SEMNIFICAȚIILE CERCULUI ÎN CREDINȚA RELIGIOASĂ ȘI ÎN PRACTICA RITUAL-FOLCLORICĂ

The idea of circularity contains strong heavenly symbolism, as the ecclesiastical writer states, and is associated with the heavenly bodies of the day and the the night, but also with the idea of sky. For this reason, divinity is symbolically likened to a round or circular shape. The circle suggests continuous, eternal movement. For this reason, in prehistoric cultures, round shapes were associated with life and implicitly with telluric and astral divinities. The Diskos, the round disk - as the name suggests - on which the face of the Savior is engraved, used during the Holy Liturgy, is placed on the Holy Table, and on it the Holy Gifts are deposited. It symbolizes the sky and, implicitly, divinity, in this case the Holy Trinity. The existence of the sacred circle can only be revealed through communion with God and only in it can it be perfected, as only the spirit remains imperishable. The hearth of the Christian village must be circular in shape, with the church in the center, as God was in the midst of his creation. Christ opens the circle of salvation on earth and closes it in His kingdom, whereas the power to understand that glory, the honors, the power and beauty of the body mean nothing is what includes man in the sacred circle of salvation, as the Holy Father of the Church Basil the Great states. The reception and perpetuation of circularity in religious belief and community ritual practice are two axes that intertwine and function as a norm of social conduct. Approaching the symbolism of the circle and the circularity of life from this perspective leads us to the current reinterpretation of old religious symbols present in the Romanian ethnographic and folkloric space.