Religion, the Sacred and Hospitality

Cultural Heritage and Contemporary Change Series IVA, Central and Eastern European Philosophical Studies, Volume 56 Religion, the Sacred and Hospitality Romanian Philosophical Studies, X Edited by Wilhelm Dancă The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy Copyright © 2016 by The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy Gibbons Hall B-20 620 Michigan Avenue, NE Washington, D.C. 20064 All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Names: Dancæa, Wilhelm, 1959- editor. Title: Religion, the sacred, and hospitality / Wilhelm Danca (ed.). Description: first [edition]. | Washington D.C. : Council for Research in Values and Philosophy, 2017. | Series: Cultural heritage and contemporary change. Series IVA, Central and Eastern European philosophical studies ; Volume 56 | Series: Romanian philosophical studies ; 10 | Includes index. Identifiers: LCCN 2017040771 | ISBN 9781565183254 (pbk.) Subjects: LCSH: Hospitality. | Hospitality--Religious aspects. Classification: LCC BJ2021 .R45 2017 | DDC 205/.671--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017040771 Table of Contents Introduction: Metamorphoses of Hospitality across 1 History and Cultures Wilhelm Dancă Part I. Historical, Foundational and Theoretical Dimensions of Hospitality 1. Philoxenia or the Love of Guests, Strangers or Enemies 19 within the Christian Tradition Ștefan Lupu 2. The Hospitality of God and the Right to Sanctuary 33 Ana Petrache 3. The Beginnings of Diplomacy as Reflected in the Homeric Epos 49 Maria-Luiza Dumitru Oancea 4. Papal Teaching on Immigration in a Globalized World 61 Eduard Giurgi 5. The Question of Hospitality in Sufism and its Reflections 83 on the Iranian Culture Seyed Javad Miri 6. Acorporality and Eschatological Experience for 89 a Noetic Hospitality Valentin Cioveie Part II. European Issues of Hospitality 7. Hospitality and the Common Good 103 Martin de la Croix Melin 8. To What Extent Can We Rely on Religious Ideals in 121 Solving the Problems of Mass Migration in Europe Today? Anatoliy Kosichenko iv Table of Contents 9. Hospitality: A Vulnerable Characteristic of European 133 Homo Oeconomicus? Petru-Ciprian Bradu & Iustin Emanuel Alexandru 10. Europe and the Refugee Crisis: Hospitality and Fear 145 Cristina Barbu 11. Christian Hospitality as a Valid Response to the European 155 Refugee Crisis: Insights from the Caribbean and Disability Theology Adanna James 12. Host for a Day or Host for a Lifetime: To Ion de la Raion 183 from Şinca Nouă Gabriela Blebea Nicolae Epilogue: How Should Immigrants Be Received? 195 Some Christian Social Proposals Wilhelm Dancă Index 215 Introduction Metamorphoses of Hospitality across History and Cultures WILHELM DANCĂ Hospitality is one of the primordial values of the civilized world. The human community and self-awareness emerged when people first began to receive strangers and/or enemies not as such but as guests. Among the oldest historical signs of the culture of hospitality, found for instance, within the Greco-Roman and the Judeo-Christian culture, are three dimensions of hospitality: material, human and religious. Thus, to be hospitable means to attend to the basic material needs of the guests, to treat them as true human beings, or even as a sort of divine messenger. At its highest level, hospitality was a source of happiness and blessing, as it was commonly believed that the guest could assume an intercessory role between his host and the invisible divinity. Therefore, one of the earliest institutions found among the religions, cultures and philosophies that constitute the foundation of our civilization, was the law or value of hospitality. The discussion about the limits and values of hospitality is coming up again within the social and religious context of the European world of today, a context marked by the complex challenges of the phenomenon of migration. The various answers formulated by Europeans to the requests for asylum made by the political and economic refugees merit being analyzed not only from the perspective of the founding values of the European Union, solidarity, subsidiarity, human rights, freedom, democracy etc., but also in the light of the history of religions and civilizations where we can find open solutions to social tensions like those with which we are being confronted today. This is the kind of analysis which the Faculty of Roman-Catholic Theology at the University of Bucharest in partnership with The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy (RVP), Washington D.C., targeted when they invited scholars from all around the world to discuss the value and place of hospitality within the human and religious consciousness of humankind, mainly by re-visiting funda- 2 Wilhelm Dancă mental texts and traditions belonging