WOMEN AND RELIGIONS: PORTRAITS, ORGANISATIONS, DEBATES

mother superior of a women's monastic congregation established as an abbey; feminine form of abbot.

a set of eight treatises on Early Christian discipline, worship, and doctrine, intended to serve as a manual of guidance for the clergy, and to some extent for the laity.

One of the major types of ecclesiastical document issued by the Pope or in his name and addressed either to a church leader or a category of believers. The object is to acquaint its recipients with an orientation or teaching affecting them. It has no universal bearing but remains an “open letter”.

European Society of Women in Theological Research (ESWTR): network of female academics in the field of theology or religious sciences founded in 1986. They publish the yearly Journal of the European Society of Women in Theological Research, organise encounters at regional and national level as well as a European conference every other year

“A [5 to 15] school for Jewish children in which Hebrew and religious knowledge are taught.” (OED) prior to the yeshiva where the Torah and Talmud were studied – traditionally only by men.

called at Constantinople in 692 by Emperor Justinian II, it was held under the cupola (trullos) of the Imperial Palace. Eastern Christianity counted it an Ecumenical Council – or more precisely as a complement to the 2nd and 3rd Ecumenical Councils of Constantinople (553 and 680-681), intended to complement disciplinary canons.

called by Paul III and closed by Pius IV, the Council of Trent was at the heart of the Catholic Reformation. The council officially opened on 13 December 1545 in Trent in today's Italian Alps and ended on 4 December 1563. This council is considered one of the most important in the history of Catholicism.

On 11 October 1962, Pope John XXIII opened in Rome the Second Ecumenical Vatican Council. The council closed in 1965 under Paul VI's reign; it was a major event with far-reaching proposals. In many people's eyes, it represented the opening of the Church to 20th century material and cultural transformations.

This grand gathering of the bishops of the Catholic Church programmed what has been known as its “aggiornamento”, its modernisation, be it in terms of liturgy, or in its thinking about its relation to the world.

principle of a philosophical, political or religious doctrine held undisputable and unalterable. The International Theological Commission (1990) defines the term dogma as a “a teaching in which the Church proposes a revealed truth definitively, and in a way that is binding for the universal Church”

from the Greek ἐκκλησία ekklēsia, meaning assembly, this term has yielded the word for church in Latin and in French. Vatican texts thus speak of the “assembly” of the faithful

the set of rules and prescriptions directing Christians in their efforts to lead a life in keeping with his faith commitments. An aggregate of laws and directions given by the Church to the faithful for their conduct both private and public, they are intended to maintain the standards of the Church to a watching world.

movements towards Christian unity and the cooperation between the diverse Christian churches. Ecumenism was a Protestant concern as early as the 19th century. Originally restricted to the Reformed churches, it came to mean a drawing together of the diverse Christian confessions at the beginning of the 20th century and brought the World Council of Churches (WCC) into being in1948. Though originally condemned by the Catholic Church ((Mortalium Animos, 1928), Vatican II finally sealed Catholic opening to ecumenism through the Decree on Ecumenism which acknowledges the Christian essence of Protestantism and encourages an on-going dialogue.

kind of letter concerning Catholic doctrine, sent by the Pope and usually addressed especially to patriarchs, primates, archbishops and bishops who are in communion with the Holy See. It develops the Church's position on a specific issue.

In linguistics an adjective used to describe a word that remains the same whether it refers to a masculine of feminine object

the US branch of the Anglican communion (born of the English Reform of the 16th century)

Legal opinion based on Sharia law principles. It is, as a rule, rendered in answer to a question relating to faith or Muslim practice asked by a person, a group or a judge. It is a kind of Islamic case law

Sizeable assembly of Bishops and abbots convoked by Callistus II in the Basilca of St John Lateran from 18 March to 11 April 1123 during which the concordat of Worms was ratified (1122) and canons forbidding Simony and priest's concubinage were promulgated.

concept used in the social sciences to refer to the non-biological differences between men and women. Gender Studies look into the unequal treatment of women and men, positing social, economical, cultural and political factors rather than biological ones.

