Download or read book The Expansion of Orthodox Europe written by Jonathan Shepard and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-05-15 with total page 564 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume aims to clarify the context for the expansion of Western Europe by focusing on what had been the greatest power in early medieval Europe, the Byzantine empire, and on the continuing strengths and expansion of the Orthodox world. Byzantine 'orthodoxy' offered a format for faith, hope and fear in various combinations, involving religious beliefs and an idealised world-order. Its multifaceted nature helps explain Byzantium's success - the resilience of the earthly empire and the appeal of its religious organisation and rites to other societies. The volume reprints a set of key studies, combining classic treatments of Byzantine and Slavic history with far-reaching explorations of the extent of those worlds. Part I focuses on the empire in its heyday: some studies illustrate the sense of manifest destiny bolstering the imperial order until - and even beyond - Constantinople's fall to the fourth crusaders in 1204. The spread of the Byzantines' cult enlarged their trading zone northwards across Rus, while Byzantine-based merchants were more active than is generally realised in the Eastern Mediterranean. Part II includes an overview of the 'fragmentation' following 1204. Studies show how Byzantine rites and ideals of rulership were adopted by Serb and Bulgarian dynasts. Particular attention is paid to Rus: although subjugated by the Mongols, Rus churchmen, monks and leading princes all drew on Byzantine religious texts and imagery. From the later fifteenth century Moscow's rulers began to be portrayed as new guardians of religious correctness, even as the World's End supposedly drew nigh. The Introduction contextualises the studies included here, highlighting the significance (and not just in terms of rivalry) of the Byzantine Orthodox world for developments in Western Europe.

Download or read book The Orthodox Church in Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century written by Christine Chaillot and published by Peter Lang Gmbh, Internationaler Verlag Der Wissenschaften. This book was released on 2011 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is common knowledge that the majority of the population of Eastern Europe belong to the Christian Orthodox tradition. But how many people have an adequate knowledge of the past or even of the present of these Orthodox churches? This book aims to present an introduction to this history written for a general audience, both Christian and non-Christian. After the 1917 revolution in Russia, communism spread to most of the countries of Eastern Europe. By 1953, at the time of Stalin's death, the division between Eastern and Western Europe seemed absolute. However, the advent of perestroika at the end of the 1980s brought about political changes that have enabled the Orthodox Church to develop once again in Eastern Europe. The foundation of the European Union in 1993 has had a broader significance for Orthodox communities, who can now participate in the future development of Europe. Some Orthodox Churches already have their representatives at the European Union in Brussels. These include the patriarchates of Constantinople, Russia and Romania, along with the Church of Greece and the Church of Cyprus. Today, Europe is becoming increasingly religiously diverse, even within Christianity itself. A growing number of Orthodox Christians have come to work and settle in Western Europe. An understanding of the history of the Orthodox communities in Eastern Europe in the twentieth century will contribute, in a spirit of informed dialogue, to the shaping of a new united Europe that is still in the process of expansion. This book is translated from the French version (published 2009).

Download or read book The American YMCA and Russian Culture written by Matthew Lee Miller and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2012-12-14 with total page 301 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The American YMCA and Russian Culture, Matthew Lee Miller explores the impact of the philanthropic activities of the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) on Russians during the late imperial and early Soviet periods. The YMCA, the largest American service organization, initiated its intense engagement with Russians in 1900. During the First World War, the Association organized assistance for prisoners of war, and after the emigration of many Russians to central and western Europe, founded the YMCA Press and supported the St. Sergius Theological Academy in Paris. Miller demonstrates that the YMCA contributed to the preservation, expansion, and enrichment of Eastern Orthodox Christianity. It therefore played a major role in preserving an important part of pre-revolutionary Russian culture in Western Europe during the Soviet period until the repatriation of this culture following the collapse of the USSR. The research is based on the YMCA’s archival records, Moscow and Paris archives, and memoirs of both Russian and American participants. This is the first comprehensive discussion of an extraordinary period of interaction between American and Russian cultures. It also presents a rare example of fruitful interconfessional cooperation by Protestant and Orthodox Christians.

Download or read book Orthodox Christian Renewal Movements in Eastern Europe written by Aleksandra Djurić Milovanović and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-10-11 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the changes underwent by the Orthodox Churches of Eastern and Southeastern Europe as they came into contact with modernity. The movements of religious renewal among Orthodox believers appeared almost simultaneously in different areas of Eastern Europe at the end of the nineteenth and during the first decades of the twentieth century. This volume examines what could be defined as renewal movement in Eastern Orthodox traditions. Some case studies include the God Worshippers in Serbia, religious fraternities in Bulgaria, the Zoe movement in Greece, the evangelical movement among Romanian Orthodox believers known as Oastea Domnului (The Lord’s Army), the Doukhobors in Russia, and the Maliovantsy in Ukraine. This volume provides a new understanding of processes of change in the spiritual landscape of Orthodox Christianity and various influences such as other non-Orthodox traditions, charismatic leaders, new religious practices and rituals.

