Reassessing the Holy Reich: leading Nazis' views on confession, community and 'Jewish' materialism

 Returning to the Journal of Contemporary History debate on The Holy Reich, this article argues that the notion of 'positive Christianity' as  Nazi 'religious system' has been largely invented. It offers a close analysis of significant public statements on National socialism by three leading Nazis: Adolf Hitler, Gottfried Feder and Alfred Rosenberg.

Sveta Bogorodica (The Church of the Holy Mother), Zavoj, Macedonia : writing about an insignificant vernacular building

Sveta Bogorodica (Church of the Holy Mother), Zavoj, is a small church built in 1934 in a village in the Republic of Macedonia. It presented a quintessential architectural division between a richly ornamented interior and a pure white formal exterior. The paper will examine the question of tradition in relation to architecture. What of the formal Byzantine architectural tradition is inherited in this folk vernacular church building? Secondly, tradition as an inherited liturgical ritual and ceremony. How are these two forms of tradition autonomous or intertwined, and how the question about transcendence in architecture pursued in the 2005 paper on Hagia Sofia might be understood within the parameters offered by this church building, will be explored in the paper .

The holy grail : the search for the optimal gaar

The sustainability of a taxation system relies in part in reducing effective tax avoidance as far as is possible. Tax avoidance impacts on the economy both because it results in revenue loss and because it diverts people into devising, marketing and implementing avoidance arrangements, rather than engaging in economically productive activities. Revenue losses in turn weaken the government's ability to formulate and implement fiscal policies. Moreover, the very integrity of a tax system, necessary for its long-term sustainability, is attacked by tax avoidance. The goal of equity is undermined by tax avoidance as typically these schemes are accessed by the wealthy. Thus, tax avoidance results in an unfair shift in the tax burden to the less wealthy in society. As one commentator recently noted, combating 'tax avoidance ... will serve to lessen the overall burden on all taxpayers'. Further, legislative responses to tax avoidance increase the complexity of a taxation scheme. Tax avoidance schemes also undermine the neutrality of a taxation system by distorting trade and investment decisions. Thus, tax avoidance attacks every aspect of a fair, and hence, sustainable, taxation system.

Sacred time after emigration : a study of the Holy Mother Festival in Zavoj

In Zavoj, a mountainous village in the Republic of Macedonia, the Day of the Holy Mother is the most significant day in the village's ritual calendar. The Day of the Holy Mother, like other holy days associated with saints, is a religious festival in the Eastern Orthodox liturgical calendar; and Zavoj, like other villages, identifies with a particular holy day, in this case that of the Holy Mother. Festival is historically and etymologically linked to feast, a celebration in honour of gods, and the Day of the Holy Mother, like the two principal feasts in the Christian calendar, the Feast of Nativity of our Lord (Christmas) and the Feast of Resurrection (Easter), is a religious celebration that includes a feast in honour of the saint, traditionally as a breaking of a fast. Importantly, many Zavoj emigrants return to the village for the festival on the Day of the Holy Mother. Over recent years both village and the festival have been transformed, due to large and continuing emigration and the demise of the resident peasant generation. This chapter will examine the changes in the festival, comparing that of 1988, when the village was inhabited, with that of 2007, when there were only a few people resident and by which time many of the peasant generation had passed on. As a result of emigration the village is emptied of its inhabitants, yet it remains the site of, and destination for, the continuity of the annual festival.

'Scott's aired a couple of things' : back to back theatre rehearse Ganesh versus the third Reich

 This chapter tracks the creation of Back to Back Theatre’s 2011 performance, Ganesh Versus the Third Reich, based on first-hand observation of the final stages in devising and refining the work. Ganesh traces two parallel narrative strands – that of an imagined journey of the Hindu God into the dark heart of Nazi Germany to reclaim the sacred Hindu symbol of the swastika, and the narrative which constantly threatens to engulf the Ganesh story – the fraught relations between a group of disabled artists and their non-disabled director as they negotiate the process of making the work.

