1.
Russian Orthodox Church
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The Russian Orthodox Church, alternatively legally known as the Moscow Patriarchate, is one of the autocephalous Eastern Orthodox churches, in full communion with other Eastern Orthodox patriarchates. The Primate of the ROC is the Patriarch of Moscow and all Rus and it also exercises ecclesiastical jurisdiction over the autonomous Church of Japan and the Orthodox Christians resident in the Peoples Republic of China. The ROC branches in Belarus, Estonia, Latvia, Moldova and Ukraine since the 1990s enjoy various degrees of self-government, in Ukraine, ROC has tensions with schismatic groups supported by the current government, while it enjoys the position of numerically dominant religious organisation. The ROC should also not be confused with the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia, headquartered in New York, New York, the two Churches reconciled on May 17,2007, the ROCOR is now a self-governing part of the Russian Orthodox Church. According to one of the legends, Andrew reached the location of Kiev. The spot where he erected a cross is now marked by St. Andrews Cathedral. By the end of the first millennium AD, eastern Slavic lands started to come under the influence of the Eastern Roman Empire. There is evidence that the first Christian bishop was sent to Novgorod from Constantinople either by Patriarch Photius or Patriarch Ignatios, by the mid-10th century, there was already a Christian community among Kievan nobility, under the leadership of Byzantine Greek priests, although paganism remained the dominant religion. Princess Olga of Kiev was the first ruler of Kievan Rus′ to convert to Christianity and her grandson, Vladimir of Kiev, made Rus officially a Christian state. The Kievan church was a metropolitanate of the Patriarchate of Constantinople and the Ecumenical patriarch appointed the metropolitan, who usually was a Greek. The Metropolitans residence was located in Kiev itself, the capital of the medieval Rus state. Following the tribulations of the Mongol invasion, the Russian Church was pivotal in the survival, despite the politically motivated murders of Mikhail of Chernigov and Mikhail of Tver, the Mongols were generally tolerant and even granted tax exemption to the Church. Such holy figures as Sergius of Radonezh and Metropolitan Alexis helped the country to withstand years of Tatar oppression, the Trinity monastery founded by Sergius of Radonezh became the setting for the flourishing of spiritual art, exemplified by the work of Andrey Rublev, among others. The followers of Sergius founded four hundred monasteries, thus extending the geographical extent of the Grand Duchy of Moscow. However, the Moscow Prince Vasili II rejected the act of the Council of Florence brought to Moscow by Isidore in March 1441, Isidore was in the same year removed from his position as an apostate and expelled from Moscow. The Russian metropolitanate remained effectively vacant for the few years due largely to the dominance of Uniates in Constantinople then. In December 1448, Jonas, a Russian bishop, was installed by the Council of Russian bishops in Moscow as Metropolitan of Kiev and All Russia without the consent from Constantinople. Subsequently, there developed a theory in Moscow that saw Moscow as the Third Rome, the successor to Constantinople
2.
