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[German Version] I. Religious Studies Examination of repentance from the perspective of religious studies must confront the problem that the term itself has no culturally neutral meaning. Many of the phenomena in other religions that Christians tend to call repentance appear in a different light when viewed in the context of different anthropological presuppositions, ¶ so that due weight must be given to the religious anthropology in question. Generally speaking, it is true to say that in almost all non-Christian religions the notion of repentance carries less weight than in Christianity. If we keep this fundamental difference in mind, we can speak more freely of repentance in non-Christian religions as well. From the perspective of religious studies, we can point to structural analogies in other religions without prematurely suggesting identification. A more precise definition of t…

[German Version] I. Religious Studies 1. Concept. The word revelation echoes the Greek ἀποκάλυψις/ apokálypsis (“uncovering”), which was translated into Latin as revelatio and then borrowed into most European languages. The literal meaning already indicates that revelation inv…

[German Version] Following Pauline discussion of the body (of Christ), theologians in Antiquity understood the church as a body effectively symbolized in the celebration of the Eucharist and nourished by it (cf. Leo I: “Our participation in the body and blood of Christ strives for nothing other than to change us into what we receive”; Sermo 63.7). The church here is the corpus vere nourished and renewed by the reception of the Eucharistic body ( corpus mysticum). The discussion concerning the Eucharistic real presence resulted in the fact that, conversely, the eucharistic figure was ¶ des…

[German Version] The Cologne Declaration was drawn up by an initiator group in Cologne on Jan 5, 1989 and subsequently signed by more …