Sacred Space

La Cappella della Resurrezione, disegnata e costruita da Sigurd Lewerentz tra il 1921 e il 1925 nell’ambito del progetto per il Cimitero Sud di Stoccolma – divenuto noto come Woodland Cemetery, o Skogskyrkogården in lingua svedese – rappresenta una figura chiave nell’esperienza del Classicismo Nordico. Nelle espressioni più originali, la ripresa del linguaggio classico, cui si assiste in Scandinavia nei primi decenni del Novecento, non prende il ruolo di tema dominante, ma è sintetizzata nel carattere di singole parti autonome. Attraverso un procedimento di isolamento, il “pezzo”, rinvenuto nell’Antico e trasportato nel paesaggio nordico, dilata il suo valore evocativo e la sua tensione verso un universo ideale. In tal modo il progetto mette a punto lo strumento per decodificare la realtà, incorporando il passato entro un nuovo disegno. Si tratta di una discesa alle origini che conduce inaspettatamente alla modernità.
La cultura nordica, divisa tra la coscienza di un disegno superiore e la presenza di una natura inospitale, si rivolge ciclicamente al Mediterraneo. Lo sguardo trasversale di chi, da una condizione periferica, osserva il centro, produce un punto di vista privilegiato, in grado di costruire il sottile equilibrio tra immaginazione e appropriatezza. I frammenti del passato costruiscono una “mappa della memoria” dove parole e segni, appartenuti a un linguaggio codificato, sono rimontati in contrapposizione dialettica. Questo “sguardo archeologico” è radicato nella cultura svedese e riaffiora in epoche lontane nel tempo, manifestandosi secondo un atteggiamento ricorrente, che intende il progetto di architettura come atto fondativo, capace di radicarsi all’individualità del luogo e rimandare al contempo a valori assoluti.
A ogni figura della composizione degli edifici corrisponde un elemento nel paesaggio. Sintesi estrema di tale processo è il dialogo a distanza tra la Collina della Meditazione e la Cappella della Resurrezione: un tumulo pagano si contrappone alla figura bianca del tempio, collocato nella massa scura della foresta.
Il riconoscimento di quest’attitudine, di questo “classicismo di frontiera”, evidenzia la continuità di un metodo compositivo in cui la riflessione sul linguaggio e sulla rappresentatività degli elementi è tesa a costruire architetture nuove, dal carattere riconoscibile. Le molteplici allusioni creano una sequenza non lineare in cui storia, memoria e paesaggio convergono nella composizione. Sono questi, in sintesi, i motivi per cui il progetto della Cappella della Resurrezione nel Cimitero Sud di Stoccolma mantiene la sua forza e la sua attualità: figura urbana di grande chiarezza in cui la collettività si incontra, riconosce il monumento e condivide il senso della memoria.

Wendell Berry's decades of reflections on agriculture, sustainability, and poetry have been rooted in weekly sabbaths spent in the woods of his Kentucky farm. Graeme Sharrock's analysis shows how this practice of sacred time in rural sacred spaces has shaped his poetic rhythms and imagery,

Temples were nearly ubiquitous across the ancient Near East. Rather than serving as a gathering place for a worshipping congregation, a temple served as a terrestrial divine abode. In it, the god(s) lived amid society, yet carefully sequestered from it behind walls and doors. While primarily a residence, the temple also granted people limited access, usually for the purpose of divine service. The people believed that gods dwelt outside of the realm of human experience. Temples bridged the gap between human and divine, allowing regulated access to the deity, usually present in the form of a cult statue, and giving people the opportunity to influence the gods. Through this mutually beneficial interchange, the gods received the service they desired, while the people hoped their service would elicit divine protection and blessing. Protection and blessing, though, were conditional. The gods would remain and stay favorably disposed only if they were satisfied with their accommodation and service. Temples then, at least in theory, were lavishly and fastidiously constructed and maintained in order to keep the gods happy. This article focuses on the major temples, especially those from 1500–500 BCE, in Mesopotamia, Egypt, Hittite Anatolia, and Syria-Palestine. The article also focuses on the structure and ideology of the temples, not the rituals performed within them. For the most part, biblical and Israelite references will be kept to a minimum, as they are numerous enough to warrant their own article. Too numerous to include, archaeological reports generally have been excluded, yet they are referenced in the works cited and may be found with a Google web search.