Icon
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An icon is a religious work of art, most commonly a painting, from Eastern Christianity and certain Eastern Catholic churches. The most common subjects include Christ, Mary, saints and/or angels, icons may also be cast in metal, carved in stone, embroidered on cloth, painted on wood, done in mosaic or fresco work, printed on paper or metal, etc. Comparable images from Western Christianity are generally not described as icons, Eastern Orthodox tradition holds that the creation of Christian images dates back to the very early days of Christianity, and there is has been a continuous tradition since then. The icons of later centuries can be linked, often closely, to images from the 5th century onwards, there was enormous destruction of images during the Byzantine Iconoclasm of 726-842, although this did settle for good the question of the appropriateness of images. Since then icons have had a continuity of style and subject. At the same time there has been change and development, Christian tradition dating from the 8th century identifies Luke the Evangelist as the first icon painter. Aside from the legend that Pilate had made an image of Christ and he relates that King Abgar of Edessa sent a letter to Jesus at Jerusalem, asking Jesus to come and heal him of an illness. In this version there is no image, further legends relate that the cloth remained in Edessa until the 10th century, when it was taken to Constantinople. It went missing in 1204 when Crusaders sacked Constantinople, but by then numerous copies had firmly established its iconic type. They crown these images, and set them up along with the images of the philosophers of the world that is to say, with the images of Pythagoras, and Plato, and Aristotle, and the rest. They have also other modes of honouring these images, after the manner of the Gentiles. And he called him and said, Lycomedes, what do you mean by this matter of the portrait, can it be one of thy gods that is painted here. For I see that you are living in heathen fashion. Later in the passage John says, But this that you have now done is childish and imperfect, at least some of the hierarchy of the Christian churches still strictly opposed icons in the early 4th century. At the Spanish non-ecumenical Synod of Elvira bishops concluded, Pictures are not to be placed in churches, so that they do not become objects of worship and adoration. to our religion. After the emperor Constantine I extended official toleration of Christianity within the Roman Empire in 313 and this period of Christianization probably saw the use of Christian images became very widespread among the faithful, though with great differences from pagan habits. Robin Lane Fox states By the early century, we know of the ownership of private icons of saints. 480-500, we can be sure that the inside of a saints shrine would be adorned with images and votive portraits, when Constantine himself apparently converted to Christianity, the majority of his subjects remained pagans
3.
Iconostasis
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In Eastern Christianity an iconostasis is a wall of icons and religious paintings, separating the nave from the sanctuary in a church. Iconostasis also refers to a portable icon stand that can be placed anywhere within a church, the iconostasis evolved from the Byzantine templon, a process complete by the fifteenth century. A direct comparison for the function of the iconostasis can be made to the layout of the great Temple in Jerusalem. That Temple was designed with three parts, the holiest and inner-most portion was that where the Ark of the Covenant was kept. This portion, the Holy of Holies, was separated from the larger part of the buildings interior by a curtain. Only the High Priest was allowed to enter the Holy of Holies, the third part was the entrance court. In the Eastern Orthodox tradition only men can enter the altar portion behind the iconostasis, the word comes from the Greek εἰκονοστάσι, which means icon stand. The nave is the body of the church where most of the worshippers stand. The sanctuary is one to three steps higher than the nave. The Iconostasis does not sit directly on the edge of the sanctuary and this forms a walkway in front of the iconostasis for the clergy, called a soleas. In the very center of the soleas is an extension, often rounded, called the ambon, on which the deacon will stand to give litanies during the services, the iconostasis, though often tall, rarely touches the ceiling. Acoustically, this permits the ekphoneses of the clergy to be heard clearly by the faithful, in small, modern churches the iconostasis may be completely absent, in such cases it is replaced by a few small icons on analogia, forming a virtual divide. The iconostasis typically has three openings or sets of doors, the Beautiful Gates or Holy Doors in the center, and the North and South Doors to either side. The Beautiful Gates are sometimes called the Royal Doors, but that more properly belongs to the central doors connecting the narthex, or porch. They remain shut whenever a service is not being held, modern custom as to when they should be opened during services varies depending upon jurisdiction and local custom. The North and South Doors are often called Deacons Doors because the use them frequently. Icons of sainted deacons are often depicted on these doors, alternatively, they may be called Angels Doors, and the Archangels Michael and Gabriel are often depicted there. The South Door is typically the entrance door, and Michael is depicted there because he is the Defender, the North Door is the exit and these doors may also be casually referred to as the side doors
4.
