Academic literature on the topic 'Christians'

<In>iis quiad me tamquam christiani deferebantur, hunc sum secutus modum. Evidence Applied in the Persecution of Pontian Christians According to Pliny the Younger (Ep. 10,96)SummaryIn 1st and 2nd centuries A. D. Christians were occasionally persecuted and punished just for being Christians (nomen christianurn). The letter drafted by Pliny the Younger to emperor Trajan constitutes the most significant non-Christian source providing information on the procedures applied in these circumstances. Pliny mentions three groups of people that emerged due to the presented above activities: the Christians, who did not renounce their faith at court, falsely accused pagans and apostates. A governor asked those who refused to abandon their faith before executing them. The execution did not apply to Roman citizens who, according to law, were sent to Rome. Apostates and pagans underwent special tests. In order to prove that they were not Christians the governor made them call the names of gods and perform sacrifices before the image of the emperor and gods, which was followed by the course on Christ. However, it was not a refusal to participate in the rituals that led to a punishment but their attachment to Christian community. Therefore, a ceremony of purely religious nature became a real proof applied in judicial proceedings. Although the emperor expressed his approval for governor’s measures, he did not establish any general rule concerning the prosecution and punishments of Christians.

In this article, the author analyzes the campaign that captured the attention of medical colleges at Polish Universities in Warsaw, Vilno, Cracow, and Lvov during the 1920s and 1930s. The author discusses calls made by right-wing students for a regular supply of Jewish corpses matching their percentage among the students, and the ways in which university authorities and Polish Jewish communal leaders responded to these demands. Clearly, driving Jews out of the medical profession combined traditional prejudicial thinking about Jews with modern racial science and corresponded with the more general call to remove Jews from free professions. However, the issue of Jewish corpses took this line of thinking into the realm of pathology. The author argues that taking issue with Jewish access to “Christian corpses” echoed perceptions of Jewish impurity. It implied that Jewish students constituted a danger not only to their Polish colleagues but even to the corpses of Christians, which they could somehow contaminate or violate. Thus, this campaign was based on the notion of essential difference between Jews and non-Jews even in death. It suggests a vision of society in which any contact between Jews and non-Jews was perceived as contaminating and dangerous.

AbstractIf many consider the United States to be a Christian nation, how does this affect individuals who are American citizens but not Christian? We test two major hypotheses: (1) Americans consider Christians to be more fully American than non-Christians. We examine whether Americans explicitly and implicitly connect being Christian with being a true American; and (2) Christian Americans are more likely to be patriotic and set exclusive boundaries on the national group than non-Christian Americans. Among non-Christians, however, those who want to be fully accepted as American will be more patriotic and set more exclusive boundaries to emulate prototypical Americans than non-Christians who place less emphasis on national group membership. We test these hypotheses using data from a survey and from an Implicit Association Test. We find that Americans in general associate being Christian with being a true American. For Christians, this is true both explicitly and implicitly. For non-Christians, only the implicit measure uncovers an association. We also found that non-Christians exhibit significantly more pro-national group behaviors when they desire being prototypical than when they do not.

This article evaluates Origen's criticism of Christian participation in the Roman army in relation to two prominent themes in his writings: the moral progress of the Christian and the role of demons in God's providence. I argue that, for Origen, to be a Christian is to be a soldier, albeit one whose adversaries are not human combatants, but the Devil and his angels. The battle is won when Christians refrain from sinning, attaining moral perfection through their study of the scriptures, and adoption of ascetic practices. By avoiding the physical battlefield, Christians remain unsullied by the passions that inflame the soldier, enabling them to fight demons more effectively. But this spiritual combat is not without risks to the physical body. As Origen's Exhortation to Martyrdom attests, execution could be the providentially ordered outcome of a Christian's combat against demons. Origen presents the violent persecution of Christians as consistent with divine providence and martyrdom as a gift of God to the church. His opposition to Christian military participation is rooted neither in a wholesale rejection of warfare nor a deep respect for embodied life, but in his concern for human moral progress—progress that could be advanced by providentially sanctioned violence.

