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1. AllgemeinK. (lat. catechismus von griech. katḗchēsis, »mündlicher Unterricht«) bezeichnete seit der Spätantike den Unterricht des erwachsenen Taufbewerbers, seit Einführung der Säuglingstaufe im 2./3. Jh. die Unterweisung der Gläubigen (Katechetik). In der Frühen Nz. bürgerte sich der Begriff zur Bezeichnung von systematisch gegliederten und didaktisch aufbereiteten Schriften religiöser Elementarunterweisung ein. Diese wurden auch ench(e)iridion (griech., »Handbüchlein«), institutio (lat., »Unterricht«) oder summa (lat., »Gesamtheit«) genannt. Adress…

1. General In Late Antiquity, the term “catechism” (Latin  catechismus from Greek  katéchesis, “oral instruction”) came into use for the instruction of adult catechumens; when infant baptism was introducted in the 2nd/3rd century, it was applied to the instruction of the faithful (Catechetics). In the early modern era, the term came to be applied to systematically organized works designed for elementary religious instruction. Other terms used included  ench( e) iridion (Greek, “small handbook”),  institutio (Latin, “instruction”), and  summa (Latin, “sum”). Catec…

[German Version] was originally the name of the fortress and episcopal see founded to replace the Estonian fortress of Lyndanisse taken by the Danish king Valdemar II in 1219. In 1227 it was taken over by the Livonian Brothers of the Sword; this led c. 1230 to the founding of a German city based on an earlier trading post. Once more left to the Danes in 1238, Talinn was bought back by the Teutonic Order in 1346. The bishops of Talinn, never having had their own territory, were suffragan to the arc…

[German Version] (May 30/Jun 9, 1672, Moscow – Jan 28/Feb 8, 1725, St. Petersburg), tsar of Russia since 1682, proclaimed emperor of all Russia in 1721. Initially he had to share rule with his half brother Ivan V (1666–1696) and allow his half sister Sofia to act as regent until 1689. After that he largely left the reins of government in the hands of his mother; only after her death in 1694 did he fully take up his role. His victory over Sweden in the Great Northern War (1700–1721) gave Russia acc…

[German Version] From 1846, when the converted metropolitan Ambrosios of Sarajevo ordained the first bishops for the Old Believers in Belaya Krinica, Bukovina, this religious community became an important center for the Old Believer groups that retained the priesthood (Old Believers, Russian). Their congregations have since been under the “hierarchy of the Agr…

[German Version] (c. 1475, Hirschberg in Silesia – Sep 20/21, 1546, Gdańsk [Danzig]). After entering the Dominican monastery in Gdańsk, Klemme worked at the Johanneskirche from 1498, first as cantor and then, after returning from studies in southern Germany, where he was won over to the Reformation, as preacher from 1526. In the fall of 1529, he continued his preaching at St. Marien, where, in 1536, the council established an independent pastorate for him alongside the still Catholic pastorate. In…

[German Version] (Feb 4, 1505, Żórawno near Halicz – Oct 4, 1569, Rejowiec near Lublin), member of the landed nobility who, as a versatile and prolific poet, became the “father of Polish literature.” A staunch supporter of the Reformation, he published his extensive Postilla in 1557. The work was reissued many times and was also translated into Lithuanian and Ruthene. It is permeated with praise of simple trust in God. He had already published his Polish translation of the Psalms in 1546. His last prose work, The Mirror ( Zwierciadło, 1568), was the most highly regarded by his conte…

[German Version] (Ukrainian L'viv, Polish Lwów, Russ. L'vov, Ger. Lemberg). The variety of names borne by this city of some 733,000 (2001) in the heart of Galicia bears witness to its mixture of nationalities. Founded c. 1250 by the Galician prince Daniel and his son Leo, it was incorporated into Poland in 1366, fell to Austria in 1772, became Polish once more in 1919, Soviet in 1939, came under the German General Government in 1941, and in 1944 was restored to the Ukraine (until 1991 part of the …

