ETHNOLOGICAL APPROACHES TO THE MARIAN RELIGIOSITY FROM NORTHERN TRANSYLVANIA

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ETHNOLOGICAL APPROACHES TO THE MARIAN
RELIGIOSITY FROM NORTHERN TRANSYLVANIA

• Bogdan Neagota, PhD
• Faculty of Letters
• Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca

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Objectives

• Cultural determinations of a folkloric Mariology
  beliefs, prayers, magic-religious rituals,
  ceremonials.

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Methodology

• Visual ethnological methods (photo and video)
• Thematic interviews with persons belonging to
  different generations
• Participant observation

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Historical Context

• Hegemonic Church religion and subalternal
  popular religiosity. Morpho-dynamics of the
  popular religiosity during the Greek-Catholic and
  Orthodox periods. Cultural continuities and
  discontinuities in the Church policy toward the
  popular religious experiences.
• Forms of the ecclesial acculturations (specific
  prayers, devotional acts, congregations,
  community pilgrimages)
• The communist period and the ideological
  acculturation (1946-1989)
• Relations between Orthodox and the Greek-Catholic
  communities in rural areas from Northern
  Transylvania (1990-until present)

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The oral narrative traditions about the Holy
Mother

• Lifestories on different topics
• Personal religious experiences (dreams, visions),
  miraculous healings related to the Holy Virgin,
  magic-religious disenchantments
• Collective religious experiences (the Marian
  miracles from the 50ies, at the beginning of the
  communist period) the tear shedding icons or
  statues (from Tamaia, Ardusat etc.), the miracles
  of the holy images from the windows of some
  parochial churches (Piscari, Seini etc.)
• Belief-tales and migratory narrative genres
  (Christmas carols, legends, fairy-tales).

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The invidual magic-religious practices related to
the Marian Worship

• Charms and disenchantments
• Exorcisms and practices of defensive magic
  addressed to the Holy Mother (for evil eye, for
  healing illnesses, for disenchanting).

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The Canonical Religious Practices

• Personal devotions in times of trouble
  (illnesses, enchantments etc.) expressed in the
  prayers addressed to the Holy Mother
  (Paraclesis/Acatistos/Talisman/Dream of the Holy
  Mother)
• Community religious practices (Rosarium,
  devotional acts of the Marian Congregations)
• Devotional acts of the pilgrims, performed round
  of the church of the monastery from Bixad (by
  circumambulatio, praying Rosarium or singing the
  Marian hymns).

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Religious procession and pilgrimage expressions
of the popular religiosity

• Spring agrarian processions, with a more
  pronounced Pre-Christian character (in the second
  day of the Easter, at the Saint George feast, at
  the Pentecost or at the Midsummer day)
• Processions controlled by the Church (the
  procession with the priest for the consecration
  of the land, at the Pentecost the procession
  round of the church before the Easter Liturgy, at
  the midnight)
• Procession-pilgrimages with icons of the Holy
  Mother groups of pilgrims (noroade) carrying
  crucite (little-crosses), with icons of the Holy
  Mother, sorrounded by wreathes of flowers
  circular processions (circumambulatio) round of
  all the churches from the the pilgrimage
  itinerary and from the monastery of Bixad,
  performed by the pilgrim-groups and by solitary
  pilgrims.
• Spontaneous pilgrimages, motivated by Marian
  miracles or epiphanies and normative/calendarist
  ical pilgrimages (performed at some religious
  feasts).

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The religious calendary related to the Marian
Worship

• Main pilgrimage-feasts
• the Ascension of the Holy Mother (15th August),
  with its community and individual pilgrimages
• The Feast of the Apostles Peter and Paul (29th of
  June), the Birth of the Holy Mother (8th of
  september), the Day of the Cross (14th of
  September), the Annunciation feast (25th of
  March) with individual pilgrimages
• Other ceremonials at the Marian feasts the
  apotropaic fires at the Annunciation feast (25th
  of March) and the apotropaic circumambulatio of
  the house (with hot embers and fire).

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Pilgrimage territorial networks of some
monasteries from Northern Transylvania Bixad
(Oas), Nicula (Cluj), Rohia (Lapus), Moisei
(Maramures).

• Between 1948-1989 the elimination of the
  Greek-Catholic monasteries (Bixad, Nicula) and
  the rising of some Orthodox monastic centres
  (Rohia, Moisei). The reconfiguration of the
  territorial networks of the pilgrimages.
• After 1990, the foundation of many monasteries,
  both Orthodox (Habra from Baia-Mare, Bârsana,
  Dragomiresti) and Greek-Catholic (Basesti,
  Prislop, Saint Mary from Baia-Mare, the parochial
  church from Sisesti, Moiseni), redimensioned the
  pilgrimage territorial networks.
• The processional itineraries of the pilgrimages
  (past and present).

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Epilogue

• This is the second step of our field team
  research with the students.
• The third ste p aims continue the interviews on
  the Marian popular piety and to assume the
  intimate structure of the pilgrim groups, through
  interviews and participant observation
  (accompanying some selected per pedes groups of
  pilgrims and filming their processions as
  insiders).