Philotheos Kokkinos"™s hypomnÄ“ma on Saint Nikodemos the Younger (BHG 2307)

Philotheos Kokkinos was one of the most prolific late-Byzantine hagiographers, who eulogized saints of old, as well as contemporaneous holy figures. He dedicated the first among his vitae of contemporaneous saints to the little-known holy man Nikodemos the Younger from the Philokalles monastery in Thessalonike. While superior of this monastery, Kokkinos gathered information about the holy man"™s life and arranged it into the form of a short vita, titled hypomnÄ“ma (BHG 2307). This article analyzes the ways in which Kokkinos constructed an identity in narrative form for Nikodemos, exploring elements of holy foolery, hesychast influences, the miracle accounts weaved into the narrative, as well as its intended audience. Keywords: Philotheos Kokkinos, late Byzantium, hagiography, hesychasm, hypomnÄ“ma, narrative structure, Nikodemos the Younger, holy fool, miracle

INTRODUCTION

The Holy Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church dedicated the year 2022 to the importance of prayer in the life of Christians and to the commemoration of three renowned hesychast saints, St. Symeon the New Theologian, St. Gregory Palamas, and St. Paisius Velichkovsky of Neamț. In this context, the present special issue, Hesychasm: Theology and Praxis from Late Byzantium to Modernity, gathers contributions on topics related to hesychast prayer and the Hesychast Controversy of the fourteenth-century. The papers here included cover a wide range of themes, from the thirteenth-century debates on the Filioque to the practice of watchfulness, attention, and the Jesus Prayer in modern society. The authors are leading specialists in the fields of theology, philosophy, and history, both ecclesiastics and laymen

A Late-Byzantine hagiographer: Philotheos Kokkinos and his Vitae of Contemporary Saints

This dissertation offers the first systematic historical contextualization and literary analysis of the five saints’ lives composed by Philotheos Kokkinos (ca. 1300–1378) for his contemporaries Nikodemos the Younger, Sabas the Younger, Isidore Boucheir, Germanos Maroules, and Gregory Palamas. Notwithstanding Kokkinos’ prominent role in the political and ecclesiastical scene of fourteenth-century Byzantium, as well as the size and significance of his hagiographic oeuvre, both the hagiographer and his saints’ lives have received surprisingly little scholarly attention. My dissertation fills this gap and shows Kokkinos as a gifted hagiographer who played a leading role, both through his ecclesiastical authority and hagiographic discourse, in orchestrating the societal breakthrough of hesychast theology that has remained at the core of Christian Orthodoxy up to this day. The dissertation is structured in three parts. The first, Philotheos Kokkinos and His OEuvre, offers an extensive biographical portrait of Kokkinos, introduces his literary oeuvre, and discusses its manuscript tradition. A thorough palaeographical investigation of fourteenth-century codices carrying his writings reveals Kokkinos’ active involvement in the process of copying, reviewing, and publishing his own works. This section includes an analysis of the “author’s edition” manuscript Marcianus graecus 582, and presents its unusual fate. Moreover, Part I establishes the chronology of Kokkinos’ vitae of contemporary saints and offers biographical sketches of his heroes, highlighting their relationship to their hagiographer. The second part, Narratological Analysis of Kokkinos’ Vitae of Contemporary Saints, constitutes the first comprehensive analysis of Kokkinos’ narrative technique. It first discusses the types of hagiographic composition (‘hagiographic genre’) Kokkinos employed for his saints’ lives (hypomnema, bios kai politeia, and logos), and then it offers a detailed investigation that sheds light on the organization of the narrative in Kokkinos’ vitae and his use of specific narrative devices. This includes a discussion of hesychastic elements couched in the narrative. Part II concludes with considerations on Kokkinos’ style and intended audience. The third part, Saints and Society, begins with a detailed quantitative and qualitative analysis of the miracle accounts Kokkinos wove in his saints’ lives. This considers the miracle typology, types of afflictions, methods of healing, and the demographic characteristics of the beneficiaries (such as age, gender, and social status), revealing that Kokkinos shows a predilection for including miracles for members of the aristocracy. Second, it presents Kokkinos’ view on the relationship between the imperial office and ecclesiastical authority by analysing how he portrays the emperor(s) in his vitae. Moreover, this part addresses the saints’ encounters with the “other” (Muslims and Latins), revealing Kokkinos’ nuanced understanding of the threats and opportunities raised by these interactions. Finally, it makes the claim that through his saints’ lives Kokkinos offers models of identification and refuge in the troubled social and political context of fourteenth-century Byzantium, promoting a spiritual revival of society. As my dissertation shows, Kokkinos’ vitae of contemporary saints sought to shape and were shaped by the political and theological disputes of fourteenth-century Byzantium, especially those surrounding hesychasm. Their analysis offers insights into the thought-world of their author and sheds more light on the late-Byzantine religious and cultural context of their production. The dissertation is equipped with six technical appendices presenting the chronology of Kokkinos’ life and works, the narrative structure of his vitae of contemporary saints, a critical edition of the preface of his hitherto unedited Logos on All Saints (BHG 1617g), a transcription of two hitherto unedited prayers Kokkinos addressed to the emperors, the content of Marc. gr. 582 and Kokkinos’ autograph interventions, and manuscript plates