Download or read book The North Eastern Frontiers of Medieval Europe written by Alan V. Murray and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-05-15 with total page 516 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By the mid-twelfth century the lands on the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea, from Finland to the frontiers of Poland, were Catholic Europe’s final frontier: a vast, undeveloped expanse of lowlands, forest and waters, inhabited by peoples belonging to the Finnic and Baltic language groups. In the course of the following three centuries, Finland, Estonia, Livonia and Prussia were incorporated into the Latin world through processes of conquest, Christianisation and settlement, and brought under the rule of Western monarchies and ecclesiastical institutions. Lithuania was left as the last pagan polity in Europe, yet able to accept Christianity on its own terms in 1386. The Western conquest of the Baltic lands advanced the frontier of Latin Christendom to that of the Russian Orthodox world, and had profound and long lasting effects on the institutions, society and culture of the region lasting into modern times. This volume presents 21 key studies (2 of them translated from German for the first time) on this crucial period in the development of North-Eastern Europe, dealing with crusade and conversion, the establishment of Western rule, settlement and society, and the development of towns, trade and the economy. It includes a classified bibliography of the main works published in Western languages since World War II together with an introduction by the editor.

Download or read book Why Angels Fall written by Victoria Clark and published by Pan Macmillan. This book was released on 2011-11-21 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Compelling, powerful, magnificent' THE TIMES In revealing encounters with monks, nuns, bishops and archbishops, in monasteries ancient and modern Victoria Clark measures the depth and width of the gulf now separating Europe's Orthodox East from the Catholic and Protestant West. Many of the differences in outlook, priorities and even values can be traced back to the 1054 schism between the churches of Rome and Constantinople which created Europe's most durable fault-line. Travelling from Mount Athos to Istanbul and unravelling the tangled history, Victoria Clark demonstrates a rare sympathy with Eastern Orthodox Europe. 'I finished the book wanting to meet this intelligent, warm-hearted writer, and to follow her to some of the places she visited' LITERARY REVIEW 'A masterful synthesis of vivid and often humorous travel writing, a series of probing interviews and a pertinent historical context' THE TIMES 'Exhilarating . . . her book will be immensely helpful to anyone occasionally puzzled by events, especially politics, in Eastern Europe' FINANCIAL TIMES

Download or read book The Spiritual Expansion of Medieval Latin Christendom The Asian Missions written by James D. Ryan and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-03-02 with total page 414 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries religious zeal nourished by the mendicants’ sense of purpose motivated Dominican and Franciscan friars to venture far beyond Europe’s cultural frontiers to spread their Christian faith into the farthest reaches of Asia. Their incredible journeys were reminiscent of heroic missionary ventures in earlier eras and far more exotic than evangelization during the tenth through twelfth centuries, when the western church Christianized Eastern Europe and Scandinavia. This new mission effort was stimulated by a variety of factors and facilitated by the establishment of the Mongol Empire, and, as the fourteenth century dawned, missionaries entertained fervent but vain hopes of success within khanates in China, Central Asia, Persia and Kipchak. The reports these missionaries sent back to Europe have fascinated successive generations of historians who analyzed their travels and struggled to understand their motives and aspirations. The essays selected for this volume, drawn from a range of twentieth-century historians and contextualized in the introduction, provide a comprehensive overview of missionary efforts in Asia, and of the developments in the secular world that both made them possible and encouraged the missionaries’ hopes for success. Three of the studies have been translated from French specially for publication in this volume.

Download or read book Why Angels Fall written by Victoria Clark and published by Macmillan Pub Limited. This book was released on 2000 with total page 460 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A journalist tours the history, battlefields, and modern socio-political complexities of Orthodox Europe, in a study of the Orthodox faith from the late Byzantine era to the present day.

Download or read book The Expansion of Europe 1642 1789 written by Wilbur Abbott and published by Jovian Press. This book was released on 2017-12-20 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: WHEN in the last months of 1648 was signed the great peace which brought to an end the Thirty Years' War and with it the mediaeval polity which it finally destroyed; as the army of diplomats whose work it was dispersed to their respective governments, the awe-inspiring mass of documents which formed the fruit of their long labors might have led men to believe that Europe would hasten to enjoy the peace which she so needed and which her people for the most part so greatly desired. But whatever hopes of quiet were entertained, were already far on the way to disappointment; for the Europe to which the diplomats returned was even then altered or altering before their eyes and already shaping itself for new conflict. Scarcely a state of any consequence prepared to recruit its resources by the arts of peace; scarcely a royal house but faced a crisis in its fortunes; scarcely a people but was stirring in unrest or already engaged in revolution. So far from ushering in a period of peaceful progress the Westphalian treaties became the starting point for new and bloody rivalries...

