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The STUDIA UNIVERSITATIS BABEŞ-BOLYAI issue article summary
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Abstract: Old and new cultural landmarks in Chilioara catholic community – Sălaj. Religion belongs, in the community of the traditional village, to a feeling of collective faith, in which religious gesture is a social gesture, which manifests through appartenence to a church: this fact can be achieved by different religious patterns: going to church on Sundays and on holydays, pilgrimages, upholding moral values and good manners. In Chilioara, as in all old village communities, going to church is taken as a peak in sacredness just as festing and baking holy bread. Any breaking of the ancient rules is strongly condemned by the community. The archaic village strictly regulates festing days, continuously overlapping the moral and ethical effects of these events over their healing effects. In the same respect, mothers are careful so that their daughters grow to be well mannered so no one could say anything bad about them. For the Romanian peasant, holydays were so important that it was believed all the calendar had been arranged on top of these celebrations. Holydays were seen both as religious and magical and they generated a special moment, as to these holydays all the villagers were present. Holydays were defined between the concrete level – going to church, spiritual redemption, miracle, resting, fun – and the performance of magical ritual acts. A common landmark for the village, part of the collective memory, remembered by each individual, were the pilgrimages, especially those at Nicula. Pilgrimage is a special form of collective devotion, an act of volunteership which leads to intensifying the christian life, trough common prayers and meditation. Today, in Chilioara, in the old village church an orthodox priest serves. Nearby however, a new greek-catholic church has been built which not only shelters St Nicolae the Jerarch’s bones but most notably for all the christians, this is the place where St Anton’s bones were brought from Padova, fact which turns the church in Chilioara a formitable center for pilgrimage. Facing the massive process of de-population, as all the young work in Italy, the village does not progress one bit from an economical stand point and the construction of a church, with Italian support, could be a break for the village: all have high hopes in the pilgrimages to the bones of St Anton of Padova and in the rebirth of a village which does otherwise lose every day more grounds to the comfort given by the euro incomes of the young who used to animate it once.
Keywords: traditional village, going to church, pilgrimage, spiritual redemption, miracle, magical ritual act, greek-catholic church |
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