Parish church
A parish church in Christianity is the church which acts as the religious centre of a parish. In many parts of the world in rural areas, the parish church may play a significant role in community activities allowing its premises to be used for non-religious community events; the church building reflects this status, there is considerable variety in the size and style of parish churches. Many villages in Europe have churches that date back to the Middle Ages, but all periods of architecture are represented. In England, the parish church is the basic administrative unit of episcopal churches. Nearly every part of England is designated as a parish, most parishes have an Anglican parish church, consecrated. If there is no parish church, the bishop licenses another building for worship, may designate it as a parish centre of worship; this building is not consecrated, but is dedicated, for most legal purposes it is deemed to be a parish church. In areas of increasing secularisation or shifts in religious belief, centres of worship are becoming more common, larger churches are sold due to their upkeep costs.
Instead the church may use community centres or the facilities of a local church of another denomination. While smaller villages may have a single parish church, larger towns may have a parish church and other smaller churches in various districts; these churches do not have the legal or religious status of'parish church' and may be described by a variety of terms, such as chapel of ease or mission church. The parish church will be the only one to have a full-time minister, who will serve any smaller churches within the parish. In cities without an Anglican cathedral, the parish church may have administrative functions similar to that of a cathedral. However, the diocese will still have a cathedral. In the Catholic Church, as the seat of worship for the parish, this church is the one where the members of the parish must go for baptisms and weddings, unless permission is given by the parish priest for celebrating these sacraments elsewhere. One sign of this is; the Church of Scotland, the established Presbyterian church uses a system of parish churches, covering the whole of Scotland.
In Massachusetts, towns elected publicly funded parish churches from 1780 until 1834, under the Constitution of Massachusetts. Toward the end of the 20th century, a new resurgence in interest in "parish" churches emerged across the United States; this has given rise to efforts like the Slow Church Movement and The Parish Collective which focus on localized involvement across work and church life. Roman Catholic parish church Church of England parish church
Slovene Littoral
The Slovene Littoral is one of the five traditional regions of Slovenia. Its name recalls the former Austrian Littoral, the Habsburg possessions on the upper Adriatic coast, which the Slovene Littoral was part of; the region forms the westernmost part of Slovenia, bordering with the Italian region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia. It stretches from the Adriatic Sea in the south up to the Julian Alps in the north; the Slovene Littoral comprises two traditional provinces: Slovenian Istria. The Goriška region takes its name from the town of Gorizia now in Italy. Slovenian Istria comprises the northern part of the Istria peninsula and provides, on the Slovenian Riviera coastline with the ports of Koper and Piran, the country's only access to the sea. After Ljubljana, the Slovene Littoral is the most developed and economically most prosperous part of Slovenia; the western part of Slovenian Istria is a bilingual region where both Slovene and Italian may be used in education and administrative environments. The northern part of the Slovene Littoral is part of the larger Gorizia Statistical Region, the south belongs to the Coastal–Karst Statistical Region.
After they had acquired the Carniola hinterland in 1335, the Habsburgs took possession of the coastal areas. In 1500 they inherited the comital lands of Gorizia, when the last Count Leonhard of Gorizia died childless; the Habsburg Princely County of Gorizia and Gradisca was established in 1754, it became part of the Austrian Kingdom of Illyria in 1816. With the Istrian march and the Imperial Free City of Trieste it was re-arranged as the Austrian Littoral crown land in 1849. At the end of World War I and the dissolution of Austria-Hungary in 1918, the area, together with the western part of Inner Carniola and the Upper Carniolan municipality of Bela Peč / Weissenfels, was occupied by the Italian army; as stipulated in the 1915 London Pact, a quarter of predominantly Slovene ethnic territory and 327,000 out of total population of 1.3 million Slovenes were adjudicated to Italy by the 1919 Treaty of Saint-Germain and annexed according to the 1920 border Treaty of Rapallo. Incorporated into the Julian March a forced Italianization of the Slovene minority began, intensified after the Fascists under Benito Mussolini came to power in 1922, lasted until 1943.
