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It is intuitive to think that divine transcendence is incompatible with the sacredness of nature, especially when transcendence is combined with the idea that God alone is valuable. Divine transcendence seems to demote this‐worldly values in favor of union with God in a disembodied afterlife. Divine transcendence also seems to legitimize hierarchies, including male–female and human‐nature hierarchies. Divine immanence seems a better alternative. This set of intuitions about transcendence appears regularly in the field of Religion and Ecology, sometimes as an implicit backdrop rather than an explicit position. This backdrop needs to be thematized and evaluated. For those with ecological concerns, divine transcendence and divine immanence need not be mutually exclusive. Rather, divine transcendence (understood non‐contrastively) complements divine immanence and is compatible with both animist and polytheist cosmologies. The extent of this mutual compatibility and its importance for environmental concerns has yet to be fully articulated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The digitization of social interactions and daily activities means that multiple aspects of our daily lives are documented and stored, and social interactions leave digital traces. The accumulated data do not evaporate upon death, and questions about posthumous privacy and impression management arise. Drawing on eight focus groups comprised of Israeli Internet users from various backgrounds, the article points to the perceived interrelation between posthumous impression management and respect toward the dead and identifies a pervasive normative stance that advocates for the continuation of privacy management from life to after death. We call it the continuity principle. The living users position their personal data across two axes of public–private and in life–after death and manage access to their data accordingly. The findings suggest that given a digital footprint and possibilities to access digital remains, the separation between life and death erodes. However, users opine that in-life norms should linger and survive death. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In his De gloria et gaudiis beatorum, printed in 1501, the clergyman Zaccaria Lilio explores a popular topic in the religious life of Renaissance Italy: what is heaven like and what kind of experience awaits the blessed there? And his answer represents a snapshot of a characteristic manner in which heaven was imagined in the period, both in written and visual form, one strongly focused on a sensory understanding of the afterlife and in which music played an important part. By identifying the sources of Lillio's interpretation of the sense of hearing in the afterlife, a network of clergymen interested in heavenly sensory delights is revealed, initiated by an Italian curiosity for a fourteenth‐century text by a follower of Meister Eckart. This article aims not only to bring to the attention of scholars Lilio's neglected sensory treatise, but also to provide an in‐depth analysis of the intricate connections between Italian authors of sensory treatises from the fifteenth century. The implications of this textual tradition disseminated through preaching are of great importance to the development of the image of heaven and its music in Renaissance Italy, for which the sensory perspective was of crucial importance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses hopes around the promissory potential of mineral resources through the lens of affect. Building on ethnographic fieldwork conducted between 2018 and 2019 in South Mitrovica in Kosovo, it explores how citizens of a de-industrialised and politically unstable city envision the future around and beyond the extractive potential of the Trepça mine. It does so by examining two encounters with two different modes of electricity – a power cut and New Year lights – as instantiations of the mine's affective force that evoke the historically specific promise of modernity shaped during Yugoslav socialism. Through the motif of electricity, the article demonstrates how this industrial past orients collective hopes towards an extractive future. Retrospectively shaped, these hopes remain intangible, however, and riddled with doubts, friction, and contestation. Divergent visions, then, attempt to ground a viable future amid the uncertainties triggered by postsocialism, the war and its aftermath, and de-industrialisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Rightly recognized as a great scientific achievement of physics of the XX century, the special theory of relativity (SRT), however, turned out to be erroneous, because at that time there was no experimental knowledge necessary for its creation, which had to be replaced by postulates. But not everything was guessed. And that's only natural. All new theories are always later finalized and corrected. But the SRT had a different fate. It was canonized, as in its truth could not be doubted50, it could not be corrected, and everything that was written in it had to be unshakably believed. Therefore, its numerous subsequent experimental corrections and refutations were not and still are not taken into account. As a result, it remained uncorrected. It is in this form that SRT is now studied in all physics textbooks, according to which it is taught even at the most prestigious universities. However, a corrected version of SRT has already been created, in which instead of the in-correct principle of non-exceeding the speed of light, the experimentally proven principle of phys-ical reality of imaginary numbers, which refuted this postulate, is used. And from relativistic for-mulas of the corrected version of SRT follows the existence of numerous mutually invisible parallel universes. The corrected version of SRT has allowed to solve many unsolved in the noncorrected version of SRT problems. In the corrected version of SRT also it is explained that these invisible universes about which it is spoken in all religions, and are invisible afterlife world in which Gods and souls of dead dwell. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Metaverse promises the abolition of physical and temporal boundaries, people achieving what they want freely, and the feeling of immortality. In this paper I analyze the hyper-spatiotemporal nature of the Metaverse from a Christian anthropological perspective. I start by reviewing the Christian understanding of time and the Metaverse space–time construct. Next, I draw a parallel between digital immortality and the eternal life of the age to come. Finally, arguing that the Metaverse's offer of digital immortality is a palliative, discarnate surrogate, I discuss the Christian perspective on how eternity can be authentically anticipated while living in this world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International organisations have become increasingly contested resulting in worries about their decline and termination. While international organisation termination is indeed a regular event in international relations, this article shows that other institutions carry the legacy of terminated international organisations. We develop the novel concept of international organisation afterlife and suggest indicators to systematically assess it. Our analysis of 26 major terminated international organisations reveals legal-institutional and asset continuity in 21 cases. To further illustrate this point, the article zooms in on the afterlife of the International Institute of Agriculture in the Food and Agriculture Organization, the International Refugee Organization in the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and the Western European Union in the European Union. In these three cases, international organisation afterlife inspired and structured the design of their successor institutions. While specific international organisations might be terminated, international cooperation therefore often lives on in other institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay pays tribute to a most influential book by Erwin Schrödinger, published in 1944, and its afterlife, and to a recent book of the same title by Paul Nurse, alluding to what has changed in between. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I discuss the influence of commedia dell'arte on The Tempest and consider the possibility of a late truncation of the play. This foundation sets the stage for the task of writing my own twenty-first century adaptation, This Thing of Darkness. By examining Kathleen Lea's discussion of commedia scenarios and considering their parallels with The Tempest, I postulate several possible missing elements including the unfinished revenge plots and the uncomplicated romance plot of Miranda and Frederick. I consider Henry David Gray's hypothesis that Shakespeare cut his own climax in favour of a wedding masque to appease the court of King James I, which adds another layer of complexity to our understanding of The Tempest's evolution. In considering the ethics of adaptation, I draw on Walter Benjamin's model of the textual afterlife which suggests that every text has the potential to be reinterpreted and reworked by future generations. I then situate This Thing of Darkness as a pre-imagination of The Tempest that addresses these criticisms dramaturgically. Through engaging with these potential source materials, This Thing of Darkness opens new avenues for understanding both the First Folio Tempest and its many afterlives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractSocial network support can be important when adjusting to life after the death of a close family member or friend. However, research has yielded inconclusive results regarding the relationship between social support and complicated grief reactions. Persons bereaved after a drug-related death (DRD) are a group of people who are at high risk of developing bereavement complications. Based on a Norwegian study on DRD bereaved close family members and friends (n = 250), this study examines the association between perceived social support, societal stigma, own social withdrawal, and prolonged grief symptoms (PGS). Own social withdrawal predicts the most variance in PGS symptoms: 8%, perceived social support: 3%, and societal stigma: 1%. Together the three focal variables explain 17.5% of variations in PGS. Results from the study point to the importance of social network support, which could reduce bereavement complications after a DRD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Keats's 1816 competition sonnet 'On the Grasshopper and Cricket' is easily dismissed as juvenilia, but when read with an eye to his interest in Greek mythology, the poem rewards further attention. In particular, the myth of Tithonus, who gained eternal life without eternal youth and was transformed into either a grasshopper or cricket, situates Keats's immortal 'poetry of earth' in an ambivalent context that, in turn, makes sense of otherwise curiously neutral language. This ambivalent framing also encourages a new reading of the poem as a product of 1816, 'the year without a summer', building a case for the sonnet as an example of what Nikki Hessell has called Keats's 'botany of absence' in the 1817 Poems volume more broadly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The history of the two primary institutions of thought and belief, scientific philosophy and theology, center their discourses on addressing the human inevitability of death. Crucial is how moments of death, as rhetorical situations that enable narrative and technical forms for assigning and responding to death, manifest in rhetorics that work to transition humanity away from fear and are followed by either rhetorics of transcendence of or comfort that embraces an afterlife. Rhetoric is a swivel moment between differentiated treatments of death – one seeking to avoid it, but when it finally arrives, the former embraces and