There is an internal connection between ecclesiology, the teaching about the Church that we call academic ecclesiology, and mission, which is the inner heart of the Church and becomes visible through different practices. For the Orthodox Church involved in the ecumenical movement, there is a struggle to balance ecclesiology (theology) with ecumenical mission and dialogue (practice) in a divided Christian world. Nevertheless, the recent Synod of Crete (June 2016) addressed some important elements of this struggle. I have in mind, (...) for example, the act to accept the historical name of other non-Orthodox Christian Churches and Confessions that are not in communion with it. Also, this is the first Synod of the Orthodox Churches in modern times at which ecumenical dialogue, especially in the World Council of Churches, is officially affirmed. Because of mission dialogue has to continue, “if we wish never to ‘put an obstacle in the way of the gospel of Christ’ (1 Cor 9:12).” The present paper highlights those statements of the Holy and Great Council which have direct relevance for discussing the relation of ecclesiology and mission. I assert that we should understand firstly the document Relations of the Orthodox Church with the Rest of the of the Christian World and only then reflect upon The Mission of the Orthodox Church in Today’s World (MOCT). Furthermore, I will make some references to the other texts which were central for this conference: The Cape Town Commitment (CTC), Together Towards Life (TTL) and Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium (EG). I conclude by exposing briefly my reflections after reading these mission documents and by formulating some agenda points for further work in theology of mission. (shrink)

Early in Aeneid 3 Aeneas visits Delos and approaches the temple of Apollo with a request for advice on the destination for which the refugees should head. There is an immediate response to his questions : uix ea fatus eram: tremere omnia uisa repente, liminaque laurusque dei, totusque moueri mons circum et mugire adytis cortina reclusis.

A persistent tradition existed in antiquity linking Caria with the island of Crete. This central theme of regional history is mirrored in the civic mythologies, cults and toponyms of southwestern Anatolia. This book explains why by approaching this diverse body of material with a broad chronological view, taking into account both the origins of this regional narrative and its endurance. It considers the mythologies in the light of archaeologically attested contacts during the Bronze Age, exploring whether such interaction could (...) have left a residuum in later traditions. The continued relevance of this aspect of Carian history is then considered in the light of contacts during the Classical and Hellenistic periods, with analysis of how, and in which contexts, traditions survived. The Carians were an Anatolian people; however, their integration into the mythological framework of the Greek world reveals that interaction with the Aegean was a fundamental aspect of their history. (shrink)

In this study, I will analyse the position of the Orthodox Church(es) towards the ecumenical dialogue in accordance with the documents approved by the Synod of Crete (2016), but also with the social document For the Life of the World of the Ecumenical Patriarchate (2020). After a brief presentation of the important moments of the historical journey for the meeting of the Synod, I will present the most important internal and reception issues of it. In the following, I will (...) present the reason for the publication of the social document and the relation with the Synod of Crete. In the last part of the study, I will deal critically with a theological synthesis on the following topics: ecclesiological self-identity, Trinitarian baptism, the quality of being a Christian, the Orthodox Church and the Churches, ecumenism for dialogue, for witnessing, and cooperation. Of course, in the end, I will present the most important conclusions. (shrink)

Bull-leaping has become one of the most emblematic activities of Minoan Crete and has recently received renewed attention with the BBC/british Museum radio series, A History of the World in 100 Objects. One of the featured objects, a Minoan bronze group of a bull and acrobat, was brought to life in a television advertisement using a modern bull and leaper. This act of translation is at the heart of the dialogue this paper seeks to address: the interaction between current (...) human attitudes toward nonhuman animals and their depictions, and those of the Bronze Age. It suggests that the animal practices of the past were shaped by material and social circumstances far removed from those of modernity. The mutual affordances of bulls and humans have resulted in similar interactions, or bull games, in different societies, but modern archaeologists have tended to downplay the relationship between bull and leaper in Bronze Age Crete by regarding bull-leaping in purely symbolic terms. An archaeological account informed by Human-Animal Studies can instead bring to the foreground both the familiarity and distinctiveness of past human-animal relationships. (shrink)