Abstract Making use of Beatrice Wyss’ “pattern of the disparagement of sophists” for heuristic purposes, this paper argues that the depictions of Christian exegetes and scholars in a fragment of Porphyry’s lost work Contra Christianos (fr. 39 Harnack/fr. 6F. Becker) contain literary elements of ad hominem attacks which were used in Greek anti-sophistic polemic. Porphyry’s allusive language allows for the conclusion that he aimed specifically at casting Origen in the role of a sophist. This hitherto unnoticed component of Porphyry’s polemic against the Christians sheds light on how Platonists in the third century viewed Christian intellectuals through a Platonic lens in order to secure their identity against a stereotypical opponent which had ultimately been created by Plato himself. Thus, in Porphyry’s view, Christians are, as it were, new foes with old familiar faces.

Can the sacred texts of non-Christian religious traditions be revelatory for Christians in a fashion that is more than vague and merely theoretical? This question is central within the larger project of understanding the significance of the various world religions for Christians, and the effort to answer it must proceed according to three specific tasks.First, it is necessary to describe the ways in which the Christian tradition predisposes and constrains Christian believers on the issue of whether non-Christian texts can be revelatory words of God for non-Christians, for Christians, or for both. The formulation of this description requires reflection on the Christian tradition and its sources: Christian ideas of revelation, scripture, the Word of God, and possible words of God.

To shed light on some key perennial issues, I discuss several historical efforts to discern optimal understandings of human persons that take seriously both Christian faith and academic psychology. These include Gordon Allport's disguised integrative efforts; a 1924 book, An Elementary Christian Psychology; and Paul Meehl's 1958 integration book. I conclude that opportunities are lost: when seeking respectability becomes a primary motivator for Christians interested in psychology when psychology's implicit ethical and metaphysical assumptions are not recognized and critiqued, when efforts to create a Christian Psychology are based on a particular cultural-historical understanding of Christian faith that is assumed to be the only correct view of it, when Christians fail to engage with mainstream psychology when Christians fail to address rigorously key problems in the psychology/Christian faith interface, when Christians use ambiguous or supposedly neutral language to pursue Christian goals, and when Christians fail to work through thoroughly and develop fully the implications of Christian faith for our understandings of the psychological dimensions of embodied human persons.

The article deals with the status of Christian population of Sofia under the Ottoman rule and legal pluralism. The aim of the investigation is to analyze the degree of integration of Christians to the Ottoman system of law and to understand the reasons of Christian’s access to the Shari‘a courts. The legal status of Christians in the Ottoman Empire was defined by the so-called Millet system. The Orthodoxies in Ottoman Empire had three ways of resolving their disputes: they could turn to the Episcopal court, the communal court or the Ottoman court, which made a decision according to Shari‘a and Kanun. As it could be argued, on the contrary to popular belief, Christian’s going to Shari‘a courts were not rare. They had the opportunity to choose what kind of court to prefer for resolving their personal and family disputes.

Social scientific research on American Christianity typically centers the experiences and practices of White American Christians and predominantly white Christian communities or churches. Asian American Christians remain more invisible than other racial minority Christians and their churches, especially in quantitative analyses. Researchers who aim to center Asian American Christianity face several challenges in developing a comprehensive quantitative empirical study of individual believers and churches. Practically, Asian American Christian surveys require multiple language translations and a wide array of outreach techniques to obtain a reasonably representative oversample. Substantively, survey questions on American Christianity often presume White American Christian categories, concepts, and frames—applying these without reflection could result in analytic findings that merely demonstrate how similar Asian American Christians are to their white counterparts. Asian American Christians diverge from the experiences of other American Christians drawing from diverse transnational resources, and the specific ways in which Asian Americans as a whole are positioned in the contemporary American racial order. Advancing an Asian American Christian—centered social scientific research program requires overcoming the present methodological obstacles and incorporating theoretical and theological insights from Asian Americanist scholars. This in turn will produce a new and unique body of research that should prove valuable for the continuance of Asian American Christian communities as well as other American Christian churches facing similar challenges.

Christian engagement with Islam poses the question: what theological sense can we make of a supersessionist approach to our own tradition? This essay sketches a Christian interpretation of Islam that combines the respectful encounter with religious pluralism and the hope for Christian ecumenism. Christians may thus view Islam in part as spreading the same faith and truth that Christians seek to follow. Simultaneously, Christians may view Islam as a profound and integral alternative to Christian faith and practice. The author briefly examines implications of this combined approach for a Christian understanding of Muhammad and the Qur'an.

