Decanonization or de-canonization (prefix de- ← Latin: de preposition: down, from, away[1] + Latin: canonizatio ← Greek: κανών — list, catalog[2][3][4][5]) — exclusion of a person's name from the list, catalog; the opposite of canonization. The list or catalog is the calendar of the saints[6] or the church calendar. Decanonization, the exclusion of the saint's name from the calendars, was carried out in the Russian Orthodox Church[7], in the Catholic Church[8][9][10][11] and in the Anglican Church[12][13]. Exclusion from the calendars of saints can occur due to early erroneous canonization, or due to religious policy. Decanonization means that from this moment in time, the church authorities prohibit people from praying to the decanonized person, and they no longer consider the decanonized person as their intercessor to God and Heavenly patron.
Orthodox Church edit
In the Russian Orthodox Church, the most famous case is the decanonization of the Right-Believing knyaginya of Anna of Kashin at the Great Moscow Synod in 1678. The reason for the decanonization was the religious policy of the forcible introduction in Russia of three fingers instead of two fingers. The reforms that began under Alexis Mikhailovich and continued under Peter I and his followers demanded a political and ecclesiastical separation from the previous tradition and national culture. First of all, decanonization affected persons whose literary works or hagiographic works contradicted the new religious policy. The veneration of the famous ecclesiastical writer and translator, the Maximus the Greek, was suspended. Memorial days associated with 21 Russian saints have disappeared from the Typikon of 1682. In Peter's times, the veneration of the martyrs Anthony, John, and Eustathius, who wore beards, suffered from a clean-shaven pagan knyaz, was stopped[14].
In the 20th century, some of the names of previously decanonized saints were returned to the church calendar. The re-canonization of Anna Kashinskaya took place in the Russian Church in 1909. However, most of the ancient Russian ascetics, whose veneration was terminated during the "struggle against Raskol", remained forgotten[15].
In 2013, 36 saints (New Martyrs who suffered from repression during the Soviet era) were decanonized. They were early canonized. Their names were removed from the 2013 Russian Orthodox Church calendar without explanation.[16][17][18]
Catholic Church edit
Pope Paul VI removed Simon of Trent from the Roman Martyrology in 1965. "Simon of Trent is not in the new Roman Martyrology of 2000, nor on any modern Catholic calendar[19].
On February 14, 1969, Pope Paul VI, through the apostolic letter Mysterii Paschalis, removed the names of a number of saints from the Catholic calendar, based on the lack of documentary evidence of their lives. Among them: Telephorus, 5 January, added in 1602, deleted: the feast was originally that of an otherwise unknown martyr, who was not a pope; Hyginus, 11 January, added in the 12th century, deleted; not a martyr and the date of his death is unknown; Maris, Martha, Abachum and Audifax, 19 January, added in the 9th century, deleted: nothing is known of them other than their names and place of burial; Dorothy, 6 February, added in the 13th century, deleted: her acts are completely fabulous; Faustinus and Jovita, 15 February, added in the 13th century, deleted: their Acts are completely fabulous; Lucius I, 4 March, added in 1602, deleted: not a martyr; Forty Martyrs, 10 March, added in the 12th century, deleted: many questions have been raised about the veracity of their Acts; Anicetus, 17 April, added in the 12th century, deleted: not a martyr and his date of death is unknown; Soter and Caius, 22 April, added in the 13th century, deleted: not martyrs and the date of death of the former is unknown; Cletus and Marcellinus, 26 April, added in the 13th century, deleted: Cletus seems not to be a martyr; his date of death is unknown and that of Marcellinus is disputed; Boniface (Martyr), 14 May, deleted: the Passion of Saint Boniface of Tarsus is completely fabulous; Urban I, 25 May, deleted: this martyr was not in fact the pope; Eleutherius, 26 May, deleted: not a martyr and his date of burial is unknown; Felix I, 30 May, deleted: the martyr that ancient liturgical books celebrated on this day was not the pope; Basilides, Cyrinus, Nabor and Nazarius, 12 June, deleted: their Passion is completely fabulous; Seven Holy Brothers, 10 July, deleted: their Passion is completely fabulous, and the day was in reality dedicated to four distinct commemorations; Pius I, 11 July, deleted: not a martyr and his date of death is unknown; Alexius, 17 July, deleted: his Life is fabulous; Symphorosa and her seven sons, 18 July, deleted: their Acts are untrustworthy and are thought to be an imitation of the Passion of Saint Felicitas and Her Seven Sons; Margaret of Antioch, 20 July, deleted: the Acts of Saint Margaret or Marina are entirely fabulous; Victor I, 28 July, deleted: not a martyr and the date of his death is unknown; Zephyrinus, 26 August, deleted: not a martyr and his date of death is unknown; Twelve Holy Brothers, 1 September, deleted: their Acts are fabulous; these martyrs who suffered in different places in Lucania were not blood brothers;Lucy and Geminianus, 16 September, deleted: duplicates the 13 December feast of Saint Lucy, while Geminianus appears to be merely fictitious; Eustace and Companions, 20 September, deleted: the Passion of Saint Eustace is completely fabulou; Linus, 23 September, deleted: his day of death is unknown and he seems not to be a martyr; Cyprian and Justina, 26 September, deleted: fictitious characters; Placid and Companions, 5 October, added in 1588, deleted: it is agreed that Saint Placidus, the disciple of Saint Benedict, is distinct from this unknown Sicilian martyr; Sergius, 8 October, deleted: devotion to him is not part of Roman tradition; Marcellus, 8 October, deleted: devotion to him is not part of Roman tradition; Bacchus and Apuleius, 8 October, deleted: the Life of each is completely fabulous; Ursula and Companions, 21 October, deleted: their Passion is completely fabulous; not even the names of the virgin saints killed at Cologne at an uncertain time are known; Ursula and Companions, 21 October, deleted: their Passion is completely fabulous; not even the names of the virgin saints killed at Cologne at an uncertain time are known; Tryphon, Respicius, and Nympha, 10 November, deleted: nothing is known of these martyrs, none of whom was of Rome; Catherine, 25 November, deleted: the Passion of Saint Catherine is entirely fabulous and nothing certain can be stated about her; Barbara, 4 December, deleted: her Acts are completely fabulous and there is much disagreement among scholars about where she was martyred.
