Orthodox Theology

The activity of the school of translators at the Neamt Monastery left concrete traces in almost the entire Eastern area. One of the blessed places where we find many manuscripts copied from the paisian translations is Mount Athos. There is hardly any monastery, hermitage or cell, inhabited by Romanian monks in the Holy Mountain, which does not acquire some Paisian manuscripts in their library. Among the monastic settlements in Mount Athos, whose library shows a continuous concern for the philocalic literature since its foundation, is the Romanian Prodromu Hermitage. The scholarly activity of the monastery is mainly marked by the presence of a rich collection of translations made by the disciples of St. Paisius of Neamt during the 18 th century and the first decades of the 19 th century. Our study aims to present three unpublished philocalic manuscripts, from the 18 th century and the first half of the 19 th century, recently discovered following a research internship in the Prodromu Hermitage Library.

The Philokalia is one of a series of books that contributed to the success of the movement to return Orthodoxy to the patristic sources, a fact proven by its wide distribution in the Orthodox world. Thus, in the 18th century, the first versions of the "Philokalia" were printed in Greek and Slavonic and the first translation of the Philokalic text into Romanian was also initiated. This is the "Philokalia of Neamţ (Monastery)" (Romanian ms. 1455 BAR), a Romanian version dating from the 18th century, unstudied and unknown to the general public. Little is known in the literature about the contribution of Romanian scholars to the project of a "Romanian Philokalia" and even less about the patristic and biblical sources used in the translation. This paper aims to analyse the biblical quotations appearing in Romanian ms. no. 1455 BAR on the basis of the following criteria: the language from which they were translated, the form of the proper names of the biblical characters invoked, the degree of stylization (paraphrase, quotation, allusion) and the possible sources of the Romanian version of the biblical quotations. Related to this, we aim to clarify, as far as possible, issues related to the circulation of the Romanian biblical versions at the Neamţ Monastery and their use within this school of translators.

Seria „Imnografie bizantină” a Colecției Viața în Hristos continuă prin publicarea a două canoane inedite alcătuite de Sfântul Maxim Grecul în cinstea Sfântului Duh, în condiții de prigoană, pe când se afla închis în asprele temnițe rusești. Canonul inițial a fost scrijelit direct pe pereții afumați ai temniței. Așa cum Sfântul Andrei Criteanul și-a scris, conform Tradiției, marele său Canon pe patul de suferință, ca expresie a unei pocăințe adânci mai înainte de moarte, tot așa și Sfântul Maxim Grecul adresează Mângâietorului aceste canoane de rugăciune, ca expresie a unei pocăințe profunde, într-o situație de criză care părea să anunțe moartea autorului.

We are accustomed to paying special attention to the Sacrament of Baptism, especially of infants, and this is often done to the detriment of both adult baptism and the preparation and formation to be considered before and after baptism. Therefore, in this article we want to draw attention to some formative elements that defined the life of the Church in the patristic period and that today have remained isolated, most of the time, at the level of academic research. The whole life of the Church is mystagogical par excellence, mystagogy being the Churchʹs guiding method towards approaching and uniting with God. Catechesis and patristic mystagogical commentaries are two expressions of this way of guiding the faithful, which should be reconsidered in the Church at the level of each diocese. Only by understanding the meaning of mystagogy in the Church can we rediscover catechesis as the living word, springing from the experience of the Holy Spirit, which has renewing power in the life of every believer. On the other hand, we want to emphasize the important role that the community of believers must play in relation to any new member of the Church. Without the awareness of responsibility towards the other members of the body of Christ, one cannot build a true spiritual life.

There are many studies and articles which analyze Liturgical books, their composition, and evolution. They especially focus on the Octoechos, the Triodion and the Menaia. The Pentecostarion has been less studied. In this article, we wish to briefly present the evolution of hymnography, especially of the paschal hymns, which has led to the formation of the Pentecostarion. The source of this book is to be found in the hymns that glorify Christ's Resurrection from the dead, composed in or around Jerusalem. The trace of the hymnographers of this period has been lost and many of their compositions have not been included in subsequent manuscripts or in current liturgical books. The new compositions, whose authors belonged to the two principal rites, that of Jerusalem and that of Constantinople, replaced the old ones and enriched the hymnography of festal and ferial days. Nonetheless, the multitude of manuscripts and their lack of uniformity make it almost impossible to identify the author of each composition. For instance, we will present just a situation: the stichera attributed to Anatolius. The analysis of the Pentecostarion's hymnography is still incipient on all levels historical, liturgical and dogmatic.