[German Version] I. City and Bishopric Albert I, bishop of Livonia, founded the city of Riga in 1201 near a Gotland merchants’ trading center on the Daugava river, not far from the Baltic Sea. He immediately made it the seat of the mission diocese founded in 1186 by Bishop Meinhard at Ikšķile (about 25 km up-stream). Immigration from Germany began as early as 1202. Riga also became the seat of the master of the order of warrior knights in Livonia. From 1207, Riga was an imperial fief, and in 1255 it w…

[German Version] (also: Knopken; c. 1468, near Küstrin – Feb 18, 1539, Riga). Having studied in Ingolstadt (?) and Frankfurt an der Oder, Knöpken taught – as assistant to J. Bugenhagen, under whose influence he turned from Erasmus to Luther, – at the municipal school in Treptow an der Rega until 1517 and again from 1519 to 1521. From 1517 onward, he was chaplain at St. Petri in Riga and from 1522 Protestant preacher there. Having successfully participated in a disputation at Pentecost, 1522, he wa…

[German Version] (Polish Śląsk, Ger. Schlesien). The name of this historical region has survived all political, ethnic, and religious mutations. Derivation from the Silingi, a Vandalic people, appears dubious; more likely it goes back to a Slavonic root (cf. Old Polish ślęcgnącć, “wet”). As a region, Silesia has an area of almost 40,000 km2 on both sides of the upper and middle Oder; shaped somewhat like an oak leaf, it is bordered to the southwest by the Sudetes and to the south by the western Beskids. Western Slavs began entering Silesia in the mid- 6th century; at the end of t…

[German Version] was the name given to Russian Old Believers who emigrated between 1830 and 1840 to East Prussia and founded a number of villages in the Masurian region, of which Wojnowo (Eckertsdorf) with its monastery is the most important. They came ¶ from Poland, where they were considered Filipovcy, although they belonged to the less radical tendency of the Fedoseevcy. Between 1838 and 1968 their number declined from 829 to 412. Peter Hauptmann Bibliography E. Przekop, “Die Geschichte der Altgläubigen in den Masuren,” OS 27, 1978, 105–127.

[German Version] (Makarij, birth name: Mikhail; c. 1482, Moscow – Dec 31, 1563, Moscow) was canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church on Jun 6, 1988 at its Millennium Council in Sergiyev Posad. Having become a monk of Paphnutius Monastery in Borovsk at an early age and abbot of Luzhetsky Monastery in Mozhaysk in 1523, he remained deeply committed to the spirit of Joseph of Volokolamsk's monasticism as archbishop of Novgorod and Pskov (from 1526) and as metropolitan of Moscow (from 1542). He effecte…

[German Version] The expression Russian lay theology is really inadequate to describe a phenomenon that is unique to Russian Orthodoxy. It is neither a theology by and for laity as such nor a theology contrary to the doctrinal decisions reached by episcopal synods. It is in fact antonymic to the Russian scholastic theology that in the 19th century was still strongly shaped by the doctrinal content and ways of thinking of Western Scholasticism and was felt to be cut off from reality. There was a desire…

[German Version] (Nov 25, 1620, Grigorovo beyond the Kudma – Apr 14, 1682, Pústozersk), spokesman for the Russian Old Believers. Was designated protopope (archpriest) for Jur'evec – Povolžskij in 1652, and after 1653 moved to the forefront of the opposition against the cultic reforms of Patriarch Nikon with the consequence that he was immediately dispatched to Siberia until 1663. Excommunicated in 1666, from 1667 onwards he was held prisoner on the lower reaches of the Pechora. There he carried on with the fight until his death – he was burned at the stake – by composing his own vita ( Zhitiye…

[German Version] (c. 960 – Jul 15, 1015, Berestovo), prince of Kiev. As the youngest son of Prince Sviatoslav of Kiev, Vladimir received the principality of Novgorod in 969 but had to give it up in 977 as he fled from his two elder brothers. After winning it back with the help of Varangian mercenaries, he advanced against Kiev, which fell into his hands in 980 without a fight. As autocrat of the Kievan kingdom, he decided the urgent question of a religious reorientation in favor of his grandmother…