García García, E. M. (2017). “Roitman, Adolfo D., Del Tabernáculo al Templo. Sobre el espacio sagrado en el judaísmo antiguo. Estella, Editorial Verbo Divino, 2016, 326 pp. ISBN: 978-84-9073-243-4.” ’Ilu. Revista de Ciencias de las Religiones, 22: 553-555. ISSN: 1135-4712.

The role of sacred springs and spring deities in Hittite religion is especially relevant to the consideration of the relationship between nature and cult in ancient Anatolia. This paper addresses the subject by first presenting an overview of the most important hydrological terms, including various designations applied to springs. The degree of architectural structuring of the spring itself and its surroundings is given systematic consideration in order to develop and archetonic typology of the spring sanctuaries. The question of the relationship between the spring deity or numen and the physical spring itself is addressed through observations of three different cases: springs among the loci numinosi, the spring Weriyadu, and the writing conventions used to designate springs in a festival celebrated in the city of Tauriša. Both with regard to architectonic typology as well as the degree and manner of personification of sacred springs, clear spectrums can be identified that reflect the diversity of significance and interpretation of springs in Hittite religion.

How does theological Metaphysics view small space ? And what link could be found between theology, Christology and Small spaces ? The aim will be to start our investigation at the figure of the "little ones"(mikroi),central to the narrative and theological construction of the first gospel and then analogically extending it to spatial matter.

In this lecture, I expand our definition of sacred space beyond mosques, cathedrals, and other religious sanctuaries. I argue that cities can be designed to elicit contemplation and empathy, concern for the environment, or even a reduction in violence. To explore and define the potential of “spiritual urbanism,” I present studies  of architecture and neuroscience as well as modern life and religious practice, and make a passionate case for the creation of urban environments that foster spiritual and civic development.

When the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?
The difference between a secular mindset and a sacred mindset is that in the secular life, one engages in daily life disconnected and without awareness of God. In the sacred life, one engages in daily life with a strong awareness of God.  In the sacred life, the child of God sees everything and every moment in the context of the spiritual and says, “The God of the universe who holds everything together is fully and personally present right here, right now.”

Der folgende Text ist Ergebnis des Nachdenkens über Schwellen als Grenzphäno-mene, die oft entscheidend sind-und über ihren Sinn für das Menschenleben. Bezüglich meiner mehr als zwanzig Jahren langer Tätigkeit als Mutter, Lehrerin, Lektorin und Katechetin frage ich nach einer möglichen Erziehung zur Fähig-keit, hinter einer Schwelle zu leben, eine Schwelle zu überschreiten, einer mög-lichen Erziehung zur Hoffnung, zur Freiheit und Wahrheit. Nur flüchtig wird die ,Schwellenhaftigkeit" von einigen Gesichtspunkten erwähnt-es geht um einen Versuch, die Schwelle in unserer Sprachkultur zu erörtern. Das Thema sollte aus der Perspektive (alt)griechischer, biblischer, christlicher und philosophischer Kul-tur vertieft werden. Der Zweck ist, das Denken und Reflexion des Phänomens zu fördern, das jeden betrifft, und dadurch die Dynamik der Existenz möglichst zu unterstützen. Jeder Mensch wohnte irgendwo, überschritt die Schwellen, pilgerte durch die (natürliche oder kulturelle) Landschaft, in der es (natürliche oder kulturelle) Schwellen, Scheiden, Raine gibt. Die Schwellenhaftigkeit gehört zum menschli-chen Aufhalten in der Welt. Ohne Schwellen im Sinne von Grenzen, Scheiden, Rai-ne wären wir nicht-es gäbe für uns (wie wir jetzt sind) nichts, was ist, denn was es auch gibt, ist für uns begrenzt, hat seine Schwelle. Bereits im alten Griechenland führte dieses Bewusstwerden zur zweierlei ge-gensätzlichen Mündung in der philosophischen Reflexion bei der Suche nach An-fang.

In the late 60s, the German architect Hans Walter Müller made a project for an extraordinary church in France, both due to the material used and due to its short life-span: the inflatable church at Montigny-lès-Cormeilles. That project simply reaffirmed the author´s anti-system attitude, certifying the huge interest raised by such structures back then, in particular, thanks to their eventual implementations in the field of architectural creation.

