Maria-Luiza DUMITRU OANCEA ● Ramona MIHĂILĂ

(Editors)

MYTH,
SYMBOL,
AND RITUAL:
ELUCIDATORY
PATHS TO
THE FANTASTIC
UNREALITY

I
Guest Editors for Volume I:
Andreea PARIS
Nicolae-Andrei POPA

2017
 This volume is part of the scientific series
“Mythology and Folklore”

©
Şos. Panduri, 90-92, Bucureşti-050663, România
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Descrierea CIP a Bibliotecii Naţionale a României

Myth, symbol, and ritual : elucidatory paths to the fantastic
unreality / editors: Maria-Luiza Dumitru Oancea, Ramona Mihăilă. -
Bucureşti : Editura Universităţii din Bucureşti, 2017
2 vol.
ISBN 978-606-16-0843-0
Vol. 1 / guest editors for volume I: Andreea Paris, Nicolae-Andrei
Popa. - 2017. - Conţine bibliografie. - ISBN 978-606-16-0844-7

I. Dumitru-Oancea, Maria Luiza (ed.)

II. Mihăilă, Ramona (ed.)
III. Paris, Andreea (ed.)
IV. Popa, Nicolae-Andrei (ed.)

39
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction ................................................................................................. 9

I. Myth. Mythocritique. Archetypes. Symbols

Elena Sandu, Bianca Bogdana Peltea

Myths as Repositories of Cultural Meaning and Possibilities of Contact with
the Divine .................................................................................................... 21

Efstratia Oktapoda
L’Écrivain moyen-oriental face à ses mythes ................................................. 33

Anastasia Dumitru
The Echoes of Myths in Bujor Nedelcovici’s Fictional Prose.......................... 45

Olga Bălănescu
Major Myths in Romanian Advertising .......................................................... 59

Maria-Luiza Dumitru Oancea

The Human Ages in Hesiod, Plato and Ovid: from Symbolic Description
to Political and Philosophical Interpretation ................................................ 73

Zoi Arvanitidou, Maria Gasouka

The Role of Costume in the Film Making of Modern Myths:
The Case of Game of Thrones ....................................................................... 91

Irina Dubský
The Mythical Dimension of the Melvillean Leviathan Revealed through the
Hermeneutic Exegesis of the Romanian Esotericist Vasile Lovinescu ................ 107

Mihaela Moraru
Chekhov and The Cherry Orchard. An Axis Mundi of a Lost Dream ............... 115

Dorina Coravu
The Legend of the Great White Wolf.............................................................. 127

5
Daniel Cojanu
Natural Symbolism and Cosmic Religiosity in the Romanian Traditional
Culture. The Structures of a Mythical Synthesis ............................................. 139

Aurica Văceanu
Pre-Christian Mythical Elements in the Romanian Carol .............................. 149

Simion Valer Cosma

Popular Mythology, Church Teachings and Masses in the Romanian
Communities of Transylvania in the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century ... 167

Marta-Teodora Boboc
Oblivion and Self-Awareness in Chingiz Aitmatov’s Novels ........................... 183

Ramona Mihăilă
The Secret Voice of “Zburător”:
Erotic Registers of Mythology of Nineteenth Century Fiction ......................... 193

Luca Matei Stoian

Ancient Mythology and Its Echoes in Modern Architecture ............................ 203

Bianca Bogdana Peltea

Paradoxical Duality of the Serpent/ Snake/ Dragon/ Wyvern Metaphor:
A Cultural Conflict? ..................................................................................... 209

Mihail-George Hâncu
Primordial Couples in the Works of Homer, Hesiod, and
Pherecydes of Syros...................................................................................... 221

II. Mythological Reverberations. Reinterpretation of Myths:

Revitalization, Demythization, Remythization

Lorena Mihăeş
The Reworking of Japanese Traditions in Kazuo Ishiguro’s Works................. 233

Alexandra Ciocârlie
Une Médée prosaïque .................................................................................. 247

Ioana-Ruxandra Fruntelată
Phoenix. Beginnings of a Myth...................................................................... 259

6
Mohamed Ahmed Suleiman
The Religious Myth and the Myth of Religion in the Philosophy of
Esmat Nassar ............................................................................................... 273

Maria Grăjdian
Imperial Mythologies. Love, Nostalgia and
the Dynamics of Cultural Imperialism in Late-Modern Japan ........................ 281

