Sárospataki Füzetek 21. (2017)

2017 / 2. szám - ARTICLES-STUDIEN - INTERCULTURAL DIALOGUE SINCE THE AGE OF THE REFORMATION-INTERKULTURELLER DIALOG SEIT DER REFORMATION - Nagy Károly Zsolt: Leaving a Mark: The calvinist landscapes of remembrance

ARTICLES I STUDIEN

Károly Zsolt Nagy

LEAVING A MARK: THE CALVINIST LANDSCAPES OF REMEMBRANCE*

Most religions have their sacral spaces and landscapes, that is, the well-defined territories of the physical space which the transcendent power designates for itself according to the given religion, in which it manifests itself, or in which the followers of the given religion recognize the manifestation of the transcendent. These spaces and, of course, the objects, which carry the marks of the transcendent in some way, usually play an important part in the religious practices, rituals, and sometimes even the ordinary life of the given religion. They leave their mark on the community - at the same time, the community using them leaves a mark on them as well. Thus, these spaces and objects considered sacred denote a special relationship between the transcendent and the community and its members. Calvinist theology - as opposed to Roman Catholics for example - denies the possibility of such spaces and objects being the media of the continuous manifestation of the transcendent, except for the Sacred Tent, or Tabernacle, of the Old Testament, and the Temple of Jerusalem. However, it is true in this field as well that the practice does not correspond to the theory. Namely, there are more territorial elements to the Calvinist denominational identity, to which the individual communities relate like the constant carriers of the transcendent’s manifestation. At the same time, these spaces and objects ate closely related to the history and identity of the given community as well: they are identity symbols that condense the historical experience, and thus function as a place for the community’s remembrance. 1 One of the most famous of these objects is the

1 Here I discuss remembrance and its places in the sense Assmann (Jan Assmann: A kulturális em- * The research was supported by the lékezet: írás, emlékezés és politikai identitás a korai Bolyai Research Fellowship. magaskultúrákban, Budapest, Atlantisz, 1999.)

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