Diakrisis Yearbook of Theology and Philosophy
type: channel
description: Diakrisis Yearbook of Theology and Philosophy is a printed and online, open access, peer-reviewed yearbook edited by the Center for Theology & Culture, Faculty of Orthodox Theology, Babeș-Bolyai University (Cluj-Napoca, Romania). Diakrisis publishes articles and reviews on Theology, Philosophy, Phenomenology, Metaphysics, Philosophy of Religion, Ethics, Religious Studies, Classical Studies. This journal encourages interdisciplinarity, mainly through dialogue between theology and philosophy, but also through dialogue between theology and other humanities. Deadline: October 20. Manuscripts received by this date will be considered for inclusion in the current year’s volume. Publication month: December. Languages: The articles are published in English, French, and German. No publication fees: Diakrisis does not charge authors any submission or publication fees. The journal is Open Access and supports immediate free access to the work, permitting any user to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of articles and any other lawful use in accordance to the CC by ND license employed by the journal.
publisher: Faculty of Orthodox Theology, Babeș-Bolyai University
language: fr
publication name: Diakrisis Yearbook of Theology and Philosophy
issn: 2601-7261
items: https://diakrisis.eu/index.php/diakrisis/fr/article/view/68
items: https://diakrisis.eu/index.php/diakrisis/fr/article/view/67
items: Pascal Bruckner, Die Heiligkeit der Hausschuhe. Über den Verzicht auf die Welt,übers. von Doru Mareș, Trei Verlag, Bukarest 2025, 144 S., ISBN: 978-606-40-2445-9
items: https://diakrisis.eu/index.php/diakrisis/fr/article/view/63
items: St. Catherine of Alexandria as a Feminine Paradigm of Christian Wisdom
items: A Hesychast Theory of Virtue
items: The Divine Attribute of Transcendence in Dionysius the Areopagite's Work
items: Le rapport entre sagesse et piété dans l’Euthyphron de Platon
items: Mystagogical Philosophy as Itinerary
items: To Know Through Touch
items: From Personhood to Panim
items: Wittgenstein and the Demystification of Art and Art Rituals
items: Between Asceticism and Theodicy
items: Women, Philosophy, and Violence
items: Suffering Captured by Christ Jesus
items: Critique of Supernatural Revelation
items: Miracle and Humility in “Apophtegmata Patrum”
items: The Ascetical Way of Life in St Isaac the Syrian’s Writings
items: Vita passibilis, imperturbatio (apatheia), vita passiva
items: Faith as Experience
items: Broken Phenomenology
items: For the time Being
items: Archives
items: Dislocated Positions of Bearing Witness
items: The Divine Word and its Expression in Sanskrit
items: The Absolute Discourse of Theology
items: Patristic Apophaticism and the House of Being
items: Open hermeneutics
items: « Ce Dieu terriblement humain »
items: Frauenseele und weiblicher Geist

https://diakrisis.eu/index.php/diakrisis/fr/article/view/68
type: item
title: Bogdan Tătaru-Cazaban, Învierea lui Lazăr de-a lungul secolelor [The Resurrection of Lazarus throughout the Centuries], vol. I: 125-1486, Studii și documente de istoria religiilor 7 / Archaeus. Studies in the History of Religions 22, Ed. Spandugino and Zeta Books, Bucharest, 2025, 398 pp., ISBN 978-606-8944-95-1 (hardback)
subject: Reviews
  topic: section
creator: Marius Portaru
rights: (c) Copyright Marius Portaru (Author) 2026 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2026-04-10
publication date: 2026-04-10

https://diakrisis.eu/index.php/diakrisis/fr/article/view/67
type: item
title: Michaela Fenske (ed.), Narrating the Multispecies World. Stories in Times of Crises, Loss, and Hope, transcript Verlag, Bielfeld, 2025, 336 S., Print-ISBN: 978-3-8376-7056-1, PDF-ISBN: 978-3-8394-7056-5, ISSN of series: 2702-945X, eISSN of series: 2702-9468
subject: Reviews
  topic: section
creator: Ion-Sandu Cristea
rights: (c) Copyright Ion-Sandu Cristea (Author) 2026 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2026-01-16
publication date: 2026-01-16

Pascal Bruckner, Die Heiligkeit der Hausschuhe. Über den Verzicht auf die Welt,übers. von Doru Mareș, Trei Verlag, Bukarest 2025, 144 S., ISBN: 978-606-40-2445-9
type: item
subject: Reviews
  topic: section
creator: Ciprian Iulian Toroczkai
rights: (c) Copyright Ciprian Iulian Toroczkai (Author) 2026 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2026-01-16
publication date: 2026-01-16

https://diakrisis.eu/index.php/diakrisis/fr/article/view/63
type: item
title: Nicolae Turcan, Das verborgene Präsens. Studien zur Phänomenologie und Theologie, (Kollektion Universitas, Reihe Theologia et Philosophia, Nr. 16), Eikon Verlag, Bukarest, 2024, 169 S., ISBN: 978-606-49-1273-2
subject: Reviews
  topic: section
creator: Ciprian Iulian Toroczkai
rights: (c) Copyright Ciprian Iulian Toroczkai (Author) 2025 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2025-12-30
publication date: 2025-12-30
starting page: 161
ending page: 163

