Middle East, the Antiochian Throne practiced, since the end of 19th century, the chrismation of the Roman Catholics and Melchites. The lack of consensus in this matter was acknowledged in a Patriarchal and Synodical Encyclical issued in 1875, whereby the manner of reception of Roman Catholics is left to the judgement of the local Bishop. While a pan-Orthodox agreement wasn’t yet reached in this regard, we may consider that the above-mentioned Encyclical already presents the solution: it is not uniformity, but the freedom which characterizes the Orthodox position, determined by the pastoral and missionary necessities of each historical period. The two principles of akribeia and oikonomia, which lay behind the different manners of receiving Heterodox converts, are asymmetric to each other, without jeopardizing the canonical integrity of the Orthodox Church, based on the ancient tradition of the Apostles and the Fathers.