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This article reconsiders the role of land in the YHWH-Israel relationship in Hos 4–11, a text which reworks positive notions of land—gift, inheritance, homeland—as the land becomes associated with Israel’s iniquitous actions and distorted values. To achieve this, the study explores how land is represented as a sacred space in the text and how sacred space is subject to the actions, ideas and perceptions of the people who inhabit the land. The study employs a synchronic, social-scientific approach and conducts a thematic analysis of the text, focusing on the interconnections of sacred space’s moderators—holiness, cultural memory and covenantal exchange—and their place in the land’s deconstruction and reconstruction. Considering these relational modes, the study shows that the representation of the land is reflected in the text’s movements from deconstruction to reconstruction, which suggests that the state of the YHWH-Israel relationship is interlaced with the physical landscape.

Copyright of Philological Studies & Research: Applied Foreign Languages Series / Studii si Cercetari Filologice: Seria Llimbi Straine Aplicate is the property of Universitatea din Pitesti, Department of Applied Foreign Languages and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The paintings of artist, Mark Rothko (1903–1970), are considered in their religious dimension. The essay pursues the significance of Rothko’s words and works by moving from biographies and Rothko’s own writings to sites Rothko purportedly loved (e.g., Fra Angelico’s paintings at San Marco in Florence, Santa Maria Assunta on Torcello in Venice, Matisse’s Red Studio at the Museum of Modern Art). Moreover, the essay seeks to illuminate insight into the meaning of Rothko’s luminous panels (considering the artist’s claim to “paint reality”), and the reasoning behind his idiosyncratic instructions for installing his works low to the ground and in groups. The context of the Rothko Chapel (Houston, Texas) is also considered. Rothko’s Jewish heritage and education recall the “luminous cloud” of the Hebrew Bible, while his love for San Marco and Torcello evoke the all-encompassing beauty of Orthodox sacred spaces. Perhaps in these images Rothko saw glimpses of the reality he sought to paint and discovered a way to display his work and communicate its reality most effectively.

Although the role of light in the creation of sacred spaces is well known, the hierotopy of darkness has never been, to our knowledge, a subject of a dedicated study. In this work, darkness is thematized as a constitutive element of sacred spaces. I argue that there is more to darkness than merely the absence of light. A dark ambience engenders its own spirituality characterized by serenity, quiet peace and focusing on one’s inner life. Moreover, darkness is imbued with its own sacred meanings intimately intertwined with the dramaturgy and meanings of light. As an example, we take Roman catacombs, a site of funerary rituals and a spatial icon of the underworld through which the Christian paradise was shining, with sporadically embedded small gold-glass tondo icons as points of connection between earth and heaven.

Copyright of Journal of College of Languages is the property of Republic of Iraq Ministry of Higher Education & Scientific Research (MOHESR) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Roman gold-glass roundels were excised from the bottoms of functional glass vessels and inserted in the mortar, sealing funerary niches in the catacombs. Images were executed in gold leaf laminated between two layers of glass. It is still not clear whether the original vessels were meant just for funerary use, or whether they were given as valuable gifts on important occasions, such as baptisms. The paper begins with the discussion of these two possibilities; it concludes that the ‘gift theory’ better fits the known facts. The purpose and functions of the gold glass vessels are further explored in the paper within the framework of the hierotopic approach, thus shifting the focus of analysis from individual artefacts to sacred spaces in their entirety. The Christianization of the Roman household is thus viewed as the creation of a domestic sacred space, particularly through its saturation with Christian symbolism and proto-iconic imagery. These developments were tightly connected with the re-interpretation of the traditional Roman lifestyle in terms and categories of the new faith, and with the emergence of new Christian ideals of marriage and the family home. Portraits of married couples, well represented in gold glasses, asserted a new Christian understanding of marriage as an eternal union sealed by God in heaven. Another important kind of sacred space was that of the catacombs themselves where the Christian paradise shone through the eternal gloom of the underworld, with gold-glass proto-icons shimmering in the darkness to mark the points of connection between heaven and earth. The sacred space of the catacombs saw the transition from the cult of the dead to the veneration of saints. When a tomb was sealed with a gold-glass roundel with a saint’s sketchy likeness, their presence