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
Refugee Issue
(986 words)
[German Version] Refugees are people who leave their native region or country out of justified fear of persecution on account of their political beliefs or ethnic background. In recent years, persecution on account of one’s sex has also been recognized as grounds for flight. If flight or departure is imposed by force, we speak of displaced or deported persons. According to the Geneva Convention on Refugees, individuals who flee to another country may in principle claim asylum or have their applica…
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Religion Past and Present
Regeneration
(2,576 words)
[German Version]
I. Religious History
1. Since the dawn of time, human birth has been associated with many religious ideas, rituals, and customs, including the idea of rebirth or regeneration. As a rite of passage (Rites of passage), birth is not merely a natural process; it can repeat a previous birth, view death as a passage to new life, or distinguish within a lifetime between a corporeal and a spiritual birth, separated by a ritual death. The Greek terminology is not uniform, using ἀναγεννᾶν/
anagennán, ἀναβιοῦν/
anabioún, μεταγεννᾶν/
metagennán, πάλιν γίνεσϑαι/
pálingínesthai, an…
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Religion Past and Present
Regensburg
(644 words)
[German Version] (Ratisbon). In the 4th/5th century, the Roman legionary fortress Castra Regina, established in 179 ce, and its associated civilian settlement were already home to a Christian community (without a bishop). There is sparse evidence of continuity into the early Middle Ages. As the principal residence of the dukes of Bavaria, Regensburg became a center for the activity of several court and missionary bishops (St. Emmeram, Erhard). The canonical erection of the bishopric took place in 739; in 798 it…
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Religion Past and Present
Reger, Max
(302 words)
[German Version] (Johann Baptist Joseph Maximilian; Mar 19, 1873, Brand, Bavaria – May 11, 1916, Leipzig), composer. Reger was born to a lower middle class family. Familiar with L. van Beethoven and J. Brahms at an early age, he was deeply moved by a visit to Bayreuth in 1888. In 1890 he began studying music with H. Riemann. These years were marked by existential crises; later, too, he had to battle against depression and alcoholism. He married in Munich in 1902; in 1907 he moved to Leipzig and in 1911 to Meiningen. He was influenced only peripherally by R. Wagner and program music. Hi…
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Religion Past and Present
Regino of Prüm
(209 words)
[German Version] (died 915, Trier) appears for the first time in sources in 892, when he was elected abbot of Prüm. He was driven from office in 899 and found refuge in Trier, where the archbishop appointed him abbot of St. Martin’s. He is buried in the abbey of St. Maximin in Trier. Regino is noted as the author of a handbook on canon law (906), intended for use in visitations by the bishop’s synodal court, and a world chronicle from the birth of Christ to the year 906 (completed in 908); its con…
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Religion Past and Present
Regional Church
(1,032 words)
[German Version] The term
regional church (Ger.
Landeskirche) denotes a church of or within a particular territory. Against the background of the church’s claim to be universal, of course, such a circumscription is ecclesiologically problematic. The semantic scope of the term is therefore limited to describing manifestations of the visible church in the sense of legally constituted bodies. We are therefore dealing here with a term and concept of church law, both ecclesiastical and (esp. in historical perspective) civil. Catholic church polity with its hierarchical structur…
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Religion Past and Present
Regional Deanery
(194 words)
[German Version] Regional Deanery, also called a district deanery, is a coalition of neighboring deaneries (Dean) to foster pastoral care through common action. Their legal basis is CD 30, the
motu proprio Ecclesiae Sanctae I, 19 §1; the
Directorium Apostolorum successores, 2004, no. 2; and
CIC/1983 c. 374 §2. The Gemeinsame Synode der Bistümer der Bundesrepublik Deutschland had already provided for midlevel regional deaneries above the local deanery level, without making them mandatory. The function of regional deaneries, their relationsh…
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Religion Past and Present
Regional Superintendent
(134 words)
[German Version] In Reformed churches (Lippe, Evangelisch-Reformierte Kirche), a regional superintendent (Ger.