Maria Grăjdian, Raluca Nicolae

Mythical Serenity Prayer. Ecology, Ethnic Humor and the Praise of
Conviviality in The Anime Ponpoko: The Heisei Tanuki War (1994) ............. 299

Daniela Varvara
The Myth of the Fall in the Romanian Neo-Modernist Poetic Imaginary.
From the Canonical Pattern to Sense Addition, Overthrow of Meaning, and
Conversion into Cultural Myth ..................................................................... 321

Mihaela Chapelan
La quête du Graal. Grandeur et décadence d’un mythe.................................. 333

Nino Kvirikadze
Some Functional Aspects of Leitmotif
Mythological Details in Thomas Mann’s Buddenbrooks ................................ 345

Carmen Ghinea
The Secret Charm of Losers in the Myth America .......................................... 361

Delia-Anamaria Răchişan
Celestial Motifs and Solar Worship Elements in Maramureș .......................... 369

Sara Moldoveanu Hunziker

The Myth of the Goddess Inanna, Metaphor of Jung’s Process of Individuation.
A Comparative Study of Shakespeare’s Cordelia and Athol Fugard’s Lena ....... 391

Elena Emilia Ştefan

Saint Seiya: A Japanese Modern Reinterpretation of the Gigantomachhy .......... 403

III. Folklore. Folkloric archetypes. Folkloric Reverberations

Ana Munteanu, Dorina Lupan

Reintroducing Folklore and Poetry into Drama: Adrian Maniu’s Theatre ...... 421

7
Costel Cioancă
The Symbols of Intimacy in the Romanian Fairy Tale. Theoxenia ................... 437

Oana Madlen Pănescu, Bianca Bogdana Peltea

Fairy Tales as Social Scripts......................................................................... 453

Nemanja Radulovič
Analogical Thinking and Fairy Tale Patterns. Towards a Possible History
of a Formulaic Image ................................................................................... 465

Mihaela Hristea
Heinrich Heine and the German Folklore...................................................... 475

Luiza Marinescu
Elements of Mythology in Mihai Eminescu’s Creation: The Genius’ Land.
A Case Study ................................................................................................ 485

Kristina Dimovska
The Forms of Chronotopes in Two Heroic Epics............................................ 501

Corina Bistriceanu Pantelimon

Romanians’ Representations of Luck: From Constantin Noica to Folk Tales .. 531

Onorina Botezat
The Image of the Foreigner in Romanian Proverbs ........................................ 541

Alexandra-Dana Mărăşescu
The Olympic Games Myth and Its Echoes in Modern Architecture…………… 557

List of Contributors ...................................................................................... 567

8
 POPULAR MYTHOLOGY, CHURCH TEACHINGS
AND MASSES IN THE ROMANIAN COMMUNITIES
OF TRANSYLVANIA
IN THE SECOND-HALF OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY1

Valer Simion COSMA

This paper aims to analyze the relation between Romanian popular mythology
and the liturgical activity of the Romanian Greek-Orthodox and Greek-Catholic
clergy in the second-half of 19th century Transylvania. Given that the
modernizing process makes progress in Romanian society (at least at the elite
level), compelling a modern view on the world, through the teaching and
liturgical practice of the two Churches, a premodern understanding and vision
of the universe is constantly reaffirmed, being closely linked, similar to and
interfering with popular mythology. Although through their teachings the two
Churches condemn a series of popular beliefs and practices, registering them
as superstitions, although the Churches join the modern Austrian state in its
modernizing efforts, encouraging them through the agency of the clergy,
popular mythology finds a strong support in liturgical practice, facing the
erosions caused by the advance of modernity.

Keywords: popular mythology; Mass; worldview; modernity; Copernican Revolution

In his study, The Power of Remanence of Ancient Agricultural Rites

Accepted and Taken over by the Church, historian Barbu Ştefănescu
highlights the survival, until late in twentieth century, of some agrarian
ritual practices which were accepted and then incorporated into the church’s
religious ritual. His study refers specifically to the ritual of consecration of
wreaths of wheat ears intertwined, a ceremonial which took place on
Pentecost Sunday in churches of Bihor. This ritual expresses the need for
confirmations of the peasant and it is composed of a set of magical and
spiritual techniques which supported the traditional peasant mentality and
their agricultural activities. Among these ritual practices, some were taken
on by the Church, being tacitly accepted by priests,2 especially in the

