Crucified

The tragic war in Syria along with the plight of the Christians there remains among the most misunderstood situations in the world today. Syria Crucified seeks to contribute to better understanding in the West by giving a voice to individual Syrian Christians living in exile from their homeland. These men and women have undergone horrific trauma and loss without losing their faith in God or the ability to forgive their persecutors. Their first-person accounts, framed by the authors' narration for historical, cultural, and geopolitical context, are both edifying and inspiring.

The book is an anthropological study of a phenomenon observed within the range of contemporary Polish Catholic religiosity. The Crucified focuses on two fundamental issues: passion plays and performance theory. It presents an analysis of material collected during five years of field research, which sheds light on the varied world of religious performances. The phenomenon of passion plays is extremely complex and to some extent heterogeneous, hence its in-depth analysis reveals much not only about its own nature, but also about the entire modern religiosity. As a result, the book is constructed in such a way as to focus on a single phenomenon, but with conclusions extending to a much wider range of contemporary religious practices. The book reveals the need for self-expression of one’s own attitudes observable in contemporary spirituality, as well as the increasing participation of believers in the development of their religious life and thus in the formation of their own religious identity. All these processes are interpreted in terms of performance theory. Applying this approach makes it possible to capture the believers’ need for activity and creativity in the field of practices alternative to the liturgy.

The New Testament tells us that "one" man named Jesus was crucified betrayed by "one" man named Judas Iscariot, history tells a different story. It was the nation of Judea that was crucified, betrayed by a small band of Jewish Zealots that engaged in all manner of rebellious terror and murder against Roman soldiers as well as against their own people in order to provoke war with Rome. Rome did not tolerate sedition and rooted it out wherever it found it, often with dire consequences for many that lived in the towns that the Zealots imbedded themselves. When Titus' (a future Roman Emperor) failed at his many attempts for a peace treaty between Rome and the Zealots, his tolerance for compromise ended; and he unleashed hell itself on the people of Jerusalem.

Through hymns, poems, and the lens of personal experience, a leading spiritual director and author takes a thoughtful, in-depth look at the Cross as a focal point for theology, spirituality, Christian symbolism, and discipleship, providing a probing and disturbing resource for group study during Lent.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1866.