Nea Hestia, Religion and Literature 79th year, 157th volume, issue 1776, March 2005, 531 pages.
This issue contains the second part of texts read as recommendations at a conference organised by the journal New Hestia and the Academy of Theological Studies of the Metropolis of Demetrias in Volos, 2-3 May 2003, on the topic of “Theology and Literature”. Some other essays relevant to the theme have also been added.
In the first essay, Stavros Zouboulakis, examining the popular tradition about death in the mourning songs of the time of the Turkish domination in relation to the Christian funeral service, finds out unbridgeable antithesis, which reveals that the course of popular religiousness does not coincide with institutional Christianity. K. Koutsourelis investigates the perceptions about Heaven and Hell in D. Solomos and in modern Greek poetry, while Clairi Mitsotaki highlights the presence of the cosmological elements (water, earth, air, fire) in the narrative work of Papadiamantis.
Nikolaos Loudovikos attempts a philosophical and theological approach to Kavafis, raising him to the poet of the historical way of Being, away from idealisms. K. Androulakis focuses in his essay on the research of religiousness and theology in the work of Sicelianos, while Evi Voulgaraki-Pisina investigates the Christological perceptions in Kazantzakis’ literary writing.
K. Charalambidis interprets the aesthetic and intuitive presence of the Greek-Orthodox experience in Papatsonis and Th. Chatzopoulos examines, on his side, the signification of the divine and human in Seferis. Besides, Aggelos Mantas discusses the reception of the Orthodox spirituality in the work of G. Theotokas, while Aggelos Kalogeropoulos examines faith as an act in the philosophical essays of Giorgos Sarantaris.
Dimitris Vlachodimos highlights the transcendence of disputes and discriminations (theology, literature) in the personal and experiential work of N. G. Petzikis and his peculiar approach to the Church, while N. D. Triantafillopoulos attempts to cite a forgotten novelist, Eleni Karita. Next comes the usual material of Minologion journal, with book reviews and comments on philology, theatre, the visual arts etc.