to the Greco-Roman, Hebrew, Christian and Muslim civilizations. The participants at the International Conference organized by the above-mentioned institutions, held on March 3-4, 2016 in Bucharest sought answers to the numerous questions which hospitality poses nowadays. Some of the questions posed were: in the contemporary civilized world which faces complex phenomena such as migration, poverty, violence and terrorism, how should hospitality be seen -- limited or unlimited? What should be the spirit of hospitality, Christian or secular, ecumenical or inter-religious? Which values form the basis of hospitality? How can hospitality be lived in post-secular urban areas? What is the place of hospitality in a European social context marked by aggressive marketing, secularization and techno- cracy? Do European public services retain anything of the religious spirit of hospitality? Could Christian social values motivate and strengthen attitudes of solidarity among people? The answers cannot be found in just one field of the humanities. Thus, scholars from several countries and from different fields in the Social Sciences have attempted to propose solutions and interpretations of hospitality available in the present European context. In the following pages, we have collected the papers presented during the Conference which was entitled “Religion, the Sacred and Hospitality.” We have divided the volume into two parts: the first is dedicated to the foundational, historical and theoretical aspects of the relationship between religion, the sacred and hospitality, and the second offers proposals and solutions to the practical challenges of European immigration today. The volume ends with an epilogue which analyses religious and civic norms about how immigrants should be welcomed. Part I deals with the historical, foundational and theoretical dimensions of hospitality. As such, hospitality is an essential compo- nent of the Judeo-Christian tradition. We can also find it in the Muslim tradition, especially in relation to Sufi spirituality. All the authors presenting papers in the first part of the volume show us how hospitality has been emphasized differently and has changed its role throughout the ages. Thus, in “Philoxenia or the Love of Guests, of Strangers or of Enemies within the Christian Tradition,” Stefan Lupu presents hospitality as a sign of that which goes beyond any difference of Metamorphoses of Hospitality Across History and Cultures 3 religion, race, origin, political and economic conditions or education. Hospitality is the human way to pass on God's message regarding his creatures, who were meant to live in peace. If we look at Biblical literature, we can see hospitality as a virtue that takes on multiple forms. In the Old Testament the stranger was loved and welcomed as a guest due to the love Yahweh had for him and for the sake of obeying the commandment to welcome strangers while in the New Testament, the stranger is offered hospitality because Christ himself is the one seen in the person of the stranger. Etymologically speaking, hospitality denotes a relationship on the one hand, and the name of a quality on the other. For (new) Greek speakers, the relationship is expressed by the term xenia (ξενία) and the quality by the term philoxenia (φιλοξενία); for Latin speakers (or readers), the corresponding words are hospitium and hospitalitas. At the beginning of Christianity, during the Apostolic Age, hospitality was a form of gratitude towards Christ. Later on, during the era of Eastern monasticism, monastic hospitality was charac- terized by balance, rigor, simplicity and, above all, moderation. When offering hospitality the material and spiritual needs of both the guests and the monks were to be taken into consideration. Within the Bene- dictine tradition hospitality is Christocentric, i.e. the monks should respect hospitality by keeping the essence of simplicity and obedience, so that not a single guest was to leave the monastery before receiving the care that Christ himself would have given to him. If we come to the context of hospitality today, mainly reduced to close friends and official meetings, we notice that the early Christian hospitality is still relevant in many aspects. First, Christian hospitality is meant for everyone, with no distinction between differences of a social or material nature. For Christians, today -- as well as in the past -- showing hospitality is an essential act of loving God and one's neighbor. Practicing hospitality remains an efficient instrument of evangelization and a means of strengthening the unity of various communities. “The Hospitality of God and the Privilege of the Sanctuary,” by Ana Petrache, seeks to analyze the practice of hospitality, but

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