This dissertation examines the interrelationships between the foreign Missions and the Korean Church in colonial Korea. In contrast to previous scholarship that assumes a necessary link between the Korean Church and Korean nationalism, this study focuses on the foreign Mission's predominance over the Korean Church as a major obstacle in the Korean Church's adoption of nationalism as part of its Christian vision.
East Asian Languages and Civilizations

Title from PDF of title page (University of Missouri--Columbia, viewed on Feb 18, 2010). The entire thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file; a non-technical public abstract appears in the public.pdf file. Thesis advisor: Dr. Nathaniel DesRosiers. Includes bibliographical references.

Transgender populations are at higher risk for negative health and psychological outcomes compared to cisgender populations (Rood et al., 2017). Previous research has explored ways in which Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual people who are religious reconcile their identities (Britton & Greene, 2015), however; there is a scarcity of literature regarding identity-related experiences of transgender Christians. Given that many LGBTQ+ people do not find religious environments accepting due to homophobia and transphobic sentiments (Barnes & Meyer, 2012), the purpose of this study was to shed light on salient experiences of transgender Christians as they have made sense of their identities. Through interpretative phenomenological analysis, I examined various psychosocial processes that occur for transgender Christians regarding experiences with transphobia, rejection, and ways in which they navigated oppressive social or religious environments. Four main themes emerged through the participants’ qualitative accounts of their experiences: (a) Meaning of Identity, (b) Challenges and Barriers, (c) Positive Experiences and Self-Compassion, and (d) Community Responsibility. Research and clinical implications for improving psychological outcomes for this population are discussed.

The greatest biblical basis for carrying out the work of preaching and teaching by Christians is the command given by Jesus Christ before he ascended to heaven, and is recorded in Matthew 28:19, 20. The beginning of such a work of preaching/instruction and teaching was on the day of Pentecost in 33 of the Common Era (after Christ), and remains until today, as prophesied by Jesus in Matthew 24:14. This article aims to present and explain how the preaching and teaching ministry of Jehovah's Witnesses is carried out worldwide, refining them based on scientific understanding and the author's theological-ministerial experiences. To this end, under the Giftedean neoperspectivist paradigm and hypothetical-deductive method, it conducts a bibliographical and narrative documentary survey, relating the preaching and teaching ministry of these religious people with their theocratic teachings, practices and procedures, based on their neo-Christian theology. It is concluded that: a) as Christians, we are exhorted, guided, ordered by Jesus to preach and teach the good news of the Kingdom to all people, without discrimination of age, socioeconomic status, clinical condition, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, color, religion, intellectual and cognitive level, profession, wherever they are; b) the preaching and teaching ministry includes formal, informal and hybrid testimonies, the characteristics of which are presented and compared throughout the article; c) as proselytizing practices of Jehovah's Witnesses, their preaching and teaching contribute to the construction of the concept of human dignity.

According to James 2:17,18, “faith without works is dead”; in other words, biblical theory without practice consistent with it is useless to God. For this reason, a religious organization that calls itself Christian, but that does not practice its own teachings in full, is not truly Christian. This does not mean being perfect, 100% correct in everything, because all Christians are imperfect and sinners, which is why we all make mistakes, we sin, whether in words or in actions. . But the continuous effort to maintain an unblemished conduct inside and outside religion, honest, ethical, moral and spiritually approved by God, is a fundamental Christian duty. That said, this work has the general objective of presenting the theocratic practices and procedures of Jehovah's Witnesses around the world. To this end, a bibliographical and narrative documentary review is carried out, under the Giftedean neoperspectivist paradigm, reasoning according to the hypothetical-deductive method. It concludes that for Christian religious teachings and practices to become an acceptable conduct, an acceptable way of life, approved by the Creator God Jehovah, and healthy psychically, spiritually and socially speaking, it is necessary to learn to live at the intersection between biblical knowledge and knowledge scientific. Because failing to follow the first in favor of the second leads to lacisism or atheism, and failing to follow the second in favor of the first leads to religious fanaticism, as is present among Jehovah's Witnesses today.

