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.
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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
Spoils, Right of
(326 words)
[German Version] (
ius spolii) refers to the custom, attested since Late Antiquity, of allowing the estate of a cleric to be claimed by other clerics or laity. This claim contravened the principle that the property of deceased clergy should preferably accrue to the church. Canon 22 of the Council of Chalcedon in 451 already prohibited appropriation of a bishop’s property by the clergy ¶ after the bishop’s death. The right of spoils was also claimed by bishops and archdeacons in the case of the estate of abbots and presbyters, although councils of the 6th and …
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Religion Past and Present
Spontaneity
(225 words)
[German Version] from Neo-Latin
spontaneitas, based on Latin
spons, “incentive, will,” the ablative of which (
sponte), means “of one’s own accord,” self-motivated. A movement is spontaneous if it is not caused by something inherent in the person who moves or in someone or something else. In this sense, Aristotle already distinguished between motion that arises “from itself ” (ἀπὸ ταυτομάτου/
apó
tautomátou, Metaph. VII 7, 1032a 13) and motion caused by nature or art (τέχνη/
téchnē). The notion first became prominent, however, in modern philosophy under the category of…
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Religion Past and Present
Sports
(735 words)
[German Version] Generally, the term
sport can be understood to cover all manifestations of regulated, agonal, motor interaction that qualify as ludic (Play) and as such subserve corporeal self-awareness (prowess, body control, achievement [II; Contest], pleasure) and corporeal expression of the participants’ sense of self. Such phenomena have been present in all ages and all cultures, though with varying public impact. In pre-Christian antiquity, sport played a major public role (the classical Olympic Games from 776 bce to 393 ce [Olympia]), which shrank as Christianity b…
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Religion Past and Present
Spranger, Eduard
(426 words)
[German Version] ( Jun 27, 1882, Lichterfelde, now part of Berlin – Sep 17, 1963, Tübingen), member of the Prussian and Saxon Academies of Science and of the order Pour le Mérite, and recipient of an honorary doctorate from Budapest (1935). He entered the University of Berlin in 1900, studying with Friedrich Paulsen, W. Dilthey, and Otto Hinze; he received his doctorate in 1905 and his habilitation in 1909. In 1911 he was ¶ appointed professor of philosophy and education at Leipzig. From 1920 to 1945 he taught in Berlin, from 1946 to 1952 in Tübingen. From his univer…
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Religion Past and Present
Sprengel (Parish/Diocese)
(147 words)
[German Version] The German
Sprengel, originally an implement for sprinkling (holy) water, denotes the area of a priest’s responsibility (and in Austria, also a secular administrative area). Historically, it first denoted the area of a bishop’s responsibility (bishopric). As a synonym of parish, in pre-Carolingian times it could also already stand for the area of a priest’s responsibility. Beginning with the Reformation reor-¶ dering of church law structures (cf. the 1533 Wittenberg church order),
Sprengel comes to refer generally to a specific area (under the persona…
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Religion Past and Present
Sprögel, Johann Heinrich
(211 words)
[German Version] (Oct 11, 1644, Quedlinburg – Feb 25, 1722, Stolp, Pomerania [Słupsk]), Lutheran theologian, a leader of the Pietist movement in Quedlinburg, and father-in-law of G. Arnold. After studying in Leipzig, he taught at the abbey Gymnasium in Quedlinburg and was appointed a deacon of the abbey in 1681. After bitter conflicts with the abbess Anna Dorothea, duchess of Saxony-Weimar (governed 1684–1704), his ties with Pietism (journey to Leipzig in 1689; close contacts with A.H. Francke, at…
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Religion Past and Present
Spurgeon, Charles Haddon
(257 words)
[German Version] ( Jun 19, 1834, Kelvedon, Essex – Jan 31, 1892, Menton, France). A conversion experience led Spurgeon to join the Baptist Union (Baptists); in 1850 he became an assistant pastor. He moved to London in 1854, where his unusual rhetorical gifts were quickly evident; they would soon make him the most famous preacher in England (III, 1.e). In 1855 he began to preach in large halls in London. His success as preacher led to the building of the Metropolitan Tabernacle, with 5,600 seats. H…
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Religion Past and Present
Sremski Karlovci
(196 words)
[German Version] (Hung. Karlócza), a city on the Danube in Syrmia (Srem), Serbia, a Baroque ecclesiastical center of Orthodox Serbs within the Catholic Habsburg empire. From 1713 to 1920, it was a metropolitan (II) see, autocephalous (Autocephaly) after the abolition of the patriarchate of Peć in 1766. With the help of Russian theologians from Kiev, Sremski Karlovci became an intellectual and theological center (seminary opened in 1774, the first Serbian Gymnasium in 1791). The “national church co…
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Religion Past and Present
Sri Lanka
(1,137 words)
[German Version] Christianity in Sri Lanka can look back over a remarkably long history. After a sporadic presence on the island since the 6th century and a continuous presence since the early 16th, it subsequently went through a development that was sometimes in step with the various stages of European colonial rule and at other times took a significantly different course. The earliest reliable evidence for the existence of Christian communities in Sri Lanka is a comment in the ¶
Christian Topography of the Nestorian merchant and writer Casmas Indicopleustes around the year…
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Religion Past and Present
Śruti/Smṛti
(350 words)
[German Version] ̣In Hinduism (II, 1.a; III, 3) the terms
śruti (Sanskrit, lit. “hearing,” usually translated freely as “revelation”) and
smṛti (Sanskrit, lit. “memory,” usually rendered freely as “tradition”) serve to classify the Sanskrit texts that conservative Brahmanic circles recognize, at least nominally, as authoritative sacred tradition. The term
śruti usually denotes the Veda or, more precisely, the Vedic Saṃhitās and Brāhmanas together with the Āraṇyakas and Upaniṣads, whereas
smṛti primarily denotes the Dharmaśāstras and Vedic Sūtras, as well as th…
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Religion Past and Present
Stäblein, Bruno
(130 words)
[German Version] (May 5, 1885, Munich – Mar 6, 1978, Erlangen). After studing musicology and music (Dr.phil. 1918), he worked as a conductor and Gymnasium teacher; in 1953 he was appointed director of the Instut für Musikforschung in Regensburg, which he had founded in 1945. In 1946 he received his habilitation and in 1956 was appointed professor of musicology at Erlangen, where he founded the “Monumenta monodica medii aevi” series. His studies on the musical literature of the Latin Middle Ages se…
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Religion Past and Present
Staël, Anne Louise Germaine de
(80 words)
[German Version] Baroness de Stäel-Holstein (Apr 22, 1766, Paris – Jul 14, 1817, Paris). As an exile during the French Revolution, Mme. de Staël was the central figure of a European network of communication. Refracting the ideas of J.-J. Rousseau through the lens of early German Romanticism, she wrote in criticism of the social conventionality restricting women, and preached the perfecting of humanity in history. Volker Leppin Bibliography C. Blennerhassett,
Madame de Staël, 1889 (Eng.).