Download or read book The Great Schism written by and published by . This book was released on 2020-05-15 with total page 110 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *Includes pictures *Includes excerpts of contemporary medieval sources *Includes a bibliography for further reading For nearly a thousand years following its foundation, there was only one Christian Church. Centered in the city of Rome, the Church expanded and grew until it became the dominant religion in Europe and beyond. The early growth of the Church had been suppressed by the Romans until the Emperor Constantine became the first to convert the empire to Christianity, and from that point forward, the growth of the Church Was inextricably linked with the Roman Empire, the most powerful military, economic, and political force in the ancient world. For almost 600 years, from the defeat of Carthage in the Second Punic War in 201 BCE to around 395 CE, Rome was one of the most important cities in the world, but things were beginning to change around the time Constantine converted the empire. Rome controlled large areas of the world, but by the 4th century the emphasis had shifted from military conquest to the control of lucrative trade routes. The problem was that the city of Rome, isolated in the southern half of the Italian peninsula, was far from these routes, and this compelled Constantine to establish a major Roman city on the site of ancient Byzantium. The new city, Constantinople, was located on a strategic site controlling the narrow straits between the Black Sea and the Aegean, meaning it was firmly astride some of the most important trade routes in the ancient world between Europe and Asia and between the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. Constantinople became the second most important city of the Roman Empire, thriving in parallel with Rome, but then the empire split into Eastern and Western provinces, with Constantinople the capital of the east and Rome the capital of the west. Control of trade routes made Constantinople increase in power and influence while Rome became less important. However, not all power and influence shifted east, because one important institution remained firmly linked with the city of Rome: the Bishops of the Church. Under the rule of previous emperors, Christian Bishops had not only been formally recognized, but had been given power within the Roman state. The most important of all was "I Sommi Pontefici Romani" the supreme pontiff of Rome. The earliest holders of this title were martyrs and saints of the Church, but by the time of the rise of Constantinople, this role was elected by the other Bishops of the Church. This role would later become known as the Pope (from the Greek word "pappas" meaning "father"), but even before that title was adopted, the Supreme Pontiff in Rome was widely recognized as the leader of the Church. In historical terms, these early leaders of the Church are often referred to as "popes" even though that title was not formally adopted until after the division the Church. Rome's preeminence was not a situation that was welcomed in Constantinople, now the center of the Byzantine Empire and a thriving and wealthy metropolis. After being sacked by outsiders, Rome had become a virtual ghost town, partially ruined and inhabited by a small number of hardy survivors, yet in center of the crumbling city was the Vatican Borgo, the Palace of the Supreme Pontiff and the heart of the Church. In retrospect, it is easy to see that this was a situation that was bound to lead to conflict and disagreement, with the Greek-speaking Eastern Orthodox Church centered in Constantinople and being governed by Latin-speaking popes in a faraway city. Moreover, there had already been theological disputes as far back as Constantine's time, which had led to the famous Council of Nicaea in the 4th century CE. This book chronicles the events that led to the schism, the key figures that played a hand in the confusion, and how the contentious issues were finally resolved.

Download or read book Orthodox Religion and Politics in Contemporary Eastern Europe written by Tobias Koellner and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-12-07 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the relationship between Orthodox religion and politics in Eastern Europe, Russia and Georgia. It demonstrates how as these societies undergo substantial transformation Orthodox religion can be both a limiting and an enabling factor, how the relationship between religion and politics is complex, and how the spheres of religion and politics complement, reinforce, influence, and sometimes contradict each other. Considering a range of thematic issues, with examples from a wide range of countries with significant Orthodox religious groups, and setting the present situation in its full historical context the book provides a rich picture of a subject which has been too often oversimplified.

Download or read book Reimagining Europe written by Christian Raffensperger and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2012-03-12 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Main description: An overriding assumption has long directed scholarship in both European and Slavic history: that Kievan Rus' in the tenth through twelfth centuries was part of a Byzantine commonwealth separate from Europe. Christian Raffensperger refutes this conception and offers a new frame for two hundred years of history, one in which Rus' is understood as part of medieval Europe and East is not so neatly divided from West. With the aid of Latin sources, the author brings to light the considerable political, religious, marital, and economic ties among European kingdoms, including Rus', restoring a historical record rendered blank by Rusianmonastic chroniclers as well as modern scholars ideologically motivated to build barriers between East and West. Further, Raffensperger revises the concept of a Byzantine Commonwealth that stood in opposition to Europe-and under which Rus' was subsumed-toward that of a Byzantine Ideal esteemed and emulated by all the states of Europe. In this new context, appropriation of Byzantine customs, law, coinage, art, and architecture in both Rus' and Europe can be understood as an attempt to gain legitimacy and prestige by association with the surviving remnant of the Roman Empire. Reimagining Europe initiates an expansion of history that is sure to challenge ideas of Russian exceptionalism and influence the course of European medieval studies.

