Customs of the daily worship cycle practiced in Orthodox monasteries in Romania, i.e. a portrayal of mutual interactions of the material and immaterial cultural heritage
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.12775/TiCz.2013.005Keywords
Orthodox religion, Orthodox theology, Romanian culture, cycle of daily worship, monastic traditions, immaterial cultural heritageAbstract
Range of problem related to the material cultural heritage, expanding with the influence of UNESCO resolutions, has for many years been a source of interest for researchers of various fields. However, it has been quite often emphasized recently that the objects belonging to the list of world cultural heritage share the so-called another world, connected to spirituality existing within these items. This alternate domain is represented by the world of imagery and reality of local communities concentrated around them. The article presents a description of the daily life of monks and nuns of the Orthodox monasteries in Romania as well as customs related to their activities. The course of their duties is controlled by the socalled cycle of daily worship, a part of the oldest liturgical cycles of Christianity. Its origin goes back to the early Christianity as well as the ancient symbolism of time. Worship services that took their present shape after many centuries of development correspond to the theological valuation of time. Three of them are related to night time: vespers, compline, midnight office, and four of them correspond to daytime: morning prayers/lauds with Little Hours of Prime, Terce, Sext and None. Each of services is deeply symbolic within the time it takes place as well as within the selection of prayers. On the one hand they present the divine creation of the world and history of salvation; on the other they call to practice humility as well as to realize your weaknesses and inevitability to change your life.
This worship cycle belongs to the spiritual cultural wealth of contemporary Europe and is placed within the wider category of immaterial cultural heritage. In Romania, as well as any other Orthodox country, where this traditional cycle is practiced, it remains an unofficial course of events observed in the background of the formally accepted calendar. It is being passed to next generations by two channels – either by means of oral tradition or by the acquired familiarity with old writings. This spiritual treasure also contributed to folk culture, creating a specific idea of time as well as abundant daily and yearly customs and rituals.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
CC BY ND 4.0. The Creator/Contributor is the Licensor, who grants the Licensee a non-exclusive license to use the Work on the fields indicated in the License Agreement.
- The Licensor grants the Licensee a non-exclusive license to use the Work/related rights item specified in § 1 within the following fields: a) recording of Work/related rights item; b) reproduction (multiplication) of Work/related rights item in print and digital technology (e-book, audiobook); c) placing the copies of the multiplied Work/related rights item on the market; d) entering the Work/related rights item to computer memory; e) distribution of the work in electronic version in the open access form on the basis of Creative Commons license (CC BY-ND 3.0) via the digital platform of the Nicolaus Copernicus University Press and file repository of the Nicolaus Copernicus University.
- Usage of the recorded Work by the Licensee within the above fields is not restricted by time, numbers or territory.
- The Licensor grants the license for the Work/related rights item to the Licensee free of charge and for an unspecified period of time.
FULL TEXT License Agreement
Stats
Number of views and downloads: 540
Number of citations: 0