The history is not a simple coincidence of subsequent events, but their logical sequence oriented on a precisely defined goal. Only in this context we can speak about the history as “history of salvation”. This can be shown by picturing the moment of the birth of Christianity, which has been anticipated by a very particular situation and atmosphere in Roman Empire. Christianity...
Aphrahat, called the Persian Sage, was a Syriac-Christian of the 3-rd / 4-th century from Adiabene region of Persian Empire. He is an author of twenty-three sermons called Demonstrationes (sometimes also Homiliae). Almost half of them are concerned with the religion of Jews. It seems that some Christians in the Persian Church wanted to become Jews or to return to Judaism, or to...
The ecclesiological primacy of the Divine Mercy in the theological conception of card. W. Kasper constitutes an important implication in times of the current post–synodical discussions in which-unfortunately-the German cardinal is too hastily accused of liberalism that, as some claim, might waver the Tradition and the discipline of the sacraments. However, every objective...
At present, Głubczyce area covers southern part of Opole Voivodship.It is bordered with the Chech Republic in the south and west. The territory was excluded from Poland for over 900 years, from 1038 to 1945. In the Church terms, up to 1945 the territory belonged to the Chech Olomouc diocese . After the First Prussian War in 1742 it was handed over from the power of the Austrian...
The author presents sources of the anthropology of Fr Aleksander Zienkiewicz. These sources have been divided into the following groups: main personal patterns (his family and people he met during his study period at the Priests Seminary in Pinsk (Belarus today); Holy Scripture, teaching of the Church and great theologians; follow philosophers, psychologists and educators; the...
For decades scholarly consensus has held that Jesus spoke and taught mostly in the Aramaic language. To evaluate the accuracy of this assumption, one must investigate which languages were really spoken in Roman Palestine during the first century A.D. The first aim of this paper is to prove that the three ancient languages, Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek were commonly spoken in Israel...
In the thirteenth century hierarchs of the church of the diocese of Silesia strove for church liberation from the sovereign power of the state, to obtain complete autonomous individuality, to subject the state and society to canonical rules and obligations arising from them, eg.: tithing. Gregorian reforms were implemented. In Silesia, the first church claim for tithe took place...
The author of the article discusses the most important questions of the lay people’s spirituality according to Saint Augustine. He particularly focuses on the relation to the world and that’s why he analyzes the connection of Augustine with Manichaeism. He proves, on the basis of philosophical dialogues that the ideology of this sect did not have a long-lasting effect on the...
Among the many forms of consecrated life in the Church its unique place has the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Mary Magdalene of Penance. The penitential prayer and expiation for the sins of the world offered in particular for women are the charisma of this religious community. This charisma is deeply rooted in the spirituality of the Congregation and founded on the Paschal...
The purpose of this study is to show in one of Luke’s christophany the symbolism of Christian life, the process – the way on which a man gradually comes to a true knowledge of the Risen Lord, especially through the sacraments and the word of God. At various stages of the way of two disciples, accompanied by the Risen Jesus, the maturation of the true faith of every Christian can...
The article presents the profile of Blessed Gerhard Hirschfelder, a Catholic priest, with particular respect to his attitude towards National Socialism in the Third Reich. His life testimony proves his radical rejection of this browshirt ideology, introduced by Adolf Hitler. Born and raised in Klodzko, Poland, and ordained a priest in Wroclaw, he performed his pastoral duties...
Criticism against St. Thomas Aquinas - intentionally emulating the scholastic method of proving - regards the effect of the forms of consecrating the bread and wine during the Eucharist. This reveals an absurd problem - encountered by Aquinas in his Summa Theologica - rooted in the confusion between different concepts and connotations attached to the term “Eucharist” while trying...
In the paper, the question of faith in Jesus is analyzed from the Jewish perspective. The concept of faith and trust is present in the Old Testament books, in the Qumran documents from the times of Jesus, and in Talmud that contain the essence of Jewish belief from the period after the Jerusalem Temple destruction. The evidence proves that Jews were not expected to believe in...
In the paper, the idea and the functions of Apostles is discussed in the context of 1st century Judaism. The main characteristics for the rabbis’ disciples are presented according Talmudic writings and the documents found in Qumran. It was found that it was not customary to appoint ‘messengers’ from among the disciples for any specific purpose apart of usual things that a...
The article discusses biblical archaeology from a generic viewpoint. How are we to understand “Biblical Archaeology”, or better still “The Archaeology of the Middle East”? What do we really mean when we talk about biblical archaeology? It is effectively the same as any other type of archaeology, but limited to a particular land and defined in a particular period of time. As...
In the literary composition of the Letter to the Seven Churches of the Apocalypse, the central position is occupied by the Letter to the Church of Thyatira. Christ introduces Himself to the community of Thyatira as the Son of God and to this revelation, the remaining six letters’ these representations refer to. In the letter to the community of Thyatira, the image of Christ...
The principal object of this paper is to depict a basic outline of the Aristotelian theory of natural place and to analyze its little known adaptations to express mystical thoughts of chosen Christians authors in different periods of history. To achieve a determined purpose in such a way, first there were presented principal assumptions of Aristotelian model of cosmos and in this...