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| Author: | Katharina Kunter
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| Original title: |
"We know how" – the historiography of Protestant Churches in Central and Eastern Europe after 1989
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| English title: | "We know how" – the historiography of Protestant Churches in Central and Eastern Europe after 1989
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| Abstract: | The article deals with three major trends in historiography since 1989: The first is a broader public interest in the political engagement of the (Protestant) churches at the end of the communist period and their contributions to opposition and the transitions to democracy. The second is a wider public and internal clerical debate about the way Protestant churches in Eastern Europe went between opposition, conformity and loyalty to the regime and the part the Western Churches played in that game. Finally, since the early 1990s, international academic research projects in theology, history and sociology have started to build up a solid empirical basis and place the churches´ actions and policy against a wider historical horizon.
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| Keywords: | Protestant Churches - Central and Eastern Europe – historiography – Communism - Post-Communism - Transition |
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| Author: | Mikko Ketola
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| Original title: | Cold War Church history research at the University of Helsinki
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| English title: | Cold War Church history research at the University of Helsinki
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| Abstract: | The article is an overview of Cold War church history research, which church historians in the Church History Department of the Faculty of Theology in Helsinki have carried out over the past 15 years or so. The Department’s Cold War church history has been first and foremost a history of the churches in the Eastern bloc during the period starting from the Second World War. Research has also been done on the relations and contacts between the churches on the opposing sides of the Iron Curtain. The third focus of Cold War church history has been the prevailing perceptions of communism and the Soviet Union among Finnish Lutherans. The author points out that there is still much to do in the field of Cold War church history. He also expresses his hope that in the future, Czech and Finnish church historians will find themselves involved in joint research projects.
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| Keywords: | Cold War – Church History – Finland – Central and Eastern Europe – Role of Religion- European Integration - Research Projects
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| Author: | Klaus Fitschen
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| Original title: | Der westdeutsche Protestantismus und die gesellschaftlichen Veränderungen in den 1960er Jahren : eine Bestandsaufnahme
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| English title: | The west German Protestantism and the social changes in the 1960s : "a stock-taking"
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| Abstract: | The article investigates changes in Western German Protestantism during the 1960s and into the 1970s. It points to the social changes going on at the time and discusses their influence on the churches. Alongside these external changes, there were also internal changes in the churches, some of which would be expressed especially in the 1970s in the themes of the Kirchentag. The article also considers relations between Western and Eastern German Churches, and the debate about the role of the church vis-à-vis society. Finally, the article also considers the conservative evangelical response to changes in church and society and wonders whether similar developments might be traced in other – for example, East German – churches.
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| Keywords: | German Churches - 1960s - 1970s - Internal Change - External Change - West-East German Relations – Liberal - Conservative |
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| Author: | Gerhard Lindemann
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| Original title: | Die Geschichte der christlichen Kirchen in Dresden : 1945 bis 1990
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| English title: | The history of Churches in Dresden : 1945-1990
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| Abstract: | The article examines Church-State relations in the former East Germany. The author has chosen Dresden as a case study through which he investigates the development of the relations in the period of 1945-1989. He argues that a church historian has to take into account not only the archive materials on the theme, but has to understand them against the background of the social and cultural changes. Thus he interprets the persecutions in the 1950s, the decline in church attendance peaking in the 1960s and 1970s, and the churches' involvement as a political alternative in the 1980s.
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| Keywords: | – Christian Churches – Communism – 1945-1989 – Church-State Relations |
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| Author: | Norbert Kmeť
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| Original title: | Research into non-Catholic Churches and religious communities in Slovakia after November 1989
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| English title: |
Research into non-Catholic Churches and religious communities in Slovakia after November 1989
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| Abstract: | After November 1989, the issues of Church and religion began to draw much of the researchers' attention in Slovakia. This topic began to reverberate in the media too. Of all non-Catholic Churches, most research has been done into the position of the Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession. Most academic works particularly analyse the Church-State relationship and survey restrictions on the Church activities and persecution of the clergy. Individual studies mainly follow the development of the given issue in a chronological order, which enables the authors to point out causal relationships. However, what is completely missing in Slovakia is comparative studies pertaining to non-Catholic Churches not only within Central Europe but also within the whole territory of former Czechoslovakia, since - despite the same legislation being in force in both territories - the situation in the Czech lands has always been different from that in Slovakia.