This article reconsiders the historical and typological relation between Greek maturation rituals and Greek mystery religion. Particular attention is given to the word κλεινός (‘illustrious’) and its ritual uses in two roughly contemporary Late Classical sources: an Orphic-Bacchic funerary gold leaf from Hipponion in Magna Graecia and Ephorus’ account of a Cretan pederastic age-transition rite. In both contexts, κλεινός marks an elevated status conferred by initiation. (This usage finds antecedents in Alcman'sPartheneia.) Without positing direct development between puberty rites and mysteries, (...) the article argues on the basis of shared vocabulary and other ritual elements that age-transitions influenced the ideology of mystery cults. It is further claimed that puberty rites and mysteries performed similar functions in their respective social contexts, despite obvious differences of prestige and visibility. Age-transition rites have been analysed in Bourdieu's terms as ‘rites of institution’, in which young elites were publicly affirmed in civic roles: private mysteries can be described in analogous but opposed terms as rites of ‘counter-institution’, in which familiar ritual language and symbols of elite status were used to construct an alternative ‘imagined community’ of mystery initiates. (shrink)

We discuss the evolution of the World Logic Prizes Contest. In a first section, we describe how this contest developed, on the on hand by the creation of the Universal Logic Prize starting in 2005 at the 1st World Congress and School on Universal Logic in Montreux, Switzerland, on the other hand by the creation of the Newton da Costa Logic Prize in Brazil in 2014. These two projects joined in 2018 by the organization of the 1st World Logic Prizes (...) Contest at the 6th World Congress and School on Universal Logic in Vichy, France. In a second section, we talk about the organization of the 2nd World Logic Prizes Contest to take place in April 2022 at the 6th World Congress and School on Universal Logic in Crete, Greece. We explain that there will be 15 contestants from 15 different countries with a good geographic distribution. In a third section, we discuss how this project can develop in the future with the creation of more logic prizes, the creation of similar prizes in other fields and the organization of a World Scientific Prizes Contest. (shrink)

Starting from the investigation of the documents issued by the Bishops who participated in the Holy Pan-Orthodox Council held in June 2016 in Crete, the author speaks in this research about the way in which ecumenism is understood from the perspective of this important event. The article tries to answer the question 'How did the event influence the Orthodox attitude towards ecumenism?' analysing documents, Mission of the Orthodox Church in Today's World and Relations of the Orthodox Church with the (...) Rest of the Christian World, he shows that the dialogue entailed by ecumenism is perceived nowadays, according to the documents of the World Council of Churches, like a pilgrimage of justice and peace, and he highlights the main topics of this perception. Therefore, he shows that, according to the documents, a real and fruitful dialogue with other Christian faiths must be based on the Trinitarian witness, the Bible, the Tradition, the Creed and the teaching of the Seven Councils and that, among its main topics, one must definitely mention the witness, love, dialogue, the fight against discrimination or the care for the future of the Earth. The relevance of the ecclesiological background and of its understanding for the future of this dialogue is also mentioned. The documents are investigated in a deductive and comparative-analytic way by the author. If before the Council there was no official general attitude of the Orthodox space regarding ecumenism, nor an official document on this topic - although between 1968 and 1998, all the Orthodox Churches were members of the WCC - after this event, there is an official position and a list of main topics that could be developed and principles that should be respected for a fruitful dialogue in the future, at least for the Churches that took part in the Council. By analysing the aforementioned topics, by correlating them with other texts dedicated to the Council of Crete, and also by emphasising the perception of the Orthodox Church about ecumenical dialogue and its developments starting from the aforementioned event, the research brings into attention a sensitive topic and highlights some of its important, but not enough highlighted, aspects. (shrink)