167
context of a folkloristic enthusiasm expressed by the Romanian clergy from
Transylvania during the second half of the nineteenth century. 3
The aim of this paper is to emphasize the major role played by the
Romanian Churches in Transylvania – Orthodox Church and Greek-Catholic
Church – in the preservation of popular mythology and implicitly of a pre-
modern worldview, through rituals and church services. This will imply the
analysis of some aspects described by historian Robert W. Scribner, called
“an economy of the sacred” and “manifestations of the sacred,” which
provide, for the religious mentality a form of “cosmic order.”4
From the outset, I consider it necessary to make some clarifications
regarding the issues covered in the present analysis. The second half of the
nineteenth century is a period of complex socio-cultural and political
transformations for Romanian society in Transylvania. This period stands as
a distinct stage in the evolution of the Romanian national movement and
was characterized by the triumph of the lay intellectuals and the middle
class which challenged the clergy for leadership. The intellectuals and
intelligentsia begin to compete with the church and the ecclesiastical elites
for the role and for the influence on public life. This period is characterized
by the modernization of the Romanian society and culture that were in a
long and continuous process of synchronization with the Western world.5
This is a period of great progress for the educational system compared to
previous centuries. After the Revolution of 1848, in the romantic
atmosphere, the concern for the foundation of a national culture contributed
significantly to the development of folklore and popular mythology studies. 6
Among those touched by the passion for folklore, the priests played a major
role, as the activity of the clergymen Timotei Cipariu, Simion Florea
Marian and Ioan Micu Moldovan proves. 7 This concern for collecting
folklore materials and the study of mythology and popular practices, deeply
influenced by the revelation of the national identity, comes after a long
period of large and complex efforts to “enlighten” and “civilize” Romanian
peasant society, undertaken by the Habsburg administration and the two
Romanian churches. These efforts aimed to remove popular beliefs and
practices considered from the perspective of the Enlightenment as being
“superstitions” and responsible for the “primitiveness” and “backwardness”
of Romanians.8 Canonical and theological arguments which prevailed in the

168
views expressed by hierarchs competed with rationalist attitudes and
arguments of the first part of the nineteenth century.9
But beyond social, economic, cultural and political changes, the
modernization process involved for the Romanian society the assumption of
a new worldview and a new way of understanding and explaining its
functioning, because during the nineteenth century science replaced
theology as the main source of authoritative knowledge. 10 Various
explanatory theories imposed interpretations of changes contained in the
complex process of modernization. Max Weber coined the famous phrase
“disenchantment of the world” to synthesize the results of the intersection
of the Protestant Reformation and the scientific revolution.11 Theologian
Jacob Taubes analyzed in a series of studies the impact of the Copernican
revolution on theology. 12 The historian of religions, Ioan Petru Culianu
wrote about the censorship of the “imaginary” which took place in early
modernity, 13 while the historian Lyndal Roper studied the change regarding
the theological understanding of the relationship between body and soul,
which took place during the sixteenth century under the influence of the
religious Reform.14
As the Swiss historian Kaspar von Greyerz pointed out in his book
about religion and culture in Modern Europe, “the link between knowledge
of nature and knowledge of God began to loosen only in the eighteenth
century under the influence of the Enlightenment,”15 but this profound
cultural transformation reaches only the level of the educated classes and
not the whole society. 16 For this part of the society, the “Scientific
Revolution” based on empiricism and on the rise of modern rationalism
determined during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the
disappearance of the miraculous and all its forms: magic, astrology,
divination, etc. As Rebekka Habermas has emphasized, the miraculous
disappears ‘only from a particular cultural level,’ from the one we like to
place at the center of historical scholarship as the only relevant level, so-
called High Culture. “Popular culture, by contrast, would continue to speak
of miracles for a long time to come.”17 This transformation occurred slowly
until late in the nineteenth century and even when it touched other social
and cultural strata of the society, some mental habits practiced for centuries
were still alive, at least at a popular level. The French anthropologist Marc