assigns it meaning. Borrowing from both religious and secular illustrations, I argue for a conception of rhetoric as a moment of transition in spontaneous thought as death is permanently accompanied by fear. I demonstrate the case through analysis of two contemporary productions that explore the pre- and post-death narratives as transitions and transcendences: The Third Man Factor and The Ballad of Buster Scruggs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I explore the significance of the protological and eschatological dimensions of the Trinity, critiquing and building upon the Trinitarian doctrines of Karl Barth and Robert Jenson. The traditional doctrine of the Trinity tends to separate the Triune God's saving economy, which Barth attempts to reconcile via reclaiming their inseparability in his Church Dogmatics. However, Jenson critiques Barth for continuing to abstract the eternal life of God from God's act in history and instead proposes an eschatological view of the immanent Trinity as the temporal fulfillment of God's economic actions. By placing Barth and Jenson in mutual dialogue, I argue for a balanced integration of Barth's and Jenson's perspectives, asserting that both the primordial existence and the eschatological fulfillment of the Trinity are critical to understanding the Triune God as the Creator and Redeemer. At the end of the article, I propose a soteriological panentheism that aims to reconcile these dimensions. This scheme highlights the continuous, dynamic interaction between God's eternal nature and temporal creation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The text discusses the Eucharistic hymn "Adoro te devote" attributed to St. Thomas Aquinas. It acknowledges objections to Aquinas's authorship but dismisses them as insubstantial. The hymn highlights the hidden nature of God in the Eucharist and the importance of faith in perceiving this mystery. It is a personal prayer of adoration and petition, with the first half focusing on contemplation and the second half on earnest requests. The structure of the hymn consists of fourteen two-line couplets, with a clear shift in focus and rhyme scheme between the two halves. The text suggests that repeated recitation of the hymn can shape the mind and heart of the one who prays it, aligning them with the theological truths it conveys. [Extracted from the article]

The article examines Soliloquy of a Sailor: A Long Poem, a philosophical exploration of life and death through the metaphor of a sailor's journey. Topics include the poet's reflections on mortality and the search for meaning, the existential tension between life and death, and the spiritual quest for self-realization and understanding.

This article delves into the concept of "distant communications" in the context of death and grief. It challenges the notion that technology has erased distance, arguing that despite instant communication across long distances, feelings of separation persist. The article explores how different cultures and religions approach communication with the dead, emphasizing the significance of historical and cultural context in shaping societal responses to death. It also examines various technologies and mediums used to manage and visualize death, as well as the political and social implications of mourning practices. The text covers a range of topics, including wills, suicide letters, and the use of death in creating alternative worlds and spaces. The authors highlight the emotional and practical functions of communication beyond death and stress the importance of understanding diverse belief systems and alternative knowledge systems in relation to death and the afterlife. [Extracted from the article]

Hilary of Poitiers († 367) is the author of the Tractatus super Psalmos, which originally covered the entire Psalter. Explanatory notes to 58 psalms have survived to the present day, including an extensive commentary on Psalm 118. This article explores the teachings of St. Hilary on eschatology on the basis of the Treatise on Psalm 118. Hilary’s work consists of four parts. The first part presents the meaning of psalm 118, which, according to the author, is a spiritual primer guiding Christians towards an understanding of the heavenly realms. The second part presents the theology of man’s creation in the image and likeness of God, which expresses man’s calling to eternity. The third part of the work answers the question: how can we attain eternal life? According to Hilary, salvation can be achieved by obeying the law and the Lord’s commandments. According to our exegete, true life only begins after temporal death, and this life is eternal. The final part contains the ancient exegete’s teaching on the final judgment and resurrection. Hilary has no doubt that every human being will stand before the tribunal of Christ after death. The righteous will receive the reward of salvation, while sinners will receive the punishment of damnation. The Bishop of Poitiers also mentions the existence of Satan and hell, and explains the issue of the resurrection of the dead and the glory of heaven. Written shortly before the author’s death, the Treatise on the Psalms also appears to be his personal confession of his hope of salvation in Christ and his desire for eternal life. This work serves as an ever-present encouragement to read and interpret Psalm 118, which prompts deeper reflection on human life in the context of “final matters”. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In his small work entitled De mortalitate, written in the form of a letter, St.Cyprian of Carthage includes a beautiful teaching on suffering, dying and death. The bishop comforts those who have been affected by the present plague and are facing their departure from this world. He teaches them to view death from the perspective of a believer and to see it as a positive, although painful, phenomenon. Since death must be experienced in an eschatological spirit, as an encounter with the Risen Christ and with all those who preceded us on the pilgrimage to immortality. According to the Bishop of Carthage, death teaches man right attitudes, such as patience, courage, and acceptance of the will of God. Moreover, Cyprian shows specific benefits that death brings to Christians. He calls it a journey to a better, eternal life. Thus those who relate their earthly lives to Christ should not fear death. The purpose of this study is therefore to study the statements of St. Cyprian contained in De mortalitate on the subject of death. It is not only about assessing it, but primarily about reading the practical instructions addressed to Christians on how they should behave in the face of this inevitable reality, especially during the current plague. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article we provide a contribution to answering the question of how religious communication is possible. Religious communication is confronted with the essential paradox that statements about a principally inaccessible transcendence have to be made by immanent, known means. Metaphors, which we understand as mapping of a known source domain onto an unknown target domain, are particularly suitable for this purpose. We apply these assumptions to the Sumerian story Gilgameš, Enkidu, and the Netherworld to examine how the text is to be understood as religious communication. We identify the familiar physical and social spheres as the source domains and the netherworld as the unknown target domain. We show how the conceptual metaphor THE NETHERWORLD IS A PHYSICAL PLACE is elaborated by means of different slots, namely where the realm of the dead is located, how to get to and how to return from there, in which shape one is able to return from the netherworld, as well as how things are ordered there. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research presents an objective foundational study of the concept of “Life of Impact” within the Holy Quran and the Prophetic Sunnah. It highlights the relationship between the life of impact and the life of destiny. The research aims to establish the concept of the life of impact and elucidate its significance within the Islamic perspective of human life in general; emphasizing its pivotal role in the spiritual and ethical journey of an individual, and how it transcends the confines of time and space to persist until the end of time. In this study, the researcher employs an inductive, descriptive-analytical approach, relying on the collection, analysis, and examination of the relevant Quranic verses and authentic Prophetic hadiths related to the life of impact, subsequently deriving practical lessons, guidance, and implications from them. The research underscores how righteous deeds leave a lasting and enduring impact beyond death, affirming that eternal life is in the hereafter and that the worldly life is a temporary station in the human quest for eternity. The study concludes that the life of impact encompasses the effects of both good deeds and misdeeds, and that an individual, through their positive impact, can achieve a great extent and a lofty status in the sight of Almighty Allah. In conclusion, the researcher recommends the establishment of an Islamic endowment named “The Endowment of the Life of Impact” as a global initiative to encourage Muslims to create lasting positive impacts. The researcher also urges educators and those interested in moral and spiritual development to study this profound concept and guide others to value it because of its utmost importance in the development of the individual and society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the 1st International Workshop on Liana Forest Ecology, which focused on the impact of lianas on carbon and water cycling in tropical forests. Lianas, woody vines that climb trees, are increasing in abundance due to forest disturbance and climate change. The workshop brought together scientists from 14 countries to discuss topics such as liana distribution, hydraulics, life histories, reproductive phenology, and the role of lianas in carbon and nutrient cycling. The workshop highlighted the need for further research to understand the ecological consequences of increasing liana density in tropical forests. [Extracted from the article]

This paper offers a brief yet comprehensive comparative analysis of historical and contemporary racial authoritarian violence in the United States and Brazil. Utilizing Black feminist historian and literary scholar Saidiya Hartman's theorization of the "afterlife of slavery" and Michael Dawson's linked fate, I examine how the processes of racialization and the racial logics of subordination have and continue to shape the contours of Black life in the United States and in Brazil. Moreover, in this work, I interrogate the afterlife of George Floyd and the afterlives of Black Brazilian victims and survivors of racial authoritarian violence; the political, transnational, and symbolic impacts of Floyd's death; and Diasporic understandings of linked fate on racial authoritarian violence between Black communities in the United States and in Brazil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Early in 1 John, the author portrays authentic Christian living as involving honest and ongoing acknowledgment of one's sins, God's forgiveness of the same, and the cleansing from all unrighteousness (1:8-9). However, later in the same letter, while seeking to distinguish his opponents from those who were the true children of God, he says: 'No one who abides in him sins; no one who sins has either seen him or known him' (3:6); and 'those who have been born of God do not sin, because God's seed abides in them; they cannot sin, because they have been born of God.' (3:9). These latter statements stand in tension with his earlier statement which says that anyone claiming to be without sin is a liar. In one place he rejects sinless perfection, in the other he appears to assume it. In this article these apparently contradictory statements are examined and a possible resolution of the tension existing between them is suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the veneration and ongoing interest in Fr. Paul of Moll, a Belgian Benedictine monk. Despite not being officially recognized by the church, Fr. Paul has been revered for 150 years. Some controversial quotes and reported miracles attributed to him have sparked debates and criticisms. However, his association with the St. Benedict Medal and his reputation as a skilled confessor and spiritual counselor have contributed to his continued veneration. The article also mentions the international reception of a book about Fr. Paul, which has been translated into multiple languages. [Extracted from the article]

