https://journals.phil.muni.cz/religio/issue/feed 2026-06-30T00:00:00+02:00 Kamila Klingorová & Andrea Beláňová religio@phil.muni.cz Open Journal Systems https://journals.phil.muni.cz/religio/article/view/43748 2026-03-25T13:07:04+01:00 Iveta Nakládalová email@journals.phil.muni.cz Jana Valtrová email@journals.phil.muni.cz 2026-06-30T00:00:00+02:00 Copyright © https://journals.phil.muni.cz/religio/article/view/43050 2026-02-05T12:50:19+01:00 Jana Valtrová email@journals.phil.muni.cz

The paper analyzes perspectives on martyrdom in Franciscan letters and accounts regarding Christian missions in Asia during the 13th and 14th centuries. The accounts include, among others, those of William of Rubruck, John of Plano Carpini, John of Montecorvino, Andrew of Perugia, and Pascal of Vittoria. The aim of this analysis is to explore the authors' views on the martyrdom of their fellow friars but also on martyrdom as a potential and/or desirable part of their own mission. The paper points out a variety of attitudes to martyrdom, ranging from an explicit desire to silent rejection, and considers the discourses of memories of martyr death around medieval Asia, outside the regions under direct Muslim rule.

2026-06-30T00:00:00+02:00 Copyright © https://journals.phil.muni.cz/religio/article/view/43232 2026-03-02T10:43:17+01:00 Iveta Nakládalová email@journals.phil.muni.cz

Early modern missionary writings — relationes, letters, reports, and their later reworkings — often voice a desire for martyrdom. These ardent wishes to end one's life on the gallows, as one missionary candidate stated in 1640, appear frequently in the indipetae letters and in accounts of martyrdom and other missionary texts. How should contemporary scholarship approach such expressions of desire? Are they merely rhetorical formulas, devoid of substantive meaning, or instances of religious propaganda intended to edify European audiences and promote evangelization in the Indies? And how should we understand the tension between the exalted ideal of martyrdom, on the one hand, and the lived experience of suffering, on the other? This paper examines the desire for martyrdom from a broader perspective, moving beyond both strict historiographical detachment and reductive interpretations in terms of propaganda. It focuses on late sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Franciscan and Jesuit accounts from the Japanese and Chinese missions.

2026-06-30T00:00:00+02:00 Copyright © https://journals.phil.muni.cz/religio/article/view/43108 2026-02-11T18:16:46+01:00 Alexandre Coello de la Rosa email@journals.phil.muni.cz

In the mid-sixteenth century, individual and compiled martyrologies — consumed chiefly for edifying purposes—represented the culmination of the Roman Catholic culture of martyrdom that had taken shape in the final decades of the sixteenth century and was popularized through images of suffering and piety conveyed by their protagonists. This paper examines Societas Jesu usque ad sanguinis et vitae profusionem militans in Europa, Africa, Asia et America (Prague, 1675) by Father Matthias Tanner (1630–1692), an illustrated work presenting the martyrs of the Jesuit order on each continent (except Oceania). Following the global vision of martyrdom proposed by the Bohemian provincial, I seek to illuminate the communicative and iconographic system underlying the universalist project of the Society of Jesus, with particular attention to the martyrs of the southern islands of the Philippines.

2026-06-30T00:00:00+02:00 Copyright © https://journals.phil.muni.cz/religio/article/view/43664 2026-03-13T11:43:42+01:00 Marina Torres Trimállez email@journals.phil.muni.cz Anna Busquets Alemany email@journals.phil.muni.cz

This article examines the martyrial memory of Francisco Fernández de Capillas, the proto-martyr of China, through the works of Fernando Calva (1787) and Joaquín Recoder (1909). Beyond devotional biographies, these texts shaped a model of Christian virtue and served as tools of legitimacy for the Dominican mission in China. The analysis reveals continuities — such as hagiographical exaltation and imitatio Christi — and differences: Calva stresses spiritual edification, while Recoder, within the beatification process, highlights historical and canonical authority. The trajectory of this memory, culminating in Capillas's beatification in 1909 and canonization in 2000, shows how his martyrdom became a symbolic resource within the transnational narrative of modern Catholicism.

2026-06-30T00:00:00+02:00 Copyright © https://journals.phil.muni.cz/religio/article/view/43272 2026-03-05T10:10:14+01:00 Hitomi Omata Rappo email@journals.phil.muni.cz

The image of Japan as a "land of martyrs" took shape in early modern Europe through missionary accounts, relics, visual art, and theatrical performance, without ever forming part of Japan's own historical self-understanding during the centuries of its isolation. This article traces how this European construction was subsequently received, adapted, and appropriated within Japan itself from the mid-nineteenth century onward. Drawing on publications such as the Senketsu isho (1887) and the writings of Matsuzaki Minoru and Nitobe Inazō, it demonstrates that Japanese intellectuals did not passively inherit these images but actively reshaped them, fusing Christian martyrdom with concepts of national identity such as Yamato-damashii and Bushidō. The article further examines how martyrdom discourse intersected with post-war memory politics, particularly in Nagasaki, contributing to what has been termed "Victimhood Nationalism." It argues that the history of Japanese martyrdom cannot be understood within church history alone but must be situated at the intersection of European image-making, Japanese national identity, and the politics of memory.