169
Augé has pointed out that for people from the eighteenth century religion
had nothing mysterious, nothing incompatible with science and philosophy.
Notions like “mystery” and “supernatural” appeared later; the “primitive”
populations do not consider that they are resorting to irrational methods
when performing rituals of fertility and fecundity. Forces involved in rituals
are for these individuals perfectly natural.18
Christian churches faced complex
challenges due to this ample process. In a
modern world, which assumed, at least at
the elite level and in scientific discourse,
the Copernican cosmology and its
consequences, earth no longer reflects
heavenly perfection. Without a proper
cosmology, Christianity is forced to retreat
to the “interiority” of human, a movement
which is the root of modern theology and
metaphysics. In a Copernican universe the
analogy principle which is the basis for
churches rituals and services, becomes
Fig. 1 Pentecost, meaningless and terms like “below” and
Stavronikitsky Monastery, “above” simply become metaphors, being
Athos, 1546 no longer rooted in the external order of
http://calindragan.wordpress.com/
the cosmos. 19
The Christian worldview is based on Ptolemaic cosmology which
involves a series of correspondences between the mundane world and the
celestial order and a separation between what is below and what is above.
This separation allowed the Church to offer a “representation” of the
heavenly hierarchies on earth. In this kind of world order, the Mass implies
a union between heaven and earth in grace, while the “body” of the Church
is an organism in which the social and cosmic intertwine.20 For such a world
view, the cultic order properly structured is a central element of the cosmic
order, as we see in Exodus 29: 43-46.21 The cosmic character of Orthodox
Church services and rituals was constantly reaffirmed by the theologians of
the twentieth century. For example, the famous Russian theologian Serghei
Bulgakov said that the Mass addresses not only the human soul, but the
whole world and sanctifies it. This consecration of the natural elements and

170
of the various objects expresses the idea that the sanctifying action of the
Holy Spirit spread out, through the Church, over the entire nature.22
Theologian John Meyendorff affirms that the Byzantine cult, with its
emphasis on the unity between heaven and earth, with its sacramental
realism in the rites of blessing food, surrounding nature and human life,
reflects the central role of man in cosmos. 23 Byzantine iconography also
displays this vision of the cosmos as can be seen in the Pentecost visual
representations (see Fig. 1). In his analysis dedicated to this icon, the
Russian theologian Paul Evdokimov pointed out that the image presents the
cosmos as an old crowned man that reaches out his hands to the holy
tongues of fire. Jesus Christ walked on this earth, admired his flowers and,
in His parables, talked about the things of this world as symbols of those
from heaven.24
Reaching the heart of the matter, popular mythology, when alive and
not just an object of study for researchers is closely linked to the worldview
or “Weltanschaungen.” This is a fundamental element of the socio-cultural
context connected with religious beliefs and rituals. A worldview is a mean
by which a society attempts to structure the world and human existence
within that world. It attempts to bring order into existence and universe. 25
Worldview as used here is a dynamic notion and is made up of interrelated
elements. Firstly, there is a body of knowledge which serves to identify and
categorize the world “out there” or the “real” world. Secondly, there is a set
of meanings related to the structure of the world that serves to locate human
existence in the cosmos and give meaning to that human existence. Finally,
there is a system of praxis which gives direction to proper and appropriate
actions within a particular world of meaning. Ritual action is a major
element of the system of praxis and it serves as an important mean by which
the individual locates the self in the world and thereby participates in it,
realizes, and enacts the world order.26 Considering popular mythology as a
major element of the worldview of Romanian peasant society, this paper’s
main goal is to analyze its connection with the liturgical life coordinated by
churches.
Molitfelnicul or Efhologhion, a fundamental liturgical book for the
activity of any priest, contains rituals and prayers required for performing
the sacraments established by church27 and rituals designed to order the
rhythms of biological reproductive life, by invoking divine blessing on

171
human, animal and agrarian fertility. 28 It also contains numerous minor rites
and benedictions called ierurgii – a term similar but not identical to the
Roman Catholic term “sacramental.”29 Furthermore, this book presents
rituals and prayers for various problems and situations: special invocations
against charms and spells, prayers of exorcisms like that of Saint John
Chrysostom and Saint Basil the Great, other prayers to expel demons and
unclean spirits alike, invocations for various diseases of people or animals
and rituals for different crisis like drought or heavy rainfall, etc.30 But this
paper does not analyze the role of “folklorised rituals” that grew up within
penumbra of the official liturgy31 and had a main contribution in feeding
and preserve popular mythology. Instead, it focuses on that part of religion
known as “prescribed religion,”32 namely the rituals and services that are
included in church typicon.
By performing various rituals, the priest helps maintain the existing
socio-cultural system or restore a damaged order.33 Christine D. Worobec
affirms that “from the Orthodox Church’s point of view, as in the case of
the Roman Catholic Church, proper religious ritual and the invocation of
pious words in the form of prayers could affect the preternatural and bestow
divine mercy upon humans.”34 When a ritual is enacted, it may produce
effects in several, interrelated areas. Church rituals performed by priests
may say something about the state of being or status of an individual like in
Baptism or exorcistic rituals. They show a concern for the state of the
cosmos.35 The priestly ritual system includes in its worldview ideas about
the cosmos and the created order. This created order goes beyond the
societal order and includes a concern for the natural world as well. This
cosmic order encompasses human relationships with the sacred, with the
natural world and with other persons.36 Relations with the sacred are
ordered through a patterned sequence of human towards the sacred in space
and time expressed through acts of worship and more elaborately through
cycles of ritual. Relations with the natural world are ordered by seeing it as
dependent in its contingency on the sustaining power of the sacred, which
must be summoned to set right any disorder which may occur in the
world.37 Through priestly rituals, human beings may participate in
maintaining the divinely created order.38 For example, during the
celebration of Epiphany or Christ’s baptism, which includes the ritual called
the “Great Blessing of the Waters,” when the priest places the cross in