was thus evoked while the soul of the deceased was committed to their care. The increasing popularity of the proto-icons of martyrs in gold glasses alongside a phasing out of family portraits indicated the advent of the cult of saints, marking as well an important step in the evolution of portraits into icons. Статья посвящена известному, но всё ещё малоизученному жанру христианского изобразительного искусства, расцвет которого приходится на вторую половину IV века. Изображения выцарапывались на золотой фольге и вплавлялись в днище стеклянных сосудов. Большинство золотых стёкол найдено в римских катакомбах в виде выломанных из сосудов «донцев», так что судить о назначении и форме сосудов можно лишь гипотетически. Статья начинается с сопоставления двух представленных в литературе теорий по данному вопросу: погребальной и подарочной. Согласно погребальной теории, сами донца и были конечным продуктом, предназначенным для закрепления на могиле как своего рода визуальные эпитафии. Согласно подарочной теории, сосуды заказывались в качестве ценных подарков по случаю важных событий, например, крещения. По совокупности известных фактов подарочная теория представляется в целом более обоснованной. Вопрос о возможных функциях сосудов с золотыми донцами обсуждается далее в рамках иеротопического подхода, согласно которому процесс христианизации следует рассматривать как создание христианских сакральных пространств, в первую очередь семейного дома. Сакрализация дома путём его насыщения христианской символикой и протоиконическими изображениями находилась в тесной связи с переосмыслением традиционного семейного уклада в терминах новой веры и становлением христианского идеала семейной жизни. Семейные портреты, представленные на золотых стёклах, утверждают христианское понимание брака как нерасторжимого союза, заключённого на небесах. Другим важным сакральным пространством были сами катакомбы, в которых образ христианского рая «просвечивал» сквозь вечный мрак подземного царства мёртвых. В сакральном пространстве катакомб произошёл переход от культа мёртвых к культу святых. При запечатывании могилы золотым донцем с ликом мученика душа покойного поручалась заботам святого. Вытеснение семейных портретов в золотых стёклах ликами мучеников было не только этапом формирования культа святых, но и важным шагом на пути эволюции портретов в иконы.

Copyright of Civilisations is the property of Institut de Sociologie - ULB and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This study’s point of departure is a question: given that the Old Testament God so categorically prohibits all images, why is His Word, i.e., the Bible, so full of visions and visual imagery? In this paper, the issue is discussed in terms of a distinction between the visual, broadly understood, and the pictorial, relating in a narrow sense to graphic artefacts. I argue that mental images are distinct from and, in a sense, superior to pictures. The latter are contrasted with an ‘enhanced’ visual imagery that includes sensory and motor images as well. Holistic units of these ‘enhanced’ visual memories are termed as ‘image-experiences’. The first and most important quality of the ‘enhanced vision’ is its spatial character, which can even predetermine the emotional key of the response. This is particularly the case with ‘limitless’ natural spaces, such as the sea, the skies, or mountainous landscapes. The complex structure of the natural sublime and its affinity with divine imagery is discussed using the concrete example of the modern European aesthetics of mountains in its historical evolution. Then the paper turns to the hierotopic approach, according to which the spatial experience of religious imagery emerges from organized ensembles of sacred objects and symbolic pointers, conceptualised as spatial icons. Another important quality of the enhanced visual is in its organic link with movement and action. Image-experiences are lived through rather than passively watched. Calvinist visual theology provides a remarkable example of an iconoclast ideology, which explicitly supports the ‘enhanced visual’ and shows a way to develop it into a form of understanding and transforming the world. The motional/actional aspects of the ‘enhanced’ visual are further discussed in terms of a hierarchical model of motion control proposed by Nikolai Bernstein in which two kinds of spaces are defined: first, space as a geometric medium of locomotion defined by delimiting surfaces and dynamic constraints; secondly, spaces of purposeful tool-mediated activity as collections of meaningful objects. Our human talent for identifying things by unclear or incomplete features is instrumental to our ability to recognize objects in drawings and photographs. The Bernsteinian system helps to explain why the perception of 2D images is dominated by object-oriented parsing. Hence, there is a danger that the response to pictures be reduced to subject-object interaction in which many important holistic qualities of the enhanced visual would be lost. Hierotopic creativity – the construction of sacred spaces – can be seen as a strategy to mitigate these dangers by integrating image-pictures into higher-level spatial constructs of enhanced visuality.