This communicate signs up on the line of an interdisciplinary approach, which is to be taken as an demarche within the realm of theological liturgy and of philosophical thinking concerning the subject of time itself. The research seeks the critical approach of philosophical thinking concerning time as a class, which appertains existence itself, by also taking into consideration the reference of many authors, such as Martin Heidegger-alongside his notable work Sein und Zeit (Being and Time), in which it is originally approached the subject of phenomenology-, Henri Bergson, etc., capitalizing, all together, the recent researches regarding the idea of time and the experience of time. We will later approach the idea of how time is seen by the orthodox theology, especially from Father Dumitru Stăniloae position in his theological studies focused on the liturgical time, also by the most important spiritual figures that belonged in the contemporary orthodoxy. For theology and for liturgical experience, time cannot be seen self-depended from eternity. Eternity itself allows the existence of time, by also giving it value and meaning. Only the eschatological perception offers value to the ordinary time. From the liturgical and philosophical points of view, the relationship between time and eternity, and the possible meeting between them, it is what we wish to put forward via this communicate. Inside liturgical experience, God conveys the soul-destroying time into a linear one, which is an eschatological destination. Moreover, this destination is present, updated and foretasted in the relationship with God, through particular praying but also through liturgical prayer. This is the concrete quote from Saint Maximus the Confessor, which states that everything that is created is catechized after the Cross. Even time itself is traversed by the Cross because through it we ascend to “a new paradise and new land”, but, simultaneously, that reality already exists within God Himself, like a crack from above and within the eternal life.

This communicate signs up on the line of an interdisciplinary approach, which is to be taken as an demarche within the realm of theological liturgy and of philosophical thinking concerning the subject of time itself. The research seeks the critical approach of philosophical thinking concerning time as a class, which appertains existence itself, by also taking into consideration the reference of many authors, such as Martin Heidegger – alongside his notable work Sein und Zeit (Being and Time), in which it is originally approached the subject of phenomenology –, Henri Bergson, etc., capitalizing, all together, the recent researches regarding the idea of time and the experience of time.
We will later approach the idea of how time is seen by the orthodox theology, especially from Father Dumitru Stăniloae position in his theological studies focused on the liturgical time, also by the most important spiritual figures that belonged in the contemporary orthodoxy. For theology and for liturgical experience, time cannot be seen self-depended from eternity. Eternity itself allows the existence of time, by also giving it value and meaning. Only the eschatological perception offers value to the ordinary time. From the liturgical and philosophical points of view, the relationship between time and eternity, and the possible meeting between them, it is what we wish to put forward via this communicate. Inside liturgical experience, God conveys the soul-destroying time into a linear one, which is an eschatological destination. Moreover, this destination is present, updated and foretasted in the relationship with God, through particular praying but also through liturgical prayer. This is the concrete quote from Saint Maximus the Confessor, which states that everything that is created is catechized after the Cross. Even time itself is traversed by the Cross because through it we ascend to “a new paradise and new land”, but, simultaneously, that reality already exists within God Himself, like a crack from above and within the eternal life.

Mystagogy-Way and Canon in Orthodoxy. Believers today, even theologians, often have an ambiguous or obscure understanding of the notion of "mystagogy". We therefore aim, through this study, to rediscover the meaning(s) of "mystagogy" in Orthodoxy. We will notice, also by following its etymological evolution, that the term has been used since before Christianity, in Ancient Greece. Christianity has not changed its meaning, but rather enriched and perfected it. Its semantic field also encompasses the notions of mystery, mystical/mysticism, which aid us very much to understand the deep meanings that it had in the consciousness of the Church. The purpose of this analysis is to rediscover the authentic manner of relating to the life of the Church, which is the life of Christ made accessible to the faithful. Mystagogy is precisely the method by which we fully and consciously become partakers of this divine and deifying life. In conclusion, if Orthodoxy defined itself throughout history by clearly establishing its scriptural, dogmatic, liturgical and disciplinary canons, mystagogy is the canon within all these canons, the method and norm to which we refer whenever it is necessary to assert identity or to advance in the spiritual ascent.