Para un estudio adecuado de cualquier situación histórica hay que tener en cuenta la concepción de espacio y de tiempo que pudieron tener las personas que produjeron los hechos que se pretenden analizar. El comportamiento del ser humano en sociedad viene lastrado siempre por la manera de entender la realidad que se tenga y ésta no es siempre la misma, sino que evoluciona.

Das Thema Sakralbauten und ihre Zukunft ist seit geraumer Zeit in den Schlagzeilen der Medien ständig präsent. Mit Stichworten wie Kirchenschließung und Kirchenabriss wird die heutige Situation der christlichen Sakraltopographie gekennzeichnet.

Fragen, ob die heutige Gesellschaft noch Kirchen braucht, wer darüber entscheidet oder entscheiden sollte und was die Herausforderungen bei solchen Prozessen sind, bilden den zentralen Inhalt dieses Buchs. Nationale und internationale Fachleute verschiedener Disziplinen wie Architektur, Kunstgeschichte, Denkmalpflege, Theologie oder Islamwissenschaft sowie Entscheidungsträger aus dem kirchlichen Bereich geben aus verschiedener Sicht Antworten auf diese und andere Fragen, die die Zukunft von Sakralbauten betreffen.
Dass mit der Transformation der Sakralbaulandschaft mehr auf dem Spiel steht als „nur“ der Verlust von Gottesdienstorten für Christen, dass damit das Recht einer Gesellschaft auf zweckfreie Räume und das Bedürfnis an Identifikationsorten für alle tangiert wird, ist die tragende Grundthese.

• Fachleute unterschiedlicher Disziplinen geben Antworten auf grundlegende Fragen zur Zukunft von Sakralbauten
• Wichtiger Beitrag zur aktuellen Diskussion um den Umgang mit Kirchenräumen

The study is a breakthrough operated with the means of ethnographic, plastic and intercultural analysis in the works of the Armenian filmmaker Serghei Paradjanov, made from the perspective of his nucleus film ”Sayat-
Nova”. The atypical hermeneutical method is meant to decipher an atypical cinematic language, which does not
allow to be decorticated according to the usual film codes. ”Sayat-Nova”, this resonator of Paradjanov, is considered the last great medieval Armenian poet and the most representative Caucasian poet since the XVIII century. The stages of the hero’s life are presented vertically to the relationship of man with God, in the definition of which all the stylistic means of the film compete through some revealing pictures. The ”Sayat-Nova” biographical poem is literally a dense and nonlinear depiction of symbolic objects, evoking the great themes reiterated throughout the director’s creation: love, pure beauty, death, sacrifice, and eternal life. These aspects are analysed from a new aesthetic-artistic perspective.
The text adapts fragments from the author’s book, ”Scara raiului în cinema. Kusturica, Tarkovski, Paradjanov” (Bucharest: “Arca Învierii” Publishing House, 2011).
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Studiul este o descindere operată cu mijloacele analizei etnografice, plastice şi interculturale în opera cineas-
tului armean Serghei Paradjanov, făcută din perspectiva filmului său nucleal „Sayat-Nova”. Metoda hermeneutică
atipică este menită să descifreze un limbaj cinematografic atipic, care nu se lasă decorticat potrivit codurilor filmice uzuale. „Sayat-Nova”, acest rezoner al lui Paradjanov, este considerat ultimul mare poet medieval armean şi cel mai reprezentativ poet caucazian din secolul al XVIII-lea. Etapele vieţii eroului sunt prezentate pe verticala relaţiei omului cu Dumnezeu, întru definirea căreia concură, prin câteva tablouri revelatorii, toate mijloacele stilistice ale filmului. Poemul biografic „Sayat-Nova” este literalmente o desfăşurare densă şi neliniară de obiecte-simbol, evocând marile teme reiterate în întreaga creaţie a regizorului: iubirea, frumuseţea pură, moartea, sacrificiul, viaţa eternă. Aceste aspecte sunt analizate dintr-o nouă perspectivă estetico-artistică.
Textul adaptează fragmente din cartea autoarei „Scara raiului în cinema. Kusturica, Tarkovski, Paradjanov”
(Bucureşti: Editura Arca Învierii, 2011).