Mt Yulong is central to Naxi people of Southwest China. Through participatory mapping, free listing, and extended semi-structured interviews, we explored relations of Naxi cosmologies of sacred space with “biodiversity conservation”. For this commonly espoused partnership, we found encouragement, skepticism and challenges. Naxi perspectives on sacred space and conservation ranged in scale from hyper-local, through regional, to historical and cosmological. Some participants worried about conjoining religion with government conservation initiatives. Others argued conceptually that “conservation” prioritizes people while traditional Naxi cosmology stresses equality and brotherhood between people and nature. Challenges for conservation would be to integrate this cosmological view as well as origin myths, Naxi traditions of suicide, and Sanduo, the god of Mt Yulong, who “shines like lightning [and his] mouth spits fire” – not a deity to be engaged without care. Naxi stressed primacy of culture and cosmology. These cosmological issues raised in a local context are of far greater magnitude than one culture and one mountain and may suggest paths to effective conservation of sacred natural spaces around the world.

My previous research has shown that Orthodox monasteries, as compared to the Catholic Mounts of Piety, were functioning in the logic of medieval banks. For instance, they served as places of deposit through donations of real estate; the surplus of annual revenues was in turn channelled, on the one hand, for the liturgical commemoration of the donor and, on the other hand, for the assistance to the poor. Donors were thus investing in their salvation while contributing to the common good of the Christian community as well. The "Romanian" monasteries dedicated as metochia to the Eastern Patriarchates fell within the same pattern, except for particularities which stemmed from the specific profile of the donors. Most often they and their descendants were Christian subjects of the Ottoman Empire residing in the Romanian lands or they were ruling princes appointed by the Porte and attached to power networks in Constantinople and Rumelia. Consequently, sacred investing went towards the great monasteries located in the places of origin of the donors, that is, under the jurisdiction of the "Greek" Patriarchates. The double goal of donors was first to secure themselves prayers of commemoration in their place of origin, in prestigious and lasting places of worship, and then to protect the "invested" patrimony from the vicissitudes of time. Furthermore, tacitly donations assisted their poor compatriots and maintained the common weal of their native community, which was the Church itself. I have sustained this argument by comparing the practice of the dedication of "Romanian" metochia to the Holy Places of Orthodoxy to the communal evergetism displayed by the members of the Greek community in Venice via the deposit of large sums of money in Venetian banks. Based on this comparison, it appears that the economic activities of the "Greek" monasteries, which administered the metochia acquired north of the Danube, consisted in putting to work the real estate of the metochia through farming, trade, rental, or pawn brokering, just as money produced profit in Venetian banks. All these peculiarities, which characterized the Wallachian and Moldavian churches dedicated to the Greek Patriarchates, i.e., being founded and subsidized by migrants, accommodating travellers, or practicing trade, explain the concentration of the metochia in and near the urban centres of Wallachia and Moldavia, more precisely in proximity to markets and to migrant communities. The present study examines closely this ingenious system put in place by the Greek monks, consisting, on the one hand, of channelling the income from the lands scattered throughout Wallachia and Moldavia to the metochia situated in the towns, which in turn devoted themselves to reinvesting the gains in urban real estate, commercial, and financial affairs and, on the other hand, to attract donations from wealthy migrants and from their descendants concentrated in urban centres. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This publication continues a series of articles devoted to the study of the traditional Russian city as a religious visual semiotic system. The article shows the list of Russian overgate churches built in the period from the 11th to the 21st century. This catalog allows assessing the intensity of the construction of such temples in different historical periods. The maximum number of built overgate churches belongs to the 17th century, and the highest rate of their construction – to the 21st century. The article also presents information about the dedication of Russian overgate churches, taking into account the fact that the dedication of the same churches could change. Most of the churches are grouped by category of dedication: prophets, apostles, saints, holidays, and icons. In addition, information about the time of the construction of such churches in Veliky Novgorod and about the territories culturally gravitating towards it is presented as an example of the local history of overgate churches. Here the churches are divided into two categories: urban and monastic. In conclusion, there is a brief analysis of the overgate church as an element of urban space. With this the author uses the ideas of Aldo Rossi about the semiotic role of an architectural structure as a sign of a historical event, about the relationship between architectural composition and cultural style, about the meaning of the syntactic position of a building in an urban text, about the visual semiotics of a city as overcoming of own boundaries of architecture. In this context, both overgate church and sacred composition in which it is included turn out not only to be material objects, religious architectural structures, works of art of a certain era, objects of aesthetic attitude, but also semiotic constructs, signs and texts, visual messages and testimonies, as well as forms of visual confession of the deepest worldview beliefs. Публикация продолжает серию статей, посвящённых исследованию традиционного русского города как религиозной визуально-семиотической системы. Здесь я публикую перечень русских надвратных храмов, построенных в период с XI по XXI век. Этот каталог позволяет оценить интенсивность строительства таких храмов в разные исторические периоды. Максимальное число построенных надвратных церквей приходится на XVII век, а наибольшая скорость их постройки – на XXI. Также приведены сведения о посвящениях русских надвратных храмов с учётом того, что посвящение одного и того же храма могло меняться. Большая часть храмов сгруппирована по категориям посвящений: пророкам, апостолам, святым, праздникам и иконам. Кроме того, в качестве примера локальной истории надвратных храмов представлена информация о времени постройки таких храмов в Великом Новгороде и на территориях, культурно тяготеющих к нему. Здесь храмы разделены на две категории: городские и монастырские. В заключение представлен краткий анализ надвратного храма как элемента городского пространства. При этом использованы идеи Альдо Росси о семиотической роли архитектурного сооружения как знака исторического события, о взаимной связи архитектурной композиции и культурного стиля, о значении синтаксической позиции здания в городском тексте, о визуальной семиотике города как преодолении архитектурой собственных границ. В таком контексте и надвратный храм, и вся та сакральная композиция, в которую он включён, оказываются не только материальными объектами, религиозными архитектурными сооружениями, произведениями искусства определённой эпохи, предметами эстетического отношения, но и семиотическими конструктами, знаками и текстами, визуальными сообщениями и свидетельствами, формами наглядного исповедания глубочайших мировоззренческих убеждений.

In this article I continue to study the principles and methods of forming the space of a traditional Russian city as a visual text. Such a text has predominantly sacred content: it expresses religious attitudes, purposes and values, as well as conveys sacred patterns and demonstrates eschatological images. The syntax of urban visual text is determined by key architectural dominants that carry the basic semantic load. Such dominants in a traditional Christian city are the cathedral and the front gate, combined into one spatial syntagma. The “cathedral–gate” complex is a direct allusion to the sacred topic of Jerusalem. The creation of such an ensemble is a widespread Russian way to implement a cultural-semiotic transfer, that is, to reproduce the Jerusalem spatial “program”. At the same time, the specifics of the Russian version of the “New Jerusalems” is in the special design of the gate, which combines a travel tower and an overgate church. In the article I critically analyze the thesis that Russian overgate churches come from the Byzantine samples. I show that the overgate church is originally Russian architectural invention, and the creation and wide distribution of this building is explained by the solution of the semiotic problem – the aspiration to create a “spatial icon” of Jerusalem as the center of the Holy Land. I also suggest a typology of overgate churches. The purpose of this typology is to clarify the scope and content of the overgate church concept, to identify and characterize the varieties of this architectural structure, and also to