HYDROCARBON TRAP TYPES ON THE BLACK SEA OFFSHORE ROMANIA

The first oil discovery from Romanian Black Sea area was in 1987, relatively late compared with the first successful Romanian onshore well, more than 100 years earlier. Starting from that moment and continuing till recent years, several discoveries were done; some are already put into production and some others are still in the exploration phase. In order to extract as much oil as possible and also to define new hydrocarbon reservoirs, it is mandatory to have a proper understanding of the petroleum systems from the area. A petroleum system is represented by all the elements (source rock, reservoir rock, seal and trap), together with the processes (generation, migration, accumulation and preservation) which together lead to a hydrocarbon accumulation. Because the Black Sea basin has a complex geology, with combined tectonic regime, extensional at the opening of the basin converted to compressional regime in the later stages, and also with different stratigraphic features, the resulted traps are structural, stratigraphic or combined, with different characteristics. The purpose of this article is to analyze the traps which were identified in the Romanian Black Sea area, both in shallow and deep water zones, to classify them and understand how were formed. This aspect has a big impact in the grasp of the reservoir extensions as well as in identifying the best place for drilling of new wells. </jats:p

The Petroleum Systems from the Western Black Sea Basin, Romania

Although oil production has a long history in Romania, the offshore discoveries from the Western part of the Black Sea are still relatively newly developed and with further potential to be revealed. To find the best places for new wells, as well as making new oil field discoveries, it is very important to understand the petroleum system of the area. If the elements of the petroleum system are well understood, then the potential of the Black Sea will become bigger, as the complexity of the area will be acknowledged. Two major petroleum systems were discovered in the area, the thermogenic system, and the biogenic system. The thermogenic system is corresponding to the shallow area of the Black Sea, where current productive fields are, while the biogenic system is corresponding to the deeper area, currently being in the exploration stage. The purpose of this article is to present both petroleum systems from the Black Sea Romania, their elements, the evolution they had, and the major differences between the two.</jats:p

The Petroleum Systems from the Western Black Sea Basin, Romania

Although oil production has a long history in Romania, the offshore discoveries from the Western part of the Black Sea are still relatively newly developed and with further potential to be revealed. To find the best places for new wells, as well as making new oil field discoveries, it is very important to understand the petroleum system of the area. If the elements of the petroleum system are well understood, then the potential of the Black Sea will become bigger, as the complexity of the area will be acknowledged. Two major petroleum systems were discovered in the area, the thermogenic system, and the biogenic system. The thermogenic system is corresponding to the shallow area of the Black Sea, where current productive fields are, while the biogenic system is corresponding to the deeper area, currently being in the exploration stage. The purpose of this article is to present both petroleum systems from the Black Sea Romania, their elements, the evolution they had, and the major differences between the two

The role of the complex textural microstructure co-occurrence matrices, based on Laws’ features, in the characterization and recognition of some pathological structures, from ultrasound images

The non-invasive diagnosis, based on ultrasound images, is a challenge in nowadays research. We develop computerized, texture-based methods, for automatic and computer assisted diagnosis, using the information obtained from ultrasound images. In this work, we defined the co-occurrence matrix of complex textural microstructures determined by using the Laws’ convolution filters and we experimented it in order to perform the characterization and recognition of some important anatomical and pathological structures, within ultrasound images. These structures were the colorectal tumors and the gingival sulcus, the properties of the latter being important concerning the diagnosis and monitoring of the periodontal disease. We determined the textural model of these structures, using the classical and the newly defined textural features. For the automatic recognition, we used powerful classifiers, such as the Multilayer Perceptron, the Support-Vector Machines, decision-trees based classifiers such as Random Forest and C4.5, respectively AdaBoost in combination with the C4.5 algorithm