Religion Past and Present
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Subject: Religious Studies
Edited by: Hans Dieter Betz, Don S. Browning†, Bernd Janowski and Eberhard Jüngel
Religion Past and Present (RPP) Online is the online version of the updated English translation of the 4th edition of the definitive encyclopedia of religion worldwide: the peerless Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart (RGG). This great resource, now at last available in English and Online, Religion Past and Present Online continues the tradition of deep knowledge and authority relied upon by generations of scholars in religious, theological, and biblical studies. Including the latest developments in research, Religion Past and Present Online encompasses a vast range of subjects connected with religion.
Subscriptions: see brill.com
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Religion Past and Present (RPP) Online is the online version of the updated English translation of the 4th edition of the definitive encyclopedia of religion worldwide: the peerless Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart (RGG). This great resource, now at last available in English and Online, Religion Past and Present Online continues the tradition of deep knowledge and authority relied upon by generations of scholars in religious, theological, and biblical studies. Including the latest developments in research, Religion Past and Present Online encompasses a vast range of subjects connected with religion.
Subscriptions: see brill.com
Righteousness
(7 words)
[German Version] Justice and Righteousness
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Religion Past and Present
Righteousness/Justice of God
(5,846 words)
[German Version]
I. Religious Studies
1. Human destiny. The human experience of existence holds both positive and negative events. Personal and structural processes involving violence and suffering are constants. The “horizon of justice and righteousness” allows us to surmise that the events that take place in the course of the world are not random but are turbulences on the surface of a fundamental order. Disorientation (anomie) does not destroy the need for security. These turbulences remain a question to which religious ¶ traditions and atheistic projections of
Dasein offer ans…
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Religion Past and Present
Right of Appeal
(221 words)
[German Version] The right of appeal, in current juristic terminology, denotes the possibility made available by law of obtaining judicial review of a court decision. In a broader sense, the right of appeal includes all ¶ procedural rights to the review of official decisions (including non-judicial ones; legal redress). The history of law and jurisprudence recognizes a multiplicity of rights of appeal. The model of an orderly right of appeal based on factual and judicial scrutiny goes back to the appellation of Roman and canon law…
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Religion Past and Present
Right of Association
(510 words)
[German Version]
I. Laws of association decreed in the interest of the Roman state often relate to the city of Rome. It is not always possible to gather from the tradition how far the
leges de collegiis were also binding in the rest of Italy and the provinces. In the Greek-speaking East in particular, there was probably a diversity of local legal standards; therefore, Roman civic regulations cannot be transferred without qualification. However, in conflicts between the interests of associations and the state, or when revenues were…
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Religion Past and Present
Right to Monitor
(465 words)
[German Version] The state’s right to monitor corresponds to the “political clause,” a legal institution in concordats or similar agreements whereby the Holy See undertakes, before the appointment of a bishop, to ask the competent state authority if there are any reservations of a political kind against the candidate. The state’s right (
droit de regard), as specified for Germany by the Reichskonkordat, does not have the effect of an absolute veto. There are usually arrangements for further proceedings, in the event of reservations being voiced; the…
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Religion Past and Present
Rigorism
(735 words)
[German Version]
I. Religious Studies Rigorism is an ethical category used mostly in connection with perfectionist communities. It means unbending and rigid adherence to principles of conduct (and thought) and is in opposition to laxity as a carefree and casual moral attitude. When this approach is applied ¶ not only to oneself and one’s own community but also to others, it can lead to intolerance (Tolerance and intolerance), but it sees itself as providing impetus for reform in the face of an unresisting secularized religiosity that conforms…
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Religion Past and Present
Riis, Andreas
(210 words)
[German Version] (Jan 12, 1804, Lügumkloster, North Schleswig, Denmark – Jan 20, 1854, Stavanger), belonged to the second group of three Basel Mission missionaries who – after the death of the first four–reached the Gold Coast (now Ghana) in 1832. Two died within the first four months; Riis himself survived after severe illness. In 1835 he advanced inland to Akropong and slowly made progress there. His building projects earned him the nickname Osiadan (“house builder”). In 1837 Riis received as re…
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Religion Past and Present
Rijnsburg Collegiants
(290 words)
[German Version] The Rijnsburg Collegiants were a Dutch religious group of the 17th and 18th centuries. When, after the Synod of Dort, the ministers of the Remonstrants (Arminians) were banned, the church elder Gisbert van der Codde and his brothers (Jan the elder, Arie, and Jan the younger) set up meetings for worship (
collegia) without a minister, in 1619 in Warmond and in 1621 in Rijnsburg, with reading of Scripture, prayer, and open preaching. In the course of the 17th century, these meetings were amplified by further
collegia in other towns; the most important, in Rotterdam a…
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Religion Past and Present
Rijswijk Clause
(360 words)
[German Version] name given to the stipulation in art. 4 of the Treaty of Rijswijk (Rijswick, near The Hague, the Netherlands), by which Louis XIV’s war with the Great Alliance ended on Sep 29/Oct 30, 1697, having begun in 1688. The Treaty forced Louis XIV to restore all the “reunion” territories obtained since 1679, and to give back the Palatinate, militarily occupied since 1688 (but not Strasbourg, annexed in 1681). Diverging from the “norm year” (Annus normalis; 1624) otherwise applied in the Peace of Westphalia, art. 4 guaranteed the Catholic confessional status ¶ of the restored re…
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Religion Past and Present
Rila Monastery
(298 words)
[German Version] is the oldest and largest monastic institution in Bulgaria, under the direct authority of the Bulgarian patriarch (Stavropigial monasteries). The fraternity of Cenobites is led by a bishop. Rila Monastery is located about 100 km south of Sofia in a mountain valley at a high elevation (approx. 1,147 m) in the western Rila mountains. It was founded in the 10th century by the hermit Ivan (died 946). In the vicinity of the monastery are five filial churches built in the 17th to 19th c…
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Religion Past and Present
Rilke, Rainer Maria
(1,631 words)
[German Version] (Dec 4, 1875, Prague – Dec 29, 1926, Valmont near Montreux).