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Religion Past and Present
Staff
(172 words)
[German Version] a support for the elderly and a token of power (Exod 4:2ff.; 2 Kgs 4:29); a shepherd uses the crook of his staff to keep his flock together (Ps 23:4). The staff used as a means of support by elderly monks turned into an abbatial staff, first attested in the case of St. Columbanus. The bishop’s staff or crozier, probably borrowed from official Byzantine ceremonial, developed as an extra-liturgical token of jurisdiction (first attested for Caesarius of Arles); from the 9th century on, it was conferred by the king at investiture. The first mention ¶ of the episcopal crozier in…
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Religion Past and Present
Staffing Rights, Church
(540 words)
[German Version] In a broad sense, church staffing rights involve the fundamental issue of the extent to which churches and religious organizations have the right to administer their own affairs in issuing their own employment and labor regulations. The development of ecclesiastical employment and labor law in a way appropriate to the church’s mission is their own concern, as stated in German Basic Law art. 140 with Weimar Constitution art. 137 §3. This right of self-determination (see also Church…
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Religion Past and Present
Staffort Book
(190 words)
[German Version] (1599). The Staffort Book is witness to the change of confessional allegiance of Margrave Ernst Friedrich v. Baden-Durlach, one of the three sons of Margrave Charles II, on whose behalf the guardians Louis, elector palatine, Philip Louis, count palatine of Neuburg, and Duke Louis of Württemberg had signed the Formula of Concord after the margrave’s death. The book, printed at Schloß Staffort near Durlach, consisted – in its larger version – of a rejection of the Formula of Concord…
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Religion Past and Present
Stahl, Friedrich Julius
(363 words)
[German Version] ( Jan 16, 1802, Munich – Aug 10, 1861, Brückenau), Protestant jurisprudent and politician. Stahl (orig. Jolson) was of Jewish parentage; in 1819 he converted to Lutheranism and took the name Stahl when he was baptized. In 1832 he was appointed associate professor at Erlangen and in the same year full professor at Würzburg; in 1834 he was ¶ appointed full professor at Erlangen. As representative of the university in the Bavarian
Landtag, he was reprimanded on account of a conflict with the government; in 1840 he therefore accepted an appointment in Be…
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Religion Past and Present
Stählin, Wilhelm
(252 words)
[German Version] (Sep 24, 1883, Gunzenhausen – Dec 16, 1975, Prien am Chiemsee). After studying Protestant theology in Erlangen, Rostock, and Berlin, Stählin served as a pastor in Bavaria. He received his doctorate from Würzburg in 1913 with a dissertation on the metaphorical language of the New Testament. In 1914 he founded the Gesellschaft für Religionspsychologie in Nuremberg. After 1918 he was one of the leading theologians in the
Jugendbewegung. From 1922 to 1932 he was a leader in the Bund Deutscher Jugendvereine. In 1923 he helped establish the Berneuchen …
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Religion Past and Present
Stained Glass
(1,567 words)
[German Version]
I Stained (or painted) glass is a type of monumental painting whose effect is dependent on the translucence of its material. It consists of flat pieces of colored glass held together in a grooved lead (came) framework to form a representational or ornamental composition. In representational compositions and sometimes in ornamental compositions, the pieces of glass are painted with black stain of varying density. Annealing in a special furnace bonds the painting to the surface of the glass.
II Around 1100 Theophilus Presbyter described the technique of making…
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Religion Past and Present
Stalinism
(478 words)
[German Version] The term
Stalinism was not coined by the “Stalinists” but by their opponents. It is commonly accepted as denoting the authoritarian and bureaucratic system of government established under J. Stalin- between 1928/1929 and 1953, together with the dictatorship of a party leader who imposed his arbitrarily defined political line, employing an entourage of compliant functionaries (
nomenklatura) and terrorism against enemies real and supposed. Ideologically speaking, Stalinism was rooted in the theories of V. Lenin. It did not consider itse…
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Religion Past and Present
Stalin, Joseph
(572 words)
[German Version] (Vissarionovich Jughashvili; Dec 6 [18], 1878, Gori, Georgia – Mar 5, 1953, Moscow). Stalin’s family was poor. From 1888 to 1894, he attended the church school in Gori and then the Orthodox seminary in Tiflis. When he was expelled in 1899 on account of his contacts with underground Marxist circles (Marxism), his membership in the Georgian Social Democratic Mesame Dasi (1898) brought him into the Tiflis organization of the Russian Social Demo-¶ cratic Labor Party (RSDLP) in the fall of 1901. Under the cover names
Koba and
Stalin (“the man of steel”), he engaged in re…
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Religion Past and Present
Stallmann, Martin
(156 words)
[German Version] (Aug 13, 1903, Börninghausen – Jan 29, 1980, Göttingen), read theological studies at Marburg (R. Bultmann, F. Gogarten), was a pastor (1929–1948) and professor of Evangelical theology with a teaching position for religious studies at the Pädagogische Hochschule in Lüneburg in 1948, and at Göttingen in 1961. He was honorary professor of practical theology from 1965. Obtaining his doctorate in 1959, he was made emeritus professor in 1968. Stallmann clarified the relationship between…
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Religion Past and Present
Stamm, Johann Jakob
(173 words)
[German Version] (Sep 11, 1910, Basel – Nov 3, 1993, Wabern, Bern). After studying theology and Assyriology in Basel, Neuchâtel, Marburg, and Leipzig, Stamm received a doctorate in both fields. From 1949 to 1976 he taught at Bern as professor of Old Testament (to 1960 also of the history of religions); from 1960 to 1980 he was also responsible for ancient Near Eastern languages. Shaped by the tradition of Christian humanism and theologically indebted to K. Barth, in his academic publications he pl…
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Religion Past and Present
Stancarus, Franciscus
(155 words)
[German Version] (c. 1501, Mantua – Nov 12, 1574, Sopnica, near Sandomierz), Hebraist, physician, and theologian, whose contentiousness triggered violent disputes wherever his unsettled life took him. Probably of Jewish descent and initially a priest or monk, after studying in Basel and in southern Germany he was appointed professor of Hebrew in Vienna in 1544 and in Cracow in 1549. Called to the University of Königsberg (Kaliningrad), he left after three months because of a clash with A. Osiander…
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Religion Past and Present
St. Andrews, University of
(183 words)
[German Version] Because Scotland maintained its allegiance to the Avignon pope Benedict XIII to the bitter end during the Great Western Schism, it was impossible for Scots to study on the continent. In 1410 the bishop of St. Andrews founded the oldest Scottish university (theology, canon law, the