[German Version] (Michail Petrovič; Sep 19, 1816, Surkovo near Novyj Oskol –Jun 9, 1882, Moscow), metropolitan of Moscow (from 1879), previously (from 1857), successively bishop of Tambov, Char'kov, and Lithuania (Baltic countries). He was particularly influential as a teacher of theology. Initially, he was active at the Spiritual Academy of Kiev (II) as professor of history and church history, then from 1842 at the St. Petersburg Spiritual Academy (St. Petersburg: II) as professor of theology (dogmatics);…

[German Version] In the early 7th century, the Slavs, expanding to the west and south from their original homeland north of the Carpathians between the Vistula and the Dnieper, reached the boundaries of the Carolingian empire and crossed the boundaries of the Byzantine Empire; now a mission to them was recognized as an urgent necessity. The first success came among the Alpine Slavs (Slovenes): around the middle of the ¶ 8th century, Borut, duke of Carantania, had his son baptized. The new abbeys of Innichen and Kremsmünster were founded to support the Slavic missi…

[German Version] is the name for the priestless Old Believers under the leadership of the monk Philipp (Fotiy Vasilyev) who separated themselves off in monasteries ¶ on the Vyg beginning in 1737 after taking up intercession for the tsar; in 1743, Philipp and about 70 followers burned themselves to death on the Kola Peninsula to avoid imminent arrest. Only small remnants of their communities exist today. Peter Hauptmann Bibliography P. Hauptmann, “Das russische Altgläubigentum 300 Jahre nach dem Tode des Protopopen Avvakum,” KO 29, 1986, 69–135, esp. 125–27.

[German Version] I. General – II. Non-Christian Religions – III. Christianity – IV. Religion, Society, and Culture in the Present I. General 1. The name Baltic derives from the term “mare Balticum,” commonly used for the Baltic Sea since the High Middle Ages. At first it applied only to later Estonia and Latvia as the Baltic provinces of the Russian empire, which had earlier simply been called Livonia after…

[German Version] I. Western Church – II. Eastern Church I. Western Church CD=Corpus (Corpora) doctrinae, CO=Church Order 1. Concept and Content. Articles of faith are officially authorized, textually authenticated doctrinal statements (Confession [of faith]), confession collections, CD) through which a constitutionally organized (Church order) Christian church articulates its own confessional insights, formulates a normat…

[German Version] (also Ermogen or Hermogenus; c. 1530 – Feb 17, 1612, Moscow). Already noted for his writings on religion as metropolitan of Kazan and Astrakhan, he was the author of 22 books. On Jun 2, 1606, after the death of Jove and the deposition of Ignatius, he became the third patriarch of Moscow (I) – as a friend of the tsar, Vasily Shuysky. After the tsar's abdication, Germogen refused to recognize Wladyslaw, the Pole elected tsar in 1610, unless he converted ¶ to Orthodoxy. The Poles thereupon had him deposed and incarcerated, but through his letters from prison – wh…

[German Version] (baptismal name, Constantinos; Nov 13, 1570, Herakleion, Crete – Jun 29, 1638, near Constantinople) was patriarch of Constantinople for five terms in office (brought about by depositions and reinstallations) between 1620 and 1638. He was a theologian open to Calvinism and controversial in Orthodoxy, and a martyr (strangled by a band of Janissaries). As the scion of a respected family of priests, he first worked, after studying in Venice and Padua, with his uncle Meletius Pegas, wh…

[German Version] (baptismal name: Markos; 1585, Heraklion, Crete – Apr 13, 1663, Constantinople), archimandrite and protosynkellos, an important preacher and theologian. Prevented by his father's death from continuing his studies in Italy, Meletius served first on Crete as monk and priest. He was expelled because of his combative attitude, and went in 1627 to Alexandria, where his sermons made a great impression. Appointed by C. Lucaris to support him in Constantinople, in 1630 he was put in charg…

[German Version] (Ger. Danzig). The earliest literary reference to the settlement west of the mouth of the Wisla (Vistula) under the name Gyddanizc relates to the year 997 when Adalbert of Prague baptized a local prince and “many heathen” there. After the region was incorporated into the Polish church organization, German Cistercians worked there beginning in 1175, and Dominicans, too, from 1227. Around 1190, the churches of Sw. Katarzyny (St. Catherine) was erected for the Slavic and St. Nikolai …

