Lutheran Community Research Articles

Podwójnie zapomniane: diakonisy Śląskiego Ewangelickiego Domu Sióstr w Cieszynie i Bielsku

The first Lutheran Sisters’ House in Austrian Silesia, the Schlesisches Evangelisches Schwesternhaus, was established in 1892 together with the General Hospital of the Lutheran Church in Cieszyn. The contribution of this Sisters’ House to the development of medical care and women’s professional activity in Cieszyn Silesia has not yet been recognized by historians and local communities, while for the Lutheran community it was an element of its difficult German heritage. The article focuses on processes related to social memory: the Silesian deaconesses were “doubly forgotten”: as women, the memory of whom very quickly vanishes as unimportant in patriarchal culture; and as members of a German-speaking institution, expelled from Polish history and memory. After the Second World War, the Silesian-Cieszyn Lutheran community cut itself off from the German heritage, and mainly emphasized its Polish character, because religious minorities are particularly sensitive to such processes. The project used the anthropological method of extended case study.

The Volga Germans’ Confirmation as the Christians’ Lifestyle Evidence

The present paper deals with the confirmation evidence of the Volga Germans in the form of the visual communication artifacts, in which religious meaning has been depicted. The semiotic analysis has identified the structure of the confirmation documents in the symbolic space. The structure contains a number of similar grounds or markers and indicates the formation of the Volga Germans’ confessional culture. The religious ceremonies’ transmission and the traditional forms’ reconstruction by the Lutheran community in «the alien environment» were based on the existential nature, contributed to the preservation of the Russian Germans’ ethno cultural image, to the ethnic identity functioning and to the national consciousness determination. Having resettled to the vast Russian expanses and to the Volga region in particular and being isolated from their homeland, the Germans built their mode of life in accordance with the traditional religious way of life. Lutherans did their best in perpetuating every stage of the Christians’ lifestyle, the Lutheran confirmation texts detecting it easily. The preserved extant examples of the confirmation evidence maintained personal data of each believer. The quotations from the Bible, the Psalms, the lines from the pastor’s sermon, the verses of the anthems and chants, the Biblical stories paintings have been found in the symbolic space under research. Thus, he confirmation evidence has been proved to comprise Lutheran confessional culture markers on the verbal, artistic, musical levels in the symbolic space of the visual communication.

«To end this nest»: Evangelical Lutheran community of Samara in the period of anti-religious campaign (1918–1930)

This study analyzes strategy of anti-religious campaign against Lutheran community of Samara in 19181930. Main source of study is official regulations, business documentation and press materials. The author singled out two stages in the existence of Evangelical Lutheran Community of Samara community in the period of anti-religious campaign. First stage: Soviet officials suppressed religious organizations that were perceived as threat for the new ideology. Lutheran Community of Samara city lost its property and the right to carry out educational activities, and also became obliged to maintain a regular document flow accountable to the provincial executive committee. Second stage: The situation changed radically, when the strategy against religious organizations began to tighten in the conditions of industrialization and collectivization: in addition to propaganda, physical persecution of Lutherans appeared. In addition, the author of the article examined in detail the process of closing the Samara Lutheran church, which clearly demonstrated the desire of local authorities, on the one hand, to implement the instructions of the central government in a preventive manner, and on the other hand, to justify their own actions. The article proves that in the minutes of the meeting of the Presidium of the Samara City Council, the activists of the German section were replaced by religious Lutherans

Колонисты Мурмана в документах евангелическо- лютеранского прихода Мурманского берега

In 1860, the official colonization of the Murmansk coast of the Kola Peninsula began. This process had a multinational and multi-confessional character, which led to the emergence of an Evangelical Lutheran community in Murman. On the basis of parish registers, the composition of the parish at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries is reconstructed.

