New Documentary on El Palmar de Troya

New Documentary on El Palmar de Troya

There are several TV-documentaries about El Palmar de Troya and the Palmarian Church, but by far the most ambitious and well-researched is the new series, “El Palmar de Troya” that is broadcasted in February 2020 on the Spanish Moviestar+ Cero Channel. The series is produced by Movistar+ in collaboration with 100 Balas (The Mediapro Studio) and 93 Metros  directed by Israel del Santo and with Daniel Boluda in charge of the research.

“El Palmar de Troya” includes four 55-minute episodes following the Palmarian phenomenon from the beginning in 1968 until today. It includes testimonies by former church members including ex-Pope Gregory XVIII (Ginés Hernández) and his wife Nieves Triviño, who used to be a Palmarian nun. But there are also testimonies by other ex-bishops and ex-nuns as well as former lay members. Apart from them, some outsiders, including me, talk about El Palmar and the Palmarian Church.

Continue reading “New Documentary on El Palmar de Troya” →

Palmarian Internet Presence

Palmarian Internet Presence

Until very recently the Palmarian Catholic Church had no official internet presence at all. Even for those actively searching, it has been difficult if not impossible to find a phone number or an email address. This was highly unusual even in the world of Catholic traditionalism. Still, in the 1990s, the church maintained a very rudimentary internet site, but it was not updated and eventually disappeared.

In December 2018, however, the Palmarians suddenly launched a professionally looking multilingual website: www.palmarianchurch.org. The site includes basic information about the Palmarian Church, the Order of the Carmelites of the Holy Face and pope Peter III. On the site, one finds a lot of images and films, mainly documenting important religious feast and the basilica in El Palmar de Troya.  There is also a growing number of texts: general overviews of the church’s history and teachings, apparition messages, extracts from official documents (including the catechism and the Palmarian Bible) and hagiographies as well as diatribes against the media and people considered enemies of the church.

Continue reading “Palmarian Internet Presence” →

Recensioner i Kyrkohistorisk Årsskrift 2019

Recensioner i Kyrkohistorisk Årsskrift 2019

Kyrkohistorisk årsskrift ges sedan år 1900 ut av Svenska kyrkohistoriska föreningen. Varje årgång innehåller vetenskapliga artiklar, men inte minst ett stort antal recensioner av kyrkohistoriskt relevant litteratur. Information hur man blir medlem i föreningen och därigenom erhåller årsboken finns här.

I Kyrkohistorisk årsskrift 2019 bidrar jag med tre recensioner:

Liesbeth Corens
CONFESSIONAL MOBILITY AND ENGLISH CATHOLICS IN COUNTER-REFORMATION EUROPE.
Oxford: Oxford University Press 2019, xiii + 240 sid.

Nadine Amsler
JESUITS AND MATRIARCHS. Domestic Worship in Early Modern China.
Seattle: University of Washington Press, xii + 258 sid

Chen Hon-Fai

CATHOLICS AND EVERYDAY LIFE IN MACAU. Changing Meanings of Religiosity, Morality and Civility. (Routledge Religion in Contemporary Asia Series 6)

London & New York: Routledge 2017, ix + 196 sid.

Recensionerna är tillgängliga i fulltext här

 

Kyrkohistorisk forskning i dag och i morgon

Kyrkohistorisk forskning i dag och i morgon

Provföreläsning för professuren i kyrkohistoria, 7 november 2019.

Det förflutna är inte vad det en gång var. Det är titeln på en metodbok av den norske historikern Knut Kjelstadli. Titeln syftar bland annat på att betydelsen av händelser i det förgångna kan förändras med tiden men också på att historieforskningen förändras med tiden.

En annan populär metodbok heter: Fråga det förflutna. Det är vad historieforskning ytterst handlar om. Att vi aktivt förhåller oss till det som skett, eller rättare sagt vad som har blivit kvar av det: det vi benämner källor. Det rör: Vilka frågor vi ställer, vilka källor vi använder och hur vi arbetar med dem, vilka analytiska begrepp vi brukar, hur vi för samman enskildheter till berättelser och teman, och hur vi förklarar orsaker, samband och effekter.

Min föreläsning handlar om nuet och framtiden. Men det är ingen allmän lägesrapport eller någon blick in i en spåkula. Jag ska tala om kyrkohistorisk forskning idag och i den nära framtiden. Och det krävs en ordentlig avgränsning för att kunna säga något vettigt i en kort föreläsning. Därför kommer det att handla om kyrkohistorisk forskning vid Uppsala universitet, där jag sedan fyra år är tillförordnad ämnesföreträdare. Det betyder också att jag är en aktör i skeendet.

