Volume 13 (2021): Edizione 2 (August 2021)

In ancient eastern literature, the creation of the world could be connected to the building of the temple dedicated to the creator deity. Creation and temple-building represented for the ancient mentality an obvious continuity that legitimized the cult itself. A further connection could be drawn between the primeval world and the Temple Mount of Jerusalem. The present paper analyzes the intertwining elements of the temple on the holy mountain and the garden of paradise, the original place of pleasure in the presence of God, taking into account the primeval stories of Ezekiel and Genesis. Some elements of the biblical stories will be discussed as part of the history of traditions. For studying the concept of paradise, the "rst chapters of the Hebrew Bible are for now to be skipped, because, as it will be assumed, earlier accounts are found in the book of Ezekiel.

The biblical image of Jerusalem is constructed from a diversity of themes, which capture various dimensions of the holy city. The article presents the most recurrent and signi"cant literary themes used in the Bible for referring to Jerusalem, organized on three levels: the concrete, the humane and the divine. The image of Jerusalem accumulates references to its geographical dimension, as a territorial border and center of the world, to its political and social dimension, as a capital city and military defense, and to its spiritual dimension, as a reference point in the relation between humans and God. These biblical themes stood as reference points in later developments of Jerusalem’s image in the Christian tradition and in European representations of the holy city.

A Christian pilgrim, Egeria, travelled to Jerusalem and other biblical sites in the 380s and wrote detailed notes about the places she visited and about the liturgical life in Jerusalem. In this article, I will scrutinize Egeria’s view on the holy edi!ces and sacred spaces in Jerusalem, giving special attention to why some places were holy for her; and how Christians related to the holy places of “others,” that is, of pagans and Jews. For Egeria, several factors together made a space holy and worth visiting: biblical events that had occurred there, liturgical celebrations in her own day, and the physical seeing of the place as well as meeting of the holy people living at the site. "e new sacred topography expressed both continuity and discontinuity with the Old Testament times, but the Roman pagan dominance in Jerusalem was moved to the past.

During the last century, the Armenian Church and nation have lost most of their sacred spaces. One of the most peculiar cases is the history and afterlife of the khachkars (crossstones) of Julfa. The cemetery of Julfa was known for its endless unique khachkars and other monuments, constituting an exceptional sacred space in terms of spirituality and art history. The area was systematically and entirely destroyed by Azerbaijan in 2005. In the 2010s, Armenians reacted to the destruction by reviving the memory of Julfan khachkars by erecting their replicas to various locations in Armenia and other countries. As khachkars are supposed to be unique and unrepeatable, this struggle for memory requires an interpretative analysis. The problematics became urgent after the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war when hundreds of Armenian monasteries, churches and sacred monuments were left under the control of Azerbaijan. There is no reason to assume that their fate in the long run will be any better than the hundreds of already demolished Armenian churches and monasteries in Azerbaijan.

Christianity arrived on the island of Shikoku, Japan, from the neighboring island of Kyushu in the mid-sixteenth century, an event commemorated by a signboard and gravesite where some of the early converts to the faith were buried. The sancti"ed area exhibits what might be expected of Hidden Christian spatiality: a quasi-Buddhist nature, syncretistic Shinto elements, and o#ertory tools; each of which would be quite out of place in any other “Christian” context. What may the sacrality of this ground have entailed? What signi"cance did its objects contain for those who created them and visited them? Moreover, how “ecumenical” could worship there have been if one half (the Christian) was for political reasons forcibly kept hidden while the other half (Buddhist/Shinto) was open? These are the questions we pursue, although our conclusions can perhaps do no more than indicate a direction.

For sacred spaces, motion/movement means not only the takeover by other denominations, but also denominational changes, such as the Reformation. The article highlights, with varying intensity, the major movements of sacred spaces in the more than 800-year history of the present-day Evangelical Church A.C. in Romania: the Reformation, the Habsburg rule, the consequences of World War II in Northern Transylvania, and the present – with selective recourse to the tools of Memory Studies (Erinnerungsforschung), in order to trace the paradigm shift caused by the Reformation in relation to sacred space, or to evaluate the mass handover/ transfer of church buildings in Northern Transylvania in the horizon of this analysis, and concluding with a brief art-historical and even homiletic consideration.

The Evangelical Church C. A. in Romania has an impressive treasure trove of churches of cultural and art-historical value in Transylvania. One of the most important sacred buildings is the Church on the Hill in Schäßburg/Sighisoara. But although it is a liturgically important space, it has served other purposes over and over again in the course of history. The fact that the Evangelical community became very small after 1989 brought with it the challenge of using this place of worship adequately. In the last few decades – i with the inclusion of the old town of Schäßburg on the list of UNESCO as a World Heritage Site – the Church on the Hill has become a tourist magnet. Culture lovers can listen to contemplative organ concerts. Due to the epidemiological situation, it now serves more and more liturgical purposes.

Spaces are closely connected with actions. By implementing an artistic-phenomenological approach, the existing interplay between sacral space and performance (highlighted bodily actions) can be found in the idea of cultural performance, which integrates the interdependance of movement and lively space, the origin of one in another. As space is something in motion, something that is created, in sacral spaces human beings experience an impact of space on the body and vice versa the eThects of movement creating space. Performing „Artists in Church“ encounter a space characterized by actions generating knowledge and "nally intermediate: the idea of transformation, geometry, places, absence, threshold and transcending. Performance Art provokes and leads syntopically and sympathetically to an aesthetic way of understanding space and action.

The fall of communism, more than three decades ago, set in motion a strong religious comeback in Romania. This increase in Romanians practicing religion was felt across all denominations not just the Orthodox. In order to cope with the sudden increase of churchgoers, a large number of places of worship were built in a relatively short period of time. In some places, where material resources were limited, part of the industrial heritage left behind by communism was rearranged and transformed into a religious space (e.g., chapels and monasteries). The case study presented below shows the spectacular transformation of a former food laboratory into an Orthodox chapel in the early 2000s. Even if it is a small town, it reflects many of the questions and dilemmas when reconverting a religious space into a secular space and vice versa, namely: political and religious interference in small semi-rural communities, new forms of community cooperation between believers and members of the clergy, but also advancing modernity and accompanying changes in everyday religious life (la religion en train de se faire – fr). This study also shows how the Orthodox canonical requirements related to the consecration-construction of a sacred space were adapted to a completely atypical space – a sign of the vitality and adaptability of the church at the beginning of the millennium.

The present paper aims to explore the arguments that Father Chiricuţă uses against the idea of a “Christian” anti-Semitism by proving the fundamental mismatch between Christianity and anti-Semitism and, thus, proving that “Christian” anti-Semitism is a heresy, perhaps even the greatest of the century. According to his testimony, he embarks on this intellectual adventure primarily as a duty of conscience as priest and as truth-lover.**