The Slovenes in Italy lacked any minority protection under domestic law. Numerous Slovenes emigrated to the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, others fought against Italian rule in the anti-fascist TIGR organization. After World War II, according to the 1947 Paris Peace Treaties, the bulk of the region with the upper Soča Valley fell to Yugoslavia. Parts of the area were re-arranged as the Free Territory of Trieste, while Italy retained the urban centres of Gorizia and Gradisca. In 1954 Italy recovered the main port of Trieste; as a result, the new urban centres on the Slovenian side of the border developed. Battles of the Isonzo Goriška Morgan Line Treaty of Osimo Karst Plateau Vipava Valley Soča Slovenian wine Venetian Slovenia Media related to Slovene Littoral at Wikimedia Commons
Cerkno Hills
The Cerkno Hills is a transitional region between the Alpine and the Dinaric landscape, centered on Cerkno in northwestern Slovenia. Several passes in this area connect the Poljane Valley and the Selca Valley with the Idrijca Valley and the Soča Valley; the highest peak is Porezen. The landscape is geologically diverse and one of the most interesting in Slovenia in this regard. Among the steep hills, numerous ravines and valleys have been carved out by the Cerknica River and its tributaries; the Cerkno Hills and the people who live there were presented in the 2011 documentary The Slope to the Home, directed by Dušan Moravec and edited by Jurij Moškon. A map and virtual panoramas. Slovenia Landmarks. Boštjan Burger. Retrieved 16 May 2012.. Media related to Cerkno Hills at Wikimedia Commons
Saint Anne
According to apocryphal Christian and Islamic tradition, Saint Anne was the mother of Mary and grandmother of Jesus. Mary's mother is not named in the canonical gospels nor in the Qur'an. In writing, Anne's name and that of her husband Joachim come only from New Testament apocrypha, of which the Gospel of James seems to be the earliest that mentions them; the story bears a similarity to that of the birth of Samuel, whose mother Hannah had been childless. Although Anne receives little attention in the Latin Church prior to the late 12th century, dedications to Anne in Eastern Christianity occur as early as the 6th century. In the Eastern Orthodox Churches and Eastern Catholic Churches, she is revered as Hannah. In the Eastern Orthodox tradition, Hannah is ascribed the title Forebear of God, both the Nativity of Mary and the Presentation of Mary are celebrated as two of the twelve Great Feasts of the Orthodox Church; the Dormition of Hannah is a minor feast in Eastern Christianity. In Lutheran Protestantism, it is held that Martin Luther chose to enter religious life as an Augustinian friar after crying out to St. Anne while endangered by lightning.
Anne is revered in Islam, recognized as a spiritual woman and as the mother of Mary. She is not named in the Quran; the Qur'an describes her remaining childless until her old age. One day, Hannah saw a bird feeding its young while sitting in the shade of a tree, which awakened her desire to have children of her own, she prayed for a child and conceived. Expecting the child to be male, Hannah vowed to dedicate him to isolation and service in the Second Temple. However, Hannah bore a daughter instead, named her Mary, her words upon delivering Mary reflect her status as a great mystic, realising that while she had wanted a son, this daughter was God's gift to her:Then, when she brought forth she said: My Lord! I brought her forth, a female, and God is greater in knowledge of. And the male is not like the female. So her Lord received her with the best acceptance, and her bringing forth caused the best to develop in her. Although the canonical books of the New Testament never mention the mother of the Virgin Mary, traditions about her family, childhood and eventual betrothal to Joseph developed early in the history of the church.
