Page 304 - Stati inu obstati, revija za vprašanja protestantizma, letnik IX (2013), številka 17-18, ISSN 1408-8363
P. 304
SYNOPSES, ZUSAMMENFASSUNGEN
ing the story of Mary Magdalene in Provence among unfounded legends where-
as the story about the hermit Servul (who is supposed to have lived for some
time in the Socerb cave) is allowed a touch of probability. Francisci makes a strict
differentiation between questions important for faith and questions that are
interesting for interpretation, but not decisive for faith. In these questions he
gives equal weight to Lutheran and Roman Catholic interpreters, and delves
richly into the Church Fathers that are common to both confessions. When
disproving the legend from which the Dominicans live, managing Sainte Baume
as a centre of religious tourism, he places the reader as judge between the argu-
ments for and against. He opens up theological questions which have not lost
their relevance up to the present day.
UDC 27-312.47:27-36
Marko Kerševan
The worship of Mary and popular religiosity: the Protestant view
from Trubar to the present day
In Catholic Christianity Mary and the worship of Mary represent a privileged
sphere where ecclesiastical and popular religiosity meet. People from different
social positions, monks and medieval knights, celibate priests and married wom-
en, rulers and simple people, the young and those in »the hour of death« have
invested in and drawn from the image of Mary, have fashioned it and re-fashioned
it according to their needs, troubles and hopes. Nevertheless we could say that
in religious history Mary has been especially linked with the unprivileged, lower
social strata, with women, and oppressed people. Official church religion and
popular religiosity do not exist one without the other, or one bypassing the
other, but they fertilize and encourage each other, but also each controls and
“filters” the other. It depends on the social, cultural and political context which
side predominates and when, in which direction the influence is stronger, when
mutual connections are central and when tensions, divergences and conflicts.
The diversity and interweaving of the ecclesiastical and the popular in the wor-
ship of Mary is illustrated in the article by the examples of three Marian shrines
and pilgrimage routes (Sveta gora pri Gorici, Brezje and Fatima). The image of
Mary in Protestant Christianity is bound to what is written in the Bible: Mary is
an example of faith as trust. Expressed in a simile: she is like “a spring of the pure
gospel” in contrast to the wide and deep pool of Marian worship in ecclesiastical
and popular religiosity, in which are mixed currents of theological speculation,
the heritage of different religions, mysticism, magic, cosmology; of ecclesiastical
and secular politics; of elementary folk emotion and refined artistic creation; of
302
ing the story of Mary Magdalene in Provence among unfounded legends where-
as the story about the hermit Servul (who is supposed to have lived for some
time in the Socerb cave) is allowed a touch of probability. Francisci makes a strict
differentiation between questions important for faith and questions that are
interesting for interpretation, but not decisive for faith. In these questions he
gives equal weight to Lutheran and Roman Catholic interpreters, and delves
richly into the Church Fathers that are common to both confessions. When
disproving the legend from which the Dominicans live, managing Sainte Baume
as a centre of religious tourism, he places the reader as judge between the argu-
ments for and against. He opens up theological questions which have not lost
their relevance up to the present day.
UDC 27-312.47:27-36
Marko Kerševan
The worship of Mary and popular religiosity: the Protestant view
from Trubar to the present day
In Catholic Christianity Mary and the worship of Mary represent a privileged
sphere where ecclesiastical and popular religiosity meet. People from different
social positions, monks and medieval knights, celibate priests and married wom-
en, rulers and simple people, the young and those in »the hour of death« have
invested in and drawn from the image of Mary, have fashioned it and re-fashioned
it according to their needs, troubles and hopes. Nevertheless we could say that
in religious history Mary has been especially linked with the unprivileged, lower
social strata, with women, and oppressed people. Official church religion and
popular religiosity do not exist one without the other, or one bypassing the
other, but they fertilize and encourage each other, but also each controls and
“filters” the other. It depends on the social, cultural and political context which
side predominates and when, in which direction the influence is stronger, when
mutual connections are central and when tensions, divergences and conflicts.
The diversity and interweaving of the ecclesiastical and the popular in the wor-
ship of Mary is illustrated in the article by the examples of three Marian shrines
and pilgrimage routes (Sveta gora pri Gorici, Brezje and Fatima). The image of
Mary in Protestant Christianity is bound to what is written in the Bible: Mary is
an example of faith as trust. Expressed in a simile: she is like “a spring of the pure
gospel” in contrast to the wide and deep pool of Marian worship in ecclesiastical
and popular religiosity, in which are mixed currents of theological speculation,
the heritage of different religions, mysticism, magic, cosmology; of ecclesiastical
and secular politics; of elementary folk emotion and refined artistic creation; of
302