172
water, according to popular beliefs, all the demons are banished, and after
purification, that water becomes a source of miraculous power used in
different magical rituals.39 From the perspective of Byzantine theology, we
learn from the famous theologian John Meyendorff that the “Great Blessing
of the Waters” is exorcising the cosmos whose basic element, water, is
considered a refuge for dragons and demons. Frequent mention of the
demonic forces of the universe in Patristic and liturgical texts must be
understood in theological context, because those texts cannot be reduced to
the biblical and medieval stories, even though they often reflect
mythological beliefs. “Demonic” in nature comes from the fact that creation
has fallen from its original meaning and orientation.40 In the prayer that the
priests intonated in the “Great Blessing of the Waters,” they asked God to
“make it [the water] a source of incorruption, a gift of sanctification, a
remission of sins, a protection against disease, a destruction to demons,
inaccessible to the adverse powers and filled with angelic strength”41 The
materialistic representation of the workings of the sacred can be seen at its
most striking in the Eucharist and the miracles associated with it. 42 The
world of nineteenth-century peasants was inhabited by a host of spirits and
demons who were considered responsible for such recurring calamities such
as drought, freak storms, illness and death.
In the same category of rituals by which priests act on the cosmos and
on the natural order, we should include the rituals and church services
performed in time of crisis or those connected to the peasants’ agricultural
calendar. Analyzing the contents of the Molitfelnic we may note that over
time the church has ordained prayer and religious rituals that cover in detail
the lives and activity of believers and communities. Concerning agriculture
in addition to prayers and prayers for different crises and emergencies there
are invocations and rituals such as: Ordinance blessing to start sowing,
Prayer over crops, Prayer to pricking vineyard, Prayer for grape gathering
etc.43 In the same category of agrarian rituals, one must mention the
Exorcism prayer of the Holy Great Martyr Trifon for the gardens, vineyards
and agricultural fields when attacked by insects or animals44, that is usually
read by the priest in the context of popular processions or during other
religious and popular holidays. 45 The famous French historian Jean
Delumeau presents a series of rites of blessing of gardens or trees, and the
cursing of insects or other pests, which were contained in the Catholic

173
Church typicon books from XV-XVIII centuries. The priest, as the exorcist,
chases insects in a ritual that express a worldview that was shared by the
popular strata of society and by the ecclesiastical elite.46 The priest, as a
legitimate operator of the sacred, is present in all these manifestations.
Through this kind of rituals and services his power to bless and curse and its
role as mediator between God and men 47 are constantly reaffirmed and
reiterated. These reflect the belief that humans can instrumentally apply
sacred power to their own situations, which puts these conjurations into the
realm of magic. The links are cosmological, involving the belief that the
functioning of the material world is dependent on the sacred power which
intervenes to ensure the flourishing of creation under the forms of human,
animal or agricultural reproduction. In ierurgii (sacramentals) and
conjurations, this cosmology allows the human agents to act as channels of
sacred power.48 The Church view of the world is an essentially sacramental
one and it involves a pragmatic understanding of the efficacy of the sacred
and a materialist conception of its workings.49 At the level of popular
culture and mythology, even the priest is represented as a major character.
Numerous folk tales describe the miracle performances of healers and
exorcist-priests.
These rituals highlight the concern for the purification and exorcism
and reveal that in the nineteenth century the clergy as well as the peasant
society subscribed to a common myth of possession. Their cosmic
worldview had a place for spirits and malevolence that needed to be rooted
out from persons, places or objects. The Orthodox doctrine about the devil
and the miraculous are intertwined because both are predicated upon the
notion of a sinful world ushered in by Adam and Eve’s obedience to the
devil.50 Folk tales about the devil’s actions in this world and peasant views
of possession demonstrate how peasants appropriated Orthodox
understandings of the devil and his minions and interacted with the clergy in
a cosmic drama in which good triumphed over evil. These views also
illuminate the connection that villagers made between possession and
witchcraft.51 The realm of religion and the realm of magic intertwine and
operate on the same cosmological coordinates.
The Romanian clergy of the nineteenth and twentieth century continue
to perform rituals that may be labeled as counter-magic and they were still
fighting against demons and unclean spirits in a world where God continues

