This thesis reveals, describes, and critically analyses the complex and little-studied lifeworld of elite Coptic Orthodox Christians living in Kuwait. As a sociotheological study, it contributes towards a greater understanding of the Coptic Orthodox Church's lived theology and diasporic situation on the Arabian Peninsula. Following a grounded theory, qualitative approach using interdisciplinary methods, the aim of the thesis was to describe Coptic Orthodoxy in Kuwait and then rescript the data to contest, complicate, and construct various sociological and theological theories. Material was gathered from St Mark's Coptic Orthodox Church through participant observation, interviews, and literature analysis. The material was situated within the backdrop of the current literature, Coptic history, and the Kuwaiti context described as restrictive clientelism. Selected data were analysed sociologically and theologically. Randall Collins' Interaction Ritual theory was a primary tool. Data on prayer were analysed using a model based on a sociotheological reformulation of the theory of theosis grounded in the experienced activity of the Holy Spirit or pneumatic piety. The results of these analyses were placed in conversation with Pentecostalism for contextual, comparative, and dialogical purposes. The manuscript concludes with the contributions of this thesis while noting the future challenges and possibilities for continuing research.

This thesis comprises an introduction to the life and works of Victorinus of Pettau, a translation of his commentary on the Apocalypse and a select commentary on that work.

Infectious bronchitis virus (IBV) is the causative agent of an economically important disease of poultry. In Brazil this disease causes respiratory, renal and reproductive problems in birds of all ages, despite constant vaccination with the Massachusetts strain H120. This lack of immunological protection is known to be due the genetic variation in the spike glycoprotein of IBV, which is involved in host cell attachment, neutralization and the induction of protective immunity. Brazilian IBV variants resulting of this genetic variation are present since the 80s and this study aimed to epidemiologicaly analyze and molecularly characterize the existing variants during 2010-2015 and perform a bioinformatics analysis of the available sequences of IBV variants in a 40 year period. Of the 453 samples tested, 61.4% were positive for IBV and 75.9% of them were considered variants and were detected in birds of all ages, distributed in all five Brazilian regions. A fragment of 559-566 bp was obtained from 12 isolates, where BR-I was the predominant variant while only one isolate belonged to the BR-II genotype. Bioinformatics analysis of the sequences of 40 years of Brazilian IBV variants was performed and the ratio of non-synonymous substitutions per non-synonymous site (dn) to synonymous substitutions per synonymous site (ds) dN/dS was calculated. It revealed a predominance of codons with non-synonymous substitutions in the first third of the S1 gene and a dN/dS ratio of 0.6757, indicating that this portion of the gene was under negative selection. Additionally prediction of N-glycosilation sites showed that most of the BR-I variants (from 2003 to early 2014) present an extra site at animoacid position 20, while the newest ones lack this feature.Together these results suggest that IBV Brazilian variants had probably suffered drastic mutations in some points between the years 1983 to 2003 and after achieving an antigenic structure effective enough for invasion and replication in their hosts, the selection processes became silent. / O vírus da bronquite infecciosa das galinhas (IBV) é o agente causador de uma doença aviária economicamente importante. No Brasil, esta doença ocasiona problemas respiratórios, renais e reprodutivos em aves de todas as idades, apesar da vacinação constante com a cepa Massachusetts H120. Esta falha na proteção conferida pela vacina é ocasionada por mutações nos nucleotídeos do gene da glicoproteína da espícula, a qual está envolvida no processo de interação comas células do hospedeiro, a neutralização e a indução de imunidade protetora. As variantes brasileiras resultantes dessa mutação genética estão presentes desde os anos 80 e este estudo teve como objetivo analisar epidemiologicamente e caracterizar molecularmente os vírus variantes existentes durante 2010-2015 e realizar uma análise bioinformática das sequências disponíveis no GenBank em um período de 40 anos. Das 453 amostras analisadas, 61,4% foram positivas para IBV e 75,9% delas foram consideradas variantes e foram detectados em aves de todas as idades, distribuídos em todas as 5 regiões do Brasil. Um fragmento de 559-566 pb foi obtido a partir de 12 isolados, onde BR-I foi a variante predominante ao contrario que apenas um isolado pertencia ao genótipo BR-II. Análise bioinformática de 40 anos de variantes do IBV brasileiros revelou uma predominância de codões com as substituições não sinónimos no primeiro terço do gene S1 e uma relação dN / dS de 0,6757, indicando que esta porção do gene estava sob selecção negativa. Além disso a previsão de pontos de de N-glicosilação mostrou que a maioria das amostras variantes BR-I (entre o 2003 e início de 2014) apresentam um ponto adicional na posição 20, enquanto as variantes mais novas não apresentam esse ponto de nglicosilação. Estes resultados sugerem que as variantes brasileiras teriam sofrido mutações provavelmente drásticas em alguns pontos do genoma, entre os anos de 1983 a 2003 e depois de atingir uma estrutura antigênica eficaz o suficiente para a invasão e replicação em seus hospedeiros, o processo de seleção mudou para seleção negativa.