2026-06-30T00:00:00+02:00 Copyright © https://journals.phil.muni.cz/religio/article/view/43047 2026-02-05T11:33:24+01:00 Jaime González-Bolado email@journals.phil.muni.cz

This article explores the creation and dissemination of an idealized portrayal of the Japanese in 16th-century Jesuit writings. Led by Alessandro Valignano, the members of the Society of Jesus depicted the Japanese as a sophisticated, rational, courteous, and virtuous people, who were ideal candidates for conversion to Christianity. This idealized portrayal, primarily shaped through a systematic comparative process, positioned the Japanese favorably relative to other Asian nations and, in certain aspects, to European culture. However, the private correspondence of the Jesuits reveals a more nuanced and critical view of the Japanese, exposing a clear divergence between public and private discourses within the Ignatian order. By examining an extensive catalog of Jesuit texts intended for public dissemination and comparing them with a selection of personal opinions conveyed through the private writings of certain missionaries, the article sheds light on an overlooked aspect of Jesuit textual production and the broader implications this had on the Jesuit mission in Japan, as well as its role in shaping early European perceptions of this country and its people.

2026-06-30T00:00:00+02:00 Copyright © https://journals.phil.muni.cz/religio/article/view/42775 2026-01-08T10:00:15+01:00 Bahdan Serdziuk email@journals.phil.muni.cz

This article examines the boundaries of the "official church" through the lens of the lived religion concept using qualitative fieldwork conducted in the Belarusian Orthodox Prošča monastery. The study is based on an anthropological methodology: semi-structured interviews and participant observation, as well as analysis of documents and materials. The main goal is to trace, through the lens of local narratives, how clergy, pilgrims and local residents emically define and negotiate these boundaries in their religious lives. The results show that the concept of the "official church" or "official religion" is indeed important for believers, but it is also highly fluid and context-dependent. This study challenges established dichotomies between "official" and "folk" religion, demonstrating that the boundaries of the "official" are negotiated and redefined in practice, rather than being determined solely by theological doctrine or academic consensus. The study once again highlights the value of an emic perspective, where religion is understood through the lived experience of believers, rather than through imposed analytical categories.

2026-06-30T00:00:00+02:00 Copyright © https://journals.phil.muni.cz/religio/article/view/44092 2026-05-04T10:46:07+02:00 Luboš Bělka email@journals.phil.muni.cz Tomáš Bubík email@journals.phil.muni.cz Dušan Lužný email@journals.phil.muni.cz Miloš Mrázek email@journals.phil.muni.cz Dalibor Papoušek email@journals.phil.muni.cz Jitka Schlichtsová email@journals.phil.muni.cz Jan Sušer email@journals.phil.muni.cz Zdeněk Vojtíšek email@journals.phil.muni.cz 2026-07-21T00:00:00+02:00 Copyright © 2026 Religio https://journals.phil.muni.cz/religio/article/view/44029 2026-04-28T13:44:28+02:00 Matouš Mokrý email@journals.phil.muni.cz 2026-07-21T00:00:00+02:00 Copyright © 2026 Religio https://journals.phil.muni.cz/religio/article/view/44024 2026-04-28T13:32:20+02:00 Martin Klapetek email@journals.phil.muni.cz 2026-07-21T00:00:00+02:00 Copyright © 2026 Religio https://journals.phil.muni.cz/religio/article/view/44026 2026-04-28T13:39:47+02:00 Márk Nemes email@journals.phil.muni.cz 2026-07-21T00:00:00+02:00 Copyright © 2026 Religio https://journals.phil.muni.cz/religio/article/view/44028 2026-04-28T13:42:47+02:00 Zdeněk Vojtíšek email@journals.phil.muni.cz 2026-07-21T00:00:00+02:00 Copyright © 2026 Religio https://journals.phil.muni.cz/religio/article/view/44025 2026-04-28T13:35:32+02:00 Radim Byrtus email@journals.phil.muni.cz 2026-07-21T00:00:00+02:00 Copyright © 2026 Religio https://journals.phil.muni.cz/religio/article/view/44027 2026-04-28T13:41:11+02:00 Jitka Schlichtsová email@journals.phil.muni.cz 2026-07-21T00:00:00+02:00 Copyright © 2026 Religio https://journals.phil.muni.cz/religio/article/view/43797 2026-03-31T10:52:38+02:00 Miloš David email@journals.phil.muni.cz 2026-06-30T00:00:00+02:00 Copyright © 2026 Religio https://journals.phil.muni.cz/religio/article/view/44030 2026-04-28T13:46:00+02:00 Ondřej Pazdírek email@journals.phil.muni.cz 2026-07-21T00:00:00+02:00 Copyright © 2026 Religio