While the role, architecture, and use of the port of Candia on Crete have been extensively studied, little is known about the island’s other ports and bays. This article considers key questions to evaluate the role of Fraschia Bay in Venetian Crete’s port system and, by extension, in Venetian shipping activities in the late fifteenth century and mainly during the sixteenth. What kind of shipping activities were carried out in Fraschia Bay - commercial (legitimate and illegitimate) or/and military? (...) What types of ships docked there? And under what circumstances was the bay used, especially compared to the port of Candia? The analysis, based on unpublished archival documents of the Archivio di Stato di Venezia, aims to determine whether the activities carried out in the bay of Fraschia were part of the integrated port system of Candia, or whether Fraschia Bay served only as an occasional substitute. The analysis concludes that Fraschia served a complex purpose in Candia’s port system and as a substitute port at times when Candia was unsuitable, due to weather conditions or construction operations. Moreover, Fraschia Bay’s role went well beyond official mercantile shipping, since it also supported military activities and the movement of contraband. (shrink)

An important moment in the history of the Orthodox Church is despite the withdrawal of local churches like the Bulgarian, Russian, Georgian and Alexandrian ones and the fear of Serbian Church to take part in it, the Pan-Orthodox Council of Crete remains an important meeting that influenced the history of Orthodoxy and shifted its conception to the world. The relevance of some of the topics discussed there explains why it can be found inside the important theological journals from the (...) entire world chronicles of the event and articles dedicated to some of the topics investigated. Noticing this fact, we have tried to see the way the social thinking of the Orthodox Church is reflected in the documents released by the participants and its encyclical letter. Because of the fact that, until today, only the Russian Orthodox Church has a document that defines in an articulate way its social thinking and this one was published in 2002, when many challenges were not present in society, the ideas presented there are not only important for their relevance and actuality, but also for the fact that they became the official document that articulates the landmarks of social thinking of the Eastern Orthodox Church, seen as a federation of local churches that are in Eucharistic and doctrinaire communion. Therefore, we have tried to see how the bishops presented to the Pan-Orthodox meeting, the way they understood and approached these topics and what represented the motivations of their conclusions. (shrink)

The present article focuses on а Cretan icon dating from the third quarter of the fifteenth century and signed bу Andreas Ritzos, which stands out for its unusual combination of Italian and Byzantine visual elements. It displays an awkward "iconized" version of the standard Gothic abbreviation for the Holy Name of Jesus - the IHS monogram associated with the preaching of St. Bemardine of Siena - the letters of which are decorated with the scenes of Christ’s Crucifixion and Resurrection and (...) accompanied by а Greek inscription taken after the ritual formulas of Orthodox Sunday Matins. The object is analysed against the background of Veneto-Greek interactions in fifteenth-century Crete and of contemporary discussions about the use of the IHS as an alternative to image worship. (shrink)

Ioannis Spatharakis has produced a book about the iconography of seventy-three painted churches of Crete. Given the lack of an exhaustive photographic publication of the Byzantine wall paintings of the island and the relatively few monographs on individual churches, in the past forty years scholars have attempted to compile synthetic works with mixed results. Three other volumes have dealt with Cretan frescoes prior to Spatharakis's book reviewed here: K. D. Kalokyris, The Byzantine Wall Paintings of Crete (New York, (...) 1973); Manfred Bissinger, Kreta. Byzantinische Wandmalerei. Münchener Arbeiten zur Kunstgeschichte und Archäologie 4 (Munich, 1996); and to a lesser degree Klaus Gallas, Klaus Wessel, and Manolis Borboudakis, Byzantinisches Kreta. Studium und Reise. (Munich, 1983) which is a learned, comprehensive travel guide. (shrink)

As with other aspects of post-Minoan Crete studies there has been a tendency to accept a pan-Cretan economic model. A Dorian aristocracy, served by pre-Dorian serfs and their descendants, depended upon the produce of their private kleroi for membership in an andreion and citizen status. The elite preserved their political, social, and economic position by discouraging the development of a market economy on Crete in favor of a subsistence economy based upon agriculture, animal husbandry, and hunting. Discouraged were (...) production of coinage, elite display, and manufacture for export . Specialist craftsmen and other kinds of wage earners were either foreigners or members of a dependent population. (shrink)