I. Life Rilke grew up in Prague as the only child of unhappily married parents. In 1884 his eccentric mother, Phia Rilke, who came from a prosperous manufacturing family in Prague, separated from her husband; he had not risen above the position of a railway official. His father wished Rilke to become an officer (a career in which he himself had failed), and sent him to the military schools of St. Pölten and Mährisch-Weißkirchen. Rilk…
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Religion Past and Present
Rimini/Seleucia, Synod of (359)
(8 words)
[German Version] Homoeans
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Religion Past and Present
Rinckart, Martin
(181 words)
[German Version] (Apr 24, 1586, Eilenburg, Saxony – Dec 8, 1649, Eilenburg). After attending the Thomasschule in Leipzig (1601), where he sang in the St. Thomasboys’ choir under the direction of S. Calvisius, Rinckart ¶ studied theology in Leipzig. In 1610 he became cantor in Eisleben, in 1611 deacon, and, after working at various times as pastor in Erdeborn near Eisleben (1613–1617;
Poeta laureatus 1615), archdeacon in Eilenburg, where he undertook pastoral activities during the Thirty Years War. In 1646 he rebuilt the Eilenburg choral society, which had c…
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Religion Past and Present
Ring
(162 words)
[German Version] (
liturgical). Indicative of a bond in its self-contained, closed form, the betrothal ring was adopted in church ritual in the Eastern and Western churches, and in the West became a wedding ring. By analogy, in the consecration of virgins and their profession it is placed on the finger of members of women’s orders as a sign of their spiritual marriage to Christ. The bishop’s ring, first attested in Isidore of Seville, was at first a signet ring, expressing the authority of office. …
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Religion Past and Present
Ringeisen, Dominikus
(113 words)
[German Version] (Dec 6, 1835, Unterfinnigen – May 4, 1904, Ursberg), Catholic priest (1864), founder of the St. Joseph Congregation of Sisters (Joseph, Orders of Saint) for nursing, education, and teaching. In the secularized monastery of Ursberg, Ringeisen created in 1884 an institution for the care of the mentally handicapped, the so-called deaf and dumb, and the physically disabled. Further institutions were set up at Pfaffenhofen (1885), Bildhausen (1897), and Krönenbach (1901). Ringeisen is regarded as an initiator of support for the disabled in Bavaria. Rolf Decot Bibliogra…
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Religion Past and Present
Ringeltaube, Wilhelm Tobias
(81 words)
[German Version] (1770, Scheidelwitz [Szydlowice], Poland – went missing in 1816). Missionary of the London Missionary Society in South India. From 1806 to 1816, Ringeltaube worked mainly in Mayiladi in the far south of Travancore (now Kanniyakumari district), sometimes living like a
sannyāsin in order to support the missionary work started there by an Indian Christian, Vedamanickam, among Nadars (Shanars) in the service of the London Missionary Society. Michael Bergunder Bibliography H. Grafe,
A History of Christianity, 1990.
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Religion Past and Present
Ringwaldt, Bartholomäus
(107 words)
[German Version] (c. 1530/1532, Frankfurt an der Oder – May 9, 1599, Langenfeld, Neumark [Długoszyn]), studied theology in Frankfurt an der Oder (matriculation 1543). From 1566 he worked as a minister in Langenfeld, Neumark. He wrote more than 200 church songs, didactic poems, plays, a verse paraphrase of the Gospels for Sundays and festivals (1581), and a mirror of the age and customs entitled
Die lautere Warheit (1585; The honest truth). In his short book of songs and prayers,
Handbüchlein. Geistliche Lieder und Gebetlein (1586), he included hymns by Luther. Hans-Peter Hasse Bibliogr…
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Religion Past and Present
Rink, Melchior
(322 words)
[German Version] (also Rinck; c. 1493 – after 1561/1563), leader of the Baptists in East Hesse. Rink gained his B.A. in Leipzig and continued his humanist studies in Erfurt. In 1523 he was active on behalf of the Reformation as chaplain and schoolmaster in Hersfeld; he stirred up unrest and was expelled. J. Strauß enabled him to become a pastor in Eckhartshausen in Thuringia, where he soon came under the influence of T. Müntzer. After the defeat of the peasants near Frankenhausen in 1525, H. Denck…
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Religion Past and Present
Rinser, Luise
(177 words)
[German Version] (Apr 30, 1911, Pitzling – Mar 17, 2002, Unterhaching), German writer. From 1941 until shortly before her death, the former primary school teacher published more than 30 books, which had worldwide success: novels, stories, diaries, travel books, essays (some theological), and a two-volume autobiography. She was one of the first writers to make the Shoah (Holocaust) a literary theme. Consistently from an early date she put women at the center of her writing, and was committed to soc…
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Religion Past and Present