Transfiguration of Jesus
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The Transfiguration of Jesus is an event reported in the New Testament when Jesus is transfigured and becomes radiant in glory upon a mountain. The Synoptic Gospels describe it, and the Second Epistle of Peter also refers to it and it has also been hypothesized that the first chapter of the Gospel of John alludes to it. In these accounts, Jesus and three of his apostles, Peter, James, John, go to a mountain to pray, on the mountain, Jesus begins to shine with bright rays of light. Then the prophets Moses and Elijah appear next to him and he speaks with them, Jesus is then called Son by a voice in the sky, assumed to be God the Father, as in the Baptism of Jesus. Many Christian traditions, including the Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Anglican churches, commemorate the event in the Feast of the Transfiguration, the Transfiguration is one of the miracles of Jesus in the Gospels. This miracle is unique among others that appear in the Canonical gospels, thomas Aquinas considered the Transfiguration the greatest miracle in that it complemented baptism and showed the perfection of life in Heaven. The Transfiguration is one of the five major milestones in the narrative of the life of Jesus, the others being Baptism, Crucifixion, Resurrection. In 2002, Pope John Paul II introduced the Luminous Mysteries in the Rosary, moreover, Christians consider the Transfiguration to fulfill an Old Testament messianic prophecy that Elijah would return again after his ascension. Gardner states The very last of the prophets, Malachi. Elijah himself would reappear in the Transfiguration, there he would appear alongside Moses as a representative of all the prophets who looked forward to the coming of the Messiah. Christs redemptive sacrifice was the purpose for which Elijah had ministered while on earth, and it was the goal about which Elijah spoke to Jesus in the Transfiguration. In the synoptic gospels, the account of the transfiguration happens towards the middle of the narrative and it is a key episode and almost immediately follows another important element, the Confession of Peter, you are the Christ. The Transfiguration narrative acts as a revelation of the identity of Jesus as the Son of God to some of his disciples. In the gospels, Jesus takes Peter, James, son of Zebedee and his brother John the Apostle with him and goes up to a mountain, which is not named. Once on the mountain, Matthew 17,2 states that Jesus was transfigured before them, his face shining as the sun, at that point the prophets Elijah and Moses appear and Jesus begins to talk to them. Luke states that they spoke of Jesus exodus which he was about to accomplish in Jerusalem, Luke is also specific in describing Jesus in a state of glory, with Luke 9,32 referring to they saw His glory. Just as Elijah and Moses begin to depart from the scene and this has been interpreted as Peters attempt to keep the prophets there longer. But before Peter can finish, a cloud appears
5.
Kizhi Island
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Kizhi is an island near the geometrical center of the Lake Onega in the Republic of Karelia, Russia. It is elongated north to south and is about 6 km long,1 km wide and is about 68 km away from the capital of Karelia. Settlements and churches on the island were known from at least the 15th century, the population was rural, but was forced by the government to assist development of the ore mining and iron plants in the area that resulted in a major Kizhi Uprising in 1769–1771. Most villages had disappeared from the island by the 1950s and now only a rural settlement remains. In the 18th century, two churches and a bell tower were built on the island, which are now known as Kizhi Pogost. In the 1950s, dozens of wooden buildings were moved to the island from various parts of Karelia for preservation purposes. Nowadays, the island and the nearby area form a national open-air museum with more than 80 historical wooden structures. The most famous is the Kizhi Pogost, which is a UNESCO World Heritage site, the name Kizhi is believed to originate from ancient Veps or Karelian word “kizhat” or kizhansuari. In Russian, it is pronounced with stress on the first syllable. Since at least the 14th century, the island was part of the route between Novgorod and White Sea. The numerous settlements on Kizhi and neighboring islands comprised an administrative entity called Spas-Kizhi Pogost, since the 13th and 14th century, the area acquired economical importance as a source of iron ores. Those plants required hard physical labor such as cutting forests for wood, coal burning, ground works, the labor was forced, the disobeyed were punished by public beating and fines that sparked local riots. Peasants disobeyed and boycotted the order and they were soon joined by up to 40,000 people from all over Karelia led by Kliment Sobolev, Andrei Salnikov and Semen Kostin. The revolt was based in the Kizhi Pogost that resulted in its name, the peasants sent petitioners to St. Petersburg, but those were arrested and punished, and a military corps was sent to suppress the uprising. They arrived to Kizhi by the end of June,1771, the leaders and 50–70 other peasants were publicly beaten and sent to exile in Siberia. Many others were forced into service, which was a form of punishment of the time. However, the recruitment of peasants for the construction of local plants, from the early times, the most important occupation of the islanders was farming. All available area, about half of the island was converted to fields, from the half, a quarter was rocky
6.
