Michal Řoutil

For the English reader we shall present a few points summarizing this book. First, we shall present the reasons that led us to publish it. We shall then reflect on the tradition of Czech and Slovak studies of the Christian East.
We thereby wish not only to mention the tradition to which we belong, but also to show the truly living core and the living heart of the Central European culture to which we proudly subscribe. Finally, we will introduce the reader to the contents of this monograph.
The volume that the reader is now holding in his or her hands is a collective endeavour, composed and produced with alacrity. The book is not the result of any single grant, nor is it the result of the coordinated work of a team of authors. It had its genesis sometime in November last year, when we were approached by Jana A. Novakova that in September 2023 with the suggestion that we produce a Festschrift to honour Michal Řoutil – the spiritus movens et agens of the series Pro Oriente, editor-in-chief of the journal of Eastern Christian Studies Parresia, and a prominent scholar specializing in the study of Russian and Middle Eastern Christianity.
The title of this book is a direct quotation from Nilus of Sora (1433–1508), whose work was recently introduced to Czech readers by Michal Řoutil. It is entitled “Walk with your hand on the Lord’s plough....”

The book is published in the well-known scientific and popular series of the Publishing House Lidové noviny. In ten chapters, it covers 4,000 years of Armenian history, both in Armenia itself and in the Diaspora. It contains more than a hundred illustrations, explanatory maps, a glossary of terms, chronological tables, etc.

The present book is devoted to the Russian medieval ascetic and mystic saint, Nilus of Sora (1433–1508). St. Nilus is considered the first Russian hesychast, and also the first ascetic who lived in Muscovite Russia by the “prayer of the heart”, and who in his seminal work also strove to transmit this practice to his followers – monks and laymen alike.
In the first part of the book the author first reconstructs the saint’s life from the few surviving accounts. He describes the saint‘s entry into the Kirillo-Belozersky monastery, his long stay in Constantinople and, above all, his sojourn on the Holy Mountain of Athos, where he learned the rules of the life in scete from experienced monks. This part of the book also describes his return to Muscovite Russia, the founding of his own monastery, and his involvement in contemporary disputes over the ownership of monastic property and in the condemnation of Novgorodian and Muscovite heretics (the so-called Judaizers). Next, the author presents the reactions to the person and to the work of St. Nilus on the part of Russian and world thinkers of the 19th and 20th centuries. The central section then introduces the saint as a teacher of the spiritual life, and presents the basic steps of the spiritual path to deification (oбóжение, θέωσις) as understood in the hesychastic tradition.
The second part of the book contains translations of all of Nilus’ known works into Czech – the ascetic-mystical treatise “The Ustav” (or “On Mental Activity”), the rules of life for the monks in his monastery, “The Predanie” (“Tradition”, or “On the Life of the Holy Fathers: This Is the Tradition of the Elder Nil the Hermit to His Disciples and to All Who Ought to Have It”), four letters (to Vassian Patrikeev, to Gurii Tushin, to German Podolnyi and “to the brother from an Eastern Country”), two prayers, the foreword and postcript to his anthology of the lives of the Eastern saints called “Sobornik”, and, finally, his famous “Testament”.
In the four appendices the reader will find translations of shorter texts, dating from the 16th–19th centuries, connected with the life of St. Nilus and the fate of his hermitage – “The Narrative of the Scete of Nilus of Sora”, “The Testament of Innokentiy Komelskiy”, “How saint Nilus of Sora appeared in a dream to the great prince Ivan the Terrible, a note on his life and a prayer” and “On the miracles of our father saint Nilus the Wonder-Worker”.
The aim of the book is above all to present saint Nilus as a profound mystic and a zealous ascetic, and especially as a consummate expert on and practitioner of the “prayer of the heart”.
The book is intended for all those interested in Russian medieval culture, monastic literature and the history of hesychasm in Eastern Europe.

According to various statistics, Christians are today the most persecuted religious group in the world. Roughly 200–260 million Christians face discrimination; in some countries are believers in Jesus Christ on the brink of extinction. The oppression of Christians is especially strong due to the so-called “return to religion” in the Muslim states over the recent years. Much earlier events have preceded, however, starting from the genocide of Armenians, Assyrians and Greeks in the Ottoman Empire (1914–1923).

This is why in the first part of this book, called “Old injustices, new wounds”, the author specifies modern Turkey, Cyprus (the Republic of Cyprus and the inofficial Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus) and Azerbaijan as – at a first glance – now relatively peaceful countries, where, however, hostility against Christians has had a long history and is only taking new and more hidden forms today.

The history of the countries described in the second part as the “Unholy Holy lands”, is politically and religiously very different – that of the State of Israel/Palestinian territories, Jordan, Lebanon and Egypt. They are, however, closely linked to the common history in which Christians have a unique place. It was here that their faith was born and where the most important events of the New Testament took place. It is all the more scandalous that this is where it has to fight for its own survival.

In the third part of this publication, “Infidels, do not enter!”, the author monitors the situation in two Muslim theocratic states, namely in Iran and Saudi Arabia. In both of them Christian believers are experiencing intimidation, persecution, and even death for their religious beliefs. It turns out that there is no difference when it comes to forms of persecution of religious minorities in a Shia or Sunni Islamic state.

The most critical areas for Christians (and other minorities) where they are in these years facing the situation of full eradication, are Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Libya, Pakistan and Sudan. The horrific and tragic situation in these countries is described in detail in the fourth, and last part “In the eye of a hurricane”.