St. Catherine of Alexandria as a Feminine Paradigm of Christian Wisdom
type: item
description: Although historical research in the last century questions the historical character of Saint Catherine, since the beginning of the third millennium the interest in the typology represented by her within the pre-modern Christian culture has known a constant increase. The cult of the saint, the significance of her history from a socio-cultural and gender studies point of view, but also her presence as a major theme of medieval, Renaissance and Baroque painting have been studied. The present study aims to analyze the theme of Saint Catherine's dispute with pagan philosophers, an essential episode of the legend of Saint Catherine in two of the most important painters of the Quattroccento period: Masolino da Panicale și Pinturicchio. Masolino was active in the first half of the 15th century and offers a sober composition, placing St. Catherine in a didactic posture (Lehrtypus). Pinturicchio’s composition is more colorful and dynamic, and although he depicts the virgin Christian philosopher dressed in princely clothes, his placement in a discussion posture (Diskussionstypus) anticipates the tragic denouement of the Legend.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: St. Catherine of Alexandria
  topic: keywords
subject: Women Philosophers
  topic: keywords
subject: Renaissance
  topic: keywords
subject: Christian Wisdom
  topic: keywords
creator: Ana Ocoleanu
rights: (c) Copyright Ana Ocoleanu (Author) 2025 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2025-12-30
publication date: 2025-12-30
starting page: 117
ending page: 126
doi: 10.24193/diakrisis.2025.6

A Hesychast Theory of Virtue
type: item
description: One of the issues debated by St. Gregory Palamas in the sentential treatise Capita 150 is the practical problem of the genealogy of virtue, which he approaches in an eminently epistemological context. Palamas distinguishes between two modes of knowledge that are, equally, two ways of life: the natural and the spiritual. The natural mode of knowledge is articulated between three topoi of the self: perception (aisthēsis), the imaginative faculty of the soul (phantastikon) and the intellect (nous). The data of knowledge come eminently from the senses, being stored in the phantastikon so that later the intellect can lean in an intentional manner on them, thus producing virtues or vices. In contrast, the spiritual way of knowing has to do primarily not with sensory experience, but with that of the Holy Spirit, through which man shares what we know about God, the world, and ourselves. As knowledge of God, it is not a knowledge of the divine being or nature, but a knowledge of Him from His energies which, in order to share an authentic knowledge of God, must be uncreated. From the experience of God’s grace, which is an experience of the inner man, another type of virtues arises. These presuppose, like the natural ones, a moral effort to fulfill moral imperatives, this time of divine origin, but springing from the original experience of repentance, which leads St. Gregory Palamas to call them „works of repentance” (erga tēs metanoias). They lead to the knowledge of Christ dwelling in the human heart through divine grace, but, equally, they are produced by this interior experience of an almost sacramental nature. As such, they are, ultimately, practical expressions of the love between God and man.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Virtue
  topic: keywords
subject: Practical Philosophy
  topic: keywords
subject: Epistemology
  topic: keywords
subject: Divine Nature
  topic: keywords
subject: Uncreated Energy
  topic: keywords
subject: Palamite Doctrine
  topic: keywords
creator: Picu Ocoleanu
rights: (c) Copyright Picu Ocoleanu (Author) 2025 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2025-12-30
publication date: 2025-12-30
starting page: 29
ending page: 44
doi: 10.24193/diakrisis.2025.2

The Divine Attribute of Transcendence in Dionysius the Areopagite's Work
type: item
description: This article undertakes a comparative analysis of divine transcendence as conceptualized in the Neoplatonically-infused Christian mysticism of the Corpus Areopagiticum and the esoteric tradition of Jewish Kabbalah, with a primary focus on the Zohar. It argues that despite their distinct theological origins and historical contexts, both systems develop sophisticated apophatic theologies to safeguard the absolute otherness of the Godhead, while simultaneously positing a structured series of divine emanations or processions that bridge the chasm between the transcendent source and the created world. The study explores the apophatic methodologies (the via negativa), the role of divine names, and the hierarchical structures of emanation (divine processions in Dionysius, the Sefirot in Kabbalah). A central, speculative hypothesis is advanced: the potential analogical identification of the Sefirah Hokhmah (Wisdom) with the Person of Christ as the Logos (the Verb). The article defines the necessary theological and philosophical conditions that would render such a comparison reasonably acceptable within a comparative mystical framework, highlighting both the profound confluences in their structural roles and the insurmountable dogmatic differences that prevent a full equation. The aim is not to syncretize, but to use the comparison as a heuristic tool to illuminate the unique contours of each tradition's approach to the paradox of a transcendent yet self-revealing God.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Dionysius the Areopagite
  topic: keywords
subject: Kabbalah
  topic: keywords
subject: Transcendence
  topic: keywords
subject: Neoplatonism
  topic: keywords
subject: Proclus
  topic: keywords
subject: Divine Names
  topic: keywords
subject: Hierarchy
  topic: keywords
subject: Mystical Theology
  topic: keywords
creator: Sorin Benescu
rights: (c) Copyright Sorin Benescu (Author) 2025 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2025-12-30
publication date: 2025-12-30
starting page: 65
ending page: 84
doi: 10.24193/diakrisis.2025.4

