This paper seeks to understand the people of God’s giving glory to God as a responsive participation in God’s infinite glory which is known in the radiance of its perfect effulgence. The paper begins by outlining the implications of the claim that God is perfectly glorious in Godself. The second section seeks to unpack what it means to see the glory of God as a perfection of divine movement, in which the radiance of the effulgence of God’s glory is made present in the theatre of creation. Section three of the paper turns to the Christian’s glorification of God. This glorification is understood, in virtue of the preceding sections, as a responsive participation in the overflowing and superabundantly gracious, glorious life of God. This responsive participation by the Christian is the response of active sanctification in which the creature is conformed by the Spirit to the image of Christ so as to participate in the perfection of God’s eternal glory. This very response of the Christian is itself one of overflow and grace as she participates in and witnesses to the logics of the Lord’s glory.

Keywords: - glory, sanctification, grace, Spirit, God

Tom Greggs, Professor for Patristics at University of Aberdeen, Scotland

Address : - Scotland
E-mail : -

The conciliarity of the Church cannot be conceived without thinking to its catholicity. Its specific manifestations are the synod of bishops, the ministry of the Primate and the assembly of the faithfuly. The Holy Synod cannot be above the Church, neither considered as the Church itself by its own. Rather than that, it is lawful only when it is presided over by a primate that serves at the maintaining of its unity, and only if it is oriented towards the assembly of the faithful. In the absence of such a conciliar/universal perspective, a destructive ecclesial schizophrenia threatens the Church.

Keywords: - sinodality, primacy, catholicity, unity, Church.
L’un des

Protos. Nathanael Neacşu, “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University, Iaşi, Romania

Address : - Iaşi, Romania
E-mail : -

Ein wichtiger Verteidiger der Ikonenverehrung in der ersten Phase des Ikonoklasmus war Papst Gregor II., der sich gegen den Bilderstürmer Kaiser Leon III. auflehnte und den Irrtum des Basileos verurteilte. Papst Gregor schickte dem Kaiser zwei Briefe, die nur in Griechisch gehalten sind, und noch einen Brief an Patriarch Gherman. Das Studium versucht, die Ikonentheologie von Papst Gregor II. zu untersuchen, wie sie aus diesen Dokumenten hervorgeht.

Keywords (Schlȕsswörter): - Ikonoklasm, Kirche von Rom, Papst Gregorius II., Briefe

Revd. Nicolae CHIFĂR, Professor of Church History at the “Andrei Şaguna” Orthodox Faculty of Theology, “Lucian Blaga” University of Sibiu, Romania

Address : - Sibiu, Romania
E-mail : -

The holy person of the Mother of God is the central figure in both teaching and especially the worship of the Church, since she, making herself the Mother of God the Word, became the Mother of all mankind, especially Christians. Regarding the teaching of Holy Virgin Mary, patristic literature focuses on some clear directions that have biblical foundation, namely miraculous motherhood (theotokia), her ever-virginity (aieparthenia), and her life full of holiness, which she deserves an honor for, more important than that of all saints and angels (hyperdoulia), all aspects always being linked with the teaching about Jesus Christ. However, regarding other aspects in the life of the Holy Virgin, these are taken up and developed in the context of Palamite disputes related to the Church teachings on uncreated divine grace, and hesychasm as authentic monastic practice. St. Gregory Palamas demonstrates in his writings that monasticism is both life in Christ, but at the same time life in the prototype of Virgin Mary, the first and most perfect hesychast.

Keywords: - Mother of God, hesychasm, St. Gregory Palamas

Revd. Dan STREZA, Assistant Professor at the “Andrei Şaguna” Orthodox Faculty of Theology, “Lucian Blaga” University of Sibiu, Romania.

Address : - Sibiu, Romania
E-mail : -

This study aims to pursue the missionary valences of icons in our society. Accepting as a premise that the Church has appropriated with certain reservations the worship of icons in parallel with the condemnation of idolatrous practices and based on the theological argumentation of the Holy Fathers of the 8th and 9th centuries, the Orthodox cult assumed this ontological necessity of representation, denouncing the excesses that, interpreted as idol worship, caused the Byzantine iconoclastic reactions. Like then, today’s resistance to the religious symbol reflects, on the one hand, the inflation of representations and the sometimes ostentatious exposure of icons, and, on the other hand, highlights the misunderstanding of the true nature of the icon and the fear of a return to idolatrous practices.

Keywords: - icon honoring, Christian mission, Iconoclasm, idolatry

Revd. Aurel PAVEL, Professor at the “Andrei Şaguna” Orthodox Faculty of Theology, “Lucian Blaga” University of Sibiu, Romania

Address : - Sibiu, Romania
E-mail : -

This paper represents the second part of a more developed study and presents the exhumation of the precious relics of Saint Paisius Velichkovsky from his tomb, located in the Princely Church of Neamț Monastery, as well as the causes of depreciation of his bones, traditions from Neamţ related to the grave and exhumation – in light of the historical reality, the restoration of the tomb, as well as putting the relics in a reliquary for veneration.

Keywords: - Saint Paisius Velichkovsky, Neamț Monastery, engravings, portraits, icons, grave, exhumation, holy relics, traditions, historical reality, worship.

Gheorghe DIACONU, PhD Student at the “Andrei Şaguna” Orthodox Faculty of Theology, “Lucian Blaga” University of Sibiu, Romania.

Address : - Sibiu, Romania
E-mail : -

The Orthodox iconography implies the existence of canonical ordinances and limits, without which the icon loses its meaning and significance for the liturgical life of the Church believer. The canonical limits must be based on the doctrinal markers of the Church that consecrate the icon as a witness to the mystery of the incarnation, but also as a window permanently open to eternity. The canonical and doctrinal iconography of the Church is truly an art, a liturgical art that cannot be separated or isolated from its ecclesial context, meaning the Holy Scripture and its content, rich in doctrine and spirituality. The Byzantine manuscript of the icons’ theology made it possible to eliminate the risk of the emergence as an art of the so-called “artistic existentialism”, where the imagination makes room for hallucination and delirium, in order to transform the sacred art of the icon into a “rough art”, as a primitive characteristic of mental illnesses who live their religiosity in the form of “mystical nightmares”, in an absolute primitivism.

Keywords: - Icon, art of the icon, orthodox iconography, sacred art, canon, doctrine, orthodoxy, Church, artistic existentialism, raw art, primitive art, mystical nightmare.

Revd. Gheorghe ISTODOR, Professor at the Orthodox Faculty of Theology, “Ovidius” University of Constanţa, Romania

Address : - Constanţa, Romania
E-mail : -

According to Maurice Geerard’s catalogue in Clavis Patrum Graecorum, from archbishop Proclus of Constantinople, were preserved two sermons on Ascension. These two sermons do not seem to be known in the Romanian theological space. This paper presents the textual history of homilies, the question of their authenticity and their first translation into Romanian.

Keywords: - sermons, homilies, on Ascension, Proclus of Constantinople

Revd. Radu GÂRBACEA, Associated member of the Research Center for Theology, “Lucian Blaga” University of Sibiu, Romania.

Address : - Sibiu, Romania
E-mail : -