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[German Version] Greek ἔξαρχος, leader, was originally a military rank (officer) in the Roman Empire. In the time of Justinian I, the exarch commanded a major, exposed army unit. From the 6th century onward, exarchs in the western Byzantine Empire were the military-administrative governors of a region called an exarchate (Ravenna…

[German Version] from the Greek ἀρχιμανδρίτης, literally, leader of a flock, is translated from the Syriac Riš-dayra. Originally (4th cent.) a designation for the abbot of a Syrian monastery, the Greek term Archimandrite spread throughout the entire Christian East. From the 6th century, the Archimandrite was the leader of an important monastery, and from the 11th…

[German Version] (baptized Anastasiu; Jan 1, 1809, Miskolc – Jun 28, 1873, Sibiu/Herrmanstadt). Saguna, born to an Aromanian merchant family, studied law and philosophy in Pest and attended the Serbian Orthodox seminary in Vršac. A monk since 1833, he was ordained priest in 1837 and consecrated bishop of the Orthodox Romanians in Transylvania in 1848 in Sremski Karlovci. In 1864 he became the first archbishop of the autonomous Romanian Orthodox metropolitanate in Hungary. He created an independent…

[German Version] from the Greek ἀρχιδιάκονος, is the leader of the deacons in an episcopal see. The archdeacon is attested in East and West from the 4th and 5th centuries on. He is appointed by the bishop and serves as his assistant in the liturgy, in the administration of the diocese, in questions of church discipline, and in care for the poor. The archdeacon re…

[German Version] I. General 1. State. The name of the state of Romania (România) is derived from (Daco-)Romanian, which because of its Latin origin belongs to the Romance branch of languages. The modern state of Romania, with its capital Bucharest (Bucureşti), arose after 1859 to the north of the Danube through successive unification and secession of six relatively independent provinces inhabited by a majority of Romanians and by other ethnic groups. The principalities of Moldova and Wallachia, united…

[German Version] I. General Peasant liberation is a collective term for a variety of measures taken between 1777 and 1817 to break up the traditional lifelong bonds of seigniory and serfdom; they gave the peasants personal freedom, eliminating socage and domestic service, abolishing the hereditary subserviency that tied the peasant to the land and transforming a portion of the estate cultivated under feudal tenancy into the private property of the peasants. At the same ¶ time, these measures freed the lord of the estate from his obligation to protect the formerly subservient peasants. I…

[German Version] , Gk ʾΑκάθιστος ῞Υμνος, “not sitting,” i.e. a song of praise and thanksgiving to the mother of God, sung standing, that lauds the mystery of the incarnation of God. The original Akathistos Hymn contained a proemium and 24 alphabetical strophes that ended alternately with the refrain χαῖρε, νύμφη ἀνὐμφευτε ( chaire, nýmphē anýmpheute) or ʾΑλληλούϊα ( Allēlouia). The Akathistos Hymn was apparently composed anonymously in the 5th/6th or 7th century in the Christian East as a kontakio…

[German Version] (also Triumph of the Cross). The liturgical observance of the Exaltation of the Cross, still celebrated in the Orthodox Church and Roman Catholic Church on Sep 14, goes back to the veneration of the relics (II, 3) of the cross after the “finding ¶ of the true cross” ( inventio verae crucis) at Calvary in the 4th century. The Itinerarium of the pilgrim Egeria (c. 384) describes an annual feast on Sep 14 in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (Anastasis), commemorating the finding and exaltation of the cross at Golgotha. In the l…

[German Version] (Gk ὑποδιάκοvος). In the liturgical hierarchy (II, 2) of the Orthodox Church, the subdeacon stands in fourth place: in first place stands the bishop (III, 2); then follow priest/presbyter (Priesthood: III, 2), deacon (VII), subdeacon ( Ipodiakon), reader, psalm singer, baptized laypersons, and, finally, catechumens. The subdeacon assists the bishop serving at the altar in a particular manner. He receives the Eucharist (Communion: III, 3), as do baptized laypersons, before the iconostasis (wall of images). In the worship service today, the subdeacon wears the stoi…

[German Version] Walachia, region in southern Romania divided by the Olt into Greater Walachia (Muntenia) and Lesser Walachia (Oltenia). An extension of the Eurasian Steppe, until well into the modern era Walachia was settled by various steppe peoples. In the context of the Danube Bulgarian Empire (Bulgaria), historical sources also mention Orthodox Vlachs/Walachians (Romanians) in Walachia, canonically under Ochrid or Târnovo. In the 12th century, pagan Cumans ruled Walachia; they were evangelize…