Le rapport entre sagesse et piété dans l’Euthyphron de Platon
type: item
description: Dans cet article, nous examinons à partir du dialogue Euthyphron de Platon la nature de la relation entre les notions de sagesse et de piété. En essayant de définir la piété, les deux interlocuteurs, Socrate et Euthyphron, démontrent l’existence de deux modes de pensée différents, renseignant sur une sorte d’opposition entre la perspective philosophique et celle de la théologie traditionnelle. L’analyse des moments-clés du dialogue nous montre que la vraie sagesse ne peut être qu’une sagesse philosophique qui est en mesure de développer une conception philosophique de la piété. Selon Socrate, cette conception repose sur deux piliers : une notion de la vertu qui la relie au savoir vrai, et une notion du divin conçue sans le moindre anthropomorphisme. En revanche, la prétendue sagesse théologique d’Euthyphron se réclamant de la religion des Grecs est une pseudo-sagesse qui – en s’appuyant sur l’autorité de la tradition – fait dépendre la vertu et la piété des conceptions anthropomorphes du divin.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: sagesse
  topic: keywords
subject: piété
  topic: keywords
subject: le divin
  topic: keywords
subject: vertu
  topic: keywords
subject: dialectique
  topic: keywords
subject: Socrate
  topic: keywords
subject: Euthyphron
  topic: keywords
creator: Aimen Remida
rights: (c) Copyright Aimen Remida (Author) 2025 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2025-12-30
publication date: 2025-12-30
starting page: 9
ending page: 27
doi: 10.24193/diakrisis.2025.1

Mystagogical Philosophy as Itinerary
type: item
description: This article rereads Prince Vladimir’s conversion narrative (years 986–988, Kievan Rus’) in the Primary Chronicle as a patristic mystagogy (a deliberately staged itinerary of purification, illumination and union). Using a participatory-symbolic hermeneutic grounded in Gregory of Nyssa, Dionysius the Areopagite and Maximus the Confessor, it argues that Kievan Rus’ first encountered Christianity as a philosophical way of life that unites reason and revelation and culminates in theosis. In this study, “philosopher” is defined as the one who mediates between human inquiry and divine wisdom through a life aimed at likeness to God. St. Maximus the Confessor and St. Cyril-Constantine frame it as knowing “divine and human things” in an eros-driven ascent that is verified in deeds. In the Chronicle, the unnamed “Greek Philosopher” functions precisely so. Moreover, the article shows how dialogue functions as a performative engine transforming persons and positions the Chronicle within the canon of Christian philosophy in Rus’.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: mystagogy
  topic: keywords
subject: Primary Chronicle
  topic: keywords
subject: Christianization of Rus’
  topic: keywords
subject: symbolic realism
  topic: keywords
subject: dialogue
  topic: keywords
subject: participation
  topic: keywords
subject: Gregory of Nyssa
  topic: keywords
subject: Dionysius the Areopagite
  topic: keywords
subject: Maximus the Confessor
  topic: keywords
creator: Nikita Semenikhin
rights: (c) Copyright Nikita Semenikhin (Author) 2025 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2025-12-30
publication date: 2025-12-30
starting page: 45
ending page: 64
doi: 10.24193/diakrisis.2025.3

To Know Through Touch
type: item
description: This article explores the conceptual metaphor of intimacy as epistemic access in the Gospel of Philip, where erotic union functions as a sacramental pathway to divine knowledge. Drawing on cognitive linguistics and Gnostic theology, the study examines how metaphors of touch, fusion, and bodily presence encode a form of “wisdom through embodiment.” The Gospel of Philip frames holiness not as moral purity or ascetic withdrawal, but as a relational mode of knowing—one that privileges proximity, vulnerability, and shared essence. The metaphorical structure of phrases such as “the bridal chamber” and “those who unite will receive light” suggests a mystical epistemology grounded in physicality and mutual recognition. By analysing these metaphors through the lens of Conceptual Metaphor Theory and sacramental phenomenology, the article argues that Gnostic holiness is not merely esoteric but deeply experiential. This reframing challenges dualistic readings of Gnostic texts and opens a dialogue between ancient mystical traditions and contemporary theories of embodied cognition. Ultimately, the study contributes to a broader understanding of how metaphors of intimacy can function as vehicles of theological insight, positioning erotic union as a site of wisdom and sanctification.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Gospel of Philip
  topic: keywords
subject: Valentinian theology
  topic: keywords
subject: Erotic holiness
  topic: keywords
subject: Sacramental metaphor
  topic: keywords
subject: Epistemic embodiment
  topic: keywords
subject: Cognitive linguistics
  topic: keywords
creator: Zacharias Kotzé
rights: (c) Copyright Zacharias Kotzé (Author) 2025 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2025-12-30
publication date: 2025-12-30
starting page: 145
ending page: 157
doi: 10.24193/diakrisis.2025.8

