Praying with the senses : contemporary Orthodox Christian spirituality in practice / edited by Sonja Luehrmann.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Luehrmann, Sonja, editor.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Prayer--Orthodox Eastern Church.

Prayer.

Senses and sensation--Religious aspects--Orthodox Eastern Church.

Senses and sensation.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (pages cm)

Edition:

1st [edition].

Place of Publication:

Bloomington, [Indiana] : Indiana University Press, 2018.

Summary:

"These essays advance the understanding of Eastern Orthodox spiritual practices from a religious studies perspective."- Reading Religion How do people experience spirituality through what they see, hear, touch, and smell? In this book, Sonja Luehrmann and an international group of scholars assess how sensory experience shapes prayer and ritual practice among Eastern Orthodox Christians. Prayer, even when performed privately, is considered as a shared experience and act that links individuals and personal beliefs with a broader, institutional, or imagined faith community. It engages with material, visual, and aural culture including icons, relics, candles, pilgrimage, bells, and architectural spaces. Whether touching upon the use of icons in the age of digital and electronic media, the impact of Facebook on prayer in Ethiopia, or the implications of praying using recordings, amplifiers, and loudspeakers, these timely essays present a sophisticated overview of the history of Eastern Orthodox Christianities. Taken as a whole they reveal prayer as a dynamic phenomenon in the devotional and ritual lives of Eastern Orthodox believers across Eastern Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia. "Precisely by looking at so varied a group of locations home to Orthodox practice, this book conveys the fragility?and durability?of traditional religion in a postmodern, secular age."-Nadieszda Kizenko, author of A Prodigal Saint: Father John of Kronstadt and the Russian People

Contents:

Cover

Praying with the Senses

Title

Copyright

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Introduction: The Senses of Prayer in Eastern Orthodox Christianity

Part I. Senses

1 Becoming Orthodox: The Mystery and Mastery of a Christian Tradition

A Missionary Primer

2 Listening and the Sacramental Life: Degrees of Mediation in Greek Orthodox Christianity

Creating an Image for Prayer

3 Imagining Holy Personhood: Anthropological Thresholds of the Icon

Syriac as a Lingua Sacra: Speaking the Language of Christ in India

4 Authorizing: The Paradoxes of Praying by the Book

Part II. Worlds

5 Inhabiting Orthodox Russia: Religious Nomadism and the Puzzle of Belonging

Baraka: Mixing Muslims, Christians, and Jews

6 Sharing Space: On the Publicity of Prayer, between an Ethiopian Village and the Rest of the World

Prayers for Cars, Weddings, and Well-Being: Orthodox Prayers En Route in Syria

7 Struggling Bodies at the Crossroads of Economy and Tradition: The Case of Contemporary Russian Convents

Competing Prayers for Ukraine

8 Orthodox Revivals: Prayer, Charisma, and Liturgical Religion

Epilogue: Not-Orthodoxy/Orthodoxy's Others

Glossary

Index.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780253031679

0253031672

OCLC:

1007494530