Karelia
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Karelia, the land of the Karelian peoples, is an area in Northern Europe of historical significance for Finland, Russia, and Sweden. It is currently divided between the Russian Republic of Karelia, the Russian Leningrad Oblast, and Finland, various subdivisions may be called Karelia. Finnish Karelia was a province of Finland, and is now divided between Finland and Russia, often called just Karjala in Finnish. The eastern part of this chiefly Lutheran area was ceded to Russia after the Winter War of 1939–40 and this area is the Karelia of the Karelian question in Finnish politics. The Republic of Karelia is a Russian federal subject, including the so-called East Karelia with a chiefly Russian Orthodox population, Karelia stretches from the White Sea coast to the Gulf of Finland. It contains the two largest lakes in Europe, Lake Ladoga and Lake Onega, the Karelian Isthmus is located between the Gulf of Finland and Lake Ladoga. In the North there were the nomadic Samis, but no natural border except for huge woods, in historical texts Karelia is sometimes divided into East Karelia and West Karelia, which are also called Russian Karelia and Finnish Karelia respectively. The area to the north of Lake Ladoga which belonged to Finland before World War II is called Ladoga Karelia, White Sea Karelia is the northern part of East Karelia and Olonets Karelia is the southern part. Tver Karelia denotes the villages in the Tver Oblast that are inhabited by Tver Karelians, the Treaty of Nöteborg in 1323 divided Karelia between the two. Viborg became the capital of the new Swedish province, in the Treaty of Stolbovo in 1617 large parts of Russian Karelia were ceded to Sweden. Conflicts between the new Swedish rulers and the population of these areas led to an exodus, thousands of Karelians, including the ancestors of the Tver Karelians. The Treaty of Nystad in 1721 between Imperial Russia and Sweden ceded most of Karelia to Russia, after Finland had been occupied by Russia in the Finnish War, parts of the ceded provinces were incorporated into the Grand Duchy of Finland. In 1917, Finland became independent and the border was confirmed by the Treaty of Tartu in 1920, Finnish partisans were involved in attempts to overthrow the Bolshevists in Russian Karelia in 1918–20, such as in the failed Aunus expedition. They also wanted to incorporate the rest of Karelia into Finland and these mainly private expeditions ended after the peace treaty of Tartu. After the end of the Russian Civil War and the establishment of the Soviet Union in 1922, in 1939, the Soviet Union attacked Finland, thus starting the Winter War. The Moscow Peace Treaty of 1940 handed most of Finnish Karelia to the Soviet Union, about 400,000 people, virtually the whole population, had to be relocated within Finland. In 1941, Karelia was liberated for three years during the Continuation War of 1941 to 1944 when East Karelia was occupied by the Finns. As a consequence of the treaty, the Karelian ASSR was incorporated with the Karelo-Finnish SSR 1941–1956
7.