Jerusalem is the frontline and a microcosm of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In recent years, comic artists have turned their attention to the Middle East, including the ‘Holy City’. Scholars, however, have yet to study how comics engage with life in Jerusalem, in particular the relationships between Arabs and Jews. In this article, I will take on this critical oversight and explore how Mira Friedman’s ‘Independence Day’ (2008), Sarah Glidden’s How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less (2010) and Miriam Libicki’s Jobnik!: An American Girl’s Adventures in the Israeli Army (2008) engage with the complicated social situation. The philosopher, Emmanuel Lévinas, has argued that face-to-face encounters are the basis for recognizing the Other as human and for feeling responsibility towards him or her.1 In this article I show that we rarely see the Other’s face in the corpus of the Jewish comic artists I discuss here. Instead, the Arab presence is brought into the texts by way of urban elements such as the Dome of the Rock, media remediations or indistinct, distant figures. This highlights that comics are closely tied into the current situation between Israelis and Palestinians, where fear and separation rule to a level where the Arab Other – whether Christian or Muslim – of the Jews of Jerusalem is almost invisible.

The author describes the situation in the Canary Islands, referring first to the deities of the communities here.
The aborigines of the Canary Islands utilized sacrificial altars, locally known as pireos, to perform rituals on prominent geological locations such as mountaintops or cliffs. These are dry stone constructions shaped as an ovalcircular enclosure with one or more small cavities, where burning of food offerings was performed. It presents the construction characteristics of these sacrificial enclosures.
The shared prominent location and aspect of altars for sacrifices reflect a phenomenon on pan-insular scale, a unitary ideological system, a network of territorial connections along the entire archipelago, and a hierarchical social organization.
It is noted the southern peak of the Montaña de Tindaya (northeastern Fuerteventura Island) with 213 foot-shaped rock engravings, where different sacred activities took place. The hub of the religious, cultural and social network was the great insular-scale sanctuary on El Alto de Garajonay (La Gomera Island). In conclusion, sanctuaries were organized according to a well-established territorial hierarchy, which is easily associable with the image given by ethnohistorical sources about an aboriginal segmented and non-egalitarian society. Some of these monuments have been investigated, providing information about their age, as well as the products offered to the deities (especially parts of animals, wild fruits and cultivated cereals). A cult center with about twenty-five altars for fire sacrifices and related stone altars occurs on La Fortaleza de Chipude (The Fortress of Chipude). A hierarchical network of fire-sacrificial sanctuaries set in the different islands participated to a complex process of social segmentation-interrelation cohesion-guidance of the population.
A pan-insular organization above the tribes did not exist. A supraterritorial religious and social institute was established instead, based on the power to interpret the divine will and predict the future through sacrifices.

Il contributo propone una rilettura della scultura lignea d'età medievale in costiera amalfitana, esaminata sulla base di dati statistci e analizzata a seconda delle diverse tipologie funzionali: crocifissi, statue mariane, gruppi. Ci si sofferma poi sul caso-studio della Deposizione del duomo di San Lorenzo a Scala, unico gruppo ligneo medievale quasi integralmente superstite in Campania, di cui si ricostruiscono vicende storiche e funzione cultuale, avanzando nuove ipotesi circa la provenienza originaria dell'opera e il suo allestimento in antico.

The paper explores the interaction with sacred places in New Age pilgrimage. There is a tendency in social theory of religion to define New Age spirituality as individualized form of religiosity in accordance with the notion of "private religion". Such an interpretation is based on the priority of personal beliefs and narratives upon bodily aspect of religious experience and the ways of reflecting about it. The author claims that while the New Age pilgrimage does not necessarily imply identities and narratives shared by most of the participants, it is characterized by a common regime of interaction with the sacred and grassroots proselytism.