Escrituras postseculares: sedimentos de la religión en la narrativa española (1950-2010) by Daniel García-Donoso

Reviewed by: Escrituras postseculares: sedimentos de la religión en la narrativa española (1950-2010) by Daniel García-Donoso José Patiño-Romero Escrituras postseculares: sedimentos de la religión en la narrativa española (1950-2010) Biblioteca Nueva, 2018 By Daniel García-Donoso The religious politics of Early modern counter-reformation, the Civil War and franquismo haunts the novels that are the object of this study. García-Donoso documents how Spanish fiction, in a world that seems to have replaced institutionalized religion with capitalist speculation, re-deploys this legacy with caution. Escrituras postseculares responds to a perceived lack of critical approaches to religion in contemporary Spanish culture (11), outlining the emergence of a non-dogmatic "postsecularism." It analyzes the reconfigurations of Catholic tropes, which he treats as "sediments," a spatial metaphor he borrows from Edmund Husserl's phenomenology of the re-activation of tradition (21). Experimental, historical, crime and (pre) crisis novels perform an (implied or explicit) critique of the Catholic Church. At the same time, they reconfigure spiritual practices like confession, reconciliation and humility, which become narrative devices. The author's exhaustive research maps out these historical re-sedimentations through compelling syntheses of philosophical, historical, and literary criticism, such as Noel Valis' Sacred Realism: Religion and the Imagination in Modern Spanish Narrative (2010). The introduction provides a helpful, extensive survey of twentieth century critics, like Lukacs and Auerbach, correlating the theory of western "secularization" with the development of the modern novel. Each chapter starts with an extensive and relevant survey of the political and social context of how novelists responded to the consequences of state-sponsored Spanish Catholicism. Chapter One, "Laboratorios de lo Sagrado," describes how experimental novels in the 60s and early 70s demanded active participation from their intellectual reader in "revealing" and reimagining their painful reality in the context of weakened Francoist Catholicism. Fragmentos del Apocalipsis by Gonzalo Torrente-Ballester is a parody of genres, especially Apocalyptic literature, which proclaims its status as a self-sufficient discourse. Saul ante Samuel by Juan Benet deploys excessive allusions to the Old Testament to the point of emptying out their referentiality. The Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary is a narrative technique in the late experimental novel Cristo versus Arizona by Camilo José Cela. This constant leitmotif would preserve readers from "sin." Chapter Two, "Heterodoxa historia de Miguel Delibes," representing an aspect of sixteenth-century Spain's social life only documented in inquisitorial records, is the most relevant for early modernists like this reviewer. For García-Donoso, as opposed to the experimental novel and its exclusive intellectual public, the historical fiction that emerged with the Transición responds to the general reading public's need to re-imagine the past to build a better future. In El hereje, Cipriano turns into a successful businessperson and enters Lutheran circles in Valladolid after his clandestine erotic relationship with his maid/maternal figure was discovered and prohibited, resonating with the prohibition of Protestantism. Cipriano compares his new Lutheran community, an intimate fraternal space, to early prosecuted Christian groups. In his Inquisitorial Auto de Fé, after the confession is shown as an incriminatory practice, his cathartic death by burning resembles Christ in the calvary. The point of view of the public witnessing the execution coincides with the readers' point of view, leading them to question the Spanish Catholic identity. [End Page 204] The novels analyzed in Chapter Three, "Éxtasis del Capital en la novela policíaca española" parody how spiritual exercises that seek evidence to explain mysteries are compared with detective work. In Los misterios de Madrid by Antonio Muñoz Molina, Lorencito is an ad hoc detective hired under false pretenses to investigate the robbery of El Cristo de la Greña. The image's lighting turns on with a coin of 25 pesetas, coined in 1990 for the 1992's anniversary of the "encounter of two worlds." Also, the orgasm at a sex shop is described as a religious experience, the environment resonating with the description of a Catholic souvenir shop. In La piel del tambor by Arturo Pérez-Reverte, Lorenzo Quart is an attractive priest sent by the Vatican to prevent the sale...