artes). Successor bishops added additional colleges. St. Leonard’s College was a gateway for Reformation theology in Scotland, but it was not until 1559 that leading representatives of the university gave university support to the Reformation. Their…
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Religion Past and Present
Stange, Carl
(251 words)
[German Version] (Mar 7, 1870, Hamburg – Dec 5, 1959, Göttingen), appointed lecturer in systematic theology at Halle, 1895; associate professor at Königsberg (Kaliningrad), 1903; professor at Greifswald, 1904; professor of systematic and practical theology at Göttingen, 1912. His theological thought was based on fundamental ideas of I. Kant and F.D.E. Schleiermacher. He combined an epistemological and voluntaristic foundation for the independence of religious experience with an ontological concept…
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Religion Past and Present
Stăniloae, Dumitru
(296 words)
[German Version] (Nov 17, 1903, Vlădeni – Oct 5, 1993, Bucharest), studied theology in Chernivtsi (1922–1927), Athens, Munich, Berlin, Paris, and Belgrade. On his return to Romania, in 1929 he was appointed lecturer at the Theological Academy in Sibiu (Hermannstadt), where he was appointed professor in 1934 and rector in 1936. After his marriage in 1930, he was ordained to the diaconate (1931) and priesthood (1932). Until he was dismissed by the Communist regime, he also edited the church newspaper
Telegraful Român (1934–1945). In 1946 he was forced to resign as rector and l…
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Religion Past and Present
Stanislaus of Cracow, Saint
(178 words)
[German Version] (c. 1036–1040, Szczepanów – Apr 11, 1079, Cracow), martyr bishop and patron saint of Poland. Initially a parish priest in Czembocz, as bishop of Cracow (from 1072) he came into bitter conflict with King Boleslav II, which cost ¶ him his life. Church tradition has it that he was slain by the king himself during mass in the Church of St. Michael because he had rebuked the king for his immoral way of life, but the alternative tradition is more believable – that he was condemned to death as a traitor for his political opposition and was gruesomely executed by
truncatio membrorum. His…
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Religion Past and Present
Stanton, Elizabeth Cady
(168 words)
[German Version] (Nov 12, 1815, Johnstown NY – Oct 16, 1902, New York City) was the most prominent spokesperson for the American women’s movement (Feminism and feminist theology). She helped organize the women’s rights convention at Seneca Falls, NY (1848), where she introduced a “Declaration of Sentiments, based on the Declaration of Independence, calling for women’s equal rights. Stanton served as president of the New York Woman’s Temperance Society (1851–1853) and as an officer in the Women’s L…
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Religion Past and Present
Stapel, Wilhelm
(195 words)
[German Version] (Oct 27, 1882, Calbe – Jun 1, 1954, Hamburg), political commentator and writer. After receiving his Dr.phil. in 1911, Stapel devoted his efforts to anti-modernist, nationalist ideas, becoming a dominant figure in the “conservative revolution.” From 1918 to 1938, he and Albrecht Erich Günther published the journal
Deutsches Volkstum; with a Protestant bias and close friendship with E. Hirsch, they championed a program of ethnic nationalism with an anti-Semitic flavor. Especially between 1926 and 1938, Stapel was the dominant voi…
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Religion Past and Present
Stapfer
(391 words)
[German Version]
1. Johann Friedrich (1708, Bern – May 1775, Bern). After studying in Brugg, Bern, and Marburg, Stapfer served from 1738 to 1740 as a military chaplain in Waldstätten (Bern) and from 1740 to 1750 as a tutor and garrison chaplain in Oberdießbach (near Thun). From 1750 to 1775 he served there as pastor, succeeding S. Lutz. He turned down offers of a chair at Marburg. After 1743 he published a final systematic treatise of “polemics”, his
Institutiones theologiae polemicae univesae (5 vols., 1743–1747); his other major works include his dogmatic
Grundlegung zur wahren Relig…
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Religion Past and Present
Staphylus, Friedrich
(330 words)
[German Version] (Stapelage; Aug 27, 1512, Osnabrück – Mar 5, 1564, Ingolstadt), Greek scholar and theologian. After the death of his parents, Staphylus lived with relatives in Danzig (Gdansk) and Kaunas. He studied in Cracow, Padua, and from 1536 to 1546 in Wittenberg, receiving his M.A. in 1541. From 1546 to 1551 he was in the service of Duke Albert of Prussia (from 1546 to 1548 as professor at Königsberg [Kaliningrad]). During this period he engaged in theological debates with G. Gnapheus and A. Osiander (1551:
Synodus sanctorum patrum antiquorum contra nova dogmata Andreae Osiandri).…
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Religion Past and Present
Starbuck, Edwin Diller
(160 words)
[German Version] (Feb 20, 1866, Guilford Township, IN – Nov 18, 1947, Los Angeles, CA), American pioneer of the psychology of religion and educational theory as an empirical science based on developmental psychology. After a happy childhood with his Quaker parents, he studied at Harvard under W. James and at Clark University under G.S. Hall. His dissertation on conversion and adolescent development, based on questionnaires, was published in 1899; it is considered the first book on the empirical ps…
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Religion Past and Present
Starcke, Christoph
(168 words)
[German Version] (Mar 21, 1684, Freienwalde – Dec 12, 1744, Driesen, Neumark [now Drezdenko, Poland]). After attending school in Berlin, began studying at Halle in 1703. From Halle he brought the spirit of Pietism to his future work as an instructor in Berlin (1705), pastor in Nennhausen, Kreis Rathenow (1709), and senior pastor and garrison chaplain in Driesen (1737). In collaboration with others, he produced a
Synopsis bibliothecae in Novum Testamentum (1733–1737), an exegetical and homiletical reference work with many tables, which continued in print into the l…
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Religion Past and Present
Starck, Johann August
(327 words)
[German Version] (von; Oct 28, 1741, Schwerin – Mar 3, 1816, Darmstadt). After studying theology and Near Eastern languages at Göttingen, Starck began teaching in St. Petersburg in 1763. In 1766 he was given a research position at the library of St. Germain in Paris; in 1767 he was appointed deputy rector of the Gymnasium in Wismar. After another stay in St. Petersburg, in 1770 he was appointed professor of Near Eastern languages and second court chaplain at Königsberg (Kaliningrad). In 1772 he wa…
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Religion Past and Present
Starck, Johann Friedrich
(183 words)
[German Version] (Oct 10, 1680, Hildesheim – Jul 17, 1756, Frankfurt am Main), Pietist devotional writer. During his studies at Gießen, he was won over to Pietism by J.H. May. After working as a private tutor in Frankfurt am Main, in 1709 he was appointed preacher in Geneva; in 1711 he was appointed pastor in Sachsenhausen and in 1723 at the Barfüßerkirche in Frankfurt. Rejecting separatist Pietism, Starck brought “true, inward, heartfelt devotion” into the state church through his edifying and devotional writings. His
Tägliches Handbuch in guten und bösen Tagen (1727; ET:
Daily Hand-Bo…
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Religion Past and Present
Starets
(365 words)
[German Version] (pl.