Invited presentation, “Templum Dei: Exploring the Language of Sacred Architecture,” Evening Salon discussion hosted by the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art – Utah Chapter, given at VCBO Architecture, Salt Lake City, UT (September 1, 2016). Presentation available online: https://youtu.be/4wFF9BHihf4

This paper aims to interpret the role of indigenous sanctuaries in the Hellenization of inland Karia. Although coastal regions of Karia had been subject to Greek colonization from the Bronze Age on, mountainous inland Karia, with its own culture and language, remained fairly remote until the fourth century, when the Greek urban formula rapidly began to be applied in a conscious effort to politically (re)organize society according to the wider interests of the ruling powers. Towns were founded in the midst of established village federations and their sacred centers. A case study of Stratonikeia and the outlying sanctuaries at Lagina and Panamara examines how the relationship between town and indigenous cult worked. This relationship is further clarified by applying two current theoretical models. Finally, the author maintains that the inclusion of pre-existing cults in the politicized landscapes of the Hellenistic period was a critical factor of success for the urban phenomenon in Karia.

Addressing the voluminous and multifarious expressions of architecture and spirituality is a daunting task. Consequently, three focused perspectives inform our discussion. The first con­ siders the "objecthood" of architecture-the functional, typological, and material ways that buildings express and facilitate spiritualiry. Second, the phenomenological dimension of spiritual settings is addressed, including bodily experiences and feelings produced by. interactions with buildings. Third, are considerations of the cultural and social aspects of architecture, visa -vis spiritualiry, and its ethical, communicative, and symbolic fi.111ctions. These three positions align with the fundamental ways human reality unfolds: first person, individual, internal, or subjective reality (I, me); second person, collective, dialogical, or intersubjective reality (you, we, us); and third-person, empirical, external, or objective reality (it). A number of impulses define contemporary spirituaL...

The city of Tehran contains countless murals of imposing dimensions, in various colors and styles, predominantly featuring portraits of the martyrs of the Iran-Iraq War (1980–1988). These paintings, which refer to various sociopolitical events, affect multiple different groups within the city: combatants and their family members, amateur or professional artists, public authorities, and more or less involved local residents. This article offers an anthropological reflection on the interactions between these different categories of actors and on the spatial dynamics and meaning of these images, both for those who produce them and those who see them. Based on observations and interviews carried out in Tehran, but also historical sources, published testimonies, and visual documents (photographs, drawings, and sketches), we analyze the progressive appearance and politicization of Tehran’s murals, and how they intersect with local affiliations, through distinct periods in the contemporary history of Iran.

This chapter examines the local traditions (through Pausanias and Theognis), discourse environment, and positionality of Megara to establish abstract principles of the Megarian worldview, and then applies those principles to the local traditions in an attempt to present a cohesive account of Megarian myths from the earliest mythistorical times to the beginning of oligarchic government. An important discovery resulting from this is the general avoidance of all things Corinthian in Megarian narrative traditions.

The structure of the tabernacle and the order of the divine service (תמיד) reflect the cosmology and ritual of creation. Through the divine service Israel actualizes the divinely created order, becoming partakers of God's "very good" and bringing holiness and blessing to the world.

Although Fourth Ezra and Second Baruch roughly date to the same era (late 1st to mid-2nd century) and respond to the same catastrophe (destruction of the Second Temple), use the same narrative device of pseudepigraphy and narrative foil (destruction of the First Temple), it has been noted that their theologies and theodicies are markedly different. In addition, the narrative point of view also differs, informed as it is by the chosen narrator personae. Baruch is actually located in Jerusalem and near the Temple Mount in the wake of its destruction, whereas Ezra – by his own account – is removed in time (30 years after the destruction) and space (located in Babylonia). He is thus looking back and looking in.

This paper asks to what degree these different perspectives influence their portrayal of the city of Jerusalem.

It has now been published in: Interpreting 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch. Jason Zurawski, ed. (proceedings volume of the 6th Enoch Seminar, held in Milan (Italy), 26-30 June 2011). London/New York: T&T Clark, 2014: 138-152

This papers examines three early Christian memorial sites in Jerusalem and Bethlehem (church of the Nativity, Eleona church on the Mount of Olives, and Church of the Resurrection) erected in the 330s in the time of Constantine the Great and his mother Helena. All three churches included rock caves as memorial sites. The paper shows that the three differing variants of architectural staging of these caves within the memorial buildings weren‘t merely architectural attempts found within the framework of a process of architectural innovation, when it was a matter of finding adequate settings for a successful and rapidly expanding religious community and its places of remembrance.
The architectural analyses of the three building concepts provide specific insights into the ideas of the appropriate spatial and medial staging of a 'sacred place'. I suggest that the architectural presentation of the cave spaces within the new buildings was linked to the semantics of pre-Christian places of worship, in order to create an associative  context to the commemorated events easily recognizable by a contemporary visitor.