The oldest and most influential source for these is the apocryphal Gospel of James, first written in Koine Greek around the middle of the second century AD. In the West, the Gospel of James fell under a cloud in the fourth and fifth centuries when it was accused of "absurdities" by Jerome and condemned as untrustworthy by Pope Damasus I, Pope Innocent I, Pope Gelasius I. Ancient belief, attested to by a sermon of John of Damascus, was. In the Late Middle Ages, legend held that Anne was married three times first to Joachim to Clopas and to a man named Solomas and that each marriage produced one daughter: Mary, mother of Jesus, Mary of Clopas, Mary Salome, respectively; the sister of Saint Anne was mother of Elizabeth. In the 4th century and much in the 15th century, a belief arose that Mary was born of Anne by virgin birth, preserving Anne's body and soul intact as distinct from the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception that preserved her daughter's body and soul intact and sinless from the first moment of existence.
Adherents included the 16th-century Lutheran mystic Valentin Weigel, who claimed Anne conceived Mary by the power of the Holy Spirit rather than conventional conjugal relations. This belief was condemned as an error by the Catholic Church in 1677. In the fifteenth century, the Catholic cleric Johann Eck related in a sermon that St Anne's parents were named Stollanus and Emerentia; the Catholic Encyclopedia regards this genealogy as spurious. In the Eastern church, the cult of Anne herself may go back as far as c. 550, when Justinian built a church in Constantinople in her honor. The earliest pictorial sign of her veneration in the West is an 8th-century fresco in the church of Santa Maria Antiqua, Rome. Virginia Nixon sees an economic incentive in the local promotion of the cult of St. Anne in order to attract pilgrims; the identification of Sepphoris as the birthplace of Mary may reflect competition with a similar site in Jerusalem. A shrine at Douai, in northern France, was one of the early centers of devotion to St. Anne in the West.
Two well-known shrines to St. Anne are that of Ste. Anne d'Auray in Brittany, France. Anne de Beaupré near the city of Québec; the number of visitors to the Basilica of Ste. Anne de Beaupré is greatest on St Anne's Feast Day, 26 July, the Sunday before Nativity of the Virgin Mary, 8 September. In 1892, Pope Leo XIII sent a relic of St Anne to the church. In the Maltese language, the Milky Way galaxy is called It-Triq ta' Sant'Anna "The Way of St. Anne". In Imperial Russia, the Order of St Anne was one of the leading state decorations; the supposed relics of St. Anne were brought from the Holy Land to Constantinople in 710 and were kept there in the church of St. Sophia as late as 1333. During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, returning crusaders and pilgrims from the East brought relics of Anne to a number of churches, including most famously those at Apt, in Provence and Chartres. St. Anne's relics have been preserved and venerated in the many cathedrals and monasteries dedicated to her name, for example in Austria, Germany and Greece in Holy Mount and the city of Katerini.
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Resistance during World War II
Resistance movements during World War II occurred in every occupied country by a variety of means, ranging from non-cooperation and propaganda, to hiding crashed pilots and to outright warfare and the recapturing of towns. In many countries, resistance movements were sometimes referred to as The Underground. Among the most notable resistance movements were the Polish Resistance, including the Polish Home Army, Leśni, the whole Polish Underground State. Many countries had resistance movements dedicated to fighting the Axis invaders, Nazi Germany itself had an anti-Nazi movement. Although Britain was not occupied during the war, the British made complex preparations for a British resistance movement; the main organisation was created by the Secret Intelligence Service and is now known as Section VII. In addition there was a short-term secret commando force called the Auxiliary Units. Various organizations were formed to establish foreign resistance cells or support existing resistance movements, like the British Special Operations Executive and the American Office of Strategic Services.
There were resistance movements fighting against the Allied invaders. In Italian East Africa, after the Italian forces were defeated during the East African Campaign, some Italians participated in a guerrilla war against the British; the German Nazi resistance movement never amounted to much. The "Forest Brothers" of Estonia and Lithuania included many fighters who operated against the Soviet occupation of the Baltic States into the 1960s. During or after the war, similar anti-Soviet resistance rose up in places like Romania, Bulgaria and Chechnya. While the Japanese were famous for "fighting to the last man", Japanese holdouts tended to be individually motivated and there is little indication that there was any organized Japanese resistance after the war. After the first shock following the Blitzkrieg, people started to get organized, both locally and on a larger scale when Jews and other groups were starting to be deported and used for the Arbeitseinsatz. Organization was dangerous, so much resistance was done by individuals.