[German Version] A hierodeacon (Gk ἱεροδιάκονος) is an Orthodox monk (Monasticism: III) who officiates as deacon (VII) during the liturgy of the hours (IV) and the regular liturgy (VI). The number of deacons consecrated as hierodeacons or as hieromonks is limited, because only as many receive ordination (II) as are absolutely necessary for the conduct of the religious service in the monastery church. Like the priest-monks, the deacon-monks hold no elevated rank in the monastery, except during worship…

[German Version] “Ektenia” is derived from Gk ἐκτενής/ ektenḗs, lit. “outstretched, unceasing, fervent” (cf. ¶ Acts 12:5). In Orthodox worship, it designates the intercessions that are sung in antiphonous alternation, in the form of a litany. The deacon (Diaconate: VII) stands in the nave of the church with his (right) hand outstretched, and recites the petitions, whereupon the worshipers or the chorus respond with Kyrie eleison or “Grant [this], O Lord.” The Orthodox liturgy, the hourly prayers as well as other…

[German Version] Užgorod (Czech Užhorod, Hung. Ungvár), in western Ukraine, belonged politically to the kingdom of Hungary from the Middle Ages to 1918; it went to Czechoslovakia in 1919 but was returned to Hungary in 1940. It was in the Soviet Union after 1945 and has been in independent Ukraine since 1991. In the conflict between Habsburg pressure for Catholic union and the pressure of the Reformed local rulers of Transylvania for conversion, on Apr 23, 1646, 63 priests of the Orthodox diocese o…

[German Version] Greek Catholic Church, a term used for what were formerly referred to as Uniate Christians and churches in eastern and southern Europe that were regarded as being part of the Roman Catholic Church as a result of unions with Rome. “Greek” implies the Orthodox liturgy (VI), which the Uniate churches celebrate in a modified form, while “Catholic” refers to the Roman Catholic confessional church. In the Habsburg monarchy, Greek Catholic was the official designation of the churches uni…

[German Version] Greek ᾿Ελευϑέριος, stemmed from the region of Paphlagonia in Asia Minor (according to Konstantin Harmenopulos's Häretikertraktat, PG 150, 25D). Apparently, he was active in the 10th century as a monk and founded a monastery in the region of Lycaonia. According to Harmenopulos, he is supposed to have proposed radically ascetic to libertine doctrines concerning the cohabitation of monks with women. He a…

[German Version] (c. 1350, probably Constantinople – between 1431 and 1438, Constantinople), monk and a learned Byzantine theologian. Joseph worked on the island of Crete, which belonged to Venice, from c. 1382/1383 to 1402/1403 as a preacher and Orthodox missionary. Afterwards, he lived primarily in Constantinople, c. 1402–1406 in the Studios monastery and 1416–1427 in the Charsianites monastery. As a representative of the ecumenical patriarch (Constantinople: V), he was supposed to strengthen th…

[German Version] A hieromonk (Gk ἱερομόναχος/ hieromónachos) is an Orthodox monk (Monasticism: III) who also serves as a priest (Priesthood: III, 3). Since its beginnings in Late Antiquity, Eastern monasticism has remained fundamentally a separate group within the church, distinct from both clergy (Clergy and laity: I, 2) and laity (III, 2). Therefore the monks allow only as many of their number to be ordained as priests as are absolutely necessary for the liturgy of the hours (IV) and the eucharistic…

[German Version] (Hung. Karlócza), a city on the Danube in Syrmia (Srem), Serbia, a Baroque ecclesiastical center of Orthodox Serbs within the Catholic Habsburg empire. From 1713 to 1920, it was a metropolitan (II) see, autocephalous (Autocephaly) after the abolition of the patriarchate of Peć in 1766. With the help of Russian theologians from Kiev, Sremski Karlovci became an intellectual and theological center (seminary opened in 1774, the first Serbian Gymnasium in 1791). The “national church co…

[German Version] Iaşi, a city in eastern Romania. Together with Suceava (Polish: Suczawa), Iaşi was intermittently the seat of the dukes and metropolitans of Moldavia from the 15th century onward, and became their permanent seat at the end of the 16th century. In 1642 a synod met in Iaşi which passed the so-called Confessio Orthodoxa (Articles of Faith: II) of P. Mogila. Iaşi stood under Greek (Phanariot) and partly under Russian influence until the 19th century. The transition to the Romanian-national cultural language was effected in Iaşi around …

[German Version] Peć, city on the Bistrica in Kosovo. It appears in documents from the early 13th century, when the archbishop of Žiča moved his see to Peć. Tsar Stefan Dushan (1331–1355) of Serbia named Archbishop Janićije I patriarch of the Serbs and Greeks, thus creating the first Serbian patriarchate of Peć, not recognized by Constantinople. The so-called Patriaršija, with the churches of the Holy Apostles (c. 1230), the Theotokos (before 1337), and St. Demetrius (before 1324), still bears witness to the golden age of Serbo-Byzantine art. After 138…