Protecting our Cultural and Landscape heritage is an indispensable act: Cultural landscape is the result of anthropic actions and reflects our history, but also it is still alive and active. To live fully the landscape means first of all to recognize it in the many landscapes described by the European Landscape Convention of 2000. But landscape is also emotion; this is the magically hidden face of it: not just something material but a consequence of feelings, too. It is the result of that exact moment in which we focus on looking at it in a careful, not distracted manner. Is nature imposing rules on art or is art dictating them to nature? Perhaps there is no answer but one thing is certain: every act of watching, contemplating , acting in the landscape is the result of both conditions, at least in our western culture. Valorizing the concept of the journey into the landscape, the acting in the landscape , becomes a cultural necessity: to be between the places, to live the landscape contrary to an idea of journey made of destinations, goals, points. By acknowledging the cultural and social aspects of our multi-faceted Landscape heritage, we must understand how it is essential to re-educate people to observe historical, anthropological and naturalistic signs and to pay more attention to the environment.
in (assistant ed. Visentin, ed. by Niglio), Conoscere, conservare, valorizzare il patrimonio culturale religioso
Volume 3: Archivi, biblioteche, musei, ISBN 978-88-255-0631-0

Heilige Gräber sind Nachbauten des Grabes Christi in Jerusalem – kapellenartige Anlagen mit dem leeren Sarkophag des Auferstandenen. Seit der Wiederentdeckung durch Kaiser Konstantin 325/326 ist das Christusgrab in Jerusalem ein Ort höchster Verehrung. Die rasch einsetzende Pilgertätigkeit sorgte seinerzeit für die Verbreitung der Kenntnisse um das Originalgrab wie auch die Diffusion von Kreuz- und anderen Passionsreliquien in der abendländischen Kultur. Pilgerberichte, zahlreiche Abbildungen auf Elfenbeintafeln und wenig später auf Pilgerabzeichen legen Zeugnis davon ab. Seit dem 10. und besonders im Verlauf des 11. und 12. Jahrhunderts sind die überall entstehenden Heiligen Gräber, einhergehend mit den Kreuzzügen und den ständig zunehmenden Wallfahrten ins Heilige Land, aus dem religiösen Bewusstsein nicht mehr wegzudenken. Es ist davon auszugehen, dass über die wenigen noch erhaltenen Nachbauten hinaus eine erheblich höhere Anzahl Heiliger Gräber existiert hat, wie ich durch Quellenfunde belegen konnte. Dieser Sachverhalt lässt die bisherige Betrachtungsweise, frühere Heilige Gräber seien sonderbare Einzelfälle der Kunstgeschichte, fragwürdig erscheinen. Wird die Thematik im Licht der liturgischen Nutzung, aber auch der politischen Hintergründe für die Erbauung und Verehrung der Heiligen Gräber betrachtet, so wird deutlich, dass die Bedeutung dieser Bauten für das Mittelalter bisher unterschätzt wurde. Anhand der Heiligen Gräber in Acquapendente, Aquileia, Bologna, Fruttuaria und Mailand gehe ich im Rahmen meiner Dissertation den Fragen nach, welche Ursachen zu der Stiftung eines Heiligen Grabes führten und welche Einflüsse die Gestalt der Gräber geprägt haben. Die Bedeutung der Bauwerke als Pilgerstätten, Reliquienaufbewahrungsorte und Begräbnisstätten steht dabei im Mittelpunkt – auch um die Thematik als solche stärker ins Bewusstsein der wissenschaftlichen Auseinandersetzung zu rücken. Eine umfassende Untersuchung der Heiligen Gräber, die heutigen wissenschaftlichen Ansprüchen gerecht werden könnte, liegt bisher nicht vor. Die ältere Forschung interessierte sich vornehmlich für die Nachbauten, um anhand dieser die verschiedenen Bauphasen am Heiligen Grab in Jerusalem zu rekonstruieren. Diese Methode stößt schnell an ihre Grenzen, wird gleichwohl aber immer wieder aufgegriffen. Bislang wurden Heilige Gräber von der Forschung auf ihre Funktion in der Osterliturgie reduziert. Dagegen zeigt die große Varianz, die innerhalb der Heiligen Gräber – und das auch außerhalb Italiens – zu beobachten ist, die unterschiedlichsten Erbauungsgründe an. Die fünf genannten Beispiele haben alle verschiedene Bauhintergründe, so ist etwa das Heilige Grab in Santo Stefano in Bologna Teil einer Kirchenfamilie, mit der neben dem Christusgrab noch andere Heilige Stätten aus Jerusalem in derselben Ausrichtungen und teilweise denselben Maßen, wie auch im Heiligen Land, sichtbar anwesend gemacht wurden. Es handelt sich um eine in ganz Europa singuläre Anlage. Die Bedeutung und Nutzung aller Heiligen Gräber sind weitaus vielschichtiger anzunehmen und variieren von Fall zu Fall.
Die Ausgangslage, die bis heute die Forschung dominiert, bei den Heiligen Gräbern handele es sich um liturgische Einrichtungen für die Osterfeiertage, konnte ich widerlegen. Während die Liturgie der Heiligen Woche eine untergeordnete Rolle spielt, stehen im 11. und 12. Jahrhundert andere Erbauungsgründe wie Passionsreliquien oder Grabstätten von hochrangigen Klerikern im Vordergrund. Aufstellungsort und Art der Nutzung machen deutlich, dass Heilige Gräber wie Grabmäler von Heiligen angesehen werden müssen und gleichsam zu verehrungswürdigen heiligen Orte wurden. Sie führen den Gläubigen die Auferstehung Christi durch den leeren Sarkophag im Innern unmittelbar vor Augen. Einen wesentlichen Fortschritt stellt meine Arbeit auch für die Datierung und die Motive für die Errichtung Heiliger Gräber dar, da ich zeigen kann, dass diese bedeutend früher und mit wesentlich geringerem Einfluss der Kreuzzüge erbaut wurden, als bisher vermutet.