[German Version] Lebus, a small town approx. 10 km north of Frankfurt an der Oder, on the left bank of the river, shares its name – which recalls the Lutiz prince Lub (Lubosłav) in the 9th century – not only with its vicinity but also with the diocese bequeathed in 1124 by the Polish duke ¶ Bolesłav III Krzywousty. The diocese kept the name, although in the years 1276 to 1326 the see was in Göritz (Górzyca), to the right of the Oder approx. 10 km upstream, and since 1385 it was in Fürstenwalde on the Spree, where the Marienkirche was elevated to a ca…

[German Version] I. Church History – II. The Branches of Orthodoxy – III. Orthodoxy throughout the World – IV. History of Orthodox Theology I. Church History 1. Terminology. The term orthodox (cf. also Orthodoxy: I) goes back to Hellenistic Judaism. Flavius Josephus, for example, commends τὴν ὀρϑὴν δόξαν περὶ Θεοῦ/ tḗn orthḗn dóxan perí Theoú instead of Greek myths and reports that the Essenes viewed other Jews as ἑτερόδοξοι/ heteródoxoi ( Apion. II 256; Bell. II 129). ¶ This idiom passed into Christian usage in the 2nd century. The critical moment for its ecclesiastica…

[German Version] (Francesco Lismanino; 1504, Corfu – April 1566, Königsberg [Kaliningrad]). Originally a Franciscan provincial, Lismanini came to Poland as confessor and court chaplain to Queen Bona Sforza from Italy in 1546; there he took over leadership of the circle of Humanists in Krakow. Won to the cause of the Reformation by the writings of Calvin and the Bohemian Brethren, he converted to Calvinism in Geneva in 1553. In 1556 he accepted the call of the Protestants in Malopolska to head thei…

[German Version] (Dec 4/16, 1831, Gorochovo near Orël – Feb 21/Mar 5, 1895, St. Petersburg), Russian author. The grandson of a clergyman, Leskov became familiar with the Orthodox Church at an early age. As an orphan, he was brought up in the household of a professor of medicine in Kiev, and spent years traveling throughout Russia in the employ of a trading company. Working as a professional journalist and employed by the ministry of culture from 1862 onward, he reflected the numerous experiences g…

[German Version] (Mudry; c. 978 – Feb 20, 1054), son of St. Vladimir the Great. As vice-regent of Novgorod, in 1019 he expelled his elder brother Svyatopolk from Kiev; in 1036, after the death of his younger brother Mstislav of Chernigov and Tumutarakan, he became sole ruler of the Kievan Rus’ empire, which experienced its golden age under him. He expanded his capital after the model of Constantinople; among other building projects, he oversaw the building of the stone Cathedral of St. Sophia in K…

[German Version] has become the widely accepted title of the most important doctrinal text of the Antitrinitarian Church of the Polish Brethren. Valentin Schmalz, Johannes Völkel, and Hieronymus Moskoszowski were the authors of this catechism, which includes preliminary work by F. Socinus; they worked as teachers in the secondary school founded in 1603 in the small town of Raków near Sandomierz. It was also there that the catechism was printed in Polish in 1605, in German in 1608, and in Latin in …

[German Version] (Aleksandr Grenkov; Nov 23, 1812, Bolshie Lipovicy near Lipeck – Oct 10, 1891, Shamordino near Kozelsk). Amvrosii was the son of a cantor. After seminary studies at Tambov, he became a tutor and then language teacher at the seminary in Lipeck. In 1839 he entered the Optina hermitage near Kozelsk, where he was clothed as a novice in 1842. In 18…

[German Version] (Dec 5, 1539, Siena – Mar 3, 1604, Lucławice, near Cracow), a leading thinker of the antitrinitarian movement (Antitrinitarians, Socinians) of his era, shaped its churches in Poland and to some extent in Transylvania. Born a patrician, he served from 1562 to 1574 as a jurist at the Medici court in Florence; inspired by his uncle Lelio Sozzini, who did not believe the doctrine of the Trinity, he devoted himself to theological study, primarily at Basel, from 1572 to 1578, attracting attention with his first writings (including De Jesu Christo servatore, printed in 1594).…