Крайняя малочисленность связанных с христианством находок и их неравномерное распределение во времени создает значительные трудности при восстановлении истории Фанагорийской христианской общины. Восполнить лакуны до некоторой степени помогают имеющиеся сведения об истории христианства в других центрах Северо-Восточного Причерноморья, неотъемлемой частью которого являлась Фанагория. Несомненно, новая религия проникает в Фанагорию, как и в другие центры Боспорского царства, в последней четверти 3 в. из Малой Азии, откуда готы, возвращаясь из своих пиратских набегов, привозили пленных христиан. Именно к периоду после морских походов варваров относятся первые зафиксированные на Боспоре признаки христианства: различные вещи с христианскими символами, христианские участки на некрополе в Керчи. Незначительное количество раннехристианских памятников говорит о том, что в этот период распространение религии в регионе происходило, главным образом, благодаря деятельности миссионеров, и число приверженцев христианства было невелико. С включением Боспора в сферу влияния Византийской империи церковь и государство предпринимают совместные усилия по христианизации региона: скорее всего, именно в это время по обе стороны Керченского пролива строятся церкви, в Фанагории учреждается епископская кафедра и строится христианский храм, внутреннему убранству которого, скорее всего, принадлежали два мраморных резервуара для воды, сигмовидный стол и рельеф с изображением Орфея, найденные при раскопках на «Нижнем городе». Форма и материал, из которого изготовлен один из найденных резервуаров, позво ляет интерпретировать его как крещальную купель. Причем небольшая глубина найден ной емкости не означает, что в ней крестили только детей, поскольку в большинстве случаев крещение совершалось без полного погружения: стоявшего в купели крещаемого просто обливали водой. Однако уже с 4 в. при крещении начали использовать стоячую воду, а наполнять купель предписывалось вручную. Поэтому объяснить назначение двух отверстий в фанагорийском резервуаре в случае его использования в качестве купели трудно. Лучше объясняет наличие двух отверстий другой возможный вариант использования резервуара: в качестве реликвария, в котором хранились мощи, их частицы или какие-то другие реликвии. Через верхнее отверстие в реликварий на хранящиеся в нем мощи наливали масло, которое выливалось через отверстие в нижней части. Что касается чаши с ручками-выступами вдоль края, то подобные емкости, как правило, определяют либо как купели для крещения детей, либо, чаще, как чаши для освященной воды, которую в раннехристианское время использовали для ритуального омовения рук перед входом в храм. Известные автору точные аналогии фанагорийскому сосуду происходят исключительно с территории провинций Мезия Секунда и Фракия. Не исключено, что именно оттуда фанагорийская емкость была привезена войсками, присланными на Боспор Юстинианом для подавления восстания против ставленника Византии Грода. Мраморный сигмовидной стол с арочной каймой также мог входить в состав инвентаря христианского храма. В церковном обиходе использование таких столов было вторичным, взятым из светской жизни и идет от раннехристианской традиции совместных поминальных трапез, совершавшихся над могилами мучеников. Позже их использовали в храмах в качестве престолов и столов для приношений, а также в трапезных монастырей. Несмотря на то, что сигмовидные столы, в частности столы с арочной каймой, использовали как в светском, так и христианском обиходе, их находки вне контекста обычно связывают с христианскими храмами. Однако в подобных случаях нельзя исключать возможность их использования и в качестве обычного обеденного стола. Наконец, с христианством может быть связана мраморная плитка с изображением Орфея, образ которого перешел в христианскую иконографию из языческого искусства. Незначительные размеры и сильная потертость фанагорийского фрагмента, к сожалению, не позволяют уверенно определить религиозный статус изображения, который, как правило устанавливают по составу «слушателей» и контексту. Строго говоря, из перечисленных находок только одну, мраморную чашу с вырезанным крестом, можно отнести к предметам интерьера христианского храмового комплекса безусловно. Сигмовидный стол могли использовать и в христианском культе, и по его прямому назначению – в качестве обеденного стола. Образ Орфея одинаково использовался как язычниками, так и христианами. Разным целям мог служить и мраморный резервуар. Но среди аргументов за и против их использования в христианском культе, все же превалируют первые. Кроме того, обнаружение всех предметов на довольно небольшом участке «Нижнего города» позволяет надеяться на то, что в ходе будущих раскопок здесь будет открыт христианский храм, и таким образом подтвердится предложенная интерпретация найденных предметов. Храм, к которому, возможно, относились перечисленные находки, по-видимому, был разрушен в середине 6 в. Тогда же, скорее всего, прекратила существование и Фанагорийская епархия. Какие-либо сведения о фанагорийских христианах более позднего времени полностью отсутствуют, но, судя по информации о христианских общинах, имевшихся в других центрах региона, а также в городах Хазарского каганата, были они и в Фанагории, которая в этот период, скорее всего, входила в состав Зихийской епархии. У нас нет сви детельств о притеснениях христиан в городах Хазарского каганата. Наоборот, согласно сведениям, содержащимся в письменных источниках, жизнь христиан там протекала до вольно спокойно. О благосклонном отношении хазарской элиты к христианству говорят и браки с византийским императорским домом, в частности брак Юстиниана II и сестры кагана Феодоры, после заключения которого он «уехал в Фанагорию и жил там с Феодорой» (Theoph. Chron. 704–705; пер. И.С. Чичурова). 