startsy) is the Russian equivalent to the Greek word γέρων/
gérōn; it denotes an experienced (and therefore usually elderly) ascetic, whose spiritual direction younger ascetics as well as Christians living in the world accept without question. The roots this phenomenon go back to Eastern monasticism in the Early Church. St. Anthony is the prototypical
starets, but this form of spiritual direction did not fully come into its own until the late 18th century in Russia, when Paisius Velichkovsky left Athos for Moldavia with 60 discip…
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Religion Past and Present
Staritz, Katharina Helena Charlotte
(187 words)
[German Version] ( Jul 25, 1903, Breslau [Wrocław] – Apr 3, 1953, Frankfurt am Main), one of the first women ordained in the Old Prussian Union (1928). As municipal vicar of Breslau (appointed ¶ Nov 1933), she championed the cause of the city’s Jewish citizens, helping them emigrate and thus probably saving the lives of more than 100 Jews (National Socialism: I, 4). After her circular letter against the “Jewish badge” dated Sep 12, 1941, became generally known, she was relieved of her duties; expelled from Breslau, she went to …
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Religion Past and Present
Stasiewski, Bernhard
(261 words)
[German Version] (Nov 14, 1905, Berlin – Jul 1, 1995, Königswinter-Ittenbach), Catholic church historian. After studying theology, he was ordained to the priesthood on Jan 27, 1929, in Breslau (Wrocław); he went on to study history and Slavistics at Berlin, where he earned his doctorate in 1933. In 1935 he was appointed to teach Polish history. In 1943 he organized the diocesan historical association of Berlin and in 1946 the Katholisches Bildungswerk. In 1940 he was drafted and served as an inter…
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Religion Past and Present
State
(4,704 words)
[German Version]
I. Terminology The word
state with its various cognates came into use in the Romance languages in the 16th century and was used in German (
Staat) by the end of the 18th. It expresses the notion of the socio-historical “state” or “condition” of a body politic – more specifically the state of physical security ensured for this body by the authority effective and recognized within a “national population” living in its “national territory” (Georg Jellinek [1851–1911],
Allgemeine Staatslehre, 1900). Domestically the authority reliably governs the outward relati…
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Religion Past and Present
State and Christianity
(12 words)
[German Version] Church and State, State and Religion
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Religion Past and Present
State and Religion
(2,721 words)
[German Version]
I. The Problem In Western societies, the relationship between the state and religion is determined less by religion’s constitutional status – freedom of religion is a fundamental constitutional right everywhere – than by historical tradition. Where the major confessional bodies were (or still are) state churches, there is still a hierarchy of religions. Without regard to actual religious life, the state gives traditional religions a special status, materially and ideally. In the publ…
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Religion Past and Present
State Church
(1,054 words)
[German Version]
I As one type of relationship between church and state, a state church is a church incorporated into the state in such a way that it appears to be a state institution. As a result, the state not only has the right to intervene in the internal governance of the church (staffing, deciding doctrinal conflicts, disposition of church property, etc.; Church polity) but also may use the church for state purposes.
1 The history of state churches began when Theodosius I made the Christian church the only recognized church of the Roman Empire (
Reichskirche). In East Rome, a sacral …
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Religion Past and Present
State Contributions to the Churches
(452 words)
[German Version] The state contributions that the major churches receive in Germany are compensation for the expropriation of church property (Property, Church), especially during the Reformation and in the context of the French Revolution and the associated end of the Old Empire. This is stated clearly in §35 of the Principal Resolution of the Imperial Deputation of Feb 25, 1803. The territorial princes were conceded the right to confiscate church property, but they were obliged to provide for the needs of the churches. Article 138 §1 of the Weimar Constitution, which continu…
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Religion Past and Present
State Cult
(1,973 words)
[German Version]
I. History of Religions State cults in the narrow sense are religious ceremonies, governed by tradition or law, performed in the name of the state and for its benefit; typically they are addressed to extrasensory powers such as gods, demons, natural numina, or personalized cosmic forces. It is necessary to distinguish cults celebrated regularly at fixed times and places from those staged on a particular occasion such as an enthronement, the death of a ruler, a natural disaster, an epi…
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Religion Past and Present
State-owned Enterprise
(222 words)
[German Version] A state-owned or public enterprise in the strict sense is an enterprise (Corporation) run by public authorities at various hierarchical levels. Its purpose is to produce and supply public goods and services. Such enterprises serve the public interest; by the principle of equality in German Basic Law art. 3, no one can be excluded from their use and enjoyment. Public goods include the maintenance of public safety (Security, Internal and external), monitoring of the economy and the …
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Religion Past and Present
State Religion
(245 words)
[German Version] The term
state religion denotes a religious element unifying the collectivity of subjects, considered indispensable for the existence of the state (“un roi, une loi, une foi”). It was taken for granted as the foundation of nearly every early form of the state. To the extent that religion is considered an element of public order, religious pluralism is perceived as a threat to the unity of the state, since it bears the seed of civil war, or at least qualified loyalty on the part of th…
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Religion Past and Present
State Systems
(797 words)
[German Version] A state system is the external structure of state governance and the external organization of the execution of governance. The Aristotelian system has influenced all later theories. It arranges the forms of state according to the number of rulers – one ruler, a few rulers, or many rulers (Arist.