From Personhood to Panim
type: item
description: According to Father Stăniloae, if God is transcendent, He is persona, and His personal character assures His transcendence. His persona transcends even His infinity. Likewise, the image of God in man lies essentially in the character of the person: every person becomes a new “eye” of spiritual transparency. The most adequate, expressive and communicative image of the supreme Image is the human being, or more precisely, the human face. Starting from the fact that personhood is no longer experienced as a mystery, Stăniloae turns to the Bible, which testifies that the face (panim) is the essence of a person. This biblical theology of God’s shining face or presence (panim) is the key to understanding Father Stăniloae’s eschatology and, by extension, his entire theology of the person. There is a dynamic and revelatory movement from the anthropological dimension of eikon–tselem (“image of God”) in his earlier studies, such as God’s Immortal Image, to the later theology of personhood in Volume 6 of his Dogmatics, which is indebted to the biblical dimension of prosōpon–panim (the human “face” of Christ). Eternal bliss, according to him, will be the contemplation of the face of Christ; this is the “eternal perspective of deification” — the divine energies conceived in and radiated from the face of Christ.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: personhood
  topic: keywords
subject: face-panim
  topic: keywords
subject: eikon-tselem
  topic: keywords
subject: image of God
  topic: keywords
subject: Christology
  topic: keywords
subject: eschatology
  topic: keywords
subject: ‘Presence’
  topic: keywords
creator: Nichifor Tănase
rights: (c) Copyright Nichifor Tănase (Author) 2025 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2025-12-30
publication date: 2025-12-30
starting page: 85
ending page: 115
doi: 10.24193/diakrisis.2025.5

Wittgenstein and the Demystification of Art and Art Rituals
type: item
description: The criteria of Wittgenstein’s theories on demystification through art and rituals are inexact; in the realm where the Form of the Good dwells it is impossible to even dimly see and testify to the logical clarification of thought (catharsis). The reason for this impossibility is that catharsis is a biological procedure; which means that it concerns solely the physical, not the mental. Expanding further this idea as regards the use of language that implements catharsis, Wittgenstein maintains that communication signs alone play no part (hence neither do apprehension nor sense impressions) in a language which is disconnected from patterns of relationship that explain life and reality. To pay attention to these signs is to understand merely what happens – not what really is. To transmit them means to apprehend only their patterns – not what lies behind these patterns. And that was exactly, following Aristotle, what the initiates of the rituals as regards the form of the Good, were dedicated to. Their aim was not to grasp the Truth but to experience it through passion, thus putting themselves in a condition to dedicate themselves to its realisation. Plato, on the other, thought these rituals were qualified by sophistry. This process does function, however, not only cathartically at the level of thought, but also therapeutically, as healing the evils of times and physical evils and passions. Aeschylus’ lesson: that learning is brought about through passion solely, clearly foreshadows Wittgenstein’s demystifying ideas on the healing functions of parallel learning procedures.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Wittgenstein’s Theology
  topic: keywords
subject: Aristotle
  topic: keywords
subject: Philosophy of Science
  topic: keywords
subject: Culture
  topic: keywords
subject: Aesthetics
  topic: keywords
creator: Virginia Giouli
rights: (c) Copyright Virginia Giouli (Author) 2025 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2025-12-30
publication date: 2025-12-30
starting page: 127
ending page: 144
doi: 10.24193/diakrisis.2025.7

Between Asceticism and Theodicy
type: item
description: Christ recreates all creation that follows Him. Personally embracing His Salvation is the transcendent and central Christian duty, realized as a certain act of taking responsibility. This embracement turns the fact of suffering into a weapon against the devil and the appearance that natural biological death is a misfortune into the insight that it is the opening of the Gate of the Kingdom. This paper outlines the Holy and Living Tradition’s essential message on the topic at hand: The message about the fact that suffering is, in itself, neither good nor bad and about the way in which the Cross of Christ offers the rectifying Justification of the human being and, through man, of the whole of the fallen creation. Consequently, rather than a philological approach, it offers a synthetic dogmatical insight into this, based on the premise that the Holy Tradition is alive since the first centuries and until the more recent Saint Theologians of the One Church.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Cross
  topic: keywords
subject: repentance
  topic: keywords
subject: participation
  topic: keywords
subject: Larchet
  topic: keywords
subject: St. Maximus
  topic: keywords
subject: St. Irenaeus
  topic: keywords
creator: Paul Andrei Mucichescu
rights: (c) Copyright Paul Andrei Mucichescu (Author) 2024 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2024-12-28
publication date: 2024-12-28
starting page: 37
ending page: 52
doi: 10.24193/diakrisis.2024.3

Women, Philosophy, and Violence
type: item
description: What does it mean to be a female philosopher in late antiquity? This is the question that concerns us in this study and which I try to solve by referring to two personalities from Alexandria (IV-V century): St. Catherine and Hypatia. Although they are very well known, both in the Christian environment and in the world of profane sciences and the arts, the two philosophers from Alexandria share a common destiny: their works have not been preserved, although their fame has reached today; they were rather seen as exceptions of the female gender, with implicit misogyny, and had a violent end. Being a female philosopher, even in the emancipated Alexandria of late antiquity, was a risky undertaking.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: women philosopher
  topic: keywords
subject: St. Catherine
  topic: keywords
subject: Hypathia from Alexandria
  topic: keywords
subject: Christianity
  topic: keywords
subject: Hellenism
  topic: keywords
subject: Platonism
  topic: keywords
subject: martyrdom
  topic: keywords
subject: violence
  topic: keywords
creator: Ana Ocoleanu
rights: (c) Copyright Ana Ocoleanu (Author) 2024 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2024-12-28
publication date: 2024-12-28
starting page: 53
ending page: 61
doi: 10.24193/diakrisis.2024.4

