Klaipėdos universitetas

This article discussed the effect of the theological thought of Duns Scotus on the outlook and activities of Lithuanian Franciscans. In Franciscan theology the Creation, the Incarnation, and the Resurrection of Our Lord are linked closely together. The idea of the Divine Omnipotence is essential for understanding Godʼs actions. After describing Scotusʼ life we examine his works and insights in theology and philosophy. His teaching was based on the spirit of the Orderʼs founder, St Francis. Scotism found disciples in Lithuania who fostered the Franciscan spirit in the country and sponsored the spread of Scotist heritage there.

The aim of the article is symbolic-functional analysis of development judicial awareness. This paper analyses the transition period from the traditional political theology of the main political structures in the Middle East to the reflecting political thought of Ancient Greece. In order to elaborate this idea, two independent but closely related phenomena of civilization – force (warriors) and the law (priests) – were chosen and the analysis of their history of interaction was given. The principles of law and justice were constructed theo-politically based on two different conceptions of order. According to this, it is possible to concider the geo-cultural habitats of Mesopotamia and Egypt as two independently developed civilisational platforms or laboratories of social construct. Their heritage of political justice and practice of the political was successfully inhereted and peculiarly transformed by the developing polis system of Ancient Greece.

The article is devoted to the so-called “lessons of life” in “The Seasons” of Donelaitis, that simultaneously are also “lessons of survival”, both of spiritual-psychological and pure physical. In his epic piece, by relating God’s pedagogy of the Christian teaching to the pedagogy of the God of nature, Donelaitis got engaged in therapeutic education: that is an amazing synthesis of the Christocentric idea and pantheistic implications in which the ideal of the Christian hermetism clearly stands out. That is the ideal of a comprehensive unit which has links with the ontology of the epic poem. The ontology is based on the eternal recurrence with a constantly regenerating hope to finally have the genius of the totality able to operate ontological cosmic turning points.

Kristijonas Donelaitis (1714–1780), poet of Prussian Lithuania of the epoch of Enlightenment, who was first turned into a symbol in the late 19th c., for more than a century has been one of the brightest memory sites in the region. The paper analyzes the contexts in which the symbol was actualized in Prussian Lithuania and Klaipeda Region in the late 19th to the late 20th c. The change in the interpretations of Donelaitis is presented: from the resource for the maintenance of Prussian Lithuanian regional patriotism, a symbolic figure of Lithuanian national culture, to the Sovietization of Donelaitis and his turning into a resource for the maintenance of the Lithuanian national uniqueness within the boundaries of the USSR. The analysis of the meaningful content in which the symbol of Donelaitis functioned and of its symbolic expressions proves that, over all the analyzed period, Donelaitis has been a figure that encouraged not only the convergence of cultures, but also a conflict.

The so-called “Group of Saints” (Heilige) formed in Mazury, in the County of Neidenburg (Kreis Neidenburg), in the late 18th c. and was most active in the parishes of Jerutki (Jerutten), Rozogi (Friedrichshof), and Wielbark (Willenberg). The present article, based on the documents stored in Secret State Archives Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation in Berlin-Dahlem, discusses its activities. In particular, an effort is made to present the reconstructions of the essential policies and postulates of the activity of the group members. The author tries to answer the question about the period of time that the activities of surinkimininkai (Gemeinschaftsbewegung; participants of prayer hours held in private homes by lay preachers) in the Land of Mazury started. The official secession from Church was the principal reason which made the author support the previous researchers of the phenomenon of the “Saints” who attributed the “Saints” to non-traditional religious groups. On the other hand, because of the pietist roots and the majority of their views, they can be considered to be direct predecessors of surinkimininkai.