Increasingly, theories of signification are introduced to advance fugitive pedagogy in black education, digital culture, and beyond. However, scholars seldom question the dialogic thinking that substantiates many of these positions. Nonetheless, the algorithms and agents that control advanced technology and digitalization continue to trouble many of our presuppositions about Bakhtinian dialogism and texts. As a result, this paper argues that fugitive pedagogy may be too quiescent as a discourse and paradigm for understanding the character of black education and surveillance in the digital age. Digitalization not only rearticulates and reproduces various forms of racial surveillance, but it also extends the afterlife of racial chattel slavery in education. Using Foucauldian architectonics as a paradigm, this paper explains why discursive parasitism and panopticism are more comprehensive as a discourse for illuminating and explicating why so many of the challenges that black education faced in the past persist in the digital age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study questions and challenges the dichotomous approach that associates the worship of Medicine Buddha solely with the worldly benefits of the living, thereby neglecting its relevance to the concerns related to the deceased. The research investigates medieval devotees' religious activities dedicated to this divinity, focusing on the Sui (581–618) and the Tang (618–907) dynasties when such devotion gained increasing popularity in China. It reveals that medieval veneration dedicated to Medicine Buddha transcended the presumed dichotomy, encompassing the well-being of both the living and the dead. This finding underscores the importance of moving beyond the limited perception. Instead of adopting the simplistic label of a "healing divinity," contextualizing the worship within its broader religious milieu can better capture its full complexity. By extension, the research paves the way for reconsidering the conventional classification that assigns relatively fixed symbolic values to Buddhist deities, which contributes to a more thorough and nuanced understanding of religious practices and beliefs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study uses Fairclough's model of critical discourse analysis with regard to 15 ayahs from the Qur'an's Madani Surahs to delineate how God deals with hypocrites' claims in order to decode the ideological view of hypocrites' discourse and improve critical Qur'anic knowledge about hypocrites. This study examines the ideological structures at the descriptive level to reveal the central meanings in the deep structures of these ayahs and to understand the Qur'an's discoursebuilding methods against hypocrisy. This study is distinguished by its use of an interdisciplinary approach to examine ayahs while also using classical and contemporary interpretations. Based on the data analysis, the Qur'an uses discursive constructions at the descriptive level, including semantic opposition, conditional and negative statements, indirect quotations, modality, active and passive verbs, rhetorical questions, and explicit criticism when dealing with hypocrites to refute and rebuke the discourse of hypocrisy. The exploration of the ayahs' discourse at the interpretive level reflects the context of the situation at the time of revelation and the psychological element that reflects the presence of hypocritical discourse in society. At the explanatory level, the analysis demonstrates the depth of how the Qur'an confronts the hypocrites' claims to persuade the audience by constructing religious, functional, and motivational criticisms, as well as by using monotheistic ideology and belief in the afterlife. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Plastics are as positively durable as they are easily breakable, almost impossible to mend and hard to get rid of. They promise eternal life, but their immortality may quickly turn them into the undead. This paper discusses the use and role of plastics in Ghanaian funerary contexts, specifically in a small-town community in the Ghanaian Volta Region. It investigates plastics' agency as materials that may potentially either contain death successfully or become uncontained matter out of place, just as the dead may become contained or left wandering among the living. Different perspectives on plastics are brought into focus, highlighting how attributed qualities and meanings play into the making of 'good' or 'bad' death. The paper shows that plastics and persons jointly become subject to moral and temporal assessments in the realm between good and bad, finitude and durability. Beyond the ethnographic case study, the paper discusses the political potential of death and plastics within the larger global context of a cultural economy that reflects the ongoing effect of colonialism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The essay examines how American superheroes wage their mythological battle against evil as one of metaphysical salvation and redemption. They incorporate fantasies of super-human and super-technological bodied that seek to inherit, realize, and surpass all previous mythic hero figures of human civilization. America is staged as a nation of nations that has reached the