Автореферат диссертации на соискание ученой степени кандидата искусствоведения: "Архитектура современных православных храмов Беларуси: традиции и мировой контекст" / Abstract of PhD thesis "Contemporary Belarusian Orthodox Christian Church Architecture: Tradition and Global context" (Written in Russian. Short abstract in English is on the last page)

Udgravning ved en helligkilde, der har været i anvendelse fra middelalderen og op til nyere tid. Herved fundet mønter, lerkarskår, glasskår, knapper m.v., der vidner om aktiviteter i tilknytning til kilden. Fundene er først og fremmest efterreformatoriske.

Recent national press coverage has generated considerable attention to the solar geometry of the Spanish colonial missions of California. Speculations as to the purpose of the attendant illuminations have ranged widely from outright attacks to praise of recent scholarship that has sought to understand said phenomena within the context of Franciscan mission belief and history. Current research to identify potential parallel illumination sites in the Spanish colonial churches of the Philippines has revealed a pattern of congruent Counter-Reformation architectural design standards and edicts that served to mandate equinoctial church alignments. Those edicts penned by Saint Charles of Borromeo provide conclusive documentation for the church mandated integration of solar geometry, and equinoctial illuminations, into the building of New World church and California mission architecture. I thereby contend that these new revelations support the role of the Catholic Church, and in particular the Council of Trent in the mandated solar geometry so noted, and this in turn serves to verify and bolster those findings from previous research arguing for the liturgical basis of the phenomenon in question.

This is my five minute speech as part of the Book Launch of "Whispers and Vanities: Samoan Indigenous Knowledge and Religion" held on Friday 21 November, 2014, at the Fale Pasifika of The University of Auckland.  I am grateful to Dr. Toeoleolesulusulu Damon Salesa, as well as His Highness, the Head of State of Samoa, Tui Atua Tupua Tamasese Efi, for the privilege in enabling me to prepare a response to this seminal publication.  May God continue to bless Samoa, and our people, as we continue to make sense of our past, present and future, in our own Samoan way!  I commit this speech, to the glory, honour and praise of God!...Peace!