Pol. 1278b - 1301a). All of these forms of state face the alternative of either ¶ serving the common good or the self-interest of the rulers. This gives rise to the following positively regarded forms of state and their corresponding corrupt versions:…
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Religion Past and Present
Station Church
(202 words)
[German Version] A
statio (“station”) was originally a gathering or gathering place; it then came to be associated particularly with fasts and the liturgy of the word. In 4th-century Rome, it finally came to denote the eucharistic celebration by the bishop and the local church in stational churches, first newly designated and then permanently assigned in the 7th century; until 1970 they were still listed in the Roman Missal for 89 days. A unique feature (until the early 14th cent.) was a procession from a nearby church (
collecta). This form of urban liturgy, attested for other cit…
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Religion Past and Present
Stations of the Cross
(484 words)
[German Version] a Catholic devotion that reenacts Jesus’ passion in 14 stations, from his sentencing by Pontius Pilate to his entombment, either tracing his footsteps or in contemplative prayer; it is primarily associated with Lent. Pilgrims began visiting the biblical sites associated with Jesus’ life in the 4th century, but the beginnings of the stations go back only to the late Middle Ages. In the 14th century, Franciscans in Jerusalem guided pilgrims along the Via Dolorosa, the (unhistorical…
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Religion Past and Present
Statistics, Church
(566 words)
[German Version] Church statistics record the measurable data of the church’s life and circumstances. Such statistics, in a preliminary stage, begin to appear in the 14th century, in the form of registers recording baptisms, marriages, and burials (Ministerial offices). In the Churches of the Reformation, too, we soon find church registers with similar entries. The beginning of modern statistics was signaled by the numerical recording of data to identify regularities (political arithmetic). As the…
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Religion Past and Present
Statistics, Religion Adherence
(845 words)
[German Version] In the first instance, religious statistics report the data that provide information on the local or global distribution of individual religions or religious groups. They are one aspect of a larger “religiometrics,” which includes all measurable factors associated with religion (e.g. sacred buildings, production of religious books and media, endowments) in order to take these quantitative values into account in interpreting religious phenomena or developments. “Counting procedures” in the context of religion go back to the dawn of the 1st millennium bce, if Da…
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Religion Past and Present
Stattler, Benedikt
(290 words)
[German Version] ( Jan 30, 1728, Kötzing – Aug 21, 1797, Munich). After teaching at Jesuit colleges, in 1780 Stattler was appointed professor of dogmatics at Ingolstadt, where he had J.M. Sailer as a student and later a colleague. After the Jesuit order was suppressed, he was able to keep his chair temporarily, but he was dismissed in 1781. In 1782 he was appointed to a parish in Kemnath (Upper Palatinate), but in 1788 he resigned and retreated into the life of an independent scholar in Munich. In this same year, he wrote his
Anti-Kant polemic in opposition to Kant’s epistemology. From …
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Religion Past and Present
Status confessionis
(393 words)
[German Version] The concept of a
status confessionis comes from the situation presented in Matt 10:32f., in which – under persecution – one must decide (Decision) between confessing Christ and denying Christ. Not every situation requiring a decision involves a
status confessionis. Paul, for example, considered eating food offered to idols irrelevant to a person’s relationship to God (Adiaphora). But those who could see eating such food only as separation from Christ should refrain (Rom 14; 1 Cor 8). The term itself emerged during the Adiaphorist controversy, in which Mela…
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Religion Past and Present
Staudenmaier, Franz Anton
(369 words)
[German Version] (Sep 11, 1800, Donzdorf, Württemberg – Jan 19, 1856, Freiburg im Breisgau). Ordained to the priesthood in 1827, in 1828 he was appointed lecturer at Tübingen and in 1830 professor of dogmatics at Gießen; in 1837 he took the same position in Freiburg, where he was also appointed canon. Staudenmaier, who studied with Johann Sebastian Drey (1777–1853), J.B. Hirscher, and J.A. Möhler in Tübingen, took issue with F.D.E. Schleiermacher, who, he argued, no longer based religion on the tr…
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Religion Past and Present
Stäudlin, Karl Friedrich
(167 words)
[German Version] ( Jul 25, 1761, Stuttgart – Jul 5, 1826, Göttingen). After studying from 1779 to 1784 at the Stift in Tübingen, in 1790 he was appointed professor of theology at Göttingen, on the recommendation of his teacher G.C. Storr. In 1803 he was also appointed to the consistorial council. To the end of his life, he and the church historian G.J. Planck together shaped the life of the theological faculty. In numerous contributions in almost every theological discipline, he sought to present …
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Religion Past and Present
Stauffenberg, Claus Schenk Graf von
(322 words)
[German Version] (Nov 15, 1907, Jettingen – Jul 20, 1944, Berlin), colonel on the general staff. His personality was rooted in three sources: the service ethic and faith ethic of the Catholic nobility in southern Germany (
noblesse oblige) together with family honor, the esotericism of the poet S. George, and the responsibility of the soldier. The officer corps must fight on behalf of the army, “our nation, and the state itself, aware that our military tradition and hence its bearer, the officer corps, represents the fundamental bea…
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Religion Past and Present
Staupitz, Johann von
(483 words)
[German Version] (c. 1468 Motterwitz, near Leisnig – Dec 28, 1524, Salzburg). Staupitz, descended from an old Saxon family, played a key role in the transition from late medieval reform to the Reformation, especially because of his relationship to Luther. After his studies (M.A. from Cologne in 1489), he joined the observant German reform congregation of the Augustinian Hermits. He earned his Dr.theol. at Tübingen, where he had been the Augustinian prior since 1497; 1500 he became prior in Munich.…
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Religion Past and Present
Stavropigial Monasteries
(263 words)
[German Version] The ecumenical Council of Chalcedon in 451 for the first time set out to “integrate” monasticism, placing it under the authority of the local bishop; the erection of monasteries was made subject to episcopal approval (c. 4). The external sign of a monastic foundation was the erection of a cross, the so-called
stavropigia (from Gk σταυρὸν πηγνύναι/
staurón pēgnýnai), mentioned in the civil ecclesiastical laws of Emperor Justinian I (
Cod. Iust. I 3.26;
Novella 5.1; 67.1; 131.7), which adopted this canonical legislation (