2 Что же касается археологических свидетельств, то число связанных с христианством находок 8–10 вв. чрезвычайно мало, и их невозможно связать непосредственно с христианским населением Фанагории. Extremely low amounts of finds related to Christianity and their uneven distribution over time presents difficulties in reconstructing the history of the Phanagorian Christian community. The information on the history of Christianity in other centres of the North-Eastern Black Sea, a region where Phanagoria played a crucial part, can help fill the blanks to a certain extent. Without any doubt, the new religion arrived to Phanagoria, as well as to the other centres of the Bosporan kingdom, in the last quarter of the third century AD from Asia Minor, when the Goths brought Christians as captives from their pirate raids. The first recorded signs of Christianity in the Bosporos belong to the period after the sea campaigns of the “barbarians”. These include personal possessions with Christian symbols and Christian burial plots in the necropolis in Kerch. A small number of early Christian monuments points to the fact that during this period the spread of Christianity in the region heavily relied on the activities of missionaries, while the number of christians was still small. Later, after the inclusion of the Bosporos in the sphere of influence of the Byzantine Empire, the church and the state were making joint efforts to Christianize the region: most likely, it was at this time that Christian churches were built on both sides of the Kerch Strait, an episcopal chair was established in Phanagoria and a Christian church was built, decorated with two marble water tanks, a sigmoid table and a relief depicting Orpheus. All this was found during the excavations in the “Lower City” trench. 2 Чичуров 1980, 62. Христианство в Фанагории. Археологические свидетельства 71 The shape and material from which one of the found tanks is made allows for its interpreta tion as a baptistery. The small depth of the found container does not necessarily mean that only children were baptised in it, since in most cases baptism was performed without complete immersion. The baptised stood in the font and water was poured over him. However, from the fourth century AD stagnant water was used for baptism, and the font had to be filled manually. It is, therefore, difficult to explain the purpose of the two holes in the Phanagorean reservoir if it was used as a font. Their presence is better explained by another possible use of the tank – as a reliquary. Oil was poured into the reliquary through the upper opening to cover the relics stored in it, and then came out through the opening in the lower part. Regarding the bowls with protruding handles along the edge, such vessels are considered to serve either as fonts for child baptism, or, more often, as bowls for consecrated water, which, during the early Christian times, were used to wash hands before entering the temple. Their exact analogies, known to the author, come exclusively from the provinces of Moesia Secunda and Thrace. It is possible that it was from there that the Phanagorian container was brought by the troops, which were sent to the Bosporos by Justinian to suppress the uprising against the Byzantine ruler named Grod. A marble sigmoid table with an arched border could also be part of the inventory of a Christian church. In church life, the use of such tables was secondary. It comes from secular life, from the early Christian tradition of communal meals served on the graves of martyrs. Later they were used in temples and monasteries as thrones and tables for offerings. Despite the fact that sigmoid tables, particularly those with an arched border, were used both in secular and Christian everyday life, they are usually associated with Christian churches when found out of context. However, one cannot exclude the possibility of them being used as a regular dining table. Finally, a marble tile with the image of Orpheus, which came to the Christian iconography from pagan art, can also be associated with Christianity. Unfortunately, due to its insignificant size and severe damage, this fragment does not allow us to determine the religious status of the image with any degree of certainty. Usually such assumptions can be made based on the amount of depicted listeners and the find’s context. Strictly speaking, only one of the listed finds, a marble bowl with a carved cross, can be attributed to the items from the interior of the Christian temple. The sigmoid table could be used both in the Christian cult and for its original purpose, as a dining table. The image of Orpheus was used by both pagans and Christians. A marble tank could possibly also serve different purposes. However, between the arguments “for” and “against” its use in a Christian context, the former prevail. In addition, the discovery of all the objects together in a rather small area of the “Lower City” excavation site allows us to hope that, during future excavations, a Christian church will be discovered here, confirming our interpretations. The temple to which the finds may have belonged was apparently destroyed in the middle of the sixth century AD. At the same time, most likely, the Phanagorian diocese also ceased to exist. There is no information on Phanagorian Christians during later periods, but, judging by the information about the Christian communities that existed in other centres of the region, as well as in the cities of the Khazar Khaganate, Christians were present in Phanagoria, which, during this period was likely a part of the Zikhia diocese. So far, we have no evidence of the oppression of Christians in the cities of the Khazar Khaganate. On the contrary, according to the information from written sources, the life of Christians there was a rather calm one. The favourable attitude of the Khazar elite towards Christianity is also evidenced by marriages with the Byzantine imperial family. Of particular interest is the marriage of Justinian II and the sister of the Khagan, Theodora, after which he “left for Phanagoria and lived there with Theodora”. As for archaeological evidence, the number of finds associated with Christianity from the 8th to 10th centuries AD is extremely low, and it is impossible to connect them directly with the Christian population of Phanagoria.

