ETHNOLOGICAL APPROACHES TO THE MARIAN RELIGIOSITY FROM

NORTHERN TRANSYLVANIA

Bogdan Neagota, PhD

Faculty of Letters

Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca

Objectives

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

Methodology

Visual ethnological methods (photo and video)

Thematic interviews with persons belonging to different generations

Participant observation

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)

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 Tămaia, Ardusat etc.), the miracles of the holy images from the windows of some parochial churches (Pişcari, Seini etc.);Belief-tales and migratory narrative genres (Christmas carols, legends, fairy-tales).

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).

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).

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 cruciţe (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”/calendaristical pilgrimages (performed at some religious feasts).

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).

Pilgrimage territorial networks of some monasteries from Northern Transylvania: Bixad (Oaş), Nicula (Cluj), Rohia (Lăpuş), Moisei (Maramureş).

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, Dragomireşti) and Greek-Catholic (Băseşti, Prislop, Saint Mary from Baia-Mare, the parochial church from Şişeşti, Moişeni), redimensioned the pilgrimage territorial networks.The processional itineraries of the pilgrimages (past and present).

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).