Cod. Iust. I 3.39;
Novella 133.4). The bishop h…
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Religion Past and Present
Steck, Karl Gerhard
(202 words)
[German Version] (Apr 28, 1908, Markt Nordheim, Middle Franconia – Jul 6, 1983, Frankfurt am Main). As a theological student, he belonged to a small circle of K. Barth’s students at Bonn. In 1936 he was appointed lecturer at the seminary of the Confessing Church in Frankfurt am Main; in 1939 he replaced E. Thurneysenas editor of the series “Theologische Existenz heute.” In 1943 he was appointed pastor in Sulzbach-Rosenberg and in 1948 superintendent of the Protestant house of studies in Göttingen,…
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Religion Past and Present
Steck, Odil Hannes
(256 words)
[German Version] (Dec 26, 1935, Munich – Mar 30, 2001, Zürich). After studying theology in Neuendettelsau, Wuppertal, and Heidelberg (doctorate in 1965 under G. Bornkamm, influenced by G. v. Rad), he taught from 1968 to 1976 as professor of Old Testament in Hamburg, from 1976 to 1978 in Mainz, and from 1978 to 2001 in Zürich. His dissertation explored the long arc of transmission of the Deuteronomistic understanding of history (Deuteronomistic History) from the OT into early Christianity, signalin…
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Religion Past and Present
Stedingers
(182 words)
[German Version] The Stedingers were groups of rural settlers (mostly colonists) along the lower Weser north of Bremen, who revolted in 1204 against the counts of Oldenburg and the archbishop of Bremen. Since they refused to pay the taxes they owed the Bremen church even after they were excommunicated (1227?), Archbishop Gerhard II denounced them as heretics for defying God and the church’s power of the keys, sacrilege, and consorting with demons (Bremen Lenten synod, 1230 or 1231). No influence o…
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Religion Past and Present
Steffens, Henrik
(352 words)
[German Version] (May 2, 1773, Stavanger, Denmark [now Norway] – Feb 13, 1845, Berlin). Beginning in 1790, Steffens studied natural history in Copenhagen and Kiel, where he taught as a lecturer in 1796. In 1798 he traveled to Jena. J.G. Fichte’s
Wissenschaftslehre (ET:
The Science of Knowing, 2005) and especially F.W.J. Schelling’s
Ideen zu einer Philosophie der Natur (1797; ET:
Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature, 1988) and
Von der Weltseele (1798) influenced him deeply. In Freiberg he studied at the Mining Academy and published
Beyträge zur innern Naturgeschichte der Erde (1801), dedi…
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Religion Past and Present
Stegmann, Josua
(171 words)
[German Version] (Sep 14, 1588, Sülzfeld – Aug 3, 1632, Rinteln), received his Dr.theol. at Leipzig in 1617. In 1618, on the recommendation of J. Gerhard, he was called to Stadthagen as superintendent and professor at the Academic Gymnasium, which achieved university status in 1621 and was moved to Rinteln, where J. Rist was among his students. When Rinteln was occupied by Brunswick troops in 1623, Stegmann took flight. When he returned, he was appointed ephorus of the county of Schaumburg. With t…
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Religion Past and Present
Steil, Ludwig
(113 words)
[German Version] (Oct 29, 1900, Lüttringhausen – Jan 17, 1945, Dachau) was appointed pastor in Holsterhausen in 1929. In 1933 he was one of the cofounders of the Confessing Church in Westphalia and a member of its administrative committee under K. Koch. His criticisms of National Socialist ideology (National Socialism) led to his arrest in September of 1944; in early December he was sent to the concentration camp at Dachau in degrading conditions. Weakened by three weeks of transport and insufficient nourishment, he died soon after his arrival. Carsten Nicolaisen Bibliography G. Steil…
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Religion Past and Present
Steinbach, Wendelin
(151 words)
[German Version] (1454, Butzbach – Jan 14, 1519, Tübingen), member of the Brethren of the Common Life and professor of theology (
via moderna) in Tübingen. At an early age, Steinbach entered the Sankt Markus house of the Brethren of the Common Life (Brothers and Sisters of the Common Life) in Butzbach. Along with G. Biel, he joined (1477) the monastery of Sankt Amandus in Urbach, founded by Count Eberhard the Bearded. In 1481 he began his theological studies at the University of Tübingen, receiving his Dr.theol. on Oc…
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Religion Past and Present
Steinbart, Gotthilf Samuel
(342 words)
[German Version] (Sep 21, 1738, Züllichau – Feb 3, 1809, Frankfurt an der Oder), was educated in the school at Kloster Bergen; he counteracted its culture of Pietism and transitional theology by privately reading the philosophers of the Enlightenment, including J. Locke and Voltaire. He went on to study theology in Halle (S.J. Baumgarten) and Frankfurt an der Oder ( J.G. Toellner). After teaching in Berlin and Züllichau, in 1774 he was appointed director of the Züllichau orphanage as well as professor of philosophy and associate professor of theology in ¶ Frankfurt; he was promoted t…
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Religion Past and Present
Steinbeck, John
(175 words)
[German Version] (Feb 27, 1902, Salinas, CA – Dec 20, 1968, New York), American writer and journalist. His realistic novels and short stories, mostly set in California, are characterized by incisive social criticism. His characters are caught between the poles of ethical idealism and materialism (
The Pearl, 1947) and between biological or social determinism and free will (
East of Eden, 1952). He focused repeatedly on the lives of losers – as in
Of Mice and Men (1937) and
Cannery Row (1944) – and the struggle for economic and social justice, for example in
In Dubious Battle (1936) and
The Gra…
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Religion Past and Present
Steinbüchel, Theodor
(208 words)
[German Version] ( Jun 15, 1888, Cologne – Feb 11, 1949, Tübingen), studied philosophy, Catholic theology, and economics in Bonn and Straßburg (Strasbourg), receiving his Dr.phil. in 1911. He was ordained to the priesthood in 1913. In 1920 he received his Dr.theol. and in 1922 his habilitation in theology. He was appointed professor of philosophy in Gießen in 1926, taught from 1935 to 1939 as professor of moral philosophy in Munich, and moved to Tübingen in 1941, where he served as rector for 1946…
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Religion Past and Present
Stein, Edith (Saint)
(483 words)
[German Version] (Teresia Benedicta a Cruce OCD; Oct 12, 1891, Breslau [Wrocław] – Aug 9, 1942, Auschwitz), was born to a German Jewish family. In 1911 she began to study philosophy, psychology, Germanic philology, and history at Breslau; her teachers included William Stern and Richard Hönigswald. In 1913 she went to Göttingen to study with E. Husserl, Adolf Reinach, and M. Scheler. In 1916 she received her doctorate under Husserl at Freiburg, where she served as his teaching assistant until 1918.…
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Religion Past and Present
Steiner, Rudolf Joseph Lorenz
(380 words)
