Elżbieta Przybył-Sadowska

This article is an attempt to analyse the Orthodox monastic tradition of contemplative (hesychastic) prayer, the goal of which was to achieve an ecstatic unification with God and the divinisation (theosis) of human nature. Until the 11th century the practice of this kind of prayer was passed on orally, preserving the spiritual father-disciple relation. However, some of its elements can be found in the writings of some of the Fathers of the Church –e.g. Athanasius of Alexandria, the Cappadocian Fathers –Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory of Nazianzus –as well as in the works of Evagrius of Pontus and John Climacus. The continuation of this tradition includes the works of the leading Byzantine theologist of the 11th century St Symeon the New Theologian (949–1022). However, it was not until the 14th century, as a result of the dispute caused by the statements of the Byzantine monk Barlaam of Calabria, that there was a systematic approach to hesychasm in Byzantine writings. In response, St Gregory Palamas (1296–1359), based on the book of the fathers of the Church, systematically described the doctrine of hesychasm in three treatises (triads) entitled In Defence of the Holy Hesychasts, and written in the years 1338–1341. This doctrine, sometimes known as palamism after St Gregory Palamas, was recognised as an authentic expression of Orthodox faith at the council in Constantinople in 1351. The article analyses the most important elements of the hesychastic method and descriptions of the visions experienced during the practice of it.

The article constitutes an attempt to describe the functioning of religion in the Internet, and particularly of the religious practices which are conducted online. The authoresses of the article trace the transformations which have taken place in the use of the Internet as an instrument employed to conduct types of practices, beginning with the simplest communicators, through the use of videoconfer ences, up to the use of three-dimensional techniques. Special attention was devoted to virtual temples, that is those Internet sites where one can make a virtual sacrifice to a deity. In the article, the authoresses also draw attention to the ways of conducting these types of rituals and they present the views thanks to which the participants of these events may have an impression that they are actually taking part in religious practices, rather than just participating in a game. The article closes with an analysis of the ways of functioning of religion in the virtual worlds, with particular attention being drawn to the Second Life, which has become immensely popular in recent times. Apart from traditional religions which open up their sites of worship in Second Life, there also arise new cults in this world which are characteristic exclusively of ritualistic reality. The fundamental problem which has to be faced here by scholars is an attempt to answer the question, to what extent these are really new religious movements and to what extent they constitute an element of internet games and instruments which these games make use of.

Text is devoted to Sister Katarzyna (Zofia) Steinberg (1898–1977), a nun of the Congregation of Franciscan Sisters of the Servants of the Cross in Laski, a doctor and eminent social activist of Jewish origin. Before her conversion she was known in Warsaw as a member of the Polish Socialist Party, and then as one of the participants in the most creative Catholic circle of the inter-war period – a group of intellectual concentrated around the eminent theologist and priest, Father Władysław Korniłowicz, and Mother Elżbieta (Róża) Czacka – the founder of the Society for Care of the Blind as well as the Congregation of Franciscan Sisters of the Servants of the Cross. Although Sister Katarzyna did not leave any theological texts behind, the scope of her social activity is the best mark left by the environment from which she came, as well as evidence of the complicated relations between the Catholic Church and the Communist authorities in the People’s Republic of Poland

The Order of the Franciscan Sisters, Servants of the Cross was founded by Mother Elizabeth Roza Czacka in 1918. The official date of its origin is recognised as 1 December 1918, although we know that the congregation existed on an informal basis previous to this. The order’s main objective was to bring aid to blind people. It was to work closely with the Society for the Care of the Blind, which had been formed, also thanks to Roza Czacka, in 1911. The Order of the Franciscan Sisters, Servants of the Cross was the first female monastic order to be founded in the Polish lands after Poland regained independence. After a long period in which the partitioning power imposed drastic restrictions on monastic life and secret congregations had formed, there were few models for an order of nuns to follow. The source documents preserved in three archives in Laski – the Archive of the Franciscan Sisters, Servants of the Cross, the Archive of the Society for the Care of the Blind, and the Archive of Father Wladyslaw Korniłowicz – show the interesting way in which the founder developed the new order.