39525 - Orthodox Church History and Institutions (1) (LM)

Learning outcomes

Students will acquire knowledge of religious, political, ideological, and cultural specificities of the Orthodox Eastern, and learn to recognize the relevance of those cultures and of their historical memory in the contemporary culture.

Course contents

Aim of this discipline is to present the historical form of Christianism that is the Orthodox church, in the analysis of its identitarian characters and its emergent aspects. The Christian-orthodox identity shaped itself – in the long period – from the convergence of three factors.
First, the cultural synthesis between Christian message and Hellenistic culture, this making Orthodoxy par excellence the Church of the Fathers, and making it Greek (even if its language is Slav, Romanian, Georgian or Arab).
Second, its historical background (which is grounded on the roman-oriental civilization, improperly known as “Byzantine”), this allowing Orthodoxy to think of itself as heir of Romanitas, and the sole – and living – heir of Byzantium.
Third, its specific geo-political space, which has been changed during times (from an Afro-asiatic to an almost exclusive European space), but which is now an essential (even if underestimated) component of European civilization.
Three emergent aspects will be described and analyzed: the soteriologic exclusiveness; the absolute primacy of doctrinal orthodoxy on any other aspect of Christian life; and the pre-eminent accent on the holy, expressed by the cult for the icons and the saints relics.

Course Title:

The origin of monasticism in ancient Russia: the Lavra (or Monastery) of the Kiev Caves and its "Book of the fathers" (Paterik).

The analysis of the events - historical and legendary - related to the foundation and the forms of monastic life practiced in this monastery are exemplary with regard to the genesis and development of monasticism in Russia. This monastery was in fact, in the first period of Russian history - that of the Kievan Rus' -, the model and the mother-house of all the other monastic foundations, the collector of all the historical memories of the Russian people (in full awareness of its own Slavic-Orthodox identity), as well as the chosen place for physical and spiritual ascetic training of the Old Russian high clergy – especially bishops. The two main sources for this analysis were both released from this monastery: the "Tale of the past years" and the Paterik, which outlines  the spiritual history of this monastery (from its foundation in the eleventh century up to the XIII, with the portraits of its "heroes of asceticism"). The analysis of these texts allows us to perceive and discern different ethnic and cultural components of the early Russian religious history, particularly the intense reception - not passive but active - of all the stimuli coming from its Mother-Church, Constantinople, the matrix of Orthodoxy.

Readings/Bibliography

Basic manuals:

E. Morini, Gli ortodossi, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2002 (Farsi un'idea, 77)

G. Dagron, Il cristianesimo bizantino dal secolo VII alla metà del secolo XI, capitoli 1-5, in Storia del cristianesimo. Religione-Politica-Cultura, vol. 4: Vescovi, monaci e imperatori (610-1054), Roma, Borla/Città Nuova, 1999, pp. 27-366 (= Histoire du christianisme des origines à nos jours, tome IV: Évêques, moines et empereurs, Parsi, Éditions Desclée, 1993)

J. Meyendorff, La teologia bizantina. Sviluppi storici e temi dottrinali, nota introduttiva di L. Perrone, Genova, Marietti 1820, 1984 (“Dabar”, I: Saggi teologici, 9) = Lampi di Stampa, 1999, First Part: Sviluppi storici, pp. 25-153 (= Byzantine Theology: Historical Trends and Doctrinal Themes, New York, Fordham University Press, 19792; Initiation a la theologie byzantine: l'histoire et la doctrine, Paris, Les Editions du Cerf, 1975)

H.-D. Döpmann, Le Chiese ortodosse. Nascita, storia e diffusione delle Chiese ortodosse nel mondo, Genova, ECIG, 2003 (Dimensione Europa)

M. Hussey, The Orthodox Church in the Byzantine Empire , Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1986 ( Oxford History of the Christian Church, Ed. H. & O. Chadwick)

K.T. Ware, The Orthodox Church , Harmondsworth, Penguin Books, 1964 (Pelican Books , A592) (= L'Orthodoxie. L'Église des sept conciles , Brouges, Desclèe de Brouwer, 1968)

Course bibliography:

Sources:

Nestore l'Annalista, Cronaca degli anni passati (XI-XII secolo), introduzione, traduzione e commento di A. Giambelluca Kossova, Cinisello Balsamo (MI), Edizioni San Paolo, 2005 (Storia del Cristianesimo - Fonti, 8)

Racconto dei tempi passati. Cronaca russa del secolo XII , a cura di I.P. Sbriziolo, con un saggio-storico-introduttivo di D.S. Lichacëv, Torino, Einaudi, 1971 (Biblioteca di cultura storica, 115)

Nestor, Vita di Feodosij, a cura di P. Dusi, Milano, Vita e Pensiero, 1991 (Scienze Filologiche e Letteratura, 49)

The Paterik of the Kievan Caves Monastery , translated by M. Heppel, with a Preface by D. Obolensky, Cambridge (Mass., USA), Ukrainian Research Institute, 1989 (Harvard Library of Early Ukrainian Literature, English Translations, 1)

 Studies:

A. Piovano , Santità e monachesimo in Russia,  Milano, La Casa di Matriona, 1990 (Ricerche, 22)

F. Chiti , Santi dell'antica Russia, Milano, Gribaudi, 2001, pp. 94-195

I. Kologrivov , Santi russi, con un'introduzione di T. Spidlík, Milano, La Casa di Matriona, 1977 (= Saggio sulla santità in Russia, Brescia, Editrice Queriniana, 1955), pp. 34-85

G.P. Fedotov , I santi dell'antica Russia, a cura di M. P. Pagani, prefazione di G. De Rosa, Desio (MI), Aquilegia Edizioni, 2000, pp. 53-82

A. Giambelluca-Kossova, All'alba delle cultura russa. La Rus' kieviana (862-1240), Roma, Edizioni Studium, 1996 (La Cultura, 67), II, 10: pp. 91-101; III, 7:  pp. 162-166

G.P. Fedotov, The Russian Religious Mind, I: Kievan Christianity, the Tenth to the Thirteenh Centuries, Cambridge (Mass., USA), Harvard University Press, 1960, pp. 110-136,142-157

V. Arminjon , La Russie monastique, Sisteron 1974

Teaching methods

Frontal lessons with readings and discussions of textual and iconographical sources and of most recent bibliography.

Assessment methods

Since the lessons will be mainly based on the reading and commentary of sources - listed in the bibliography of the course - the audit examination will consist  first in a presentation and discussion by the candidate of one of the aforementioned sources, namely that required by the teacher. A second question will concern the critical literature, namely from Heppel's wide introduction to the Paterik's translation, or from Dusi's introduction to the Life of Feodosij, or from the first three texts listed in the bibliography (section: Studies). Finally candidates will prepare a short written summary of a Slovo from the Paterik, which they will present to the teacher and classmates in a brief Seminar at the end of the course Non-attending students must arrange with the teacher the study of an additional text.

 

Teaching tools

Presentation of textual and iconographical sources.

Office hours

See the website of Enrico Morini