Suffering Captured by Christ Jesus
type: item
description: Phil. 3:12 is a relatively rarely commented text in Eastern patristic exegesis. If sometimes its interpretation is given very little space (Theodoret of Cyrus), very often he is simply overlooked, to the detriment of the verses before or after him, which are interpreted in an eminently ascetic key. Not so much an exegesis as a moral reflection about him offers St. Basil the Great in Homily XX on humility as a theological virtue and human condition restored in Christ. Unlike him, St. John Chrysostom offers an anthropological-epistemological interpretation of the text, which finally leads to a moral reflection on the passivity of this human condition restored by the Savior.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: humility
  topic: keywords
subject: anthropology
  topic: keywords
subject: epistemology
  topic: keywords
subject: justification by faith
  topic: keywords
subject: vita passiva
  topic: keywords
subject: Phil. 3:12
  topic: keywords
subject: theological virtues
  topic: keywords
subject: human condition
  topic: keywords
subject: nobility of man
  topic: keywords
subject: St. Basil the Great
  topic: keywords
subject: St. John Chrysostomus
  topic: keywords
creator: Picu Ocoleanu
rights: (c) Copyright Picu Ocoleanu (Author) 2024 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2024-12-28
publication date: 2024-12-28
starting page: 9
ending page: 21
doi: 10.24193/diakrisis.2024.1

Critique of Supernatural Revelation
type: item
description: This article argues that the claim of traditional Christian theology and religion to be in possession of supernatural revelation cannot be substantiated in a valid and non-circular manner in principle. It then notes the consequences for theology if the notion of supernatural revelation is abandoned. It proposes agnosticism about unknowable maers as a way of exercising faith or trust in the limits God’s providence has established for human knowledge.
subject: Varia
  topic: section
subject: agnosticism
  topic: keywords
subject: supernatural revelation
  topic: keywords
subject: onto-epistemology
  topic: keywords
subject: broad and ugly ditch
  topic: keywords
subject: theological epistemology
  topic: keywords
subject: Thomas Aquinas
  topic: keywords
creator: Steven Nemes
rights: (c) Copyright Steven Nemes (Author) 2024 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2024-11-30
publication date: 2024-11-30
starting page: 105
ending page: 136
doi: 10.24193/diakrisis.2023.7

Miracle and Humility in “Apophtegmata Patrum”
type: item
description: This article aims to examine the perspective on miracles and their relationship to humility offered by the alphabetical collection of Apophthegmata Patrum. For the analysis of this relationship, texts that speak directly or indirectly about humility have been selected and an aempt has been made to organize them into a coherent discourse. Then a significant set of accounts of miracles is analysed, which are seen from the perspective of their relationship with humility.
subject: Varia
  topic: section
subject: miracles
  topic: keywords
subject: humility
  topic: keywords
subject: Apophtegmata Patrum
  topic: keywords
subject: Orthodox spirituality
  topic: keywords
subject: Desert Fathers
  topic: keywords
creator: Paul Siladi
rights: (c) Copyright Paul Siladi (Author) 2024 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2024-11-30
publication date: 2024-11-30
starting page: 89
ending page: 104
doi: 10.24193/diakrisis.2023.6

The Ascetical Way of Life in St Isaac the Syrian’s Writings
type: item
description: The present study deals with a theme of spirituality frequently found in the writings of St. Isaac the Syrian, namely the idea of “way of life” (Syr. dubara). Essential to understand the whole of his theology, this theme is treated in a manner little used until recently, but which is now becoming established in current academic research on Isaac, namely by appeal to his Syriac texts. This is achieved practically by pointing out the meanings of the Syriac term dubara and its Greek translation by politeia. The paper makes important clarifications of Isaac's terminology, and the novelty is that it highlights the connection between the text and the ascetical practices to which it refers. To this end, the study also presents the ideational synonyms of the Syriac term in question, as well as the various theological expressions in which it appears.
subject: Varia
  topic: section
subject: Isaac the Syrian
  topic: keywords
subject: monasticism
  topic: keywords
subject: Syriac mysticism
  topic: keywords
subject: ascetical terminology
  topic: keywords
subject: degrees of spiritual life
  topic: keywords
subject: patristics
  topic: keywords
creator: Agapie Corbu
rights: (c) Copyright Agapie Corbu (Author) 2024 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2024-11-30
publication date: 2024-11-30
starting page: 79
ending page: 88
doi: 10.24193/diakrisis.2023.5

