Re: [tied] Re: RO eccles. term.

--- George <george.st@...> wrote:

> As for the proto-Romanians' existence in an assumed
> completely
> non-Christian environment

*****GK:That does sound a bit too radical. The
environment was probably increasingly Christian, but I
do not see the proto-Romanians as urban dwellers,
rather as countryside people (esp. mountaineers) whose
contacts with recently Christianized centers were not
that intense, and "ideologically" (way of life-wise)
even somewhat antagonistic. These pagani might not be
real pagani but pretty close...*****

up to the advent of the

> Slavs, we
> should take into consid. how it was like in those
> SE-European
> areas.

*****GK: It's also important to decide whether some
areas are preferable to others as the primary locale
for proto-Romanian settlements. I would attach more
importance (for starters) to those parts of
mountainous Old Serbia which are full of Romanian
toponyms. This would make us focus at first on Moesia
Superior (incl. the later Dacias esp.
Mediterranea)rather than Scythia Minor.******

> Apud Origenes (+254) cited by Eusebius of Caesarea
> (+340)
> in Scythia Minor preached St Andrew (Church History
> III, 1);
> [I haven't verified these myself];

*****GK: Actually it's plain "Scythia", not "Scythia
Minor". So the range of possibilities is greater.*****

there are a

> toponym &
> a hydronym: grotto & brook bearing the name "Sf.
> Andrei",
> then the popular name month name "Undrea." Bishops
> in
> Scythia Minor played a major role in the region
> (e.g. in Tomis,
> Evangelicus 290-300, mentioned in a document
> referring to the
> martyrdom of Epictetes and Astion in Halmiris, today
> Dunav�T;
> then a martyr bishop in Tomis, Titus or Philius,
> killed in 320 under
> Licinius. St. Betranion, 364-380, who in 369 opposed
> emp. Valens;
> Terentius, 380-390, who participated in the 2nd
> ecumenic synode at
> Constantinople in 381; et al.)

******GK: All true, but perhaps more relevant to the
Romance-speaking "contact area" of the PR.*****

>
> Tertullian (+220), in Adversus Iudaeos, 7,
> Christendom also
> in areas of Sarmatians, Dacians, Germanic, and
> Scythians.

*****GK: OK but somewhat vague. The "general presence"
of Christians can be taken for granted.******

>
> Many martyrs there, during the reigns of emp.
> Diocletian, Galerius
> and Licinius - inter alia Zotikos, Attalos, Kamassis
> and Philippos
> (killed in June 4, 303). Their bones, discovered in
> 1971, are
> kept at the CocoS monastery in Tulcea county,
> Dobrudja
> (former Scythia Minor).
>
> St. John Cassianus (340-436), the founder of
> monasteries
> in Marseille and Dionyssius Exiguus (460-545), the
> founder
> in 525 of the "A.D." years counting, were born and
> grew up
> in the same Scythia Minor. They are important
> theologically
> for both Churches, Orthodox and Catholic.

******GK: Correct. Here we are getting dangerously
close to the implausibility of the absence of
"ecclesia" in the Romanian ecclesiastical
vocabulary.*****

Another

> important
> personality for the region (South of the Danube) was
> St. Niketas of Remesiana (367-414); he took care of
> the mission
> in the South Danubian provinces of Dacia ripensis
> and Dacia
> mediterranea (today, roughly Serbia). Some Catholic
> historians
> even think Niketas to have been the primeval
> "apostle" to the
> proto-Rumanians.

*****GK: Interesting fellow, and certainly "in the
right place". I haven't read his writings. Alleged
author of the famous hymn "Te Deum" (in which both
"Dominus Deus" and "Dominus" appear...). Perhaps his
delegates to the countryside weren't as successful.
BTW he is sometimes mentioned as "missionary apostle"
to the Dacians (that would be the "Roman" inhabitants
of his Dacia M.), the Goths, the Huns [in both cases
the groups which settled within Roman territory after
376] and the Bessi [these could be our PR
mountaineers?].******

>
> These and al. (as well as a number of archeol.
> traces/objects)
> show that, at least in the... newbie centuries,
> there were
> opportunities for the local population, both N and S
> of the
> Danube, but esp. S of it & in Scythia Minor (where
> for the
> 4th-5th c. 70 inscriptions were discovered, in Lat.
> and Gr.,
> along with old Christian symbols, incl. the cross.

*****GK: More interesting would be the situation close
to the Serbian mountains*****

>
> [Besides: If Slavs spent about 4-5 centuries until a
> thorough Christianization, although in there
> vicinity there
> was the Byzantine state that could've taken care of
> this,
> then what should've done proto-Romanians?

*****GK: The Slavs who were part of the Byzantine
state (or made to be a part of it) esp. in the 7th-9th
c. didn't do very well. The Byzantine reconquista of
Hellas did not involve Christianization but
enslavement (literally). Huge numbers of pagan Slavs
were sold on the markets at Thessaloniki and Corinth.
This is the context within which the word "Slave" (in
various sp) entered the vocabulary of many Western
nations.******




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