Search

[German Version] was originally the name of the fortress and episcopal see founded to replace the Estonian for…

[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 …

…

[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 staunc…

[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 incorporate…

[German Version] I. City and Bishopric Albert I, bishop of Livonia, founded the city of Riga in 12…

[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 the 9th century, it had come under the sway of Bohemia, and in the 10th century it was incorporated into the kingdom of Poland, founded by the Piast duke Mieszko I. After 1138 the breakup of t…

…

…

[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 …

[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] 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 mission. In the 9th century, the Croats became Christians. The Franco-Bavarian missionary territory, under the sees of Salzburg, Regensburg, and Passau, extended to all of Pannonia. To escape Frankish hegemony, Rostislav as prince of Great Moravia requested the Byzantine emperor Michael III in 862 to send Slavic-speaking priests, thus occasioning the appoi…

[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 one of the many tribes. The 19th-century discovery of the Baltic language family, consisting of Latvian, Lithuanian, and Old Prussian, and the common political fate in the 20th century finally led to the extension of this term to include Lithuania.…

[German Version] I. Western Church –…

[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, V…