This dissertation investigates how two fifth-century bishops of Rome, Leo I (440-461) and Gelasius (492-496) understood and opposed heresy. More specifically, by stressing the contested character of heresy and the at times optative nature of the bishop of Rome’s opposition to it, this dissertation hopes to provide a new perspective on how Leo and Gelasius imagined and justified the authority of the Apostolic See in an uncertain world. To accomplish this task, this dissertation considers Leo and Gelasius’ opposition to various different heresies and details the methods by which they were opposed. This will be done through an examination of the records of synods, Roman law, other contemporary narrative sources, but especially through the letters and tractates of Leo and Gelasius themselves, carefully read and considered in their fifth-century context. Furthermore, it is argued that the history of the development of the ideas of heresy and orthodoxy were profoundly connected with Rome’s emerging importance as a locus of authentic Christian teachings; the history of the bishops of Rome cannot be told without examining the history of heresy and orthodoxy and vice versa. Because orthodoxy and heresy were not tangible historical phenomena but rather were malleable categories that emerged as part of a wider discourse of Christian identity construction, the bishops of Rome were not in every case the unqualified enemies of heresy. Instead, their definition of heterodox belief and their opposition to religious deviance were complex, often qualified and always historically contingent. This study seeks to investigate the way in which Leo and Gelasius mobilized the language of heresiology in order to convince Christians in the Latin west and the Greek east, as well as the imperial authorities, that Rome’s interpretations were legitimate and binding.

The end of the Second World War found the city of Thessaloniki devastated by the loss of nearly its total Jewish population in the concentration camps of the Third Reich. A few survivals return to their city just to realize that their fortunes have been confiscated either by the local authorities or by their Christian neighbors. Some Jews decide to leave their former homeland and some others take the decision to remain and start their life from scratch. For the following decades, the Jewish history of the city is being carefully and on purpose hidden and the collective memory erases the traces of Jews. In this part of the story, the Jews by themselves kept a low public profile and remained silent, struggling to survive and rebuild their fortunes. It was in 2013, when a heterogeneous group of people decided to launch the Memory Walk “Never Again” for the 50.000 Jews of Thessaloniki who lost their lives in the Shoa (Holocaust). The Memory walk had to deal with the barriers of the strong nationalistic profile of the city and of its local population. However, the Memory walk came to be established as an institution which exists and grows until today. The current paper examines how local digital media approached the first Memory walk taking into consideration the Jewish history, the stereotypes regarding Jews, the antisemitism and the strong nationalist and deeply religious profile of the city. The first part describes the Jewish presence in Thessaloniki under the Ottoman Empire, the consequences of the Hellenization of the city in 1912, the national identity formation process and the mobilizing role of the Orthodox Church in the political and cultural homogenization. In the second part, digital media articles related to the first Memory Walk are being analyzed according to the CDA (critical discourse analysis) and a critical reflection on how media approached the Memory walk is finally presented. The analysis results will be finalized with the conclusions which derive from in person interviews with key stakeholders of the Memory Walk.

In the diploma thesis "St. Nikodemus Hagioreites and the sources of his thought" I focus on the writings and views of this saint, which some scholars do not consider as Orthodox and find there an influence of the West. For example, professor Yannaras finds in the work of St. Nicodemus the influences of the Trident Council, of Enlightenment and Pietism. These and other influences, according to the researchers, are reflected in the writings of the saint. His writings Invisible Combat and Spiritual Exercises are also problematical. These are revised books of Roman Catholic spiritual literature. It is a matter of exploring who translated these handbooks and how they came into the hands of the saint. In my work I gradually attend to the possible influences on the work of St. Nicodemus, to the writings considered to be influenced by the West, some of the saint's views and their comparison with the views of other theologians and peripheral to the hesychastic movement. Very important Nicodemus' issue is the question of frequent Communion. Is it really about trying to restore the practice of the early Church? In each chapter there is the task to provide briefly basic information and to outline issues related to the topic.