Vita passibilis, imperturbatio (apatheia), vita passiva
type: item
description: Vita passibilis, imperturbatio (apatheia), vita passiva. The Passive Condition of Man in the Theological Thought of Maximus the Confessor. Maximus the Confessor distinguishes three stages in the spiritual becoming of man: vita passibilis i.e. the way of life in that man is living under the reign of the bodily passions, apatheia as state of liberation from the reign of the lower passions, and vita passiva as modus vivendi in which the human makes the personal experience of the revelation and the presence of God. Thereby being man means according to Maximus suffering under the rule of someone – divine or demonic – or something. The human condition is especially passive. Even contemplation (theōria) becomes in this approach a kind of passion: the passive experience of the presence of God. Although there is an old tradition in the classical Greek culture concerning the equivalency mathein-pathein (from Aeschylus to Aristotle and until Neo-Platonist thinkers like Proclus) which is received in the Christian tradition first of all by Denys the Areopagite, Maximus the Confessor is one of the first Christian theologians who tries to reconstruct the classical conception concerning the typology of the human ways of life (vita activa-vita contemplativa) as being based on passion: passion of lower impulses, passion of the demonic temptations and sins, but also passion of the overwhelming divine presence. Man can only lead a passionate life as slave of the lower passions (pathēmata) and as such of the devil or as slave of God in the Holy Spirit.
subject: Varia
  topic: section
subject: ways of life
  topic: keywords
subject: contemplation
  topic: keywords
subject: passion
  topic: keywords
subject: apatheia
  topic: keywords
subject: Maximus the Confessor
  topic: keywords
subject: Denys the Areopagite
  topic: keywords
creator: Picu Ocoleanu
rights: (c) Copyright Picu Ocoleanu (Author) 2024 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2024-11-30
publication date: 2024-11-30
starting page: 57
ending page: 77
doi: 10.24193/diakrisis.2023.4

Faith as Experience
type: item
description: This text proposes an analysis of the phenomenon of faith in the tradition and spirituality of the Eastern Church. Starting from the relationship between phenomenology and theology, the article uses a theo-phenomenological method to depict the phenomenon of faith both theologically and phenomenologically. This article also argues that non-religious faith—either natural or philosophical—is the foundation of religious faith. According to Orthodox spirituality, faith is not reduced to a set of theoretical teachings and dogmas; they constitute only the first type of faith, “simple faith”. At the same time, faith is also a form of experience, which has ascetical, ethical, and mystical dimensions; they characterize the second type of faith, faith as contemplative sight and knowledge.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Faith
  topic: keywords
subject: Orthodox spirituality
  topic: keywords
subject: religious experience
  topic: keywords
subject: Eastern Orthodox Church
  topic: keywords
subject: theo-phenomenology
  topic: keywords
creator: Nicolae Turcan
rights: (c) Copyright Nicolae Turcan (Author) 2024 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2024-11-30
publication date: 2024-11-30
starting page: 49
ending page: 63
doi: 10.24193/diakrisis.2023.3

Broken Phenomenology
type: item
description: 1988, as the TV cycle ‘Decalogue’ was finished by Krzysztof Kieslowski, one of the most intriguing appearances throughout its episodes was the character of the silent witness, a young man played by Arthur Barciś. He is the first character who appears at the beginning of Decalogue I and therefore of the whole series and who returns in eight from the ten films of the cycle in very different hypostases: as nomadic camper, surveyor, nurse, bus driver, or rowboat driver, traveler on foot or by bike etc. The film critics were intrigued by this character and interpreted him in different ways, especially in key either religious or ethical. They all and Kieslowski himself agreed that the silent witness is a strange and symbolic appearance that comes out from the frames of everyday life. It is as if a curtain would break or be torn and from beyond it something foreign and strange would appear, difficult to integrate into our categories, but which is surprisingly so eloquent for us. The phenomenology, that Kieslowski describes, is broken in this manner, but, paradoxically, also consolidated by this presence, that gives it meaning and content.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Krzysztof Kieslowski
  topic: keywords
subject: Decalogue
  topic: keywords
subject: phenomenology
  topic: keywords
subject: ethics
  topic: keywords
subject: Catholic moral theology
  topic: keywords
subject: transcendence
  topic: keywords
subject: otherness
  topic: keywords
creator: Ana Ocoleanu
rights: (c) Copyright Ana Ocoleanu (Author) 2024 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2024-11-30
publication date: 2024-11-30
starting page: 39
ending page: 47
doi: 10.24193/diakrisis.2023.2

For the time Being
type: item
description: This article discusses the final volume of Heidegger’s Gesamtausgabe. It does so by contextualizing its main themes, that is, by relating it to other writings of Heidegger of roughly the same period. Three such themes can be discovered in Heidegger’s “final” writing: a discussion of the nature of phenomenology, the abandonment of the ontological difference and the relation between the thought of being and the discipline of theology. The essay concludes with a comparison of Heidegger’s thinking of Ereignis to how theology configured the relation between God and the human being, so arguing that Heidegger seemed more indebted to the tradition of theology that he at times could acknowledge.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Martin Heidegger
  topic: keywords
subject: phenomenology
  topic: keywords
subject: ontological difference
  topic: keywords
subject: theology
  topic: keywords
subject: black notebooks
  topic: keywords
creator: Joeri Schrijvers
rights: (c) Copyright Joeri Schrijvers (Author) 2024 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2024-11-30
publication date: 2024-11-30
starting page: 9
ending page: 37
doi: 10.24193/diakrisis.2023.1

