This article explores the vital roles that religious and secular rituals play in the processes of conflict resolution and reconciliation. Drawing on an interdisciplinary framework combining ritual studies, communication theory, and theological perspectives, the study argues that ritual acts function as more than symbolic markers of a resolved conflict. As presentational symbols, rituals have the potential to address the emotional and relational dimensions of conflict. They can serve as active, transformative tools for psychosocial change, initiating healing processes and reframing broken relationships. Furthermore, the study explores the differences between secular and religious – particularly Christian – reconciliation rituals. It emphasizes that Christian rituals are grounded in the reconciliation between God and humanity in Christ, understood both as a gift and a responsibility: to live out God’s forgiveness and mercy in interpersonal relationships. The article also examines how rituals contribute to the transformation of worldviews, the humanization of former adversaries, and the formation of new social frameworks. These theoretical insights are illustrated by a brief case study of the long-term process of Czech-German reconciliation following World War II.
Our study aims to open up a privileged space to further deepen the original phenomenon of mercy, condition of every being-with and of all effective intersubjective experience. That the human being is already structured by the compassion that constantly exposes him to the suffering of others, that he is capable of experiencing the other in the immediacy of a life that unites to oneself in God, behold an originary truth that no one can avert. In spite of the inner tears that violently pierce the heart of our humanity, we are all invited to launch a lively call capable of reestablishing everything on a culture of the heart which exclusively can provide meaning to all forms of culture and of knowledge.
This article engages with the way in which Pope Francis worked with his principle that time is superior to space, and how this influences his approach to conflict resolution. It begins by offering a short introduction to the principle itself, also in relation to another of the pope’s four principles, that unity prevails over conflict. It then addresses Pope Francis’s opposition to war, showing how he saw it as always a failure, given his vision of what it is to be human before God. The final part of the article critically investigates the pope’s response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, pointing both to the problems that have arisen from it, especially in Ukraine, and yet seeking to show the consistency in the pope’s approach.
This study examines the use of the term ἀπαύγασμα in the writings of Gregory of Nyssa, with particular attention to its semantic flexibility and theological function across different doctrinal contexts. Focusing on Gregory’s exegetical, ascetical, Trinitarian, and Christological texts, the article aims to show how the imagery of radiance and reflection serves to articulate the relation between divine transcendence and manifestation while safeguarding the incomprehensibility of the divine essence. Special emphasis is placed on Gregory’s polemical use of ἀπαύγασμα in his anti-Eunomian and anti-Apollinarian writings, where the term becomes a precise conceptual tool for defending the co-eternity and consubstantiality of the Son with the Father, as well as the integrity of Christ’s two natures. The study argues that Gregory’s disciplined interpretation of this biblical metaphor exemplifies the pro-Nicene integration of scriptural exegesis and systematic theological reasoning.
This article examines self-perception and its impact on the adaptability to new living contexts symptomatic of different socio-cultural and religious/theological identity-formation contexts. By relying on an interdisciplinary hermeneutic, it touches upon the issues of selfhood and otherness from an interdisciplinary theological and social-theoretical perspective by laying its foundations deep in the connections of theological/religious and cultural perceptions of the identity formation of displaced people in their new host life-settings. Such connectedness is demonstrative of self-perception trajectories, which foreigners go through in their attempts at integration and adaptation, or lack thereof, to the new and challenging living spheres they join. The article focuses on the Syrian refugees in Europe and analyses how their religious or theological self-perception relates to their confrontation with the new challenge of forming a new self-identification strategy that can enable them to answer the question ‘who am I?’ in the heart of their strife to exist in their new expatriate lands. The article touches upon this complex and multi-faceted matter from the specific perspective of the role of memory and remembrance in the journeys of self-perception and identity reformulation of these Syrians and their hosts, and in their religious and cultural ramifications.