Education systems are influenced by belief systems. Russia has throughout its history been guided by two rigid dogmatic belief systems: • the Russian Orthodox Church • the Communist ideology While other influences also prevailed, notably autocracy, humanism and nationalism, these were secondary to the dogma of the Church in the centuries preceding the Revolution in 1917. Autocracy could be regarded as an outflow of the dogma of the Church, which had established its links with the ruling elite early in its history, whereas the others originated from other sources and for other reasons. This study in the history and development of the Russian education system traces its origins back into the inchoate beginnings of the Russian nation and attempts to show how: • the Zeitgeist of a particular era led to the development of a particular dogmatic belief system • the Zeitgeist and the dogmatic beliefs influenced the figures who determined educational policies and reforms / Onderwysstelsels word be"invloed deur 'n bepaalde denksisteem. So byvoorbeeld is Rusland deur die geskiedenis deur rigiede dogmatiese denksisteme gelei. Gelyklopend daarmee was daar ook ander denksisteme wat 'n invloed op die Russiese denke uitgeoefen het. lnvloede soos outokrasie, humanisme en nasionalisme was egter sekonder tot die dogmatiese invloede van die Kerk in die eeue voor die Rewolusie van 1917. Outokrasie kan weliswaar as 'n uitvloeisel van die dogma van die Kerk , wat vroeg in die Russiese geskiedenis 'n verbintenis met die regerende elite gesmee het, beskou word. Die onderhawige studie oor die ontwikkeling en verloop van die Russiese opvoedstelsel vind sy oorsprong in die beginjare van die Russiese volk en poog om aan te toon hoe: • die Zeitgeist van 'n bepaalde era tot bepaalde dogmatiese denksisteme gelei het • die Zeitgeist en dogmatiese denksisteme 'n invloed op die opvoedingsdenke en onderwyshervormings van bepaalde historiese figure in die Russiese verlede uitgeoefen het. / Educational Studies / M. Ed. (History of Education)

This thesis explores the missional ecclesiology of the Emerging Church Movement and its relationship to Evangelicalism. The rise of post-Christendom, post-modernism and the increasing marginalisation of the church in Western Culture has created a situation where it needs to ask the basic missiological questions of its own identity and structures. In contrast to many within traditional Evangelicalism, the Emerging Church Movement views these changes as a positive development and, in a social context much more akin to that of the early church, an opportunity to rediscover the essential nature of its calling as Church. It is in a narrative reading of Scripture and understanding of Jesus' proclamation of the kingdom of God that the ECM believes the answers are to be found. As a result, the ECM finds itself working through a gradual process of dismantling and reconstructing the faith of their Evangelical heritage as they reflect on the meaning of the gospel as they see it expressed in the life and ministry of Jesus Christ and His interpretation of the Old Testament narrative. For the ECM, the gospel is much bigger than merely personal salvation and is best understood as God's great and gracious mission in the world of making new all that has been corrupted by sin and evil. Missional churches realise that they have been invited to participate with God in his redemptive mission and formulate their identity, structures and values accordingly. The ECM engages in intentional , subversive ministry from its new place at the margins of society flowing from the realisation that mission is not an activity to be carried out by members of the church in certain contexts, but rather the essential character and calling of the church community wherever it may exist. / Dissertation (MA(Theol))--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Practical Theology / unrestricted

The Soviet Union population was unified under the shared belief of being a part of a common goal for proletarianism, in disregard of religion. These sentiments were prevalent up until the union’s dissolution. Something which created an identity void, reinvigorating the need for spirituality. The idea of belonging to a Church was encouraged, in which Orthodoxy emerged as a solution for the lack of identity and provided a source of piety for the people. Amalgamating the scattered religious community, essentially providing a catalyst for creating an identity based on a cultural belonging to a historical past. This thesis presents the Russian Orthodox Church’s politicised role in Russia, that in turn has created an identity marker for Russians. From this, an understanding stems for the outcome of Russia’s and the ROCs attempt to exert cultural values through Soft power on Ukraine and Belarus. Fundamentally illustrating that the two states’ preconceived identities differs to the extent that they either welcome or reject these notions.