The possibilities depended much on the terrain. This favoured in particular the Soviet partisans in Eastern Europe. In the much more densely populated Netherlands, the Biesbosch wilderness could be used to go into hiding. In northern Italy, both the Alps and the Apennines offered shelter to partisan brigades, though many groups operated directly inside the major cities. There were many different types of groups, ranging in activity from humanitarian aid to armed resistance, sometimes cooperating to a varying degree. Resistance arose spontaneously, but was encouraged and helped from London and Moscow; the five largest resistance movements in Europe were the Dutch, the French, the Polish, the Soviet and the Yugoslav. A number of sources note that the Polish Home Army was the largest resistance movement in Nazi-occupied Europe. Norman Davies writes that the "Armia Krajowa, the AK... could claim to be the largest of European resistance." Gregor Dallas writes that the "Home Army in late 1943 numbered around 400,000, making it the largest resistance organization in Europe."
Mark Wyman writes that the "Armia Krajowa was considered the largest underground resistance unit in wartime Europe." However, the numbers of Soviet partisans were similar to those of the Polish resistance as were the numbers of Yugoslav partisans. For the French Resistance, François Marcot ventured an estimate of 200,000 activists and a further 300,000 with substantial involvement in Resistance operations. Laffont, Robert. Dictionnaire historique de la Résistance. Paris: Bouquins. P. 339. ISBN 978-2-221-09997-1. Various forms of resistance were: Non-violent Sabotage – the Arbeitseinsatz forced locals to work for the Germans, but work was done or intentionally badly Strikes and demonstrations Based on existing organizations, such as the churches, students and doctors Armed raids on distribution offices to get food coupons or various documents such as Ausweise or on birth registry offices to get rid of information about Jews and others to whom the Nazis paid special attention temporary liberation of areas, such as in Yugoslavia and northern Italy in cooperation with the Allied forces uprisings such as in Warsaw in 1943 and 1944, in extermination camps such as in Sobibor in 1943 and Auschwitz in 1944 continuing battle and guerrilla warfare, such as the partisans in the USSR and Yugoslavia and the Maquis in France Espionage, including sending reports of military importance Illegal press to counter Nazi propaganda Anti-Nazi propaganda including movies for example anti-Nazi color film Calling Mr. Smith about current Nazi crimes in German-occupied Poland.
Covert listeni
Municipalities of Slovenia
Slovenia is divided into 212 municipalities, of which 11 have urban status. Municipalities are further divided into local districts. Slovene is an official language of all the municipalities. Hungarian is a second official language of three municipalities in Prekmurje: Dobrovnik/Dobronak, Hodoš/Hodos, Lendava/Lendva. Italian is a second official language of four municipalities in the Slovene Littoral: Ankaran/Ancarano, Izola/Isola, Koper/Capodistria, Piran/Pirano. In the EU statistics, the municipalities of Slovenia are classified as "local administrative unit 2", below 58 administrative units, which are LAU 1; the Slovene names of the municipalities have the word Občina'municipality' followed by a nominative form the seat of the municipality. In 2014, Slovenia was divided into 212 municipalities. ISO 3166-2:SI NUTS:SI Review of municipalities and appurtenant spatial units and house numbers, 1 January 2011. Published by the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia
Armistice of Cassibile
The Armistice of Cassibile was an armistice signed on 3 September 1943 by Walter Bedell Smith and Giuseppe Castellano, made public on 8 September, between the Kingdom of Italy and the Allies during World War II. It was signed at a conference of generals from both sides in an Allied military camp at Cassibile in Sicily, occupied by the Allies; the armistice was approved by both King Victor Emmanuel III and Italian Prime Minister Pietro Badoglio. The armistice stipulated the surrender of Italy to the Allies. After its publication, Germany retaliated against Italy, freeing Mussolini and attacking Italian forces in Italy, the South of France and the Balkans. Italian forces were defeated and most of Italy was occupied by German troops, establishing a puppet state, the Italian Social Republic. In the meanwhile the King, the government and most of the navy reached territories occupied by the Allies. Following the surrender of the Axis powers in North Africa on 13 May 1943, the Allies bombed Rome first on 16 May, invaded Sicily on 10 July and were preparing to land on the Italian mainland.