[German Version] a large city in southern Poland, has been an episcopal see since 1925 (in 1995, with a Catholic population of 837,500 in 286 parishes). A monastery of Pauline hermits (originally Hungarian but now represented only in Poland), founded in 1382 on the Jasna Góra (“Shining Mountain”), is the most important pilgrimage destination in Poland. Devotion centers on the Black Madonna, a miraculous image of the Virgin Mary dating from the 14th century, which has been blackened by the smoke of candles. Since 1655, when the monastery was …

[German Version] (“spiritual warriors”) is the appellation given to adherents of the “Spiritual Christians,” an extremely spiritualist wing of the Old Russian sectarian movement (Russian sects) which separated in the last third of the 18th century from the equally anti-cult, but still Scripture-bound Molocanes (see also All-Union Council of Evangelical Christians and …

[German Version] The Eastern Church, following 1 Cor 4:10ff., describes as such the ascetic practice of publicly ¶ exposing oneself to mistreatment and isolation through feigned mental incapacity and, thus, of protecting oneself from the danger of popular admiration. It presumes a Christian environment and the absence of institutions for the mentally ill. Holy folly appeared first in the 4th century in a nun in Egypt, then occasionally in the Near East; it came to Russia in the 11th century and reached its greate…

[German Version] (Nikita Minich; May 24, 1605, Veldemanovo near Nizhny Novgorod – Aug 17, 1681, Yaroslavl), patriarch of Moscow. Initially a secular priest, after the death of his three children he persuaded his wife to take the veil and in 1635 became a monk (taking the name Nikon) in a hermitage in northern Russia; in 1642 he became abbot of a desert monastery. There in 1646 he met Tsar Alexis, then 17 years old; he greatly impressed the tsar, who had Nikon appointed archimandrite of the Novospa…

[German Version] (c. 1188, near Magdeburg – after 1259, Papendorf). Henry of Livonia was educated in the canon seminary of Segeberg, went to Riga as a student of Bishop Albert of Buxhöveden in 1205, was ordained to the priesthood in 1208, and spent his entire life as pastor among the northern Latvians in Papendorf (Latvian Rubene) near Wenden (Latvian Cēsis). From this location, he participated in over 30 military campaigns against the still heathen Livonians and Estonians, while he and his assistants baptized more than 10,000 people during his numerous…

[German Version] (1757, Serpuchov, Russia – Dec 13, 1837, Spruce Island, Alaska). Herman entered the Trinity-St. Serge Hermitage near St. Petersburg at the age of 16 and transferred to Valaam Monastery in 1778. In 1793, the abbot sent him with seven other monks to Kodiak Island in the Gulf of Alaska to care for the Russian trappers and furriers there, but also in order to evangelize the native population. Apart from a few minor interruptions, the conduct of the Kodiak mission was effectively in hi…

[German Version] (Michael Triboles; c. 1470, Árta, Ípiros – Jan 21, 1556, Sergiyev Posad), major mediator of Greek theology to the church of Moscow, canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church at its millennial council on Jun 6, 1988. Born to an aristocratic family, Maksim grew up on Corfu; after studies at Italian universities, he entered the Dominican order in 1502 but in 1504 became a monk on Athos. In 1518, at the request of Grand Prince Vasily III, he was sent to Moscow to translate biblical and…

[German Version] (Fedor Kolyčev; 1507 – Dec 23, 1569, Tver’), metropolitan of Moscow. As boyar, Philip was involved in a conspiracy at the tsar’s court, but then escaped to Solovki monastery and became abbot there. In 1566 he was elevated to the position of metropolitan of Moscow, but soon fell out with Ivan IV Grozny because of the latter’s reign of terror. After he had publicly reproached Ivan in Uspensky cathedral and refused to bless him, Philip was deposed by a compliant church court, and on …

[German Version] Slavophiles are exponents of Russian intellectual and spiritual life; under the influence of Romanticism, since the early 19th century they have assigned the unique character of the Slavic people a critical role in deciding the future. They are opposed to the so-called “Westerners” who would unconditionally impose the heritage of the Western European Enlightenment. The question of Russia’s relationship to Europe was raised by P.Y. Chaadayev in his “Philosophical Letters,” which be…