Anglican Church edit
On 16 Nov. 1538 Henry VIII issued a proclamation declaring that ’ all images and pictures of Thomas Becket were to be ‘put down,’ and all mention of him in calendar and service book to be erased[20].
In 1966, the Anglican Church was excluded from the books of locally revered saints Hugh Lincoln[21]
Challenging the possibility of decanonization edit
There is a group of people who consider the term «decanonization» to be incorrect, as a rule these are persons affiliated with religious structures. They believe that the saints still remain in Heaven. They reject the very possibility of decanonization. They regard canonization as an infallible act that cannot be corrected.[22][23][24][25]
References edit
- ^ Walter William Skeat. An etymological dictionary of the English language. Oxford /England : Clarendon Press / de- (prefix) — p. 154.
- ^ История канонизации святых в русской церкви / Голубинский Е. Е., заслуж. орд. проф. Моск. духовной акад. — 2-е изд., испр. и доп. — Москва : Имп. О-во истории и древностей рос. при Моск. ун-те, 1903. — 600 с. — С. 11.
- ^ Ткачев Е. В. Канонизация. Православная энциклопедия. — М. : Церковно-научный центр «Православная энциклопедия», 2012. — Т. XXX. — С. 269—359. — ISBN 978-5-89572-031-8
- ^ CANON // Catholic Encyclopedia, Т. 3; 1913. — С. 255—256. — The name Canon (κανών) means a norm or rule; and it is used for various objects, such as the Canon of Holy Scripture, canons of Councils, the official list of saints' names (whence "canonization"), and the canon or list of clerks who serve a certain church, from which they themselves are called canons (canonici).
- ^ Canonization Christianity // Encyclopædia Britannica — Canonization, official act of a Christian communion — mainly the Roman Catholic Church but also the Eastern Orthodox Church — declaring one of its deceased members worthy of public cult and entering his or her name in the canon, or authorized list, of that communion’s recognized saints.
- ^ James A. H. Murray. A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles: Founded Mainly on the Materials Collected by the Philological Society. Volume II: C (1893)./ p. 76 — Canonization — The action of canonizing ; esp. formal admission into the calendar of saints.
- ^ Religion and the Early Modern State Views from China, Russia, and the West./ James D. Tracy, Marguerite Ragnow. 2004 / p. 277
- ^ Summon's Miscellany of Saints and Sinners// Parminder Summon / 2005 / p. 37
- ^ Packy Jim Folklore and Worldview on the Irish Border / Ray Cashman. 2016 / p. 182
- ^ Afterlives of the Saints. Stories from the Ends of Faith / Colin Dickey. 2012
- ^ Making martyrs East & West : canonization in the Catholic and Russian Orthodox churches / Cathy Caridi. - DeKalb, Ill. : NIU press, cop. 2016 / p. 135
- ^ The Oxford Dictionary of Saints, Fifth Edition Revised / David Farmer, David Hugh Farmer. 2011 / p. xvi
- ^ Richard Utz. The Medieval Myth of Jewish Ritual Murder: Toward a History of Literary Reception // Edited by Gwendolyn Morgan The Year’s Work in Medievalism. — BOZEMAN, MONTANA: Montana State University, 1999. — Vol. XIV. — p. 22—42.
- ^ Глеб Чистяков: Борьба за святость // ПОЛИТ.РУ, 12 февраля 2013 года
- ^ Глеб Чистяков: Борьба за святость // ПОЛИТ.РУ, 12 февраля 2013 года
- ^ Karin Hyldal Christensen. Review THE MAKING OF THE NEW MARTYRS OF RUSSIA Soviet Repression in Orthodox Memory. International Journal of Orthodox Theology 9:1 (2018) / Routledge, 2017
- ^ Memory Politics and the Russian Civil War Reds Versus Whites / Marlene Laruelle, Margarita Karnysheva. 2020
- ^ В. Кураев. Деканонизация: горькая правда
- ^ Kohl, Jeanette (2018). "A Murder, a Mummy, and a Bust: The Newly Discovered Portrait of Simon of Trent at the Getty". Getty Research Journal. 10 (10). Getty Research Institute: 37–60. doi:10.1086/697383. ISBN 978-1-60606-571-6. S2CID 192405280 – via Google Books.
- ^ Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Thomas à Becket
- ^ Richard Utz. The Medieval Myth of Jewish Ritual Murder: Toward a History of Literary Reception // Edited by Gwendolyn Morgan The Year’s Work in Medievalism. — BOZEMAN, MONTANA: Montana State University, 1999. — Vol. XIV. — p. 22—42.
- ^ The Comprehensive Dictionary of Patron Saints / Pablo Ricardo Quintana. 2014 / p. XXV
- ^ Truth Is a Synthesis: Catholic Dogmatic Theology / Mauro Gagliardi. 2020 / p.
- ^ The Everything Catholicism Book / Helen Keeler, Susan Grimbly. 2003
- ^ Протоиерей Владислав Цыпин: В канонах нет даже слова «деканонизация» | Православие и мир
Category:Canonization Category:Christian practices Category:Christian saints Category:Christian terminology Category:Posthumous recognitions