In the spring of 1943, preoccupied by the disastrous situation of the Italian military in the war, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini removed several figures from the government whom he considered to be more loyal to King Victor Emmanuel III than to the Fascist regime. These moves by Mussolini were described as hostile acts to the king, growing critical of the war. To help carry out his plan, the King asked for the assistance of Dino Grandi. Grandi was one of the leading members of the Fascist hierarchy and, in his younger years, he had been considered to be the sole credible alternative to Mussolini as leader of the National Fascist Party; the King was motivated by the suspicion that Grandi's ideas about Fascism might be changed abruptly. Various ambassadors, including Pietro Badoglio himself, proposed to him the vague possibility of succeeding Mussolini as dictator; the secret frondeur involved Giuseppe Bottai, another high member of the Fascist directorate and Minister of Culture, Galeazzo Ciano the second most powerful man in the Fascist party and Mussolini's son-in-law.
The conspirators devised an Order of the Day for the next reunion of the Grand Council of Fascism which contained a proposal to restore direct control of politics to the king. Following the Council, held on 25 July 1943, where the "order of the day" was adopted by majority vote, Mussolini was summoned to meet the King and dismissed as Prime Minister. Upon leaving the meeting, Mussolini was arrested by carabinieri and spirited off to the island of Ponza. Badoglio took the position of Prime Minister; this went against what had been promised to Grandi, told that another general of greater personal and professional qualities would have taken the place of Mussolini. The appointment of Badoglio did not change the position of Italy as Germany's ally in the war. However, many channels were being probed to seek a peace treaty with the Allies. Meanwhile, Hitler sent several divisions south of the Alps to help defend Italy from allied landings but in reality to control the country. Three Italian generals were separately sent to Lisbon.
However, to start out the proceedings the Allies had to solve a problem concerning, the most authoritative envoy: the three generals had in fact soon started to quarrel about the question of who enjoyed the highest authority. In the end, Castellano was admitted to speak with the Allies in order to set the conditions for the surrender of Italy. Among the representatives of the Allies, there was the British ambassador to Portugal, Sir Ronald Hugh Campbell, two generals sent by Dwight D. Eisenhower, the American Walter Bedell Smith and the British Kenneth Strong. On 27 August Castellano returned to Italy and, three days briefed Badoglio about the Allied request for a meeting to be held in Sicily, suggested by the British ambassador to the Vatican. To ease communication between the Allies and the Italian Government, a captured British SOE agent, Dick Mallaby, was released from Verona prison and secretly moved to the Quirinale, it was vital that the Germans remained ignorant of any suggestion of Italian surrender and the SOE was seen as the most secure method in the circumstances.
Badoglio still considered it possible to gain favourable conditions in exchange for the surrender. He ordered Castellano to insist that any surrender of Italy be conditioned on a landing of Allied troops on the Italian mainland. On 31 August General Castellano reached Termini Imerese, in Sicily, by plane and was subsequently transferred to Cassibile, a small town in the neighbourhood of Syracuse, it soon became obvious. Castellano pressed the request that the Italian territory be defended from the inevitable reaction of the German Wehrmacht against Italy after the signing. In return, he received only vague promises, which included the launching of a Parachute division over Rome. Moreover, these actions were to be conducted contemporaneously with the signing and not preceding it, as the Italians had wanted; the following day Castellano was received by his entourage. The Minister of Foreign Affairs Baron Raffaele Guariglia declared that the Allied conditions were to be accepted. Other generals like Giacomo Carboni maintained however that the Army Corps deployed around Rome was insufficient to protect the city, due to lack of fuel and ammu
Slovenia