[German Version] (Feb 25, 1861, Kraljevec [now in Croatia] – Mar 30, 1925, Dornach, Switzerland), founder of anthroposophy. He was baptized Catholic but grew up a freethinker. After interrupted study of the natural sciences (1879/1883), he worked until 1897 as editor of J.W. v. Goethe’s scientific writings. In 1891 he received his doctorate with a thesis on J.G. Fichte’s epistemology but failed to earn habilitation. During these years, Steiner was influenced by German Idealism and Goethean natural…
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Religion Past and Present
Steiner Schools
(688 words)
[German Version] The Steiner schools (or Waldorf schools) trace their roots to the anthroposophist R. Steiner, whose anthropology they reflect. The first Steiner school was founded in Stuttgart in 1919 as the independent Waldorfschule. Since the 1980s, the number of such private Steiner schools has grown enormously: in 2004 there were 187 schools in Germany, enrolling some 76,000 students; worldwide there were 683 schools. The German schools are organized in the Bund der Freien Waldorfschulen, wit…
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Religion Past and Present
Steinhausen, Wilhelm
(96 words)
[German Version] (Feb 2, 1846, Sorau, Niederlausitz – Feb 5, 1924, Frankfurt am Main), painter and graphic designer. His first commission was bookmarks and illustrations for
Geschichte von der Geburt unseres Herrn Jesus Christus (1869). He obtained an honorary doctorate in theology from the Halle faculty. As “Protestant painter” he received civil and church commissions:
Christ und die Kinder (1888) and
Allegorie der Erziehungsgedanken antiker and christlicher Kunst (1899–1902). Diane Apostolos-Cappadona Bibliography Works include: “Christentum, Religion und Kunst,”
GlWis …
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Religion Past and Present
Steinheim, Salomon Ludwig
(152 words)
[German Version] (Aug 6, 1789, Bruchhausen – May 19, 1866, Zürich), physician and philosopher of religion. After working in Altona as a physician, he moved to Rome in 1846 and lived there as an independent scholar. Among his poetry, works on the natural sciences, and works on the philosophy of religion, his
Die Offenbarung nach dem Lehrbegriff der Synagoge (4 vols., 1835–1865) stands out. Although it had little influence on the contemporary internal debate between Orthodox and Reform Judaism, it shows Steinheim to have been an original thinker. His sys…
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Religion Past and Present
Stein, Heinrich Friedrich Karl
(607 words)
[German Version] vom und zum (Baron) (Oct 26, 1757, Nassau an der Lahn – Jun 29, 1831, Schloß Cappenberg, Westphalia). After being educated by a tutor, Stein studied jurisprudence in Göttingen from 1773 to 1777. After an internship with the Imperial High Court and a grand tour through Germany and Hungary, he entered the Prussian civil service in 1780; in 1782 he was appointed senior counselor of mines and in 1784 director of the Westphalian mining authority in Wetter an der Ruhr. In 1785 he was s…
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Religion Past and Present
Steinhofer, Friedrich Christoph
(253 words)
[German Version] ( Jan 16, 1706, Owen unter Teck – Feb 11, 1761, Weinsberg). After studying theology in Tübingen and serving as a pastoral vicar in Biberach an der Riss, in 1729 Steinhofer undertook an educational journey to Franconia and Saxony, were he stayed in Herrnhut in 1731/1732. Since N. v. Zinzendorf was prevented from bringing him to Herrnhut as a pastor, in 1734 he arranged a position for him at the court of Reuß-Ebersdorf. After a lengthy process of examination and clarification, Ebers…
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Religion Past and Present
Steinkopf, Karl Friedrich Adolf
(215 words)
[German Version] (Sep 7, 1773, Ludwigsburg – May 20, 1858, London) played a key role in the transnational Protestant awakening in the first decades of the 19th century. In 1790 he went to Tübingen to study theology. From 1795 to 1801 he served as full-time secretary of the German Christianity Society in Basel. From 1801 until his death, he was pastor of the German Lutheran congregation of the Savoy Chapel in London. He had close relations with the Religious Tract Society and both the London Missio…
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Religion Past and Present
Steinmetz, Johann Adam
(272 words)
[German Version] (Sep 24, 1689, Großkniegnitz in the principality of Brieg [now Księginice Wielkie, Poland] – Jul 10, 1762, Prester [now Magdeburg- Prester]). After studying at Leipzig (from 1709), in 1715 he was appointed associate pastor in Mollwitz, near Brieg (now Małujowice, Poland); in 1717 he became pastor in Tepliwoda (now Ciepłowody, Poland) and in 1720 senior pastor and inspector of schools in Teschen (Cieszyn), where he had the Jesus Church (Church of Grace) built as the first Protestan…
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Religion Past and Present
Steinmeyer, Franz Karl Ludwig
(183 words)
[German Version] (Nov 15, 1811, Beeskow, Mittelmark – Feb 5, 1900, Berlin). After studying in Berlin and serving as a preacher and teacher in Wittenberg and Kulm, Steinmeyer was appointed pastor in Nowawes in 1843. In 1854 he received his habilitation in Bonn and was appointed to a chair. From 1858 to 1887 he was professor practical theology and New Testament in Berlin, also serving as university preacher until 1870. Steinmeyer is noted primarily for his contribution to homiletics (
Homiletik, publ. posthumously in 1901). Like F.D.E. Schleiermacher, he made a clear distinct…
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Religion Past and Present
Steinschneider, Moses
(148 words)
[German Version] (Mar 30, 1816, Prostějov, Moravia – Jan 24, 1907, Berlin). After studying Semitic philology and Hebrew literature in Vienna, Leipzig, and Berlin (and in part as an autodidact), Steinschneider worked primarily in Berlin. Noted primarily for his ¶ bibliographical work (including the Hebraica catalogues for the Bodleian Library in Oxford and the university libraries of Leiden, Berlin, and Munich, as well as founding the periodical
Hamaskir), he was also a significant exponent of the Wissenschaft des Judentums inaugurated by L. Zunz. Studies like his
Die hebräischen …
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Religion Past and Present
Steinthal, Heymann
(165 words)
[German Version] (Chayim; May 16, 1823, Gröbzig – Mar 19, 1899, Berlin), philologist and cofounder (with M. Lazarus) of ethnopsychology (National psychology). His philosophy influenced W. Dilthey and G. Simmel. Following G.W.F. Hegel, he looked on language, the formative agent of thought, as the most significant expression of the unfolding world spirit, which also determines the spirit of individual peoples and promises to lead to universal humanity. Since Steinthal was prohibited from appointment…
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Religion Past and Present
Stela
(303 words)
[German Version] A stela is a hewn, finished stone, left in its natural state or decorated with inscriptions or iconographic elements (painted, incised, sculpted, carved in relief ) set up to serve as a marker of the presence (or at times the dwelling) of a deity or a deified ancestor for cultic purposes, sometimes with juridical potential (cultic stela, betyl; at Mari, Ugarit, Emar:
sikkanu), a votive offering to a deity (votive stela), a memorial to a deceased person (sepulchral stela; Arab., Aram.