174
to be present and active, as we may see in an incident that occurred in 1839
and was described in the Romanian and Hungarian press. In a village from
Dăbâca County, a crate of ice fell from the sky. Several priests stood and
prayed around it, otherwise it was not possible to be opened. They managed
to open it only by prayers and found a letter from God, which said that if the
world continues to live a sinful life, “iron beaked birds will descend from
heaven that will eat the whole world.” The story spread through churches
and people believed in it strongly. 52 This incident follows a pattern which is
common in apocryphal religious literature and in folk tales: the message in
send by God to warn people about the sinful world. This reflects the fact
that peasants and clergy shared the same pre-modern worldview.
Death rituals are closely related to popular beliefs about death and
afterlife and express a world-conception characterized by a strong link
between the world of the living and the world of the dead, a link present in
the Christian concept about the soul’s immortality. The deceased were not
totally separated from the living, but continued to play an active role in
society. To facilitate their benevolence, family and community observed
numerous customs and rites to ease the passage of the dead from this world to
the other one. In the funeral and the subsequent commemorative services, the
main rituals and practices are those which occurred inside the institutional
church, especially that performed by the priest.53
In conclusion, we can state that the worldview of the Christian
churches has much more in common with the peasants’ worldview, being
radically different from that which prevails among the elite, in the period
after the Copernican Revolution. Through its teachings, the ordinances and
ritual practices, the Church reaffirms and reiterates a sacred order of the
world and a symbolic universe that is in profound disagreement with the
modern worldview. According to the secular worldview, religious rituals
are limited to a symbolic function. Compared to this conception, the
Christian way of understanding the universe and the worldview that is
specific to Romanian peasant society state that the ritual has cosmic,
spiritual and social implications. Therefore, I believe that religious rituals
have contributed significantly to the preservation of popular mythology
until late in the twentieth century. This happened despite the fact that
Romanian churches were part of a broader trend among educated society to

175
modernize peasants’ worldview by promoting secularization. As Christine
D. Worobec said about Russian Orthodox Church, “by the end of the
nineteenth century, tensions existed among ecclesiastics over the meaning
of the miraculous and the possibility of their occurring in a world dominated
by science. [...] Parish priests, monks and the laity were receiving mixed
messages from a church that was not so monolithic and rigid as its critics
viewed it to be.”54 In spite of the transformations that occurred within the
churches, as a part of the process of modernization, the liturgical life
continued to have strong linkages with the popular mythology and offered a
strong support for a pre-modern view of the world.
This brief scan of the link between religious rituals and folk
mythology call into question the manner in which folk religion is studied
and the role of churches in the modernization process. The link between
religious rituals and folk mythology requires thorough analysis and
interdisciplinary approaches.