The paper aims to highlight two aspects: on the one hand, to what extent names of saints interact with names of holidays in the Christian (Orthodox, Greek-Catholic, Roman-Catholic) calendar and in the folk calendar; on the other hand, whether names of saints and/or holidays in Romanian cultural space can be found in other cultural spaces. Upon looking at names of saints and holidays over the year in the calendars mentioned above, sometimes we notice similarities or contaminations, whereas on other occasions we come across differences. We focus our attention on twelve saints, correlated with twelve holidays over the year, celebrated by Christians regardless of religious confession and cultural space. The regional names of the holidays from various Romanian ethnographic areas attest to their age. The complexity of this research is underpinned by our synchronic analysis and interdisciplinary perspective (linguistics, ethnology, religion, mythology), which also refers to identity-otherness relationships, eponyms, isotopies, synonymy and antinomy connections, contamination and multiculturalism in onomastics.

Research on religion and prejudice has mostly been limited to Western Christian participants and beliefs. Evidence, overall, favors the idea of a religion-prejudice link. Does this also hold for East Asian religions, usually perceived as tolerant, and cultures, characterized by holistic thinking and tolerance of contradictions? We review here four recent studies and provide meta-analytic estimation of the East Asian interreligious prejudice. East Asian religiosity was associated with low explicit prejudice against religious outgroups in general (Study 1; adults from Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan) and three specific religious outgroups,<em> i.e</em>. Christians, Jews, and Muslims, but not atheists (Study 2; Taiwanese students), and low implicit prejudice against ethnic (Africans) and religious (Muslims) outgroups (Study 3; Taiwanese students). The mean effect size of the East Asian religious (low) prejudice was<em> r</em> = -.21. Moreover, Westerners from a Christian background primed with Buddhist pictures showed higher prosociality and, those valuing universalism, lower ethnic prejudice compared to the control, no pictures, condition (Study 4). Thus, the general idea that religion promotes prejudice lacks cross-cultural sensitivity: East Asian religion seems to be followed by low prejudice with regard to many, though not all, kinds of outgroups.

The present investigations represent the study of the communality of iconography as a creative individuality in the visualization of the religious cult of Christians. The appearance of artistic casting is known even before our era. The aim of the research is to consider the influence of ethnic ideological trends on the technology of manufacturing cult foundry artifacts.