indicate those variations of the “church–gate” composition, that are not possible to be attributed to the category of overgate churches in the exact sense. In the article I suggest five types of overgate churches and define architectural structures belonging to these types. This study clarifies thesis about the crucial role of Russian overgate churches in creating sacred space (hierotopy) of the Eastern Christian cities. В статье продолжено исследование принципов и способов формирования пространства традиционного русского города как визуального текста. Такой текст имеет по преимуществу сакральное содержание. В нём выражаются религиозные установки, ориентиры и ценности, а также транслируются священные образцы и демонстрируются эсхатологические образы. Синтаксис городского визуального текста определяется ключевыми архитектурными доминантами, несущими на себе основную смысловую нагрузку. Такие доминанты в традиционном христианском городе – это собор и парадные ворота, объединённые в одну пространственную синтагму. Комплекс «собор–ворота» является прямой аллюзией на сакральную топику Иерусалима. Создание такого ансамбля является распространённым на Руси способом осуществления культурно-семиотического трансфера, то есть воспроизведения иерусалимской пространственной «программы». При этом специфика русской версии «новых Иерусалимов» заключается в особой конструкции ворот, соединяющих в себе проездную башню и надвратный храм. В статье критически анализируется тезис о происхождении русского надвратного храма от византийских образцов. Показано, что надвратный храм является чисто русским архитектурным «изобретением», а происхождение и широкое распространение этой конструкции объясняется решением семиотической задачи – стремлением создать «пространственную икону» Иерусалима как центра Святой Земли. В статье также предложена типология надвратных храмов. Цель такой типологии – уточнить объём и содержание понятия «надвратный храм», выделить и характеризовать разновидности этого сооружения, а также указать на те варианты композиции «храм–ворота», которые мы не можем отнести к категории надвратных храмов в точном смысле. Предложены пять типов надвратного храма и определены архитектурные сооружения, относящиеся к этим типам. Исследование призвано уточнить тезис о важнейшей роли русского надвратного храма в создании сакрального пространства (иеротопии) восточнохристианского города.

This paper outlines the genesis of hierotopy, a notion serving to conceptualize the creation of sacred spaces as a particular form of human art. The concept encompasses the entirety of the multifarious components employed in Byzantine sacred spaces and analyzes the ways in which their cooperative interaction results in the formation of a 'spa-tial icon', or a kind of sacred ambiance. The very notion of a 'spatial icon' draws upon the central place of icons and iconicity in the Eastern Christian worldview. In Byzantium, icons were seen as windows opening out onto an otherworldly reality, or, rather, as doors opening up a two-way communication; in this way, the icon was understood as a means or a place, of immediate contact with the divine, or a sort of platonic chora, in which ideal divine forms assimilated material contours. Within the context of a sacred space, the icon appeared not only as a principal meaning-making agent, but also as a conceptual key for understanding the way in which other components, as well as the sacred space as a whole, effectively worked; each component was thus understood and experienced as being 'iconic', or icon-like, in the sense of providing other points (or, rather, spaces) of contact between the earthly and the divine. As this paper recounts, Alexei Lidov made his first steps towards forging the concept of hierotopy while studying the design, as well as the perception, of Byzantine iconographic programs; as his studies revealed, icons acted not simply as images, but also with the full deployment of their wonder-working potential evincing a powerful expression of religious meaning, particularly when purposefully employed together with wonder-working relics. Lidov's next step was to realize the fully performative nature of spatial icons by taking into account the crucial role played by the surrounding liturgical context, in which each beholder, or liturgical participant, played an active role in giving life to the spatial icon. Hierotopy was thus discovered (and formally defined) as a special form of art involving the performative creation of spatial icons. The paper also discusses the concept of 'image-paradigms' as multimodal units of meaning within sacred spaces, or as compound mental constructs combining together dogmatic ideas, imagery and holistic emotive components (so-called atmospheres).