The Pentecostarion is one of the most beautiful and richest in theological and spiritual themes among the service books. At the same time, it is also seldom researched and critically analyzed in terms of its hymnographic content-much of which has remained in manuscripts-but especially of its authors. As such, we considered necessary to analyze one of the most renowned authors of the Pentecostarion, Joseph, who at the same time is among the most controversial due to the fact that there are two hymnographers with this name: Joseph the Studite and Joseph the Sicilian. In the present study, we have focused only on the triods attributed to Joseph, whichever one he may be. As a working method we have used comparative analysis, both of scholars' studies and arguments and of various manuscripts and prints, while making use of logical, historical and philological arguments. The question of the authorship of the hymnography of service books in general, and of the Pentecostarion in particular, is always open as long as many manuscripts remain unresearched, and there is no uniformity of auctorial attribution among those researched.

Knowledge and Healing. The Mystagogic and Therapeutic Character of the Pentecostarion’s Hymnography. Every human being is looking for a way to attain physical and spiritual health, no matter how each of us sees the spiritual aspect of human existence. However, the Creator of human beings knows best what they need for their welfare and health. That is why being close to God is the most natural and easiest way to regain our health – first of all, spiritual health, which is the foundation of man’s integral health. This paper analyzes the hymnography of the Pentecostarion in search of the therapeutic messages addressed to the Christian who is integrated into the purifying font of the Church. The hymnography of the Church is a treasure full of deep meaning about our relationship with God and a guide to man’s regaining bodily and spiritual health. Therefore, hymnography has a mystagogic character, which we emphasize here.

In the theology and hymnography of the liturgical period of the Pentecostarion, the Theotokos holds a prominent place as the one chosen by God the Father to offer human nature to His Incarnate Son and, therefore, as the first one to see her Resurrected Son. God granted her the fullness of spiritual gifts, so that she may personify the highest state which can be reached by a human united with God. Possessing Full of divine gifts and love, the Holy Virgin imparts these gifts to people and becomes a divine source of blessings and healings. The hymnography of Pentecostarion abounds in metaphors and epithets expressing the attributes of the Theotokos, far outnumbering those describing her Son, Jesus Christ. Which is the spiritual and theological significance of these qualifiers of the Theotokos? What place does she hold in the mystagogy of the Pentecostarion? What occasioned a feast dedicated to Our Lady, at the end of the Bright Week, and what do the hymns of this feast convey? What is the significance of healing, in this mystagogical context? The present paper addresses these questions, aiming to provide better understanding and experience of the services during this liturgical period.

The goal of any theological endeavor is to partake God. By theology we mean not mere rational speculation, but a whole complex of logical and mental (noetic), liturgical and symbolic-mystical, verbal and meditative acts. Moreover, by partaking God we mean knowing Him through all these theological acts, knowledge which necessarily involves interpersonal relationships. The centrality of the Feast of the Resurrection in the Church and of the Easter period which prolongs it in the ecclesial experience for fifty days brings into our consciousness the essential elements of Orthodox theology, centered on the Eucharist – as the most authentic and concrete way of partaking God –, and on doxology – the praising of God by the man who has known and united himself with Him. The present study is intended as a mystagogical approach to these two goals, based in particular on the hymnography of the Pentecost and the typikonal-liturgical regulations of the Paschal period. It is well known that hymnography is a result of the Church's theological experience throughout history and an unfailing source of God's experience for every believer until the end of time, precisely because it is permeated, from composition to execution, by the grace of the Holy Spirit. In our approach, we will focus in particular on the relationship between fasting and the Eucharist and that between the baptismal font and the Holy Chalice. After all, these two relationships are the expression of the unique relationship that made the Eucharist possible: death and resurrection. The Eucharist is Christ our Passover, which fulfills every theological approach.

In the life of our Church, God gifts us, at a time well known by Him, great spiritual Fathers who become landmarks of ascetical, dogmatic and liturgical consciousness. Some stand out for their depth of theological thought, others for their ability to guide Christian communities, lay or monastic, and others for their mystical experience of prayer. Nevertheless, all are guided and penetrated by the same Holy Spirit, who makes Christ present in their hearts. Through them, God guides us through the ages to the discovery of the mystery of eternal life, which will take place at the end of time. Among these great Fathers and Saints, we have Saints Symeon the New Theologian, Gregory Palamas and Paisius Velichkovsky, to whom the year of commemoration 2022 has been dedicated. We can learn many things from their lives and writings. The present communication wishes to point out just a few of these aspects in which the three saints show themselves to be ever relevant, like every saint in the Church. Because holiness is always present in the Church and this translates a living interpersonal relationship, occasioned and realized by Godʹs grace.