This word does not in the Quran refer to women's clothing, but rather to a spatial partition or curtain. It may have the literal sense of screen (as separating Muhammad's wives from the visitors to his house - 33:53), while in other cases the word denotes separation between deity and mortals (42:51), wrongdoers and righteous etc...

exegetic approach that harnesses the range of scientific erudition in the study of the stages leading to the formation of the Biblical text, its historical conditions of production as well as the historicity of the events mentioned therein.

according to Christian theology, the bible is inspired by God, meaning that the Holy Spirit guided its writing

Muslim “reformism”. Its champions call for the return to what they deem an ”authentic” Islam while at the same time considering possible convergences between the faith and modern concepts of citizenship, democracy and women's emancipation

the English translation of the Bible published in 1611.

the relatively new category of pastoral ministers in the Catholic Church designates those who serve the Church but are not ordained. Lay ecclesial ministers are co-workers with the bishop alongside priests and deacons.

born in the years following Vatican II it was developed among others by G. Gutierrez inTeologia de la Liberacion (1971) around an axiom adopted at the conference of Medellin (1968), namely the Church's “preferential option for the poor”. A key position is the idea of a salvation effected in history and the content of which can be expressed in terms of disappearance of social evils and the construction of a just society on earth to be achieved by the dismantlement of capitalism and the advent of a classless society.

the authority vested in the pope and all his bishops to establish the Church's moral teachings and articles of faith

the champions of the Haskalah, a movement defined as Jewish Enlightenment which appeared in the second half of the 18th century in Prussia before spreading out to the rest of Europe.

initiated by Rabbi Yaakov Culi in 1730,the Meam Loez is a commentary of the Torah in Ladino. Although it is not as specifically devised for women as the Tseno Ureno, the work has patently been placed in many women's hands.

Protestant Church that emerged in England in the 18th century. Its founder John Wesley (1703-1791) stresses the experience of personal conversion and sanctification, namely the manifestation the grace granted in conversion.

a specific compilation of texts, primarily from the first ten centuries, which represent after the Bible and the Talmud the third corpus of the Jewish religion. It includes stories (haggadah) and legal commentaries that do not appear in the above mentioned but by which the first millennium Jewish tradition set much authority

a minister of religion is a person authorized by a church to teach and preach in a local church. Ordained clergy in the Reformed churches.

lit. commandments; the rabbinic tradition finds in the Hebrew Bible and in the Talmud 613 commandments (negatives “Thou shalt not...” and positive “thou shalt...”) that practicing Jews must observe.

literally translates as awakening in Arabic . The term refers to a full range of reforms brought about in the political, literary, artistic, social and religious fields in the Arab Middle East in the second half of the 19th century as a result of contacts with Europe.

the set of books originally written in Greek essentially about Jesus the Christ, his life, his teaching, his death and resurrection.

Christian sub-group representing the majority of the Eastern Churches (Greece, Balkans, Russia, etc.). Orthodoxy does not acknowledge papal authority. It is made up of a number of self-governing churches that are either 'autocephalous' (i.e. having their own leader) or 'autonomous' (i.e. self-governing).

a solemn declaration by the Catholic Magisterium of the truths of faith.

Social and political organisation wherein power is exercised by men.

the sum of writings by writers the Christian churches acknowledge as “Fathers of the Church”, early centuries theologians who enjoy some authority. (see module 5).

Habitation du curé, du desservant de la paroisse, ou du pasteur, ainsi que des personnes qui l'entourent.

Set forth by theologian Carol P. Christ, it postulates an ethos of presence and interrelation that supposes a rationality where intuition, mindset, reason and emotion have their place along with the interaction between the researcher and the object or subject.

Carol P. Christ (1945): theologian who taught at Harvard Divinity School inter alia. In Laughter to Aphrodite : Reflexion on a Journey to the Goddess (1987), she develops a spirituality based on a female divinity, a cult of the goddess.