Download or read book Introduction la litt rature berb re 1 La po sie written by Jonathan Sutton and published by Peeters Publishers. This book was released on 2003 with total page 582 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume contains selected papers presented at a conference on Orthodox Christianity and its contemporary European setting. The conference was held in England, at the University of Leeds, in June 2001 and drew together historians, theologians, philosophers, specialists in theological education and political scientists. Countries with an Orthodox Christian history were well represented, as well as Orthodoxy in the diaspora and other Christian confessions by representatives from Western Europe and the United States and Canada. The coherence of Orthodox Christianity and contemporary threats to its coherence formed one main strand for reflection, but discussion also broadened out to consider the nature of religious tradition as such. Part I of the collection brings together papers on such matters as identity, nationalism, globalization, human rights discourse, ecumenical dialogue and competing interpretations of what it means to be European. Part II focuses on Orthodox Christianity in Russia and Part III on the traditionally Orthodox countries of Armenia, Bulgaria, Greece, Romania, Serbia and Ukraine. The present collection is meant as a contribution to further reflection on Orthodox identity, and relationship between Christianity and culture in Europe at the beginning of the twenty-first century.

Download or read book The North Atlantic Frontier of Medieval Europe written by James Muldoon and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-05-15 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Discussion of medieval European expansion tends to focus on expansion eastward and the crusades. The selection of studies reprinted here, however, focuses on the other end of Eurasia, where dwelled the warlike Celts, and beyond whom lay the north seas and the awesome Atlantic Ocean, formidable obstacles to expansion westward. This volume looks first at the legacy of the Viking expansion which had briefly created a network stretching across the sea from Britain and Ireland to North America, and had demonstrated that the Atlantic could be crossed and land reached. The next sections deal with the English expansion in the western and northern British Isles. In the 12th century the Normans began the process of subjugating the Celts, thus inaugurating for the English an experience which was to prove crucial when colonizing the Americas in the 17th century. Medieval Ireland in particular served as a laboratory for the development of imperial institutions, attitudes, and ideologies that shaped the creation of the British Empire and served as a staging area for further expansion westward.

Download or read book Medieval Ethnographies written by Joan-Pau Rubies and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-05-15 with total page 453 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the twelfth century, a growing sense of cultural confidence in the Latin West (at the same time that the central lands of Islam suffered from numerous waves of conquest and devastation) was accompanied by the increasing importance of the genre of empirical ethnographies. From a a global perspective what is most distinctive of Europe is the genre's long-term impact rather than its mere empirical potential, or its ethnocentrism (all of which can also be found in China and in Islamic cultures). Hence what needs emphasizing is the multiplication of original writings over time, their increased circulation, and their authoritative status as a 'scientific' discourse. The empirical bent was more characteristic of travel accounts than of theological disputations - in fact, the less elaborate the theological discourse, the stronger the ethnographic impulse (although many travel writers were clerics). This anthology of classic articles in the history of medieval ethnographies illustrates this theme with reference to the contexts and genres of travel writing, the transformation of enduring myths (ranging from oriental marvels to the virtuous ascetics of India or Prester John), the practical expression of particular encounters from the Mongols to the Atlantic, and the various attempts to explain cultural differences, either through the concept of barbarism, or through geography and climate.

Download or read book Byzantine Christianity written by Derek Krueger and published by Fortress Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This third volume in the pioneering A People's History of Christianity series focuses on the religious lives of ordinary people and introduces the religion of the Byzantine Christian laity by asking the questions: What did ordinary Christians do in church, in their homes and their workshops? How were icons used? How did the people celebrate, marry, and mourn? Where did they go on pilgrimage?

Download or read book The Rise of Western Christendom written by Peter Brown and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2012-12-18 with total page 741 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This tenth anniversary revised edition of the authoritative text on Christianity's first thousand years of history features a new preface, additional color images, and an updated bibliography. The essential general survey of medieval European Christendom, Brown's vivid prose charts the compelling and tumultuous rise of an institution that came to wield enormous religious and secular power. Clear and vivid history of Christianity's rise and its pivotal role in the making of Europe Written by the celebrated Princeton scholar who originated of the field of study known as 'late antiquity' Includes a fully updated bibliography and index