end of history and is waiting for Judgement Day. The waiting time is filled by the entertainment industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the concept of non-personal immortality. Non-personal theories of immortality claim that even though there is no personal or individual survival of death, it is still possible to continue to exist in a non-personal state. The most important challenge for non-personal conceptions of immortality is solving the apparent contradiction between on the one hand accepting that individual existence ends with death and on the other hand maintaining that death nevertheless is not equal to total annihilation. I present two theories of non-personal immortality found in Schopenhauer and William James and derive a set of systematic core theses from them. Finally, I discuss whether the notion of non-personal immortality is consistent, and whether a non-personal afterlife could be desirable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We live in an Apocalyptic Era, in frustrated disappointed and enraged societies that have lost the future. Eternity has become an outcast and salvation in the afterlife is no longer a leading quest. In short, we live the end of the centrality of the concept of theodicy. The conjunction of the crisis in religious socialization mechanisms and those of secular socialization is what largely generates this widespread disappointment. The idea of Apocalypse, historically related to condemnations and Manichean visions, has returned with force to our contemporary societies through new forms of exclusion and discrimination in populist regimes relating to popular religiosity. The role of sociology of religions is to assess the current social disappointment and demystification of the future and at the same time distinguish and warn about the political processes of reproduction and representation of contemporary apocalypses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is important to manage individuals' personal data after their death to maintain their dignity or follow their wishes as much as possible. From this perspective, this report describes the real-world commercialization of immortal digital personalities, which gives eternal life to the deceased in a digital form. We identify the problems with the commercialization of deceased users' images and personal data, which becomes postmortem entertainment. Considering these problems, we seek out the ideal form of deceased users' personal data for commercialization. We conduct a social survey to understand how ordinary Japanese people feel about the various types of publicly available services that use personal data after death, such as social network service logs. By analyzing our survey results approximately 20% of respondents would allow the commercial use of their personal data, such as browsing their social network service logs, if they could receive compensation during their lifetime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines some features of the mythological beliefs and funeral rites of Siberia's two related Uralic peoples—the Nenets and the Nganasans. The afterlife fate in the mythology of Nenets and Nganasans is similar—the souls of the dead go to the Lower World, where they continue to live as they lived on Earth. However, the two cultures' attitudes towards the dead have intriguing differences. A comparison of Nenets and Nganasan beliefs and rituals reveals significant correspondences between the ideas about the benevolence of the dead (the Nenets) or their harmfulness (the Nganasans), on the one hand, and the presence of the practices of substitutional incarnation (images of the dead) (the Nenets) or the absence of such images (the Nganasans) on the other. The differences between the Nenets and the Nganasans, as I suggest, are due to the origin and history of the peoples: the Nenets' customs reflect the traditions of the Uralic tribes who came to the far north from Southern Siberia in ancient times. At the same time, the Nganasans' ideas are probably rooted in typical concepts of the Palaeo-Siberian population assimilated by the Uralic tribes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in analyzing the manufacturing techniques of Byzantine church doors in laboratory settings. However, the connection between the iconography and significance of the décor of church doors and their liturgical performativity, as well as their parallels with iconostases in Byzantium, remained a relatively underexplored area of study. This article seeks to delve deeper into these intersections. By focusing on the relationship between the iconography of church doors in Middle to Late Byzantium and their connection to the sacred space and liturgical practices, I aim to shed light on how these artworks played a crucial role in the sacred experience of the Byzantines. This exploration will not highlight only the aesthetic evolution of church door artwork but also emphasize the communal and embodied nature of the religious experience during the Byzantine era. Their intricate designs were not merely decorative elements but served as portals to the divine, enriching the salvation journey of worshippers as they crossed the threshold into the liturgical spaces. By conducting an examination of the development of door iconography and their symbolism throughout the empire's history, the transformation of narrative depictions from the Middle Byzantine era to the Palaiologan period, culminating in a convergence of symbolic meanings within the sacred space of the church, is delineated. This transformation is further exemplified by a sculpted church door from the Principality of Wallachia. By bridging the gap between art history and religious studies, this article aims to rekindle interest in the profound symbolism and significance of Byzantine church doors and their relation to sacred liturgical space, offering a broader perspective on an important aspect of Byzantine heritage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]