A Christian church informs a special space separated from the secular world. At the same time, the space of a church and the secular space do communicate. The channels and the ways of this communication depend on the basic attitudes embedded in religion itself. Christianity, in particular, is known for its cosmic nature. A church is not only a seat of God, but also a means to sanctify the world. In the Western tradition, the cosmism of a church was manifested in the absence of barriers separating the secular and sacred spaces of the city, as well as in particular attention to the decoration of the external walls of a church with divine and saintly figures, whereas the interior received but frugal decoration. Mundane imagery can also be found in the decoration of the facades. Worldly reality was thus integrated into the sacred space and was subordinate to it. In the Christian East, the development of the boundaries separating a church and the world followed similar ways. In Constantinople, in particular, the Church of the Virgin of the Pharos, where most important Christian relics were kept, had particular significance as a model. It was part of the architectural ensemble of the Imperial Palace. The territory of the Palace was also a place of liturgical processions. The Byzantine approach to delineate the borders between the sacred and the profane was emulated in Medieval Russia. The importance of a church square is known from chronicles. The buildings for the clergy as well as princely mansions were built near churches. However, such ensembles were carefully integrated in the urban space. Thus, in a Medieval city, a church was not just a place of hierophany, but it also consecrated its whole territory. The situation changed with the advent of Modernity, when the principles of urban planning were gradually reconsidered. Architectural features of the design of churches were increasingly adapted to the idea of a city as a space for habitation. However, these adaptations in the West and in Russia have taken different directions. In Europe, diverse solutions have been found that allowed churches to find their proper places in renewed urban environments and continue their function of sanctifying the world. Take, for example, St. Peter’s square in Rome, in front of the Cathedral dedicated to the Apostle (1656–1667). As an integral part of the urban space, this square clearly contributes to the sacralization of the city. However, the situation in Russia was different. It was characterized by a sharp transition from the Medieval town-planning tradition to a principle of a secular rationally planned city. The concept of regularly structured urban space was taken as the basis for the construction of St. Petersburg, the new Russian capital city since the 18 th century. The functions of the administrative and the economic center of the country were clearly given preference in the overall design of the city. The consecrating mission of Christian churches did not fit this new conception of a city. Therefore, it is only logical that we often see here the church grounds encircled with fences to isolate them from the urban space. Since the 19 th century the construction of buildings next to churches was plainly forbidden. Driven by the natural need for self-preservation and spiritual survival in the increasingly foreign urban milieu, this cultural isolation prevented the Church from performing its function of consecrating the urban territory. Although some elements of sacred cityscapes survived in ancient Russian cities, such as Moscow, the general tendency to phase out spiritual components of the city gradually lead to complete secularization of urban spaces. The spiritual dimension of the city has almost disappeared from the minds of urban populace. While the ancient town-planning tradition is gone, a new one is yet to emerge. Целью статьи является определение особенностей взаимодействия сакрального пространства храма и городского пространства в истории и современности. Эти особенности определяются космическим характером христианства: храм является не только местом пребывания Бога, но и средством сакрализации мира. В статье рассматриваются подходы к такой сакрализации у христиан Запада и Востока в период Средневековья. В западной традиции космизм храма проявляется в отсутствии ограждения, разделяющего мирское и сакральное пространства города, а также в особом украшении внешних стен храма (при лаконичности внутреннего убранства) фигурами Христа и святых. В декоре фасадов храма можно встретить и изображения мирской реальности: так она интегрирована в Священную реальность и подчинена ей. Похожим образом развивалась тема границы храма и мира на христианском Востоке. В Константинополе, например, храм Богоматери Фаросской, где хранились все важнейшие христианские реликвии, входил в архитектурный ансамбль императорского дворца. Пространство дворца одновременно было пространством богослужебных процессий. Подобный подход к границе между сакральным и профанным был заимствован христианской Русью. Характерен ансамбль Десятинной (Успенской) церкви Киева. Из летописных текстов известно о наличии при храме площади. Рядом с храмом строились здания для клира и княжеские хоромы. Этот ансамбль не отделялся от городского пространства. Иной становится ситуация в Новое время, когда постепенно меняется сама идеология градостроительства. Архитектурные решения в области храмового зодчества адаптируются к