Bøger i Gorgias Eastern Christian Studies serien

Questions concerning sacred spaces and their relationship to ritual is of interest to historians of religion and others as well. How sacred spaces emerge and are constructed and what relationship they have to rituals are some of the areas that are dealt with in this study in relation to Syriac Orthodox liturgy. The purpose of this study is to create a better understanding of how the Sedr¿ of Entrance has been practiced in earlier periods and architectural contexts and to investigate what role the entrance rite may have had in constructing the sanctuary as sacred space and the worshipping community as church. The Sedr¿ of Entrance is a prayer employed during the rite of entrance into the altar in Syriac Orthodox Eucharistic liturgy. This study uses ritual theory to frame the rite of entrance and studies the intersection of ritual text, action and place. Two research questions are addressed: a) How is the rite of entrance into the altar, in the Syriac Orthodox liturgy, performed during the 9th-13th centuries? b) How does the rite of entrance construct the sanctuary as sacred space and the worshipping community as church? The study builds on historical material, manuscripts from the 9th to the 13th centuries, architecture, and other historical textual material. The rite of entrance is framed with ritual theory. Theological analysis is also used to support the ritual theory. The themes of the dissertation include, among others, the relationship between ritual process, ritual place, and the ritual body. It also explores the role of language in the ritual process.

This study of his two works that were only discovered in the 1970's seeks to analyse the way he defends Christian beliefs from criticism by Muslims over the authenticity of the Gospels, the Trinity, the divinity of Christ, the Incarnation, the death of Christ by crucifixion, the resurrection of Christ, and the nature of the afterlife.

This book collects systematically all the personal names found in Old Syriac sources in such a way as to enable them to be dealt with from a structural and lexical point of view, and compared with other corpora of Aramaic personal names as well as Hebrew and Arabic names.

A long-awaited and essential tool for the study of one of the earliest texts of the Christian Apocrypha and an important text in Syriac literature, theology, and history.

Explores the historical geography and toponyms of the Beth Qatraye region.

This book is the second part of a comprehensive work of classification and identification of the Maronite manuscripts of Aleppo, offering the first detailed record and description of the 250 Arabic-Karshuni manuscripts.

In the Ottoman Empire, Syriac communities kept their own baptismal books, marriage, funeral and other records and many of these can be found in various libraries, churches, monasteries in the West and East.

Iraq has been a centre of Syriac Christianity for almost two thousand years. This volume of collected papers from the Christianity in Iraq I-V Seminar Days (2004-2008) explores the Christian heritage of Iraq, highlighting the churches' innate ability to transcend barriers of language, culture, ethnicity and religion.

It introduces each of Cyrillona's five surviving poems and examines their poetic form and genre, structure and rhetorical features, and critical questions of text, interpretation, and theology.

As new ways of understanding these institutions and concepts emerge in a modern society, this compilation sponsored by the Sophia Institute of Eastern Orthodox Studies incorporates a revisiting of biblical and Patristic understandings as they are received in the wider Orthodox Christian perspective.

The Syriac writers of Qatar have not received the scholarly attention that they deserve in the last half century. This anthology seeks to redress such an underdevelopment by providing new material in English translation with accompanying Syriac and Garshuni editions to encourage further research in the sub-field of Beth Qatraye studies.

This volume provides an analysis of a late fifteenth century document, a hitherto unpublished narration of the life and accomplishments of Yuhanun Bar Say Allah, a fifteenth-century Syriac Orthodox Patriarch. It also supplies descriptions of events that brought important changes to the Syriac Church in Mesopotamia, Syria and Egypt.

Cyriacus of Tagrit was patriarch of the Syrian Orthodox Church of Antioch between 793 and 817 under the Abbasid Caliphate, a turbulent and divided period in the history of his church in the Middle East. The book focuses on his major composition, The Book on Divine Providence.

Cyriacus of Tagrit was patriarch of the Syrian Orthodox Church of Antioch between 793 and 817 under the Abbasid Caliphate, a turbulent and divided period in the history of his church in the Middle East. The book focuses on his major composition, The Book on Divine Providence.

The contributors have tried to reconstruct the mingling of two cultures, Greek and Italian, in sixteenth century Venice. This is examined through the medium of a single intricately carved wooden cross, executed by a Greek carver, with adaptations suitable to a member of the Latin church.

The authors present a detailed philological and linguistic comparison of two versions of The Prayer of Manasseh.

The book presents a full documentation of the Old Uigur texts of the Church of the East known from several places of Central Asia, mainly Bulayik and Kurutka in the Turfan oasis, as well as Xaraxoto, from the 10th to 14th century.

An extensive account of the life and works of Barhebraeus based on the latest research. It includes an appendix containing a comprehensive list of bibliographical references and manuscripts relating to Barhebraeus.

The Ecclesiastical History of Bar Hebraeus is an important source for the history of the Syrian Orthodox Church and the Church of the East.

The Syriac writers of Qatar have not received the scholarly attention that they deserve in the last half century. This anthology seeks to redress such an underdevelopment by providing new material in English translation with accompanying Syriac and Garshuni editions to encourage further research in the sub-field of Beth Qatraye studies.

The Maronite Library of Aleppo is one of the most important collections of manuscripts in Syria. This catalogue gives the first detailed description of the Syriac manuscripts, also containing images and indices of titles, personal names, subjects and places.

The Bodleian Library in Oxford currently holds an unpublished historical document in Syriac containing precious historical information about the ordination of bishops, priests, monks, and deacons.

Each chapter highlights a thematic feature of the literary form, demonstrating that Christian and Muslim authors did not part ways in the first century of Islamic rule, but rather continued a dialogue commending God's faithful believers.

This book is a classic in the history of the Oriental Churches, which are sometimes portrayed as heretical in general church history books, if mentioned at all.

A popularly-written study of the biblical roots of the Eastern Orthodox Church's mystical understanding of the knowledge of God. This unique study brings together the best of contemporary exegesis with the tradition of Eastern Christianity and illustrates the biblical roots of the Eastern Church's understanding of grace as the energy of God.

The year 652 marked a fundamental political change in the Middle East and the surrounding region. An important and contemporary source of the state of the Christian Church at this time is to be found in the correspondence of the patriarch of the Church of the East, Isu'yahb III (649-659), which he wrote between 628 and 658.

In the early fourteenth century, the Patriarch of the Coptic Church, Ibn Qiddis, composed and paraphrased - in Coptic - the Theotokias. This book introduces the author, John Ibn Qiddis, his liturgical, pastoral, and literary activities, and the Coptic language of his time, followed by the texts and an English translation.

This book examines the function and development of the cult of saints in Coptic Egypt, focusing primarily on the material provided by the texts forming the Coptic hagiographical tradition of the early Christian martyr Philotheus of Antioch, and more specifically, the Martyrdom of St Philotheus of Antioch (Pierpont Morgan M583).