News

Ioana Feodorov, the PI of the TYPARABIC project, will deliver a lecture entitled:
Transfer of the Art of Arabic Printing from the Romanian Principalities to Ottoman Syria, 1701-1753
The event will take place at the Warburg Institute (London) on May 14, 2024 | 6:00-8:00 PM
Attendance in person or via Zoom is free, provided you register online.
For Zoom participants: after registering, you will receive the Zoom link.
 
Abstract:
In the 15th century, in Europe, a revolution occurred in mentalities and social life: Johannes Gutenberg’s printing press led to a rapid transition from a type of culture based on oral and manuscript transmission to one relying on the printed book. Muslim populations of the Ottoman realm were not prepared to adopt this new way of communications. Christians, however, in what is now present-day Syria and Lebanon endeavored to open printing workshops to publish Arabic books for the clergy and their flock. Arabic printing was initiated in Eastern Europe and the Middle East through the association of Antim the Iberian, future metropolitan of Ungro-Wallachia, with Athanasios Dabbās, metropolitan of Aleppo. After initial trials in 1701 (Snagov) and 1702 (Bucharest), Dabbās established in 1705 the first Arabic press in the Middle East, in Aleppo. Other presses followed in Moldavia and Wallachia, both founded by Sylvester of Antioch, patriarch of the Greek Orthodox of Greater Syria (1724-1766). This talk commemorates the 300th anniversary of the 1724 schism in the Church of Antioch, by discussing the books printed in the years around this momentous event, encompassing the history of the presses of Snagov, Bucharest, Iași, Aleppo, Istanbul, and Beirut, with a reference to the Greek Catholics’ press at Khenchara, and their Arabic book production. 
Octavian-Adrian Negoiță, Junior Researcher of the TYPARABIC project, will present a paper entitled:
Sophronios of Kilis and His Polemic Against Purgatory
The paper will be delivered in the Short Paper Panels 1 at the 13th Annual REFORC Conference on Early Modern Christianity
“Giorgio La Pira” Library, Palermo, Italy | May 14, 2024 | 16:15-16:45
For the program booklet and other informations:

 
Abstract: 
This paper discusses the polemical discourse against purgatory of the Arabic-speaking theologian Sophronios of Kilis (c.1700–1780) as reflected in his work Kitāb midrār sayl al-matar  fi tafi nār al-mathar. Sophronios composed his work in Arabic in 1740 before he became bishop of Acre as a response to the intense confessional pressure the Catholics amplified over the Arab Orthodox. In his polemical argumentation, Sophronios adopted a systematic approach through which he lays down the Catholic teachings on Purgatory in eight statements for which he offered copious refutations full of
biblical and patristic references. Kitāb midrār is a compilatory work in which Sophronios gathers testimonies by the Church Fathers and previous theological arguments, which he organizes in an original comprehensive manual of refutation against Purgatory. The work is an important source for the religious controversies between Catholics and the Arabic-speaking Christians during the eighteenth century, and an example of interpreting and organizing the biblical and patristical material for articulating a polemical discourse directed towards one of the major theological differences on the West-East axis. The sources used by Sophronios also makes him an important agent of the cultural transfer(s) that took place between the Greek-speaking Orthodox theologians and the Arabic-speaking milieu. Lastly, in the context of this year’s commemoration of the 1724 split of the Church of Antioch into the Greek Orthodox Church of  Antioch and the Melkite Greek Catholic Church, the still unedited theological works of Sophronios are of paramount importance for understanding the confessional dynamics in the Ottoman Near East during the eighteenth century.
Ioana Feodorov, the PI of the TYPARABIC project, will present a paper entitled:
Arabic Books Printed in the 18th Century in Moldavia, Wallachia, and Greater Syria: New Research Outcomes
The paper will be delivered in the 4a Session of the 45th Conference of MELCOM International, Aga Khan Library, London.
May 15, 2024 | 12.30
Attendance in person or via Zoom is free, provided you register online.
For Zoom participants: after registering, you will receive the Zoom link.
The conference website and program are accessible here:

The TYPARABIC project team has received from the ERC an Advanced Grant for 2021-2026 to survey the Arabic books printed in the 18th century beyond the frontiers of Western Europe, in Wallachia, Moldavia, and the Ottoman provinces of Syria and Lebanon. The story starts with Antim the Iberian, the most skilled printer of Wallachia, and the Syrian metropolitan Athanasios Dabbas, in between two terms as patriarch of Antioch. They printed in Arabic and Greek a Book of the Divine Liturgies at Snagov in 1701 and a Book of the Hours at Bucharest in 1702. Dabbas was presented with the Arabic printing implements and established a press at Aleppo, where he printed in 1706-1711 eleven books. Besides Antim, he was supported in his efforts by the prince of Wallachia Constantin Brâncoveanu and, in 1708, by the Cossack hetmans Ivan Mazepa and Daniel Apostol. After Dabbas’s press closed, his disciple Abdallah Zakher opened a press for the Greek Catholics in Khenchara (Mount Lebanon), for translations of Catholic books. After the 1724 split in the Church of Antioch (which will be commemorated by both Churches in 2024), the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch was helped again with printing Arabic liturgical and polemical books in the Romanian Principalities, while in 1750 the Patriarch Sylvester of Antioch opened an Orthodox press in Beirut with assistance from Wallachia. The TYPARABIC project team is preparing the first comprehensive catalogue of the books printed in all these presses, which amount to 47 titles (known at present). In this paper, the team leader will present for the first time this catalogue and its benefits for the scholarly community working on Middle Eastern printed books. Among them, the first state-of-the-art description of each book, the Arabic-script, transcription, and English translation of the titles, incipit and colophon, the persons involved in printing, the place, content, etc. The author will also speak of the first catalogue of Müteferrika’s Turkish press in Istanbul, another task of the TYPARABIC team.