The paper analyses data contained in the questionnaire completed by the Roman Catholic priests of the Litoměřice diocesis in 1973 when bishop Štěpán Trochta was once again its head. This source gives evidence of a strenuous pastoral activity in places stricken by the expulsion of German inhabitants including the clergy, the dismal state of sacred monuments, the contemporary state of the liturgical reform of Vatican II in individual churches and chapels, and the daily life of ecclesiastical administrators. The paper describes the transformation of the religious profile of the region after the Second World War, the relation of the largest religious organizations to the expulsion, and the efforts to resolve a pastoral crisis after 1945. It confirms the crucial role of the local ecclesiastical administrators concerning the access to the liturgical reform. Although there often occurred radical interventions into liturgical spaces, rarely was their course in accordance with conceptual and pre-approved procedures and in cooperation with the authorities of built heritage preservation.

This study investigates the context of establishment of Bohemian- Moravian Capuchin province in 1673. It separated from the previously existing Bohemian-Austrian province, which thus split in two: a Bohemian-Moravian province with a seat in Prague and an Austrian province with a centre in Vienna. In the process of dividing the Bohemian-Austrian province, which was one of the largest ones worldwide in terms of both convents (38) and friars living in them (808), the criterion of land units had in the end prevailed. The division of the province was achieved only after many years of effort because it had to overcome a sustained reluctance of the order’s headquarters in Rome. Like in the case of other Central European provinces, the headquarters were opposed to the formation of new provinces because the Italian Capuchins did not want to lose the decisive majority they had since the order’s foundation. Between their arrival in 1599 and the year 1673, the Capuchins had founded in the Czech Lands 21 monasteries, in which there lived 401 friars. This text analyses the main reasons for Capuchin’s success in this region, which was achieved despite the catastrophic impact of the Thirty Years’ War. It turns out that the support they had received from the ruling Habsburgs was of crucial importance. The establishment of the order in this region required efforts on several fronts: aside from attracting new members, it was also necessary to adjust the monastic life to the religious needs and climatic conditions in the Czech Lands.

After a period in which secularisation as an explanatory model – linear and teleological – became hegemonic in the social sciences, it became necessary to find other ways of accessing the sites of religious reconfiguration in the context of multiple modernities. In this situation, it has become crucial to bring the scientific gaze, at different scales, closer to the places where new relationships between the sphere of the religious and other social worlds are established, mediated by the displacements of the sacred. This article explores contemporary musical creation as a laboratory for discovering these new configurations.

This article explores the intersection of theology, literature and spirituality in José Tolentino Mendonça’s The Days of Job, focusing on poetry as a kenotic exercise of self-emptying (kenosis). By engaging with biblical literature, particularly the Book of Job, Mendonça reimagines poetic language as a space of vulnerability and transformation that resists ideological rigidity and fosters ethical openness. The study explores how Mendonça’s poetics resonates with Michel de Certeau’s heterology, Michel Foucault’s notion of political spirituality, and Giorgio Agamben’s critique of the loss of poiesis in modernity. In dialogue with patristic interpretations of Job (Gregory the Great, Basil of Caesarea) as well as contemporary philosophical readings (Fredric Jameson, Antonio Negri), this work argues that Mendonça’s poetry enacts a theological aesthetics of resistance in which language becomes an instrument of spiritual and ethical reconfiguration. In this framework, poetic expression is not merely an aesthetic exercise, but a radical way of inhabiting suffering, silence and longing, echoing Job’s existential questioning as a source of meaning and creative resilience.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on the fascinating hypothesis of animal religiosity. In this respect, we are interested in Donovan Schaefer’s philosophical proposal, specifically his text Religious Affects. In Schaefer’s conceptual framework, the ‘theory of affects’ finds a privileged place, basically as an emphasis on the importance of the pre-linguistic affective sphere. Here, man and animal can learn about kinship, which, according to Schaefer, also implies religious experience. However, this kind of concept of ‘religious feeling’ distances itself from the legacy of the phenomenology of religion. By criticizing this specific aspect, we will try to understand where this proposal can generate aporetic signs of discontinuity with a reliable concept of religiosity. In our concluding thesis, we will show that the importance given to animals, given correct ecological thinking, does not have an enemy in the religious specificity of man.

The article explores the relationship between phenomenon and revelation, primarily on the basis of Being Given: Toward a Phenomenology of Givenness by Jean-Luc Marion. The focus is on Marion’s notion of givenness (inspired by Edmund Husserl), on which he bases his new type of phenomenology of givenness. In a critical discussion with Kant, it is shown that the so-called saturated phenomenon is neither constituted as an object nor can it be related back to an ego. The saturated phenomena show themselves of their own motion, they give themselves in their own non-reducibility. They can only be witnessed by the ego. Four types of such saturated phenomena are presented: event, idol, corporeity and icon. The highest degree of phenomenality is achieved in the phenomenon of revelation. Marion presents Jesus Christ as an example of a possible revelation. The manifestation of Jesus Christ stands for a phenomenon of revelation that unites all forms of saturation in itself, namely in the mode of paradox. The revelation in Jesus Christ is thus presented as a paradigm of a phenomenological revelation.

The article focuses on the influence of bible tradition and especially of Johannine Christology in the writings of John of the Cross, a Spanish Carmelite from the 16th century known for his mystical doctrine. It will be focused on the role of the mystery of the Incarnation during the process of uniting the soul with God. After explaining the method of analysis, the author presents conclusions on Johannine influence in Romances based on the Gospel ‘In principio erat verbum’ – a poetic paraphrase of the Gospel of John revealing John of the Cross’s conception of the Incarnation mystery. Findings concerning his presentation of the Incarnation mystery in his prosaic commentaries follow next. Finally, the article offers a brief overview of the impact of John 14–17 on the saint’s teaching about the anticipation of celestial glory.

This paper seeks to argue that truth is not something that relates to telling/speaking only. Its main aim is to show that in their quest for communion with God, other human beings – and one should add – the entire creation, humans need to go beyond truth-telling toward the ways of embodying and dwelling in truth and hope. To introduce its argument, the paper proceeds in the following steps. First, it expounds a Christian perspective on truth, employing notions such as sacrament, desire, and relationality. Through the image of communion with God, a link between truth-telling and hope is outlined. Second, it tries to show that truth-telling is not only an affective but also an existential category. As such, it involves the whole of human being. Therefore, it makes sense to turn to the concept of body and embodiment when reflecting on the human pursuits of truth. The paper then, third, examines various constellations of this central claim by exploring a specific case from popular culture, namely, ‘Crocodile’, an episode from the Netflix series, Black Mirror. In particular, a proposal is made for the significance of embodying and dwelling in truth for Christian theology and practice. Finally, in the last step, this embodying and dwelling is given more concrete contours with respect to hope by probing into the images of home and feast.

A Conference Report

Book review on Martin Maďar, The Chuch of God and Its Human Face: The Contribution of Joseph A. Komonchak to Ecclesiology, Eugene: Pickwick Publications, 2019, 199 stran, ISBN: 9781532657467.