Russia
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Russia, also officially the Russian Federation, is a country in Eurasia. The European western part of the country is more populated and urbanised than the eastern. Russias capital Moscow is one of the largest cities in the world, other urban centers include Saint Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod. Extending across the entirety of Northern Asia and much of Eastern Europe, Russia spans eleven time zones and incorporates a range of environments. It shares maritime borders with Japan by the Sea of Okhotsk, the East Slavs emerged as a recognizable group in Europe between the 3rd and 8th centuries AD. Founded and ruled by a Varangian warrior elite and their descendants, in 988 it adopted Orthodox Christianity from the Byzantine Empire, beginning the synthesis of Byzantine and Slavic cultures that defined Russian culture for the next millennium. Rus ultimately disintegrated into a number of states, most of the Rus lands were overrun by the Mongol invasion. The Soviet Union played a role in the Allied victory in World War II. The Soviet era saw some of the most significant technological achievements of the 20th century, including the worlds first human-made satellite and the launching of the first humans in space. By the end of 1990, the Soviet Union had the second largest economy, largest standing military in the world. It is governed as a federal semi-presidential republic, the Russian economy ranks as the twelfth largest by nominal GDP and sixth largest by purchasing power parity in 2015. Russias extensive mineral and energy resources are the largest such reserves in the world, making it one of the producers of oil. The country is one of the five recognized nuclear weapons states and possesses the largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction, Russia is a great power as well as a regional power and has been characterised as a potential superpower. The name Russia is derived from Rus, a state populated mostly by the East Slavs. However, this name became more prominent in the later history, and the country typically was called by its inhabitants Русская Земля. In order to distinguish this state from other states derived from it, it is denoted as Kievan Rus by modern historiography, an old Latin version of the name Rus was Ruthenia, mostly applied to the western and southern regions of Rus that were adjacent to Catholic Europe. The current name of the country, Россия, comes from the Byzantine Greek designation of the Kievan Rus, the standard way to refer to citizens of Russia is Russians in English and rossiyane in Russian. There are two Russian words which are translated into English as Russians
8.
Hebrew language
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Hebrew is a language native to Israel, spoken by over 9 million people worldwide, of whom over 5 million are in Israel. Historically, it is regarded as the language of the Israelites and their ancestors, the earliest examples of written Paleo-Hebrew date from the 10th century BCE. Hebrew belongs to the West Semitic branch of the Afroasiatic language family, Hebrew is the only living Canaanite language left, and the only truly successful example of a revived dead language. Hebrew had ceased to be a spoken language somewhere between 200 and 400 CE, declining since the aftermath of the Bar Kokhba revolt. Aramaic and to a lesser extent Greek were already in use as international languages, especially among elites and it survived into the medieval period as the language of Jewish liturgy, rabbinic literature, intra-Jewish commerce, and poetry. Then, in the 19th century, it was revived as a spoken and literary language, and, according to Ethnologue, had become, as of 1998, the language of 5 million people worldwide. After Israel, the United States has the second largest Hebrew-speaking population, with 220,000 fluent speakers, Modern Hebrew is one of the two official languages of the State of Israel, while premodern Hebrew is used for prayer or study in Jewish communities around the world today. Ancient Hebrew is also the tongue of the Samaritans, while modern Hebrew or Arabic is their vernacular. For this reason, Hebrew has been referred to by Jews as Leshon Hakodesh, the modern word Hebrew is derived from the word Ivri, one of several names for the Israelite people. It is traditionally understood to be a based on the name of Abrahams ancestor, Eber. This name is based upon the root ʕ-b-r meaning to cross over. Interpretations of the term ʕibrim link it to this verb, cross over, in the Bible, the Hebrew language is called Yәhudit because Judah was the surviving kingdom at the time of the quotation. In Isaiah 19,18 it is called the Language of Canaan, Hebrew belongs to the Canaanite group of languages. In turn, the Canaanite languages are a branch of the Northwest Semitic family of languages, according to Avraham ben-Yosef, Hebrew flourished as a spoken language in the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah during about 1200 to 586 BCE. Scholars debate the degree to which Hebrew was a vernacular in ancient times following the Babylonian exile. In July 2008 Israeli archaeologist Yossi Garfinkel discovered a ceramic shard at Khirbet Qeiyafa which he claimed may be the earliest Hebrew writing yet discovered, dating around 3000 years ago. The Gezer calendar also dates back to the 10th century BCE at the beginning of the Monarchic Period, classified as Archaic Biblical Hebrew, the calendar presents a list of seasons and related agricultural activities. The Gezer calendar is written in an old Semitic script, akin to the Phoenician one that through the Greeks, the Gezer calendar is written without any vowels, and it does not use consonants to imply vowels even in the places where later Hebrew spelling requires it
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