Archives
type: item
description: The zero‑moment of an architectural undertaking precedes and the final one postpones the conventional moments of building and demolition. This pre‑usage of the material and of the site turn the ‘birth’ of the house into a rather vague moment. In the numerous makings there exist prior makings, and sites often appear to be palimpsests, layer upon layer, erasure upon erasure. This manner of approaching the question of the temporal ‘sponginess’ of architecture recalls the question concerning the beginnings of architecture. In this chain of fertile ‘blackouts’, the ‘origin’ of architecture ceases to be the inaugural moment still sought to this day: in a making there exist prior makings, and in an unmaking there endures the chance of future lives, at least in principle. Moreover, the question ‘when?’ deserves another, probably more fertile for the economy of this text: ‘For how long?’
subject: Varia
  topic: section
subject: The making/unmaking of architecture
  topic: keywords
subject: Post‑occupancy evaluation (POE)
  topic: keywords
subject: (painful) archives
  topic: keywords
subject: co‑presence
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subject: timelessness
  topic: keywords
creator: Augustin Ioan
rights: (c) Copyright Augustin Ioan (Author) 2024 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2024-11-30
publication date: 2024-11-30
starting page: 117
ending page: 133
doi: 10.24193/diakrisis.2022.7

Dislocated Positions of Bearing Witness
type: item
description: This paper analyses the relationship between lack and possibilities of bearing witness in a “posthistorical” context. We wanted to see how discussions about indeterminacy and testimony change the way in which we understand possibilities of truth in relation to the speaking subject. The limit of the language of testimony and memory generate experiences of incompleteness and inadequacy which make us negotiate the position of the subject between an impossible historical truth and the non‑discursive truth of revelation. We argue that the resistance to representation which drives the language of testimony reflects the improper position of the witness or between historicity and existence or between attention and inattention. There is always an already lost historical event that we have to testify for and that foreshadows possibilities of significance. The witness can only generate discourse from inside a dislocated position which also describes the layered discursive structure of revelation.
subject: Varia
  topic: section
subject: testimony
  topic: keywords
subject: memory
  topic: keywords
subject: loss
  topic: keywords
subject: representation
  topic: keywords
subject: revelation
  topic: keywords
creator: Călina Părău
rights: (c) Copyright Călina Părău (Author) 2024 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2024-11-30
publication date: 2024-11-30
starting page: 103
ending page: 116
doi: 10.24193/

The Divine Word and its Expression in Sanskrit
type: item
description: The Vedas are said to be not a human creation (apauruṣeya), but Revelation imparted to the Vedic sages who have put it down in inspired verses. Vedas’ words are therefore divine and eternal, and thus extensively praised. Vāc, the Vedic word, is eulogised in several hymns, among which Vāk Sūkta (X.125) is by far the most illustrative of all. In some teachings of the Upanishads, Vāc is equated to Brahman alongside other interpretations. When analysing the nature of the word, centuries later, philosophers and grammarians refer to it as śabda, and no longer as Vāc, the latter remaining confined to a rather poetical and mystical reality. Yet, the idea of the eternal and divine character of the scriptures is superimposed on the Sanskrit language also, despite certain historical change remarks on the grammarians’ side. In the 5th century CE, Bhartṛhari displays a genuine linguistic and philosophical thought of the folding and unfolding of Reality and its understanding as Word-Principle (brahman śabda-tattva). From an auxiliary science of preserving the correct forms of the Vedas, Sanskrit grammar acquires a hermeneutical role and empowers itself as a way to salvation, an idea supported by previous evidence of grammar's role in producing celestial happiness (abhyudaya), merit and righteousness (dharma). I seek in this paper to analyse and point out the strongholds that underpin Sanskrit as a divine language and how continuity and change coexist to support over millennia this undaunted approach.
subject: Varia
  topic: section
subject: Veda
  topic: keywords
subject: Sanskrit
  topic: keywords
subject: Vāc
  topic: keywords
subject: śabda
  topic: keywords
subject: brahman śabda-tattva
  topic: keywords
subject: Bhartṛhari
  topic: keywords
subject: history of Sanskrit
  topic: keywords
creator: Florina Dobre Brat
rights: (c) Copyright Florina Dobre Brat (Author) 2024 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2024-11-30
publication date: 2024-11-30
starting page: 81
ending page: 99
doi: 10.24193/diakrisis.2022.5

The Absolute Discourse of Theology
type: item
description: This article first defines the absolute discourse, then discusses its possibility in theology, as well as the relationships between language, thought, and reality as they derive from the spirituality and life of the Eastern Church. Theology must face several problems—including the paradox of transcendence, the violence of metaphysics, onto‑theology, and the duplicity of language itself—, but the Revelation of the Absolute itself legitimizes the theological discourse. By using both aﬃrmations and negations, theology reveals an iconic structure of discourse that opens itself towards life and spirituality. The conclusion is that, in the absolute discourse of theology, words, even ineﬀable ones, are insuﬃcient without life.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: The Absolute Discourse of Theology
  topic: keywords
subject: Religious Experience
  topic: keywords
subject: Spiritual Life
  topic: keywords
subject: Diacritical Language
  topic: keywords
subject: Christian Dogmas
  topic: keywords
subject: Apophaticism
  topic: keywords
creator: Nicolae Turcan
rights: (c) Copyright Nicolae Turcan (Author) 2024 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2024-11-30
publication date: 2024-11-30
starting page: 61
ending page: 80
doi: 10.24193/diakrisis.2022.4