npš), a witness to a legal transaction such as a treaty, or a marker of a ki…
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Religion Past and Present
Stellenbosch
(270 words)
[German Version] was founded in the vicinity of Cape Town in 1685. It became known as the home of the intellectual nursery for white Afrikaans-speaking students. The first church building built on South African soil was consecrated in 1687. Students from the Dutch Reformed Church (DRC) went to the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands to receive their theological training. In 1850 the DRC decided to train its own ministers. The decision was made mainly because of what was considered to be liberal theology taught at the University of Utrecht. It was th…
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Religion Past and Present
Stem Cell Research
(504 words)
[German Version] Stem cells are developmentally immature cells capable of dividing and maturing structurally and functionally. Such cells are normally found in complex organisms. Scientists are learning to isolate stem cells, grow them in a laboratory, and implant them in organisms, where in some cases they mature and become a functioning part of the living system. Medical ¶ researchers hope to use stem cells for “regenerative medicine” to treat a number of diseases. In 1998 pluripotent stem cells were first cultured from human embryos. Because they are pluripotent, …
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Religion Past and Present
Stenger, Johann Melchior
(190 words)
[German Version] (Sep 26, 1638, Erfurt – Mar 7, 1710, Wittstock). After studying in Jena (1654), Leipzig, Wittenberg, Straßburg (Strasbourg; 1658), and Erfurt, Stenger became a deacon at the Predigerkirche in Erfurt in 1666. His terministic teaching regarding repentance and grace, for which he relied primarily on
Sonthoms Güldenes Kleinod (E. Sonthom), set off the “Stenger controversy,” which precipitated a crisis in “early Erfurt Pietism” (Wallmann), which P.J. Spener unsuccessfully tried to resolve. Relieved of his office in Erfurt in 1670, …
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Religion Past and Present
Stensen, Nils
(191 words)
[German Version] ( Jan 11, 1638, Copenhagen – Dec 5, 1686, Schwerin) studied languages, anatomy, and mathematics in Copenhagen, Amsterdam, and Leiden. His anatomical discoveries soon gained him the reputation as a scientist. In 1666 he was appointed physician to the court in Florence, where he converted to Catholicism. Discoveries during various expeditions placed him amongthe founders of scientific geology, paleontology, and crystallography. After ordination to the priesthood in 1675, he was appo…
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Religion Past and Present
Stephan, Horst Emil
(193 words)
[German Version] (Sep 27, 1873, Sayda, Saxony – Jan 9, 1954, Leipzig). While studying theology in Leipzig, he began teaching in Zittau and Leipzig in 1899. In 1906 he earned his habilitation in Leipzig and in 1907 in Marburg, where he was appointed associate professor in 1911 and full professor of systematic theology in 1919. In 1922 he moved to Halle and in 1926 to ¶ Leipzig, where he retired in 1938 but continued to teach until 1949. Stephan followed in the footsteps of F.D.E. Schleiermacher and the tradition of liberal theology (
Geschichte der evangelischen Theologie seit dem Deutsc…
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Religion Past and Present
Stephani
(347 words)
[German Version]
1. Joachim (May, 1544, Pyritz, Pomerania [now Pyrzyce, Poland] – Jan 14, 1623, Greifswald). Initially (1572) professor of mathematics in Greifswald, in 1578 he was appointed professor of law, a member of the ducal council, and president of the consistory. With his younger brother Matthias (2. below), he was a leading advocate of the episcopal system (Episcopalism: I), appealing to imperial law to legitimate the evolving Protestant system of placing church governance in the hands of…
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Religion Past and Present
Stephanus the Younger, Saint
(109 words)
[German Version] (c. 713–765), abbot of the monastery of St. Auxentius in Bithynia. He was executed for conspiring against Constantine V. In the early 9th century, he was considered a martyr for monasticism,allegedly under persecution. His
vita, which claims to have been written in 809, also makes him a martyr for iconoduly (Veneration of images: VI). It is possible, however, that the
vita was not written until after 843 and the iconodulistic editing of history. His feast day is Nov 28. Claudia Sode Bibliography M.-F. Auzépy,
La vie d’Étienne le Jeune par Étienne le Diacre, BHG 1666, 1997
Pm…
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Religion Past and Present
Stephen bar Sudaili
(141 words)
[German Version] The only reliable dating for Stephen is found in the letter about him written by Philoxenus of Mabbug (between 512 and 518), attacking him and especially his idea of universal salvation and oneness. In light of a similar statement by the Syrian Orthodox patriarch Cyricaus (793–817), Stephen was also identified as the author of the
Book of Saint Hierotheos. Cyriacus was followed by later commentators on this book, Theodosius of Antioch (887–896) and Bar Hebraeus (13th cent.). Recent studies have also showed the similarity in content between Stephen and the
Book of Hiero…
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Religion Past and Present
Stephen II, Pope
(301 words)
[German Version] (papacy Mar 26, 752 – Apr 26, 757). A native Roman, Stephen was brought up in the Lateran and ordained to the diaconate, then was elected pope when the original pope-elect died four days after his election. Facing the threat posed by Aistulf, the expansive Lombard king, whom the Byzantine authorities did not oppose effectively, Stephen turned to the Franks for military support in a series of urgent letters, including a fictitious letter from the apostle Peter, and by crossing the …
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Religion Past and Present
Stephen I of Hungary, Saint
(190 words)
[German Version] (c. 970 – Aug 15, 1038, Székesfehérvár). Married to the German princess Gisela, with Western help he completed the Christianization of the Magyars (not always nonviolently) begun by his father Geisa, against Byzantine competition, unifying the Magyars politically for the first time. Stephen organized the Catholic Church in Hungary under the archbishop of Esztergom, for which he was canonized in 1083 by Gregory VII. His appointment as papal legate is a legend, the presentation of t…
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Religion Past and Present
Stephen I, Pope (Saint)
(191 words)
[German Version] episcopate May 254 – 256/257 (Aug 2, 255, according to the
Catalogus Liberianu
s and the
Depositio episcoporum [CPL 2028/2250]). He is venerated as a martyr; his tomb is in the Cripta dei Papi in the catacombs of San Callisto. All we know ¶ of Stephen comes from the statements of Firmilian of Caesarea and Cyprian of Carthage (
Ep. 67–75) protesting against the position taken by the Roman bishop, who wanted to exclude rebaptizing returning schismatics and simply lay hands on them (Rebaptism controversy). The North African opposition to thi…
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Religion Past and Present
Stephen Langton
(216 words)
[German Version] (1155, 1165, Langton, Lincolnshire – Jul 9, 1228, Slindon, Sussex), studied in Paris c. 1170, 1180; he may have been a canon at Notre Dame. In 1206 he became a cardinal priest in Rome and was elected archbishop of Canterbury in 1207 despite the objections of King John Lackland. He remained in exile in Pontigny, near Auxerre, until 1213. In England he mediated between the king and the barons (Magna Carta). He was suspended from office by Innocent III. He took part in the fourth Lat…
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Religion Past and Present
Stephen of Perm, Saint
(135 words)
[German Version] (c. 1340, Veliky Ustyug – Apr 26, 1396, Moscow), important early Russian missionary. Around 1365 he entered the monastery of Gregory the Theologian in Rostov Velikhy. There besides Greek he learned the language of the Finno-Ugrian Zyrians (Komi), for whom he devised a new alphabet and translated biblical and liturgical texts. In 1383 he was consecrated bishop, so that he was able to conduct a successful missionary campaign among them. He found an outstanding biographer in his fellow student Epifany the Wise. Peter Plank Bibliography Source:
Svjatitel’ Stefan Permsk…
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Religion Past and Present
Stephen, Saint (the First Martyr)
(286 words)
[German Version] According to the book of Acts (6:1–6), Stephen was a leader among the “Seven” in Jerusalem, who were entrusted with “waiting on tables.” His special gift of the Spirit (6:5, 10) was manifested in signs and wonders (6:8) and enabled him to triumph in disputes with representatives of Hellenistic Judaism (6:9f.); calling on false witnesses, they nevertheless succeeded in arousing the people against Stephen and bringing charges against him before the council (6:11–15). Stephen’s speec…
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Religion Past and Present
Stephen the Great, Saint
(170 words)
[German Version] (c. 1430 – Jul 2, 1504), prince of Moldavia. Popular tradition called him a “defender of Christendom” and saint; after the political reversal of 1989, the Synodic Council of the Romanian Orthodox Church canonized him as “Stephen the Great and Saint” on Jun 20/21, 1992, to reinforce the national religious identity of the Romanian people, especially outside the state of Romania. His reign, beginning on Apr 12, 1457, represented a cultural, economic, and political highpoint in the hi…
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Religion Past and Present