представлению о городе как о пространстве жизни человека. Однако на Западе и на Востоке адаптация пошла разными путями. В Европе были найдены решения, позволяющие храму найти своё место в обновлённой городской среде и продолжить выполнять функцию освящения. Так, площадь Святого Петра в Риме (1656–1667), будучи частью пространства города, стала средством воздействия на городское пространство. Иной оказалась ситуация в России. Здесь произошёл резкий переход от средневековой градостроительной традиции к регулярному городу. Концепция регулярного городского пространства была взята за основу идеологии строительства Петербурга. Со второй половины XVIII в. на первый план выходят функции города как административного и экономического центра. Освящающая функция христианского храма входит в противоречие с новым пониманием города. Поэтому его территория начинает выделяться из городского пространства при помощи ограды. С XIX века появляется законодательный запрет на возведение построек рядом с церквями. Однако культурная изоляция препятствует церкви выполнять функцию освящения окружающего пространства. Отдельные элементы сакральной топики длительное время сохраняли старые русские города, например, Москва. Но общая тенденция к выделению для духовной составляющей определённого места в городской среде приводит к постепенному размыванию представлений о сакральности городского пространства. Позже древнее представление об освящающей функции христианского храма уже напрямую сталкивается с видением города как административного, экономического, образовательного центра. В сознании людей разрушается понимание смыслов существования города. На месте традиционных смыслов не возникли новые, не появилось понимание их роли в существовании города; поэтому при разрушении старой градостроительной традиции новая традиция так и не возникла.

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The proximity of the work of the Jesuit Louis Lallemant (1588-1635), the Doctrine spirituelle, to the theological teaching of Saint Thomas Aquinas has long been noted. This is particularly true of the chapters that L. Lallemant devotes to docility to the Holy Spirit and the place of the gifts of the Holy Spirit in the spiritual make up of every baptized person. The author reminds us first of all that this proximity is rooted in the historical choice of Saint Ignatius of Loyola and the members of the Society of Jesus to have Saint Thomas Aquinas as their "own doctor". Then he explains how and why the theological foundation of the treatise on the gifts of the Holy Spirit in the Sum of Theology - the Holy Spirit governs souls towards their supernatural end - is at the heart of the mystical theology of L. Lallemant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The text deals with the much debated question of renewal in contemporary Orthodox Christian architecture, a question that accompanied a wave of more than twenty years of building new churches in existing cities and villages in Romania after the fall of communism in 1989. Should they follow the post Vatican II trend of aggiornamento in Catholic architecture and update the traditional and regional building models? The answer the text offers tentatively is retrofuturism, a radical way of renewing the language of sacred spaces within the core prescriptions of tradition. In the process, the author gives two examples of how this might work.

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This text aims to show the relationship between the religion and the landscape, based on the myth of the “Green Flags” in the imaginary of Popular Catholicism, which created and keeps the “Lord of Bonfim” pilgrimage, in Araguacema, Tocantins. We discuss the topic Religion and landscape from data obtained in field work in the perspective of humanistic cultural geography. The Pilgrimage’s landscape holds a number of symbols that represent a universe of meanings of popular catholicism in a game that establishes the relationship between the living area and memories, in which the images take the place of straight perceptions

Copyright of LiCArC: Littérature et Culture Arabes Contemporaines is the property of Classiques Garnier and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper examines the rhetorical capacity of architecture, and in particular, “the rhetoric of architecture” rather than the usually examined “rhetoric about architecture.” In this work, the rhetoric of architecture is understood as codified visual and architectural conventions as a series of transpositions that frame specific meanings other than and beyond visible and spatial. Here the proposed “rhetoric of architecture” is also more about its capacity as a “mnemonic tool” and about the “craft of composition” rather than about persuading others or about representation based on exact likeness. This concept is particularly significant in the creation of the sacred. By focusing on the architecture of the critical building of the Holy Sepulchre that enclosed the Tomb Shrine in Jerusalem as described by Patriarch Photios in the ninth and Abbot Daniel in the early twelfth centuries, this paper argues for the recognition of the mnemonic links that the Byzantines may have used not only for remembering the Tomb of Christ, but also for their several reconstructions of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem as well as for embedding the meaning of Jerusalem and New Jerusalem in their churches built elsewhere.

