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[German Version] I. History – II. Theological Faculty I. History In the early modern period, as territorial states were being formed on the soil of the Holy Roman Empire, Brandenburg-Ansbach/Bayreuth took the side of the Reformation in 1526. In 1529, at Luther's suggestion, it set out to establish a territorial university, but this hope was never realized, not least because …

[German Version] (pontificate Mar 1, 492 – Nov 21, 496). According to the Liber pontificalis , Gelasius was an African. Entrusted with the papal correspondence under Simplicius and especially Felix III, in the context of the Acacian Schism, Gelasius maintained the schism with the East even after the death of Acacius of Constantinople. In a dispute with the emperor Anastasius, Gelasius developed the “two powers” doctrine, building on the doctrine of papal primacy stated by Leo I, in a situati…

[German Version] (died c. 360), a presbyter in Alexandria, was deposed and expelled because of his support for Arius. In the context of the reversal of church policy after the Council of Nicea (325), he was bishop of Syrian Laodicea after around 335. As one of the leading Eusebians, he was deposed and excommunicated in absentia in 342/43 at the (Western) Synod of Sardica, actions that remained without effect in the East. Through his protest in 358 against the usurpation of the Antiochene episcopacy by Eudoxius of Constantinople and his support by Ge…

[German Version] according to the Passio Acaunensium martyrum of Eucherius of Lyon (before 450), a group of soldiers under the leadership of Mauritius, who were executed as Christians in the early 4th century under Emperor Maximian (Persecutions of Christians: I). The cult of the martyrs described by Eucherius goes back to the collection of their relics by Bishop Theodore of Octodunum (Sion, Switzerland) at the end of the 4th century. Especially in the early Middle Ages, the cult of the Theban Legion e…

[German Version] Servatius, Saint, the first verifiable bishop of Tongeren ( civitas Tungrorum) in the Roman province of Germania II; by the 6th century, nothing more was known of him. According to Athanasius ( Apol. sec. 49.1, where he is called Sarbatios), he signed the decrees of the Synod of Serdica (342/343). His signature on the forged decrees of a purported Synod of Cologne in 346 must be ruled out as a source. In 350 he was on a diplomatic mission in the East on behalf of the usurper Magnentius, which included Athanasius ( Apol. Const. 9); at the Synod of Rimini in 359, he was amo…

[German Version] I. Definition The expression papal primacy denotes the juridical supremacy in the universal church of the pope as bishop of Rome, i.e. his supreme and immediate administrative authority as head of the College of Bishops, pastor of the universal church, and vicar of Christ on earth ( CIC/1983, c. 331: “The Bishop of the Church of Rome . . . is the head of the College of Bishops, the Vicar of Christ, and the Pastor of the universal Church here on earth; consequently, by virtue of his office, he has supreme, full, immediate, and…

[German Version] I. Erlangen School (Theology) – II. Erlangen School (Philosophy) I. Erlangen School (Theology) 1. History From the founding of the University of Erlangen (Erlangen, University of), the members of the theological faculty have been bound to the confessional statements of Lutheranism; a Lutheran Enlightenment theology largely dictated by Jena and Göttingen was predominant until …

[German Version] I. Concept, Presuppositions – II. Development – III. Middle Eastern Church History and Historiography – IV. Religious Education I. Concept, Presuppositions 1. Concept The concept of church history has not yet been studied sufficiently, but it is already clear that since antiquity extraordinarily different conceptions of Christian historiography have been in simultaneous competition over the interpretation of past, present, and future. Often the different methodological option…

[German Version] I. Church History – II. Church Law – III. Dogmatics I. Church History 1. Early Church Council (Lat. concilium, Gk σύνοδος [Lat. synodum]; the two terms were first differentiated in modern usage; see also synod) are meetings of bishops from various communities for binding clarification of disciplinary, organizational, or doctrinal questions, whose decisions, as inspired by the Holy Spirit, are not in principle revisable and claim validity for the whole church r…

[German Version] I. Early Church – II. Middle Ages and Reformation – III. Modern Period and Today – IV. Chronological List of the Popes I. Early Church 1. Definition. If papacy is defined as the claim (based on Matt 16:16–19; 28:20; Luke 22:31f.; John 21:15–19) of the bishops of Rome as successors and heirs to Peter to leadership along with jurisdictional and magisterial primacy (I) within the universal church, papacy in the strict sense dates only from the Middle Ages in the Latin West. In the Early Church, the point at iss…

[German Version] I. Ancient Near East – II. Greece – III. Rome – IV. The Bible – V. Christianity – VI. Judaism I. Ancient Near East Historiography in the classic sense, with a reflective account of historical linkages, developed rudimentarily at best in the cuneiform cultures of the ancient Near East in Hittite and Neo-Assyrian annals and the introductions to treaties; even these documents were usually written to justify the political actions. Around the middle of the 3rd millennium bce, however, there appeared an immense number of all sorts of texts containing more …