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 NOTES

1
The research leading to these results has received funding from the European
Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme
(FP7/2007-2013) / ERC grant agreement no. 324214.
2
B. Ştefănescu, “Puterea de remanenţă a unor vechi rituri agrare acceptate şi preluate de
Biserică.” Caiete de Antropologie Istorică, no. 18, (January-June 2011), 68.
3
V. S. Cosma, “The Priest as “Folklorist.” From “Superstition” Objector to Folklore
Collector. The Case of Simion Florea Marian.” Included and Excluded. The
Identitary Issue during the Modern and Contemporary Times. Edited by V. S.
Cosma. Cluj-Napoca: Eikon, 2013, 62.
4
R.W. Scribner, “Cosmic Order and Daily Life: Sacred and Secular in Pre-Industrial
German Society.” Popular Culture and Popular Movements in Reformation
Germany. London and Ronceverte: The Hambledon Press, 1987, 1.
5
K. Hitchins, A Nation Affirmed: The Romanian National Movement in
Transylvania 1860/1914 (Bucharest: The Encyclopaedic Publishing House, 1999),
9-10; I-A. Pop, Thomas Nägler, Magyari András, Istoria Transilvaniei, vol. III,
1711-1919. Cluj-Napoca: Academia Română – Centrul de Studii Transilvane, 2008,
477-544, 553-567.
6
L. Dégh, “Bartók as folklorist. His place in the history of research.” Folklore, vol.
II “The Founders of Folklore.” Edited by Alan Dundes. London and New York:
Routledge, 2005, 209; P. Cornea, Originile romantismului românesc. Spiritul public,
mişcarea ideilor şi literatura între 1780-1840. Bucureşti: Minerva, 1972, 499.
7
I. Datcu, S.C. Stroescu, Dicţionarul folcloriştilor. Folclorul literar românesc
Bucureşti: Editura Ştiinţifică şi Enciclopedică, 1979, 137-138, 271-275, 285; V. S.
Cosma, “The Priest as ‘Folklorist.’ From ‘Superstition’ Objector to Folklore
Collector. The Case of Simion Florea Marian.” 64.
8
See D. Dumitran, Un timp al reformelor. Biserica Greco-Catolică din Transilvania
sub conducerea episcopului Ioan Bob (1782-1830). Cluj-Napoca: Argonaut, 2007;
T. Nicoară, Transilvania la începutul timpurilor moderne (1680-1800). Societate
rurală şi mentalităţi collective. Cluj-Napoca, 2001; Z. Pâclișanu, Istoria Bisericii
Române Unite. Târgu-Lăpuş: Galaxia Gutenberg, 2006.
9
See Şcoala Ardeleană, vol. 1-3, Edited by F. Fugariu. Bucuresti: Albatros, 1970;
D. Popovici, Romantismul românesc. Bucureşti, 1972, 327-340; I. Muşlea, “Practici
magice şi denumirea lor în circularele episcopeşti şi protopopeşti.” Cercetări
etnografice şi de folclor, vol. II. Bucureşti: Minerva, 1972, 403.
10
H. McLeod, Secularisation in Western Europe 1848-1914. London: MacMillan
Press LTD, 2000, 3.
11
M. Weber, Etica protestantă şi spiritul capitalismului. TransIated by I. Lemnij.
Bucureşti: Humanitas, 2007, 135.
12
See J. Taubes, Teologia după revoluţia copernicană. Translated by A. State and
G. State. Cluj-Napoca: Tact, 2009.

179
13
I. Culianu, Eros şi Magie în Renaştere 1484. Translated by D. Petrescu. Bucureşti:
Nemira, 1994, 265-268.
14
L. Roper, Oedipus and the Devil. Witchcraft, Sexuality and Religion in Early
Modern Europe. New York: Routledge, 1994, 173.
15
K. von Greyerz, Religion and Culture in Early Modern Europe, 1500-1800.
Translated by T. Dunlap. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008, 20.
16
Ibidem, 15.
17
R. Habermas, “Wunder, Wunderliches, Wunderbares: Zur Profanisierung eines
Deutungsmusters in der Fru¨hen Neuzeit.” Armut, Liebe, Ehre: Studien zur
historischen Kulturforschung. Edited by R. v. Dulmen. Frankfurt a. M., 1988, 38-66,
apud K. von Greyerz, 15.
18
M. Augé, Religie şi antropologie. Translated by I. Pânzaru. Jurnalul Literar,
1995, 28.
19
J. Taubes, Teologia după revoluţia copernicană. Translated by A. State and G. State.
Cluj-Napoca: Tact, 2009, 25-27.
20
Ibidem, 24-25; St. Dionisie Areopagitul, “Despre Ierarhia Bisericească.” Opere
complete. Translated by D. Stăniloaie (Bucureşti: Paideia, 1996), 78-84.
21
F. Gorman, Jr., “The Ideology of Ritual. Space, Time and Status in the Priestly
Theology,” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement, no. 91 (1990), 42.
22
S. Bulgakov, Ortodoxia, Translated by N. Grosu. Bucureşti: Paideia, 1994, 181.
23
J. Meyendorff, Teologia Bizantină. Tendinţe istorice şi teme doctrinare.
Translated by A. I. Stan. Bucureşti: Nemira, 2011, 211.
24
Ibidem, 168.
25
F. Gorman, Jr., “The Ideology of Ritual. Space, Time and Status in the Priestly
Theology,” 16; C. Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures. Selected Essays. New
York: Basic Books Inc. Publishers, 1973, 110-113; P. L. Berger, T. Luckmann,
Construirea socială a realităţii. Tratat de sociologia cunoaşterii. Translated by A.
Butucelea. Bucureşti: Art, 2008, 134-135.
26
F. Gorman, Jr., “The Ideology of Ritual. Space, Time and Status in the Priestly
Theology,” 16-17; R. A. Rappaport, Ecology, Meaning, and Religion (Richmond:
North Atlantic Books, 1979), 93-97.
27
Efhologhion or Molitfelnic. Bucureşti: Tipografia Cărţilor Bisericesci, 1896, 618-623.
28
R.W. Scribner, “Cosmic Order and Daily Life,” 3.
29
Ibidem, 5.
30
Efhologhion or Molitfelnic, 618-623.
31
R.W. Scribner, “Ritual and Popular Religion in Catholic Germany at the time of
the Reformation.” Popular Culture and Popular Movements in Reformation
Germany. London: The Hambledon Press, 1987, 23.
32
M. O’Neill, “From ‘Popular’ to ‘Local’ Religion: Issues in Early Modern European
Religious History.” Religious Studies Review, no. 12, 3-4. July-October, 1986, 222-223.
33
F. Gorman, Jr., “The Ideology of Ritual. Space, Time and Status in the Priestly
Theology,” 28.

