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[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 1…

[German Version] (Leont'ev; Jan 13, 1831, Kudinovo near Kaluga – Nov 12, 1891, Sergiev Posad), was initially a physician before entering the diplomatic service and finally becoming a censor. As a cultural philosopher, his worldview was shaped by aesthetic considerations. Beauty in the sense of diversity, power, and fullness was for him an objective fact. He thus became the advocate of Byzantine theocracy, …

[German Version] (Warszawa), the capital of Poland, with a population of 1.71 million (2009), goes back to a trading settlement established in the 11th/12th century on the left bank of the Vistula; in 1413 it received Kulm rights. From 1406 to 1526, it was the official residence of the Piast dukes of Masovia. When the dynasty died out, Warsaw was incorporated into the crown of Poland. The Sejm met there for the first time in 1529; after 1569 it met there regularly, and as a result the royal court …

[German Version] (Aug 30, 1889, Vitebsk – Jul 25, 1946, Moscow), apologist and schismatic metropolitan. Originally a teacher and a military chaplain in World War I, in 1917 as archpriest of St. Petersburg and secretary of a leftist church organization he was already opposing the restoration of the Moscow patriarchate. When Patriarch Tikhon succumbed to house arrest, on May 18, 1923, Vvedensky and two ¶ other priests took over the patriarchal chancery, thus enabling the formation of the “supreme governing body” of the modernist “Living Church” movement. In rec…

[German Version] (pl. startsy) is the Russian equivalent to the Greek word γέρων/ gérōn; it denotes an experienced (and therefore usually elderly) ascetic, whose spiritual direction younger ascetics as well as Christians living in the world accept without question. The roots this phenomenon go back to Eastern monasticism in the Early Church. St. Anthony is the prototypical starets, but this form of spiritual direction did not fully come into its own until the late 18th century in Russia, when Paisius Velichkovsky left Athos for Moldavia with 60 discip…

[German Version] (1293, Moscow – Feb 12, 1378, Moscow), Metropolitan of Moscow, was a monk in the Epiphany monastery in Moscow at the age of 20 and was already involved in the administration of the Russian Metropolit…

[German Version] (Polish: Warmia), as one of the four bishoprics established by the Orders of Germany in 1243 in Prussia and incorporated into the archdiocese of Riga in 1245/1246, initially encompassed the region between the River Elbing and Passarge and between Pregel and Angerapp. But only the region in which the bishop was also the ruler, comprising a third of the diocese, wa…

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[German Version] (Feb 9, 1898, Uman’ – Nov 2, 1970, Berlin), independent scholar who became the outstanding Russian church historian of the 20th century. After involvement in war and civil war and a stay in Constantinople, he was unable to resume his studies until 1923 in Berlin, initially at the Russisches Wissenschaftliches Institut, founded by émigrés, and then at the university, where he received his doctorate in 1934 with a dissertation on I. Kireye…

[German Version] (Semën Ivanovič; 1658, Javorov near Lemberg – Nov 24, 1722, Moscow). After studying in Polish Jesuit schools, he returned to Kiev in 1689 where he taught in the college and served as abbot. As metropolitan of Rjazan', he was appointed by Peter the …

[German Version] I. General The name Poland derives from the name of one of the West Slavic tribes that joined together in the 9th and 10th centuries to form the Polish nation; it characterizes the members of this tribe as field-dwellers ( Polani or Poleni). The kingdom, founded by the Piast dynasty, was first called Polonia around the year 1000. Today the official name of the state is Rzeczpospolita Polska (Republic of Poland). ¶ Geographically, Poland is bounded by Germany to the west, by the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast of the Russian Federation to the north, …

[German Version] (Petr Egorov, later Levšin; Jun 29, 1737, Chashnikovo near Moscow – Nov 11, 1812, Vifaniya near Sergiyev Posad), metropolitan of Moscow. After study at the Moscow academy, Platon taught there, and later at the seminary of Trinity St. Sergius Monastery. As its rector from 1761, and a gifted preacher, he made such a strong impression on Catherine II that she appointed him as her son’s tutor in religion. In 1766 he became archimandrite of the monastery, which he had already led from …

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[German Version] (c. 1120 – post 1177). Helmold worked in eastern Holstein from 1143, after attending the cathedral school in Braunschweig, and as pastor in Bosau on the Plöner See (from 1156). Between 1163 and 1172, he composed, from the notes of Adam of Bremen, oral tradition and his own experience, his Chronica Slavorum which covered the time period up to 1170. In it, despite clear partisanship, he reports vividly and generally reliably the Christianization and Germanization of the Slavs settled east of the lower Elbe (Slavic missions). His work is also one of the most important sources for our knowledge of the history of Henry the Lion. Peter Hauptmann Bibliography …

[German Version] (Martinus Polonus; before 1230, Troppau [today Opava] – Jun 12, 1278, Bologna). Initially a Dominican in Prague, Martin became papal chaplain and apostolic penitentiary in Rome; on May 21, 1278, he was consecrated archbishop of …

[German Version] During the Middle Ages, the West Slavic tribes behind the original eastern boundary of Germany living between the Baltic and Upper Franconia along the Elbe and Salle, Havel, and Spree, and as far as the Main became known collectively as the Wends. The name comes from the name of the Veneti, an Illyrian tribe. It also served as a name for the Slovenes, especially the Slovene minorities in Austrian territories. Evangelism of the Wends proved uncommonly difficult. The Great Slav Risi…

[German Version] (1st half of the 4th cent.), “enlightener” of Georgia. Tyrannius Rufinus tells in his church history of a female prisoner of war who, c. 330, converted the king and queen of Eastern Georgia to the Christian faith by her asceticism and miraculous cures, and persuaded them to invite Greek missionaries to their country (PL 21, 480–482). Not until local 10th-century sources, heavily embroidered with legend, does this woman appear under the name of Nino, probably a contracted form of “…

[German Version] (Aug 26, 1797, Anginskoye, near Irkutsk – Mar 31, 1879, Moscow). Born Ivan Popov, he was orphaned at an early age. At the seminary in Irkutsk, his patron Bishop Veniamin (Benjamin) of Irkutsk gave him the new patronymic Veniaminov. In 1840, when he was made a monk, his baptismal name was replaced by Innocent. In the same year, Innocent – who had been ordained to the priesthood in 1821 and had been working as a missionary in the Aleutians and Alaska since 1824 – was made bishop of Kamchatka. He took up residence as archbishop in 1852…