Archaeology of Early Christianity - Early Christian Inscriptions, Inri, History of Christianity in Romania, Nomina Sacra, Ichthys, Chi Rho (Paperback)

Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Pages: 25. Chapters: Early Christian inscriptions, INRI, History of Christianity in Romania, Nomina sacra, Ichthys, Chi Rho, Inscription of Abercius, Oxyrhynchus hymn, Early Christian sarcophagi, Ancilla Dei. Excerpt: The history of Christianity in Romania began within the Roman province of Lower Moesia where many Christians suffered martyrdom at the end of the 3rd century. Nevertheless, Christian communities have been attested in several locations on the territory of modern Romania by over a hundred archaeological finds from the 3rd-4th centuries. Sources from the 7th and 10th centuries are, however, so scarce that Christianity seems to have disappeared in this period. Alone among the peoples speaking a Romance language, the vast majority of Romanians are adherent to the Orthodox Church. The basic Christian terminology of the Romanian language is of Latin origin, but the Romanians, mentioned also as Vlachs in medieval sources, borrowed numerous South Slavic terms due to their adoption of the liturgy officiated in Old Church Slavonic. The earliest Romanian translations of religious texts appeared in the 15th century, and the first complete translation of the Bible was published in 1688. The oldest proof that a church hierarchy existed among Romanians in the territory what is now Romania is a papal bull of 1234. In the territories east and south of the Carpathian Mountains two metropolitan sees subordinated to the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople were set up after the foundation of two principalities, Wallachia and Moldavia in the 14th century. The flowering of monasticism in Moldavia provided a historical link between the 14th-century Hesychast revival and modern developments of the monastic tradition in Eastern Europe. Orthodoxy, however, was only tolerated in the regions west of the Carpathians, for centuries parts of the Kingdo...