180
34
C. Worobec, Possessed. Women, Witches and Demons in Imperial Russia. DeKalb:
Northern Illinois University Press, 2001, 26.
35
F. Gorman, Jr., ‘Ritual and Popular Religion in Catholic Germany at the time of the
Reformation,” 37-38.
36
Ibidem, 38.
37
R.W. Scribner, “Cosmic Order and Daily Life,” 1.
38
F. Gorman, Jr., “Ritual and Popular Religion in Catholic Germany at the time of
the Reformation.” 38.
39
S. F. Marian, Sărbătorile la români. Bucureşti: Saeculum, 2011, 258-259; Credinţe şi
superstiţii româneşti. Bucureşti: Humanitas, 2012, 19, 230.
40
J. Meyendorff, Teologia Bizantină. Tendinţe istorice şi teme doctrinaire, 199.
41
Efhologhion or Molitfelnic, 140.
42
R.W. Scribner, “Cosmic Order and Daily Life.”, 14; Elena Niculiţă-Voronca,
Datinele şi credinţele poporului român. Adunate şi aşezate în ordine mitologică,
vol. I, Bucureşti Saeculum Vizual, 2008, 258-259.
43
Efhologhion sau Molitfelnic, 620.
44
Ibidem, 621.
45
S. F. Marian, Sărbătorile la români. 1. Cârnilegile, 301-302; R.W. Scribner,
“Cosmic Order and Daily Life,” 12.
46
J. Delumeau, Liniştiţi şi ocrotiţi. Sentimentul de securitate în Occidentul de altădată,
vol. I. Translated by L. Zoicaş. Iaşi: Polirom, 2004, 60-62.
47
M. Launay, Le bon prêtre. Le clerge rural au XIX-e siècle (Paris: Editions Aubier,
Paris, 1986), 166; D. Gentilcore, From Bishop to Witch. The System of the Sacred in
Early Modern Terra d’Otranto. Manchester and New York: Manchester University
Press, 1992, 103.
48
R.W. Scribner, “Cosmic Order and Daily Life,” 12.
49
Ibidem, 13.
50
C. Worobec, Possessed. Women, Witches and Demons in Imperial Russia, 41.
51
Ibidem, 64.
52
C. Ghişa, Episcopia Greco-Catolică de Făgăraş în timpul păstoririi lui Ioan
Lemeni 1832-1850, vol I, Cluj-Napoca: Argonaut, 2008, 232.
53
See T. Burada, Datinile poporului român la înmormântări. Bucureşti: Editura
Saeculum I.O., 2006; S. F. Marian, Înmormântarea la români. Studiu etnografic,
(Bucureşti: Editura Saeculum I.O., 2008); A. Rădulescu, Rituri de protecţie în
obiceiurile funerare româneşti. Bucureşti: Editura Saeculum I.O., 2008; D. Worobec,
“Death Ritual among Russian and Ukrainian Peasants. Linkages between the Living
and the Dead.” Letters from Heaven. Popular Religion in Russia and Ukraine,
Edited by J-P. Himka and A. Zayarnyuk. Toronto: University of Toronto Press 2006, 17.
54
C. Worobec, Possessed. Women, Witches and Demons in Imperial Russia, 55.

181