The Massacre of Chios (1824) by Eugéne Delacroix illustrates the titular genocide from the Greek War of Independence. This genocide was a veritable razing of the entire island by Ottoman Turks in 1822. Today, a replica of Delacroix's painting resides on the island inside the entrance of the Chios Byzantine Museum, located in a converted mosque built on the ruins of a Christian church. This site is a case for the existence of non-Western temporalities, including liturgical and Aegean temporalities, as they pertain to the commemoration of the massacre through interaction with the replica. These temporalities are not causal or linear as in the West. On Chios, everyday interactions with history happen through the orthodox devotions and concomitant emotions of the present, with temporally transcendent icons, relics, and rituals promoting the imbrication of temporalities. The layout of the mosque, in its simplicity, conforms roughly to the plan of a Greek Orthodox church with the museum space organized to emphasize this, encouraging a liturgical temporality. Given that Chiots remember the massacre victims as tantamount to saints, the saturation of Christian elements in Delacroix's composition communes with the museum space to create an active site of memory, with the replica functioning like the Holy Greek Orthodox icons in the adjacent room, inviting a liturgical temporality. A comparable site, Agio Minas, a major massacre site in Southern Chios, also exhibits genocide victims as saints through eikonic imagery; here, victims' remains are displayed as relics alongside an icon of the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste, setting the stage, so to speak, for the naos where blood still stains the stone floor. In a similar way, the replica located in the "narthex" of the museum mediates a preparatory experience that overlays a narrative of Christian martyrdom onto the museum's "naos," where visitors engage with the icon collection. The proximity of replica and Byzantine collection overlays Chios' destruction with that of Constantinople's, collapsing time and presenting the two as related events. The Chios Byzantine Museum exemplifies what anthropologist Nicolas Argenti has termed "Aegean temporality," where past and present overlap in physical and incorporeal sites of memory. Orthodox icons do just that: transcendent and a-temporal by nature, their efficacy lies in bringing the pictured figure into the present moment and "enfleshing" remembrance as a current reality. The replica Massacre of Chios likewise acts as an active a-temporal object. Because of affordances granted by the narthex space and eikonic associations, it sacralizes the museum space into a living site of memory. With Aegean temporality facilitating a constant re-experiencing of the massacre, the massacre's presence and potency is not something left in the past. The painting's status as a semi-icon supports the immediacy of the massacre, as the viewer spiritually interacts with the image in the present.

This dissertation deals with Dostoevsky's influence on Death of God theology. This is a comparative study that clarifies this influence against the background of how Dostoevsky's work was read and interpreted by some representatives of Dialectical theology. This study follows those themes of Dostoevsky's work which both theologies focus on and analyzes how they are interpreted within each theology. Both receptions of Dostoevsky are then compared not only against one another, but also against the original context of Dostoevsky's work. KEY WORDS: Dostoevsky, death of God, Death of God theology, Radical theology, Dialectical theology, Neo-orthodoxy, Altizer, Barth, Thurneysen, Hromádka

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Levd religion är ett växande forskningsområde inom religionsforskningen. Det svenska skolsystemet ska bygga på forskning och därför bör det enbart vara en tidsfråga innan lärare kommer bli ombedda att inkludera och undervisa elever i levd religion. Syftet med studien är, genom att utföra en bildanalys, att undersöka användandet av bilder i moderna religionsläroböcker för högstadiet, samt utifrån resultatet diskutera ifall man via lärobokens bilder som befintligt redskap kan inkludera levd religion i undervisningen samt visa på skillnader i ortodoxi och ortopraxi. Bildanalysen tog sin bas i systemteori och didaktisk potential för att undersöka två olika traditioner, en baserad ur ortodoxi och en ur ortopraxi. Resultatet visade att bildanvändningen i de undersökta läroböckerna ger exempel på religiositet baserad ur både ortodoxi och ortopraxi och att dimensioner av levd religion kunde ses i tre fjärdedelar av de analyserade bilderna. Studien hjälper aktiva och blivande lärare med att förklara levd religion och ger exempel på hur man kan introducera det i undervisningen genom bilder och därigenom höja elevernas förståelse och kunskap kring religion och religiositet. / Lived religion is a growing field of research within the study of religion. The Swedish educational system is based on scientific research and therefore it should only be a matter of time before Swedish teachers are going to be asked to include and teach pupils about lived religion. The aim of the study is, by the means of conducting an image analysis, to investigate the usage of images in modern religion textbooks aimed at secondary school, and from this result discuss if it is possible by using the images of the textbook as an existing tool to include lived religion in the education of today, as well as illustrate differences between orthodoxy and orthopraxy. The image analysis was based on systems theory and didactic potential to analyse two different traditions, one based in orthodoxy and one in orthopraxy. The result showed that the use of images in the investigated textbooks gave examples of both orthodox and orthopractic religiosity and that dimensions of lived religion could be seen in three fourths of the images analysed. The study helps practicing and studying teachers by explaining lived religion and giving examples on to how introduce it in their teaching by using images and thereby increase the pupils’ religious understanding of religion and religiosity.