A treatise on De Deo ut uno was missing in French Catholic theology, but this is no longer the case since the publication of the opus magnum of fr Serge-Thomas Bonino. The whole book follows closely the text of the Summa theologiae of St Thomas Aquinas, Prima Pars, q. 2-26. It is not however an intelligent paraphrase, but rather a reasoned explanation of the work and its content, following the order of the divine perfections, starting with the highly debated question of the possibility of knowing God in philosophical theology and sacred theology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What issues arise in connection with the construction of a church within an urban context in the Third Millenium? What places of worship - more or less visible - are capable of attracting the faithful, residents but also visitors and travelers? What factors contribute to reinforce a sense of belonging and identity, as a reference point in the city, not only for a community, but also offering the possibility of interaction with other faiths? By portraying certain churches built in Rome in the 90s during the Jubilee period, and particularly by means of the projects of Richard Meier per the church of Dives in Misericordia in the Roman outskirts, this article discovers in the concept of sacredness the key elements of the liturgical celebration, presenting churches as 'places' or 'sites' and not as objects or buildings. Between tradition and the future.

The perception of architectural space is a global experience that engages all the senses, especially the auditory sense. Places have their own sonic imprint, which is closely intertwined with the sense of belonging and territorial identity. Church space is a paragon with regard to its sonic dimensions, for its particular acoustics and the fact that it has been a privileged setting for performances of speech and music, features deeply embedded in memories. This article discusses the core of a research project that examines "sensibilities" of Montreal's (Québec) inhabitants towards church spaces, in a context where many of them are closed down and are being converted to other uses. This study draws from the architectural and urban ambiances approach. It combines aspects of the physical characterization of place, the individual perceptions, and representations of space. In this case, the sense of place entangles closely with the spatiotemporal experience produced by the impressive sonic effects of these large "resonating chambers". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The example of Notre-Dame of Noyon illustrates the process of sanctuarization and, in its case, its adjustment to the liturgical and historical-religious evolutions of the building. Thus, the chevet was at first conceived according to a liturgy which provided a larger space to the Chapter, whose liturgical choir expanded into the nave, of reduced dimension for the faithful. The most sacred space of the altar was highlighted by the architectural treatment of the first bay of the choir. The stained glass windows, no doubt, diffused a diaphanous light which offered a paradisiacal view of the sacred space of this place. Secondly, in order to enhance the importance of the sacred relics preserved in the cathedral, and in order to ensure his religious authority, the bishop and the Chapter wished to magnify the sanctuary and, therefore, to modify it. A new setting was designed to highlight the sacred relics, the Christological symbols, while the color of the paintings reinforced the symbolic luminosity of the embodied God. At the same time, the aim being that of encouraging pilgrims in their walking towards and into the cathedral, the liturgical choir was pushed backwards to the crossing to leave more space to the faithful in the nave. The openwork choir screen also fa-vored the visibility of the sacred relics that the pilgrims went toward. Thus, two distinct periods of the religious history of Noyon determined two types of sanctuarization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The guardianship that kept accounting of the monasteries devoted to the Sacred Places were set up at the beginning of 18th century. The guardianship of Saint Tomb had the registers in which were noted down the revenues taken from the monasteries submited to the Patriarchy of Jerusalem but also to the lawsuits that existed between the estates subordinated to the devoted monasteries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article, using particularly the juridical sources, tries to give an answer to the following question: in which measure is a Greek sanctuary marked and identified as a really sacred place? The author presents a great amount of different kinds of data (epigraphic, archaeological, and literary) that incontestably show that, in Ancient Greece, as much the physical entity of the religious settings as the conceptual and ideological frame describing the sanctuaries were strongly «marked» to enhance the special nature and functions of those places. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of VertigO is the property of La Revue Electronique en Sciences de l'Environnement VertigO and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of VertigO is the property of La Revue Electronique en Sciences de l'Environnement VertigO and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)