[German Version] (Tibetan “The Man from Onion Valley,” a region in the northwest of Tibet). Tsongkhapa Blo-bzang grags-pa (1357–1419 ce) was the great liberal reformer and scholar of Tibetan Buddhism (I, 2.c) and the founder of the Gelugpa, an order that once held great political power. Gradually perceiving a ¶ decline of monastic discipline and with the aid of an authoritative revision of existing doctrinaire Buddhist philosophy, he created a new religious movement, systematically organized and institutionally anchored. By establishing major m…

[German Version] The wheel (or better the disk, esp. the sun disk) has symbolic significance in many religions, but as a wheel in the literal sense it plays a significant role primarily in the religions of India. Some gods in Hinduism have the cakra (Sanskrit: “wheel, discus”) as an attribute; the most important is Viṣṇu, who hurls it as a discus. The same term also connotes a circle in general, including sacred ritual circles. In the sense of a wheel, cakra (Pāli cakka) acquired its greatest symbolic power in Buddhism: the historical Buddha (I) set the wheel of teaching in m…

[German Version] I. General The name Tanzania is an artificial coinage introduced in 1964 with the formation of the United Republic of Tanganyika and Zanzibar. The republic has an area of 942,000 km2, including the islands of Pemba, Zanzibar, and Mafia, with some 2,000 km2. The most important vegetation zones are savannahs, veldt, semidesert, and the fertile coastal plain on the Indian Ocean. The continental area includes 54,000 km2 of inland lakes, primarily along the Great African Rift Valley. With an altitude of 5,895 m, Kilimanjaro reaches the highest elevat…

[German Version] I. Western Liturgies – II. Eastern Liturgies – III. Art History I. Western Liturgies Eating and drinking vessels ( vasa sacra) constitute important liturgical objects (Liturgical implements: I) in the light of the Christian meal community. They include the chalice ( calix) or cup and (of less importance) the bread plate or paten ( patena). From apostolic times onwards, Christian fellowship has been primarily a fellowship of the cup (see also Chalice, Witholding of the). The increase of vessels on the altar table (e.g. individual c…

[German Version] The university was founded in 1419 by the dukes of Mecklenburg and the city council of Rostock, drawing on faculty from Erfurt and Leipzig; it was temporarily relocated to Greifswald from 1437 to 1443 and to Lübeck in 1487. It quickly became the important educational center for students from the Hanseatic region. Only after the Reformation was the catchment area confined to the Lutheran Baltic rim. Until 1432 there was no theological faculty. Two pioneers of Humanism at Rostock we…

[German Version] I. Forms – II. Law – III. Practical Theology I. Forms 1. Europe The multiplicity of churches in Europe, especially in the realm of the Reformation churches, has also brought about various forms of church membership, although the now common tendency to link church membership with baptism has had a unifying effect. Divided church membership may occur when a distinction is made between the church as a spiritual body based on its confession and its ecclesiastical principles and the church as a body constituted according …