ISSN 1829-4618

PERCEPTION OF TIME IN THE EUCHARISTIC CANON OF THE ARMENIAN APOSTOLIC CHURCH

By: Arusyak Shirinyan, PhD student and lecturer, Yerevan State University, arusyak.shirinyan@ysu.am

The article examines the relationships between the studies on time and eternity in ancient philosophy and some prayers of the liturgical texts of the Eucharistic Canon of the AAC. Liturgical texts, such as church hymns, prayers and mainly the texts of the anaphora, reflect not only theological but also philosophical views, especially in the issue of perception and development of understanding of historical time in the medieval era. The philosophy of postmodernism, tracing its genesis to antiquity, for a long time ignored liturgical texts as an object for philosophical research, thereby determining their place on the periphery. As a rule, these texts are studied within the framework of linguistics and archaeography, and are also partly used as a historical source.   The partial exclusion of liturgical prayers from Western philosophical discourse is associated with such historical phenomena as early Renaissance humanism, the Protestant Reformation and the history of early modern literature. Thus, the basis of the modern selective approach to philosophical texts is a stable position regarding the forms of knowledge traditionally considered philosophical.  Nevertheless, a philosophical analysis of a sacred text is possible, in particular in the systemically presented process of transformation of the perception of cyclical time into linear and in the formation of the concept of eschatological orientation.

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