Western Christian subgroup resulting from the 16th century break with the Roman Church. The “Protestant” denomination applies to churches of vastly varied structures and theologies.

movement born in the middle of the 17th century in the wake of the Reformation. Its practice is austere, stressing inner transcendental experienced in shared silence. The Quakers (official title The society of Friends) have given themselves no hierarchy.

Practicing Jew whose scholarship and profound knowledge of the Torah entitle him to take decisions and render judgments regarding religious matters.

Major Western Christian subgroup whose name means “universal”, under the pope's leadership supported by the pontifical institutions in Rome.

scholastic theology was practiced throughout mediaeval western universities. First developed in the 11th century, it reached its zenith in the 13th century. It sought to frame Christian theology on the premises of Aristotelian philosophy

gathering held from 4 to 11 April1139 under Pope Innocent II. It was mostly concerned with disciplinary matters and clergy management whereupon the canons against clerical matrimony were restated.

the Christian church's hierarchy, from deacon to archbishop.

originally referring to the laying of the hands it is now understood as the ordination of Rabbis.

the Way or Path. By extension the word is understood as Sunni Islam's legal framework founded in four sources in the following hierarchical order:

1. Quran

2. The Sunnah of Muhammad (hadith)

3. Idjma: the consensus of Islam's early jurisconsults

4. Qiyas or deductive analogy whereby earlier rulings are adapted to new circumstances.

The term sharia id closely associated to the notion of fiqh, that is “a learned discussion on divine law”

name given to a market town or settlement with a mostly Jewish population.

a council that gathered, in what is now a sector of Granada in Spain, in 305 or 306, clergy come from diverse provinces of Hispana Beatica (19 bishops, 27 priests, deacons and some laity ). It addressed Church internal matters (clerical celibacy, penance, Christian behavior, response to paganism, etc.)

the acronym of Torah/Neviim/Ketouvim (teachings, prophets, writings), it refers via its three main components to the Hebrew Bible.

in theology, this term refers to the state of degradation that befalls Adam and Eve after the so-called “original sin” as told in the first chapters of Genesis (the Bible's first book).

the name given by feminist theologians to the anthropological theology developed mostly by John Paul II in Mulieris Dignitatem (1988) and the Letter to Women (1995) which propose a vision of the sexual difference as an essential complementarity between men and women wherein women have the specific vocation of being mothers and wives, for which they have developed specific characteristics such as their dispositions to care and to assist.

meaning instruction, teaching, its text includes the first five books of the Bible (Pentateuch in ancient Greek). Although it had long been thought to have been drafted by Moses, the Jewish mediaeval tradition had already noted some inconsistencies, notably his reporting on his own death.

Meaning “come and see” as in the invitation in the Song of Songs to the Daughters of Zion, the Tseno Ureno is a commentary of the Torah written in Yiddish by Rabbi Jacob ben Isaac Ashkenazi of Janów and published in 1618 – the first preserved edition is dated 1622 and printed in Hanau

(lit. righteousness) the Hebrew term referring to the principle of charity or alms giving.

the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is an agency of the United Nations (UN). Its mission is to contribute to peace, to fight against poverty, to advance sustainable development and cross-cultural dialogue.

political party the name of which means “delegation”. Its liberal and nationalist ideology rests on the saying “religion is for God and the fatherland is for all”. Its flag bears the crescent and the cross against a green background. It owes its name to the delegation formed in 1918 to negotiate Egypt's independence. Officially recognized in 1923, the party had as its primary object the immediate cessation of the British protectorate.

interdisciplinary academic field of English speaking feminist research the first courses of which were initiated in 1970-71 at San Diego State University and at Cornell University, thereafter to experience sustained growth

lit. splendour, the key work of the Jewish Kabbalah It is ascribed to Palestinian rabbi Simeon bar Yochai in the 2nd century and was rediscovered in Spain in the Middle Ages. It is more than likely the work of Moses de León, a 13th century Spanish rabbi who either wrote or compiled the book.