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1. IntroductionPastoral care refers to the assistance church officials (pastors) provide for individuals and groups of the faithful in questions of faith and the religious conduct of life. The  Regula pastoralis (“Pastoral Rule,” c. 590) of Pope Gregory I, the normative guide to pastoral care well into the early modern period, uses the Latin terms  cura pastoralis (“pastoral care,” French  la pastorale) and regimen animarum (“guidance of souls”). The literal Latin equivalent of German Seelsorge,  cura animarum (“care/cure of souls”), does not occur until the earl…

1. To the 15th centuryThe term “pastorate” in English refers to the office of pastor, but the German term Pfarramt encompasses in a kind of personal union both the pastorate and the  rectory or parish house as the administrative center of a parish, which comprises either the faithful within a specific area (territorial parish) or belonging to a specific group (personal parish). (On the etymology of the German words  Pfarrei, “parish,” and  Pfarrer, “pastor,” see [4. 153]).The Christian parish (Congregation) of Roman late antiquity, whose territory was coextens…

1. Protestant churches 1.1. TerminologyThe term Pietism, from Latin  pietas (piety), came into use after the so-called Leipzig movement spearheaded by August Hermann Francke (1689/1690); it denoted the most significant religious reform movement within continental Protestantism after the Reformation. Adopting primarily pre-Reformation and radical 16th- and 17th-century ideas (Anabaptists; Spiritualism [Protestantism]), Pietism aimed to complement the reformation of doctrine with a “reformation of life.”Despite confessional, regional, and individual variati…