This thesis examines the religion and spirituality of black African churchgoing teenagers in England. The study is situated within the existing literature on the religion and spirituality of children and teenagers in the field of religious studies, not as a repeat of any existing study, but as a unique investigation. It is important given the limited research that exists on the subject matter, despite the enormous population of black teenagers in the United Kingdom. The study argues that a qualitative methodology is most suitable because of the nature of the enquiry. The interview method is adopted because it allows for interaction between the researcher and the participants, which is crucial to the aims of this study. The participants of the study comprised 27 black churchgoing teenagers, ages 13 to 15, who are members of the RCCG, an African-led denomination. The results show that even though religion and spirituality influence the lives of the participants, other factors affect the extent of this influence. The factors discussed in this study include the influence of society (societal values, social media and music) and social contexts (home, school and church) on the religion and spirituality of the participants. The perceptions and the beliefs that the participants expressed on religion and spirituality were also discussed. This information forms the basis of the main research. In addition, the influence of fashion - tattoos and body piercing - was discussed, although it was not covered by the original interview questions, as it was unexpectedly brought up during the course of the interviews. This study contributes to the ongoing debates about the religion and spirituality of teenagers from a specific cultural background, providing a balanced comparison between the existing literature on the religion and the spirituality of teenagers from a British background and teenagers with African origins who are living in Britain. It also provides a unique understanding and knowledge for research boards in education, black majority church leaders and teachers on the way African teenagers, particularly the participants of this study, perceive religion and spirituality, thereby helping the church leaders and the teachers to support them.

This thesis analyses how martyrs’ blood was constructed in sixteenth-century English martyrological writings, confessional apologetics and polemics, c. 1520-c. 1625. It uses the topic of martyrs’ blood as a lens onto wider confessional constructions of both martyrdom and confessional theologies. It argues that, despite superficial similarities, Protestants and Catholics constructed martyrs’ blood in very different ways, and that this calls into question recent scholarly trends towards seeing the confessions as having a common conception of martyrdom. Chapter One surveys the treatment of blood and martyrdom from the Bible to the medieval West, demonstrating the main threads on which early-modern constructions of martyrdom drew. Chapter Two discusses Henrician Protestant constructions of martyrs’ blood. Chapter Three focuses on John Foxe’s Acts and Monuments. Chapter Four examines the relatively unbloody rhetoric of English Catholic discussions of martyrdom, from the 1520s to 1570s. Chapter Five looks at the emergence of a rich rhetoric of martyrs’ blood in English Catholic writings from the 1580s to the 1620s. Authors examined include William Tyndale, John Bale, John Foxe, Thomas More, Reginald Pole, Robert Persons and William Allen. The thesis focuses particularly on five key elements relating to the texts’ treatment of martyrs’ blood: Eucharistic theology; materiality; temporal worldview; bloody enemies; martyrs’ blood as witness.

This thesis is entitled ‘Classical Elements in Early Christian Depictions of the Afterlife’. Taking an approach influenced by Reception studies, it explores some key moments where Christians engage in a dialogue with their pagan predecessors. The focus is primarily on Latin literature, although a limited selection of art and Greek literature has been included where particularly revealing. The aim of this work is to use a series of case studies in order to demonstrate the cross-pollination of ideas and to show that in late antiquity, Christian authors in the Latin West were reacting to their pagan antecedents in a variety of different ways. Through close readings of several key texts this thesis will examine moments of cultural interchange and allow us to think about some specific and illuminating examples of a complex and nuanced relationship. In the first few centuries AD Christian ideas about what happens when we die were still fluid, so the afterlife provides a particularly fruitful basis for exploring wider questions about the relationship between paganism and Christianity.