Patristic Apophaticism and the House of Being
type: item
description: This essay proposes a brief reflection on language, considering Patristic apophaticism, as seen in the works of the Cappadocian Fathers, Dionysius and Maximus the Confessor. It discusses Heidegger’s critique of onto‑theology and his Letter on Humanism, where language is called “the House of Being”. It tries to show that, according to Patristic apophaticism, the human nous is instead the “House of Being”. The diﬀerence between Heidegger and Patristic thought lies in how Being is understood. It also notes that the Letter on Humanism displays a potential openess to the “energetic theory of language”, which characterises Patristic apophaticism.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Patristic apophaticism
  topic: keywords
subject: Dionysius
  topic: keywords
subject: Maximus
  topic: keywords
subject: energetic theory of language
  topic: keywords
subject: Heidegger
  topic: keywords
subject: nous
  topic: keywords
subject: the House of Being
  topic: keywords
subject: language
  topic: keywords
creator: Marius Portaru
rights: (c) Copyright Marius Portaru (Author) 2024 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2024-11-30
publication date: 2024-11-30
starting page: 47
ending page: 60
doi: 10.24193/diakrisis.2022.3

Open hermeneutics
type: item
description: Towards the end of the 1960s, in the well‑known Enrico Castelli (1900‑1977) colloquia, while intensively discussing the topic of demythologization, scholars concluded that theological language is fundamental in exploring it. Thus, the topic of the analysis of theological language: the Name of God, became prevalent for them and they began to think that a distinction between the terms religious and theological would be desirable, avoiding scandalous formulas for the field of theology. According to Karl Jasper, God is just a chest of something indicible. André Scrima presents himself in the debate with an original proposal, namely to think of theological language, in the broadest sense of this concept, as enclosing religious discourse. In the beginning, speaking theologically should happen in the Name of God, Scrima asserts; at Jasper’s antipodes, he places the Name of God as the origin and mystery that generates speaking theologically. This article aims first of all to bring the question of theological language back into the academic space that is more interested in the phenomenological issues promoted in Enrico Castelli’s thought laboratory in Rome.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: theological language
  topic: keywords
subject: religious discourse
  topic: keywords
subject: religions
  topic: keywords
subject: Name of God
  topic: keywords
subject: phenomenology
  topic: keywords
subject: Castelli Colloquia
  topic: keywords
subject: André Scrima
  topic: keywords
creator: Daniela Dumbravă
rights: (c) Copyright Daniela Dumbravă (Author) 2024 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2024-11-30
publication date: 2024-11-30
starting page: 31
ending page: 46
doi: 10.24193/diakrisis.2022.2

« Ce Dieu terriblement humain »
type: item
description: This article aims to analyse Fr André Scrima’s interpretation of the resurrection of Lazarus in his commentary on the Gospel of John and in a homily dedicated to the miracle that Christ performed at Bethany. The texts we take into consideration are particularly relevant for a Christian reflection on the relationship between God’s word and human language. Scrima’s hermeneutics is traditional as well as oriented to a modern audience. Speaking about Lazarus, he chooses to focus on three aspects of the divine language: compassion, truth, and restoration of man. Scrima’s reflections illustrate a possible dialogue between the long and rich reception of the raising of Lazarus in the Christian tradition and the Lazarus motif in modern culture.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: God’s language
  topic: keywords
subject: André Scrima
  topic: keywords
subject: Gospel of John
  topic: keywords
creator: Bogdan Tătaru-Cazaban
rights: (c) Copyright Bogdan Tătaru-Cazaban (Author) 2024 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2022-07-31
publication date: 2022-07-31
starting page: 9
ending page: 29
doi: 10.24193/diakrisis.2022.1

Frauenseele und weiblicher Geist
type: item
description: Female Soul and Feminine Spirit. Philosophical Prolegomena to a New (Women) Culture in the Interwar Radio Lectures Alice Voinescu’s and Constantin Noica’s. The new founded Romanian Radio (1927) invited since 1930 the most important personalities of the Romanian culture to speak in the frame of different radio conferences. Two of these personalities were the philosophers Alice Voinescu (1885-1961) and Constantin Noica (1909-1987). Although they represent two different philosophical orientations (Alice Voinescu as post metaphysical thinker and Constantin Noica as philosopher, who tries, like Heidegger in the German culture, to rebuild metaphysics), the two interwar Romanian thinkers meet each other in some philosophical topics. One of these is the critical manner, how they are thinking about the movement of the emancipation of women in the 20th century. Both of them agree that the female soul and the feminine spirit have not to lose their specific features in the tendence to become active in the frame of the public sphere. In their critical thinking, Alice Voinescu and Constantin Noica meet the philosophical ideas of German philosophers like Georg Simmel and Martin Heidegger.
subject: Varia
  topic: section
subject: Interwar Romanian Philosophy
  topic: keywords
subject: Philosophy Radio Lectures
  topic: keywords
subject: Feminism
  topic: keywords
subject: Feminine Culture
  topic: keywords
subject: Alice Voinescu
  topic: keywords
subject: Constantin Noica
  topic: keywords
creator: Ana Ocoleanu
rights: (c) Copyright Ana Ocoleanu (Author) 2024 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2024-11-29
publication date: 2024-11-29
starting page: 91
ending page: 101
doi: 10.24193/diakrisis.2021.7