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- Title
THE CHRISTIANISATION OF THE PAST (THE EXAMPLE OF THE BALTIC SOCIETY IN HIGH MIDDLE AGES).
- Authors
ŠČAVINSKAS, MARIUS
- Abstract
The article analyzes the relationship of the converts to the past, based on historical sources and archaeological material describing the Christianisation of the societies of the Eastern coast of the Baltic Sea, also rising the issue of the Christianisation of the past, thus the conversion of "one's own" memory into "one's own" Christian memory. It is becoming obvious that converts and missionaries, demanding the observation of them, based their relationship to the past on four forms: 1) rejection; 2) revisionism (selection); 3) nostalgia; 4) amnesia. The article analyzes what could be remembered by the converts and what was required to forget, what was required not to promote and was looked upon in a rather unbiased way in their pursuit of salvation. It is becoming obvious from the research that a part of bans and teachings for neophytes, related to the consolidation of the norms of Christian life, were based on the perception of the acquired memory, known in the Middle Ages. In the times of Christian missions there was a striving to "rule over it", to transform it with the view of the formation of Christian identity. The functioning of the latter was dependent on how the neophytes wanted to live seeking to solve the existential issue of the meaning of human life. The analysis of the Christian identity, created through the angle of the past, allows the present day researchers to perceive better how homo gentilis on the Eastern coast of the Baltic Sea transformed into homo christianus.
- Subjects
BALTIC Sea; MIDDLE Ages; MISSIONARIES; REVISIONISM (Christian theology); SALVATION in Christianity
- Publication
Quaestiones Medii Aevi Novae, 2017, Vol 22, p355
- ISSN
1427-4418
- Publication type
Article