Continue reading “Kyrkohistorisk forskning i dag och i morgon” →

The Slavic Pope? Jan Maria Michał Kowalski and the Mariavites

The Slavic Pope? Jan Maria Michał Kowalski and the Mariavites

As far as we know, Archbishop Ján Maria Michał Kowalski (1871–1942), the longtime leader of the Polish (Old) Catholic Mariavite Church claimed much spiritual power, even a kind of Messiah-status, but that he never explicitly claim the papacy. Still, bishops in the Mariavite core group, at least from the mid-1920s, asserted that the Roman pontiff was not the true pope anymore, that the Holy See had moved from Rome to the Mariavite centre in Plock, and that Kowalski was the long-awaited ‘Slavic Pope’, that Polish nationalist authors wrote about: a liberator and a benevolent religious leader.

The founder of the Mariavites was Sister Feliksa Maria Franciszka Kozlowska (1862–1921), often called Little Mother (Mateczka). She claimed to receive divine revelations–‘understandings’–from 1893 onwards, and the interpretation of them played a significant role in the development of the Mariavite doctrine, both before and after her death. Posthumously many followers believed Little Mother to be divine, and Archbishop Kowalski had an almost sacred status, even during his life. Claiming ‘understandings’, too, he introduced drastic doctrinal changes throughout the 1920s. Still, Kowalski’s autocratic rule and the unorthodox doctrinal development led to a schism in 1935, when only a small minority of the faithful remained with him.

A preliminary version of my text on Kowalski and the Mariavite papacy is found here

A Robber Ex-Pope and his Wife: From the Beginning to the End

A Robber Ex-Pope and his Wife: From the Beginning to the End

On June 10, 2018, began a new, bizarre chapter in the history of the Palmarian Catholic Church. The Palmarian ex-pope Ginés Jesús Hernández (earlier known as Gregory XVIII) and his wife, Nieves Triviño climbed over the high walls of the church compound at Palmar de Troya.

They were masked and armed, apparently planning to rob the cathedral, but were discovered by a Palmarian bishop who was outside the basilica. According to testimonies, they beat Bishop S with a hammer and threatened him and another bishop, J, with a knife. However, in the subsequent fight, Hernández was severely injured, while the others escaped with less serious physical injuries.

It was on April 22, 2016, Gregory XVIII (sed. 2011-2016) resigned the Palmarian papacy. He later claimed that he had lost the faith and that the whole church was a hoax. He left to live with Nieves Triviño, whom he later married. For details, see my book A Pope of Their Own.

Here is a  brief description of the events from June 10, 2018 to May 17, 2019.

Continue reading “A Robber Ex-Pope and his Wife: From the Beginning to the End” →

Palmarian Photos

Palmarian Photos

As a part of my extensive documentation and study of the Palmarian Church, I publish a sizeable collection of images that were published digitally by the Church ca. 2002.

The first document includes pictures of the apparition site at Palmar de Troya, the first chapel that was built there and not least the construction of the enormous Palmarian Basilica. It includes 129 images. See Palmar de Troya and the Palmarian Basilica

The second document includes pictures of Palmarian chapels around the world. It includes 197 images. See Palmarian Chapels worldwide.

 

Recensioner i Kyrkohistorisk årsskrift 2018

Recensioner i Kyrkohistorisk årsskrift 2018

Kyrkohistorisk årsskrift ges sedan år 1900 ut av Svenska kyrkohistoriska föreningen. Varje årgång innehåller vetenskapliga artiklar, men inte minst ett stort antal recensioner av kyrkohistoriskt relevant litteratur. Information hur man blir medlem i föreningen och därigenom erhåller årsboken finns här.

I årsskriften 2018 bidrar jag med fyra recensioner:

Moshe Sluhovsky
BECOMING A NEW SELF: Practices of Belief in Early Modern Catholicism.
Chicago & London: The University of Chicago Press 2017, 215 sid.

Jane Samson
RACE AND REDEMPTION: British Missionaries Encounter Pacific Peoples, 1797‒1920 (Studies in the History of Christian Mission).
Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company 2017, 274 sid.

Anh Q. Tran
GODS, HEROES, AND ANCESTORS: An Interreligious Encounter in Eighteenth-Century Vietnam (American Academy of Religion: Religion in Translation).
New York: Oxford University Press 2018, 364 sid.

Jens Holger Schjørring & Norman A. Hjelm (red.) samt Kevin Ward (medredaktör för vol. III).
HISTORY OF GLOBAL CHRISTIANITY, 3 vols.
Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2017¬‒2018

Vol. I: European and Global Christianity, ca. 1500‒1789, 457 sid.
Vol II: History of Christianity in the 19th Century, 346 sid.
Vol. III: History of Christianity in the 20th Century, 526 sid.

Mina recensioner är tillgängliga i fulltext här