In his book The Shape of the Liturgy Dom Gregory Dix coined the phrase ‘Eucharistic man’. In a speech to clergy Archbishop Rowan Williams remarked that Homo Eucharisticus, his Latinised version of Dix’s words, was, ‘a new human species who makes sense of the world in the presence of the risen Jesus at his table’. This thesis will seek to define what is specifically meant by the term Homo Eucharisticus and to indicate that, in a very real sense, Dix is Homo Eucharisticus, understood in his life, vocation, and his primary scholarship as it is centred on The Shape of the Liturgy. I shall demonstrate that Dix’s theology was Incarnational and that his Trinitarian understanding was based on the precept of a ‘Spiritual-Logos’. I shall examine these concepts in the context of Dix’s experience and personality. I shall assess the historical, intellectual and theological influences that helped to shape his life and vocation, and explore his Anglican identity as a priest, a scholar and a member of a religious community. I shall explain Dix’s creative understanding of the Trinitarian nature of the Eucharist and determine that he was a noteworthy theologian of major significance. I shall include studies of his writings on the Ministry of the Church and his major liturgical works The Apostolic Tradition of Saint Hippolytus and The Shape of the Liturgy. I shall present a reassessment of his liturgical scholarship and review his continuing importance in the Church of the twenty-first century.

This thesis is to build bridges between the West and China for a better understanding of the recent history of Christianity in China. Regarding western Christians we have to take into account the two Opium Wars and the following historical events. Because they had a significant negative impact on Chinese conceptions of Christianity, and knowledge of these events is vital to a better understanding of why Christianity was and is closely linked to imperialism in Chinese thoughts. lt offers us insights into why Chinese people are not anti-religious but anti-Christian, and why the Chinese government is anti-religious but particularly anti-Christian. Regarding Chinese people, acknowledgement should be given to the contribution of missionaries and the positive impact of Christianity on Chinese society, especially regarding the anti-opium movement of the nineteenth century, which have remained until today overlooked, either intentionally or not. However, this thesis is only a step toward a more complete project, an additional work and further research are still required to develop a fuller and better understanding in order build bridges between the West and China; understandably, this is a complex task.

This thesis elucidates the Spirit practices of Neocharismatic movements in India. Ever since the appearance of Charismatic movements, the Spirit theology has developed as a distinct kind of popular theology. The Neocharismatic movement in India developed within the last twenty years recapitulates Pentecostal nature spirituality with contextual applications. Pentecostalism has broadened itself accommodating all churches as widely diverse as healing emphasized, prosperity oriented free independent churches. Therefore, this study aims to analyze the Neocharismatic churches in Kerala, India; its relationship to Indian Pentecostalism and compares the Sprit practices. It is argued that the pneumatology practiced by the Neocharismatics in Kerala, is closely connected to the spirituality experienced by the Indian Pentecostals. Spiritual gifts, healing, spiritual warfare, exorcism, prayer and worship are significant to both movements. While emphasizing about healing, prosperity, and the miracles the movement is unable to cater the pastoral needs of those who could not experience any. The daily Christian experience with struggles and pain shapes the pneumatology of the Neocharismatics. However, the Neocharismatics practice it as emotional engagement with a modern outlook that relates to globalization. The argument engages with Pentecostalism as a global movement, and Neocharismatic Christianity as an advanced version of globalized Pentecostalism. Healing, prosperity and miracles give prime importance in the church. Hence spiritual life is seen as a fulfillment of a way out of the struggles of material life. This thesis suggests the need to construct a pneumatology for the Neocharismatics, which is focused towards the Christian doctrine. The Holy Spirit leads one to the knowledge and the joy in the Lordship of Jesus Christ, which overtakes any negative situations of life and transforms the believer to the image of Jesus Christ.

While the immediate origins of 20th century Pentecostalism are in the Wesleyan-Holiness movement and in that form of Afro American Christianity which developed during slavery, some of its roots go back to West Africa. What began among a small black Christian group in Los Angeles in 1906 has now become a world-wide phenomenon which has spread to the Caribbean and from there to Britain. Black settlers primarily from rural Jamaica - arrived in urban England to face the racism and rejection, not only of the wider society but also of the white denominations. With them they brought types of Pentecostal ism which are similar to and in some ways quite different from, both the mainstream denominations and white indigenous Pentecostalism. Some of the black Pentecostal congregations established in the Borough of Wolverhampton remain tied to white North American headquarters while others are free from white control or influence with a concomitantly greater emphasis on certain black leitmotive.