In: Volume 1 Dawn of Ecumenism | Part II. Prehistory: The Challenges of Modernity previous chapter 1 Introduction It may seem surprising to bring the figures of Johann Adam Möhler and Adolf von Harnack together in the same chapter. The question is not that they lived in different eras, although Möhler lived in the first half of the 19th century and von Harnack in the second half of the 19th century and the first decades of the following one. Nor is it the difference in their ecclesial affiliation (a difference in…

Abbot, George Abbott, Lyman Abraham, William J. Achleitner, Wilhelm Acton, John E.E.D. Adam, Karl Adam, Will Adams, Henry C. Addams, Jane Afanasev, Nicholas N. Afanasieff, Marianne Agostino, Marc Ahn, Kyo-Seong Ainslie, Peter Airhart, Phyllis D. Aksakov, Ivan S. Aksakov, Konstantin S. Aksakov, Sergey T. Albanese, Catherine L. Alberigo, Giuseppe Albright, Raymond W. Aleksei i of Russia Aleksov, Bojan Aletti, Jean-Noëlata Alexander i, Tsar of Russia Alexander ii, Tsar of Russia Alexander iii, Tsar of Russia Alexander, Michael S. Alexeev, Anatoly A. Alighieri, Dante Alivisatos, …

Paasch, Kathrin Pacik, Rudolf Pahls, Michael J.G. Paiano, Maria Palmer, Edwin J. Palmer, Geoffrey Palmer, William (of Magdalen) Palmer, William (of Worcester) Palmieri, Aurelio Palmkvist, Carl Pamp, Frederic E. Pannenberg, Wolfhart Panzani, Gregorio Papaderos, Alexandros K. Papadopoulos, Antonios M. Parker, Kenneth L. Parker, Matthew Parmentier, Elisabeth Parry, John H. Parsch, Pius Parsons, Edward L. Pascal, Blaise Pasenow, Guido Patelos, Constantin G. Paton, William Patrizi Naro, Costantino Patterson, William B. Pattison, Mark Paul the Apostle Paul vi (Giovanni Batti…

In: Volume 1 Dawn of Ecumenism | Part II. Prehistory: The Challenges of Modernity previous chapter 1 Preliminary Remarks There are some significant factors that shape the theological geography of the confessions and churches in the 19th century, a transitional century in which the results of the previous period converge and which prelude further developments in the 20th century.1 These were internal and external factors that, in general terms, affected the theology and implementation, whether thematized or not, of a renewed theological methodology, bel…

In: Volume 1 Dawn of Ecumenism | Part III. Beginnings: Movements Become a Movement previous chapter 1 Introduction The religious landscape in Germany in the 1920s and 1930s was a vibrant one characterized by a desire for spiritual renewal and authenticity. From the Catholic tradition emerged the Bible movement in which Catholics sought to find a new vigorous relationship to Holy Scripture. This current helped bring about a rapprochement with Protestantism and contributed to the foundation of the Katholisches Bibe…

In: Volume 1 Dawn of Ecumenism | Part II. Prehistory: The Challenges of Modernity previous chapter 1 Introduction The reunion conferences that were held in Bonn in 1874–1875 on the initiative and under the chairmanship of Ignaz von Döllinger are among the founding events of the modern ecumenical movement. These conferences were unique on account of their multilateral orientation and met with a wide response, especially in the English-speaking world. Since they were not followed up and failed to elicit any ecclesi…

In: Volume 1 Dawn of Ecumenism | Part II. Prehistory: The Challenges of Modernity previous chapter 1 Introduction On the evening of May 30, 1901, a public meeting was held at Westminster Town Hall in central London as part of the first Congress of the International Council of Unitarian and Other Liberal Religious Thinkers and Workers. There were several speakers, who included the Boston-based Charles William Wendté, general secretary of the International Council from 1900 to 1920 and mastermind behind the congres…

In: Volume 1 Dawn of Ecumenism | Part II. Prehistory: The Challenges of Modernity previous chapter 1 Introduction The American Social Gospel was one of the movements for Christian socialism and social Christianity that swept across England, continental Europe, and North America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. However, even though it was an example of historic international trend, it was utterly distinct within this phenomenon for the American Social Gospel was a cultural earthquake that could be called…

In: Volume 1 Dawn of Ecumenism | Part I. Preamble: Long Term Issues previous chapter 1 Communion and Otherness: The Knots in an Ancient Problem Any attempt to address the question of church unity in a theologically rigorous way leads to a discussion of the relationship between unity and diversity within the church itself. A glance at ecclesiastical history would be enough to show how crucial this has been in the course of the centuries. During the apostolic period, the issue dominated the debate on the acceptance of Gen…

1 Foreword The experience of Christianity does not and cannot claim to be immune to history. It cannot because it has inherited from Israel the principle of the narratability of its past (what the biblical Greek calls λόγος),1 and that instance of the intelligibility of its unfolding in time has even entered the New Testament canon (Luke’s διήγησις).2 It cannot do so moreover because, in the encounter with the cultures of the peoples in which the claim for the universality of the gospel of Jesus and the gospel about Jesus was honed, that link between …

In: Volume 1 Dawn of Ecumenism | Part III. Beginnings: Movements Become a Movement previous chapter 1 Historical Overview The Catholic liturgical movement, particularly in German-speaking areas, first arose in the 19th century and gradually developed during the following century along with the changes in the political, economic, and cultural context.1 The years 1909 and 1947 may be considered indicative of this history, since it was in 1909 that a Roman Catholic congress was held in Malines, Belgium, at which Dom Lambert Beauduin,2 a Benedictine monk of the Mont César Abbey a…