This CREID Policy Briefing provides recommendations to address the marginalisation and discrimination faced by Chaldean Catholic Christian women in Iraq. Christian communities in Iraq have faced threats and discrimination throughout their history. Their numbers have declined considerably in recent years as more Christians have been displaced or forced to migrate due to war, occupation and persecution. This research, which focuses on the experiences of Chaldean Catholic and Orthodox women and men in Iraq, demonstrates the commonalities among different groups of Christian women and men. However, it also highlights the specific challenges facing Christian women, interlinked with their identities as women who are part of a religious minority and to their geographic location.

COVID-19 was a great challenge for Orthodox Christians worldwide. As all natural disasters in modernity, the pandemic was explained and combatted on the basis of science. There could be no doubt that death, pain, suffering, despair, imprisonment (the quarantine can indeed be experienced as an imprisonment) are opportunities for the Church to bear witness to Christ. To be ashamed of one’s vulnerability and to neglect the communal aspect of suffering means to render oneself less capable of bearing witness. Hence, it is important to find the conceptual ground for calibrating the truthful reaction to the pandemic in terms of the Christian ethos. To achieve this, we need the proper interpretative lens through which to examine the disaster of the pandemic.

In his elegant and insightful book Muqtedar Khan admonishes Muslims to do beautiful things. It is an arresting call in a book itself beautiful in style, clarity, and boldness of vision for a better world. Professor Khan’s quest for beauty in a specific Muslim context: the beauty that arises when actions are done with the inescapable sense that God sees all one does – or, Ihsan. But what exactly do the commands of God require of those who, knowing He is watching, set themselves the task of scrupulously doing His will?

This paper reflects on the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on religious life in Bulgaria, especially in the Orthodox Church, and on the sphere of academic teaching. The picture that emerges against the background of the moderate COVID-19 measures and the non-closure of churches is rather disturbing, given the aggressive attacks by non-believers against ecclesial practice. It testifies to widespread superstition and deep theological ignorance even among those who designate themselves as ‘Orthodox Christians’. The compromise of university education during the COVID-19 panic and the radical changes to the social way of thinking go—as a basis of the perplexity of the social mind—hand in hand with the destruction of the democratic world order by Russia’s war against Ukraine.

Violent conflicts and crime have reached new heights in Nigeria, as cases of kidnapping, armed banditry, and communal unrests continue to tear at the core of the ethnoreligious divides in the country. Southern Kaduna has witnessed a virulent spree of communal unrest in northern Nigeria over the last decade due to its polarized politics and power differentials between the various groups in the area, particularly the Christians and Muslims, who are almost evenly split. In response to their experiences of violence, the people of that region have also shown incredible resilience and grit in transforming their stress and suffering. This policy note focuses on the transformative practices of the Fulani and other ethnic communities in southern Kaduna in terms of how they problem-solve deep-seated socio-political rivalries and violent relations by working through their shared identity, history, and cultures of peace. The note explores how peace practitioners and donor agencies could consolidate local practices of sustaining peace as complementary or alternative resources to the state’s liberal system.

This paper aims to identify the most famous Yazidi heritage industries in the town of Bashiqa, in Nineveh governorate. It explores the economic, social and cultural reality of three non-material industries (the manufacture of al-rashi, olive oil and soap) in the town of Bashiqa by comparing how they were manufactured in the past with how they are manufactured in the present, and assessing the impact of ISIS gangs on these industries. Finally, the paper puts forward proposals for how these industries can be developed to maintain their heritage and sustainability. The research also aims to invoke the cultural and scientific heritage of the local community to draw inspiration from their sources of strength to plan how local production of the traditional heritage industries can be revitalised after the destruction caused by ISIS. The paper also explores the attachment of the Yazidi community in Bashiqa to the traditional industrial crafts and the extent of their influence on social and economic life, especially given that the city of Mosul is famous for its craft activity, in addition to the cultural and religious differences among the local population of Bashiqa, which comprises several components of Iraqi society (Yazidi, Catholic and Orthodox Christians, and the Muslim Shabak – Sunni, Shiite, and Kurdish) and thus affect the community’s view of the traditional crafts.