Landessuperintendent) is a member of the clergy in the administration of the regional church; unlike the
Präses (Synod, Head of ), his office is not rooted in presiding over the synod but in belonging to the church’s administrative body. The additional functions of religious leadership assigned to him in Lippe make the office of regional superintendent there rather like that of a bishop. Beyond the ambit of the Re…
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Religion Past and Present
Register
(276 words)
[German Version] Register, from Latin
regerere (“record, list”). A register is a form of indexing by an editor that summarizes the content and the most important source-critical data of an archival manuscript or early modern document. Archival registers were already in use by medieval registrars. As a form of index, a register is intended to take the inquirer to the source by recording the substantial and legal content of documents and their provenience, not to replace the use of the sources themselves. Comprehensive diplomatic treatment is not the goal. Editions of registered archi…
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Religion Past and Present
Registration, Church
(568 words)
[German Version] Today the church registration system in Germany has its legal basis in the federal civil registration law and the supplemental registration laws of the several
Länder. Originally it served only the interests of the security police, making sure that the state could reach any citizen at any time; as the modern social state developed, it became primarily a tool for collecting and recording general personal information. As in the case of the civil registration system, the constitutional right of negative free…
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Religion Past and Present
Regula fidei
(604 words)
[German Version] The expression
regula fidei (Gk κανὼν τῆς πίστεως/
kanṓn tḗs písteōs) appeared as a technical Christian term shortly before 200 ce, in several contexts. ¶ (a) In the controversy over the date of Easter (Paschal/Easter calendrical controversies), it denoted the normative practice of the church (Eusebius of Caesarea
Hist. eccl. V 24.6). (b) Although Irenaeus of Lyon did not use it in his
Adversus haereses (which has eight occurrences of
regula veritatis), it is assumed in his
Epideixis 3. (c) In the work of Clement of Alexandria, it appears only in
Stromata IV 98.3, whe…
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Religion Past and Present
Regular Clergy
(317 words)
[German Version] (
clerici regulares) in the broad sense are clerical members of an order or congregation, in contrast to secular or diocesan clergy (
clerici saeculares); in the Middle Ages and the early modern period, the term was extended to include canons regular. In the narrow sense, the term denotes the members of the new religious orders formed in the 16th and 17th centuries in the name of Catholic reform. They are characterized by life in community based on the counsels of perfection and solemn vows. Instead of r…
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Religion Past and Present
Rehabilitation
(715 words)
[German Version]
I. Social and Ethical Issues Rehabilitation means the totality of all necessary measures to mitigate, eliminate, and permanently prevent a physical or mental impairment. It is intended to prompt positive changes and restore skills and capabilities, or in the case of permanent impairment to achieve adaptation and compensation. The goal of rehabilitation is to restore the ability to lead an independent and self-determined life, taking into account the available resources and competencies…
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Religion Past and Present
Rehoboam
(296 words)
[German Version] Rehoboam, king of Judah (926–910 bce; Kingship [in Israel]), son and successor of Solomon. When he acceded to the throne, the central and northern tribes (Tribes of Israel) exercised their right to speak and demanded that their burden of tribute and forced labor be reduced. When he refused, they announced their separation from the Davidic dynasty and made Jeroboam I king (1 Kgs 12:1–17). This “division of the kingdom” marked the beginning of Israel and Judah as separate states. The invasion of Palestine by the pharaoh Shishak during the reign of Rehoboam aff…
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Religion Past and Present
Reichelt, Karl Ludvig
(169 words)
[German Version] (Sep 1, 1877, Arendal, Norway – Mar 13, 1952, Hong Kong) arrived in 1902 in Hunan, China, as a missionary with the Norwegian Missionary Society (NMS; Norwegian missions). Visiting the Buddhist Weishan monastery in 1905, he made the decision to start a certain Bhuddist mission, at first within the NMS. In 1922 a brotherhome for Buddhist monks was established in Nanking (demolished in 1927). Accused of syncretism, he left NMS in 1926 to be supported by Scandinavian Christian ¶ Missions to Buddhists. In 1931 a brotherhome and center, Tao Fong Shan (TFS), was bu…
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Religion Past and Present
Reichenau
(404 words)
[German Version] Reichenau, the largest island in Lake Constance, is near the city of Constance, a former episcopal see; it takes its name from the former Benedictine abbey in Mittelzell. Tradition has it that Pirmin, an itinerant bishop, founded the abbey in 724. After a personal union with the see of Constance that lasted from c. 736 to 782, under Charlemagne Reichenau joined the ranks of the imperial abbeys; its abbot Waldo (786–806) was one of the most influential of Charlemagne’s paladins as …
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Religion Past and Present
Reichsbruderrat
(66 words)
[German Version] The Reichsbruderrat (“Fraternal Council”) was formed in 1934 as the executive body of the Confessing Church. After several of its members were arrested in 1937, it suspended its meetings until 1945. When the constitution of the Evangelical Church in Germany took effect in 1948, it declared its executive function ended, but it continued to address the public on current issues. Carsten Nicolaisen
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Religion Past and Present
Reichskirche
(1,120 words)
[German Version] The German term
Reichskirche (“imperial church”), scarcely found in historical sources, denotes the post-Constantinian (Constantine the Great) synthesis of civil and ecclesiastical sovereignty in the “Roman Empire,” whose claim of universal dominion made it different from other states. Only in this sense does the term differ from analogous realities in other territories, called state churches, national churches, or regional churches.
I. Imperium Romanum A constitutive element of the Roman imperial church was its attachment to the figure of th…
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Religion Past and Present
Reichskonkordat
(493 words)
[German Version] (Reich concordat), a concordat between the German Reich and the Holy See, signed on Aug 20, 1933, to take effect on Sep 10, 1933. The initiative for the concordat came from the German government, which was prepared to accommodate the wishes of the church in the school question while hoping to “depoliticize” the clergy after the model of the Lateran concordat (Lateran treaties) and thus crush political Catholicism. The theory that prospects for such a concordat played a role in the…
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Religion Past and Present