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1. Religious rootsThe early modern Protestant theory of education was not specifically bourgeois or political; it was conceived primarily in theological terms. Its development was intimately linked to the lifestyle and worldview of contemporary Christianity, especially Protestantism.The roots of the Protestant theory of education (Ger. Bildung) lay in the area of mystical theology. The Old High German noun  biliden, which already had a connection with  imago (“image”) and  forma (“form”) as well as  imitatio (“imitation”) and  formatio (“process of formation”); in …

1. DefinitionIn Protestant churches, occasional services (from Latin  casus, “case, occasion”) are worship services that unlike Sunday or Christmas services are not held on regularly recurring days but “on occasion” (as needed), especially on biographically significant occasions or at special public events or events in the life of the congregation. The core of the occasional services were the sacrament of baptism along with confirmation, weddings, and burials; there were also church dedications and vari…

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…