Each chapter of the book begins with a historical overview, describes the origins and development of main local churches and communities, and lists the most important personalities. The main parts are devoted to current events, describe the ways of persecution and discrimination, their political and social background, and, last but not least, the ways in which Christians in the area cope with these problems. The publication contains original photos and maps, an appendix with statistical tables on demographic issues, and a list of the relevant scientific literature on the topic.

The study The Calamity of Christians: The Extermination of the Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks in the Ottoman Empire, 1914–1923 is one of the first academic attempts to address the massacres of Christians in the Ottoman Empire, which were perpetrated in 1914–1923. The book views the issue not only as the national tragedy of the Armenians but more comprehensively as an attempt to exterminate all local Christians, primarily Assyrians/Syriacs and Greeks.

The paper focuses on the first decades and centuries of Christian-Muslim
relations, with emphasis on the Northern Mesopotamia. It also presents
translations into Czech of two sources – the “Edessene Apocalypse” and short part of the “Zuqnīn Chronicle”. Using these historical texts as examples the author highlights both the apocalyptic mood in the society of the time and the issue of early conversions from Christianity to Islam.

This article deals with a not well known “Church project” of the Shah Abbas the Great (1571–1629). After the forcible relocation of tens of thousands of Armenians between 1604 and 1605 to Persian Isfahan (district New Julfa), the monarch also intended to relocate into his possessions the Mother See of Holy Edjmiatsin, where the head of the Armenian Apostolic Church, the Catholicos, resided. According to shahs’ ideas, the intended new cathedral was to take over the function of Edjmiatsin and to become the center of all Christians in his country (except the Apostolic Armenians especially of the adherents of the Catholic Church). The Armenians eventually boycotted the plan because it threatened their religious and national identity.

This article focuses on the issue of Christian conversions (forced or voluntary) to Islam during the Armenian genocide. The essay examines the ideology of turkification that was behind these efforts, including Ottoman government sponsored orphanages as a direct means of assimilating Armenian children. It pays particular attention to the process of 'rebuilding' the Armenian nation in the immediate aftermath of World War I sometimes called 'national reconstruction'. In the final part the paper deals with the phenomenon of the 'Hidden Armenians' in contemporary Turkey.

The study in the first place maps the relevant scientific literature on the topic of the persecution of Christians in Muslim countries, and then goes through the specific regions. The author differentiates Turkey, Cyprus and Azerbaijan as – at first glance – relatively peaceful countries, where, however, hostility against Christians has a more hidden form. Another group of countries, described as the “calm before the storm” group are Lebanon, Jordan and Israel/Palestine. Under the label “restrictive tolerance and open hatred” he monitors the situation in Iran and Saudi Arabia. As a situation “head-to-head” the author sees Egypt and Ethiopia. The most critical areas then are Syria and Iraq.

In the present article the aim of the author is to deal with the Armenian Genocide, which took place within the Ottoman Empire during World War I. It deals with the course of the Genocide itself (entailing as it did various stages – including the destruction of the male population, deportation to the Syrian deserts and so forth), as well as its aftermath and consequences. The article seeks to place the Genocide in its historical and geographical context, and, in particular, also takes into account the crimes perpetrated against the Greek and Assyrian Christian populations of the Ottoman Empire. It also provides a brief treatment on the coverage in the Czech press at the time, as well as discussing the reception of Franz Werfel’s historical novel, The Forty Days of Musa Dagh. Finally, the article deals with the present political position of the Czech Republic vis-à-vis the question of the recognition of the Genocide.

The presented article deals with the holy foolishness and other expressions of sub-standard behaviour as part of hagiography. It is examined from the point of view of the so-called “singular speech-behaviour tactics” (сингулярные рече-поведенческие тактики) and based on the analysis of texts taken from the most comprehensive corpus of the hagiographic texts written in the Church Slavonic, Dimitry of Rostov’s Chetii Minei. The introductory chapters are devoted to the hagiographies of the holy fools (it shows the current state of research in Russia and abroad and describes the basic monuments of literature), the life and work of a great Russian writer of the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries, Dimitry of Rostov (1651–1709), and to the methodological approach used in the paper, i.e. the singular speechbehaviour tactics as understood by E. M. Vereshchagin and V. G. Kostomarov, who introduced them in the world science.
The next two chapters represent the core of the work ‒ analysis and comparison of the two hagiographic texts (St. Andrew’s the Fool and St. Philaretos’ the Merciful) and the catalogue of the singular behaviour of the saints found in the Chetii Minei. In the catalogue the excerpts are divided into eleven sections in compliance with the inner logic:
1) laughter and “laughable” behaviour
2) ethical injury, calumny
3) physical harm, death
4) “all is in the God’s hands”
5) meekness, purity, innocence
6) self-restriction, self-humbleness, humiliation
7) Christian duties as a sin
8) selflessness
9) non-attachment
10) „strict ethics“
11) nonverbal acts
This article also contains four appendices in which typical speechbehaviour situations containing singularity are defined, several general conclusions are drawn and specific features of the topics of the examined hagiographic texts are described.
The author comes to a conclusion that both phenomena, the holy foolishness and “singularity”, have a lot in common in terms of the meaning. However, there is a number of differences, too. As far as the use of the singular speech-behaviour tactics is concerned it has been proved that they are mostly the same as the supposed authors’ perlocutive aims. The vast number of texts in which the singular behaviour is encountered not only prove the fact that, apparently, it is not a rear phenomenon in hagiography, but they also confirm the author’s final idea, i.e. non-normative “substandard” behaviour is not leaving the line, but introducing a higher norm, and holiness as understood by Christians is a lived singularity.