[German Version] (Antonij; Mar 17, 1863, Vatagino – Aug 10, 1936, Belgrade) was a towering figure both as theologian (rector of the Spiritual Academies of Moscow [1890] and Kazan'; harsh critic of the Western theology of satisfaction) and as hierarch (1900 bishop of Ufa; 1902 bishop of Zhytomyr; 1914 archbishop of Kharkov; 1981 Metropolitan of Kiev). At the election of the Moscow Patriarch in 1917 he assembled the most votes, but fate decided otherwise. Forced to flee in the civil war, after 1920 he led the Russian Orthodox Church in exile. Peter Hauptmann Bibliography Manuil (Lemeshevsk…

[German Version] (Petro Mohyla; Petrus Mogilas; Petru Movilă; Dec 21/31, 1596, Suceava – Dec 22, 1646/ Jan 1, 1647, Kiev), metropolitan of Kiev (from 1633) and abbot of the Cave Monastery there (from 1627). He had become a monk there in 1625, after having had to abandon his attempts to regain rule over Moldavia, lost in 1607 by his father, Prince Simion Movilă. As the son of a Moldavian prince he had connections in Poland-Lithuania that favored his rise. With the confirmation by Vladislav IV of hi…

[German Version] (1st half of the 5th cent. – 502), king of Iberia (East Georgia). His byname, which means “wolf ’s head,” relates to the decoration on his helmet. After his accession c. 446, he pursued the goals of strengthening his royal authority, extending it throughout Georgia, and freeing Georgia from dependence on the Persian Sassanian Empire. He achieved these goals temporarily in 483. At the same time, he persuaded the patriarch of Antioch to consecrate his candidate Peter as catholicos a…

[German Version] ( Groznyj, better: the Harsh; Aug 25, 1530, Moscow – Mar 18, 1584, Moscow), was the first grand duke to be crowned tsar of all Russia in 1547. He laid the foundations of Russia's rise to a major power by pursuing a policy of territorial expansion in the east (conquest of Kazan in 1552 and of Astrakhan in 1554, beginning of the subjugation of Siberia in 1582), but also contributed to its ruin by engaging in unsuccessful wars (esp. for Livonia, 1558–1582) and implementing cruel measu…

[German Version] (Albert of Riga; 1165/1170, Bremen – Jan 17, 1229, Riga), of the ministerial line of Buxhöveden. A Bremen canon and scholaster, he was ordained the 3rd bishop of Livonia in 1199. In 1200 he was the first to sail with a crusader army to the Daugava estuary, where in 1201 he founded the city of Riga, in which he set t…

[German Version] I. The believers who, from 1653, were expelled from the Great Church because of their rejection of the liturgical reforms of the Moscow patriarch Nikon, gathered in their own communities in order to maintain the Old Russian forms of devotion laid down by the Moscow Hundred Chapter Synod of 1551. The authorities first called them “schismatics” (Raskol’niki), and later “Old Ritualists,” while for the people they were the Old Believers. They did not contest the necessity for correcti…

[German Version] (or Sohner; Dec 1572, Nuremberg – Sep 28, 1612, Altdorf, near Nuremberg), appointed district physician in Nuremberg in 1603 and professor of medicine at the Reichsstädische Akademie in Altdorf in 1605. In 1607/1608 he served as its rector. During an educational tour in 1598, he had been converted by Andreas Wojdowski and Christoph Ostorodt in Leiden to the theological views of their teacher F. Socinus; on his return to Altdorf, he promoted their ideas among his close friends. He w…

[German Version] I. Terminology – II. Catholic Catechisms – III. Orthodox Catechisms – IV. Protestant Catechisms – V. Catechetical Instruction I. Terminology Linguistically and semantically, the word catechism is derived from the Greek verb κατήχειν/ katḗchein, “to echo.” This etymology suggests a semantic connotation, according to which the transmission of the faith is fundamentally seen as a mediation of the content of the faith through personal testimony (cf. the Lat. personare, “to sound through”). Only when used in a transitive sense does κατήχειν acquire the meani…