The focus of this chapter is the development of a single scene from the performance work, Ganesh Versus the Third Reich, tracing it’s evolution through periods of creative development and rehearsal. The stark contrast between the working practices observed on the studio floor and the brutally knowing and parodic representation of power relations in rehearsal seen in the performance work testifies to the peculiar and productive self-reflexivity that generates the work of Back To Back Theatre. An account and analysis of both real and fictional rehearsals reveal how Back to Back’s creative processes position members of the ensemble “perceived to have intellectual disabilities” as entirely legitimate professional artists, while claiming the authority of ‘outsider artists’ to challenge perceptions and representations of disability.

Were the National Socialists a Völkisch Party? Paganism, Christianity, and the Nazi christmas

A trend in studies about National Socialism and religion in recent years argues for a deliberate distinction between the Nazi Party (NSDAP) and the antisemitic völkisch movement of nineteenth-century Germany. This article challenges that contention. Several researchers have published comprehensive studies on the heterogeneous nature of Christian responses to the Nazis, but a comparable approach looking at how the Nazis viewed religion has not yet been undertaken. A study of the latter type is certainly necessary, given that one of the consistent features of the völkisch movement was its diversity. As Roger Griffin has argued, a “striking feature of the sub-culture . . . was just how prolific and variegated it was . . . [T]he only denominator common to all was the myth of national rebirth.” In short, the völkisch movement contained a colorful, varied, and often bewildering range of religious beliefs.

The international legal status of the Vatican/Holy See complex

This article offers a re-examination of the international legal status of what is here termed the Vatican/Holy See complex (VHS), focusing on claims to statehood. The problematic ‘effect’ of Vatican City, of the Holy See, of the papacy and of associated entities is interrogated at the level of international law, entering as little as possible into administrative or theological distinctions. The various grounds cited as supporting status amounting to statehood are argued to be inadequate. The continuing exchange of representatives with states by the VHS is missionary and hierarchical in character and is reflective neither of the reciprocity of peers nor of customary obligation going to law. Agreements entered into by the papacy with the Kingdom of Italy (the Lateran Pacts) in 1929, relating to the status of the geographical territory known as Vatican City, cannot be determinative of international status. Nor can membership of international agreements and organizations confer a status amounting to statehood. Events and practices since 1929 have not substantially altered international status as of 1870. The Roman Catholic Church is but one of many faith-based international movements, and since the eclipse of the papal state nearly one-and-a-half centuries ago, the status in international law of its temporal headquarters in Rome should not be privileged.

Becoming children : the hidden meaning of the incarnation

This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.

But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, "Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.

All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: "The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel“ – which means, "God with us."

When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. But he had no union with her until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus.

Matthew 1:18-25 (NIV)

In the Syrian taste : crusader churches in the Latin East as architectural expressions of orthodoxy

This paper explores how the architectural expression of orthodoxy in the Eastern churches was transferred to Europe before the Crusades and then reinforced through the Crusaders’ adoption of the triple-apsed east end “in the Syrian Taste” in the Holy Land. Previously, I have shown how it can be deduced from the archaeological remains of churches from the 4th-6th C that early church architecture was influenced by the theological ideas of the
period. It is proposed that the Eastern orthodox approach to church
architecture as adopted by the Crusaders paralleled the evolution of medieval theology in Europe and can be seen as its legitimate expression.

A cultural battlefront in the total war : theatre in Australian internment camps

In 1943, at the Berlin Sportspalast, Joseph Goebbels made his infamous speech on 'total war', appealing to the crowd to represent Germany as a nation and asking them whether they wanted a war 'more total and radical' than had been previously imagined. In Australia in 1944, the idea of this 'total war' struck a resonance with German civilians interned in Tatura, Victoria. Writing to protest a planned release of internees, these Camp 3 internees claimed an involvement in the 'total war', arguing that any release from the camp would necessitate working towards the 'total destruction of the political, economical and cultural existence of the German Reich and the German nation.' A curious, and important, part of their argument was that such a release would mean that their 'cultural life would be endangered.' It is precisely this 'cultural life' within internment that I wish to examine in this paper.