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| Keywords: | Slovakia – Communism - Historical Research - Non-Catholic Churches - Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession - Lutheran Church |
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| Author: | Peter C.A. Morée
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| Original title: |
Between solidarity and emigration : the case of Tomáš Bísek, pastor of the Evangelical Church of the Czech Brethren
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| English title: | Between solidarity and emigration : the case of Tomáš Bísek, pastor of the Evangelical Church of the Czech Brethren
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| Abstract: |
The Evangelical Church of the Czech Brethren experienced a serious division in the second half of the 1970s and in the 1980s. The reason was a difference in understanding which position the church should take in relation to the communist regime. The church leadership developed a strategy to avoid an open conflict with the regime. A minority in the church took a more critical stance to the regime, as they saw it as an obligation for the church to speak up in matters of oppression and violations of human rights. Pastor Tomáš Bísek, who signed Charta 77, got into conflict with the regime and with the church leadership as well. This article tells his story, which led from loss of his pastoral work to emigration.
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| Keywords: |
Evangelical Church of the Czech Brethren - Tomáš Bísek - Charta 77 – Czechoslovakia - Church-State Relations - Communism
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Author: | Jiří Piškula
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| Original title: |
Verbot des Siebenten-Tags-Adventistenkirche : ein Beispiel für Verfolgung der Freikirchen in der Tschechoslowakei
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| English title: | Ban on the Seventh-Day Adventist Church : an example of persecution of Free Churches in Czechoslovakia
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| Abstract: |
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| Keywords: | Seventh Day Adventists – Czechoslovakia – Communism – Persecution – Church-State Relations – Free Churches |
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| Author: | Cornelia von Ruthendorf
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| Original title: |
Reaktionen in den evangelischen Landeskirchen der DDR auf den 21. August 1968 in Prag
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| English title: | Responses of the Protestant Churches in DDR to the August 21 1968 in Prague
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| Abstract: | Summary: This article investigates the state of awareness of unity and tension between the ecclesial and political life as mediated by the representatives of the East German Protestant State Churches responding to the invasion on 21 August 1968 that ended the Prague Spring . The archive materials are interpreted in connection with the political situation in the German Democratic Republic in the 1960s, state responses to the Prague Spring, and also Church-State relations. A particular emphasis is given to how church representatives placed themselves in relation to the official political line, especially after the invasion, when they felt the need to communicate with churches in Czechoslovakia, and in particular with their representatives who found themselves in a similarly difficult position in which they managed or failed to negotiate their loyalties.
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| Keywords:
| German Democratic Republic – Prague Spring – East German Protestant State Churches – August 21st 1968 – Church-State Relations under Communism |
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| Author: | Aleš Pištora
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| Original title: |
La question Socratique ches Jan Patočka
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| English title: |
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| Abstract: | This short article commemorates the centenary of the birth and 30th
anniversary of the death of the Czech philosopher Jan Patočka, co-founder of
Charter 77. The author compares Patočka's philosophical search for
foundations of moral and responsible human life to that of Socrates. He
shows in which aspects Patočka developed the phenomenological heritage
differently from Heidegger, and why, instead of an engagement in the new
metaphysics, he preferred the philosophy of history and morality, broadly
understood as that which reveals the transcendent dimension of human
conscience, gives orientation to human life, and when needed, strength to
protest against what is given.
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| Keywords: | Patočka - Heidegger - Socratic Philosophy - Philosophy of
History - Foundations of Human Life - Transcendence - Moral Conscience -
Responsibility
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| Author: | Adrienn Orosz
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| Original title: |
Die Geschichte der deutschsprachigen reformierten Gemeinde in Ungarn
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| English title: | The history of the German speaking reformed community in Hungary
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| Abstract: |
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| Keywords: |
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| Book reviews |
Author: | Pavel Šuba
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| Original title: | Theo Verbeek, Spinoza´s Theologico-Political Treatise : exploring the will of God
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| English title: | Theo Verbeek, Spinoza´s Theologico-Political Treatise : exploring the will of God
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| Reviewed book: | VERBEEK, Theo. Spinoza´s Theologico-Political Treatise : exploring the will of God. Ashgate, 2003. 204 s. ISBN 0-7456-0493-4. |
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