Bartolomäus Ziegenbalg on the Religion of the Indian South

Since the beginning of the XVIII century, a periodical was published at the University of the Saxon city of Halle under the title «Der Königlich. dänischen Missionarien aus Ost-Indien eingesandte ausführliche Berichte». It published texts sent from the city of Tranquebar in Southern India. Lutheran preachers, employees of the Danish Royal Mission, had been working in this city since 1706. For the first years, the mission was led by pastor Ziegenbalg, one of the founders of European Tamil studies. Most of the texts in the publication were written by him. Those texts sent by the pastor from India mainly dealt with the existence of the Tranquebar Lutheran community. At the same time, some publications were devoted to completely different problems. They told about the country where the missionaries conducted their work: about its geography, natural conditions, political structure, customs and traditions, about the daily life of Indians, and finally, about religion and mythology. Information about the religion of inhabitants of the South of India was later included in the fundamental work of Bartolomeus Ziegenbalg «Genealogie der Malabarischen Götter». However, this work was refused to be published in Europe for many years. It was issued only in 1867. Until that time, the main source of information about the religion of South India for European scholars remained only those notes that were printed in «Der Königlich. dänischen Missionarien aus Ost-Indien eingesandte ausführliche Berichte». A translation of one of those curious notes is offered to your attention.

Powrót pastora Haasego, czyli o problematyczności niemieckiego dziedzictwa i kształtowaniu się wielokierunkowej pamięci śląsko- -cieszyńskich ewangelików

The Lutheran community in Cieszyn Silesia is a perfect subject for memory studies within an anthropological approach, because it reveals the operation of complex mechanisms of memory work in a religious minority group strongly influenced by a nationalist discourse. In Poland, only Catholics are accepted as Poles in a way that is beyond doubt, and representatives of other denominations must constantly prove their Polishness. One of the results of this situation was concealment or erasure of the German heritage of Silesian Protestantism and appreciation (or even over-valuing) — of the Polish traditions. This is beginning to change. I analyze these processes, presenting the vicissitudes of commemoration of the figure of Theodor Haase (head of the Lutheran church in the Austrian times, social activist, German liberal politician). My empirical material comes from discussions with memory leaders of the Silesian-Cieszyn Lutheran community. I am trying to answer the question whether “the return of Pastor Haase” is a symptom of some change in the cultural memory of Silesian Lutherans and what are the causes of it (in a dominant culture). The theoretical framework for my project is is based on a critical engagement with the concept of cultural memory proposed by Jan and Aleida Assmann, as well as the concept of multidirectional memory of Michael Rothberg.

Az egyházak helyzete Makón az őszirózsás forradalom idején

With a population of more than 35,000, Makó was one of the most populous and important cities in Hungary. Makó was the seat of Csanád county. Its religious life was characterized by diversity. The Reformed Church was the largest. The Roman Catholic Church was strong, with a significant Greek Catholic and Lutheran community. Almost two thousand Jews also lived in the city. Several church schools operated here. After the lost World War I, Hungary, which had been part of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy until then, declared its independence. The Aster Revolution of 1918 created completely new conditions for the operation of churches and religious communities in the country and, in Makó. Political life continued to radicalize, and church-critical and anti-church forces grew stronger. This endangered, among other things, the property of the churches, their educational institutions, and the system of religious education. The article examines how the life of the churches of Makó developed in the new circumstances, especially in view of the fact that, as early as January 30th 1919, far-left forces seized power in the city, ahead of national processes.

МАРИЙЦЫ-ЛЮТЕРАНЕ БАШКИРИИ: МЕЖДУ СТАРЫМИ ТРАДИЦИЯМИ И НОВЫМИ РЕЛИГИОЗНЫМИ ПРАВИЛАМИ

The Mari people living in the Republic of Bashkortostan are mostly followers of their ethnic religion (“Mari paganism”). There is also a small group of Orthodox Christians, formed in the midst of the Mari pagan population as a result of forced baptism in the past. Since the 90s of the last century, the Mari people have also become acquainted with Protestantism, from different denominations of which only Lutheranism has had a tangible impact on the religious life of the Mari people. The teachings of Luther were preached among them by Finnish missionaries, who positioned themselves as representatives of a kindred Mari people. The use of the ethnic factor was one of the main reasons for the dynamic development of the Mari Lutheran community in Bashkiria. As a result of successful preaching work in the city of Birsk, the Republic of Bashkortostan, the parish of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Ingria was formed, which at one time was also the center of the Ural Brotherhood...

Clandestine Lutheranism in the eighteenth-century Dutch Cape Colony*

Abstract This article examines the survival strategies of Lutheran dissenters in the eighteenth-century Dutch Cape Colony. The Cape Colony was officially a Reformed settlement during the rule of the Dutch East India Company (V.O.C.) but also had a significant Lutheran community. Until the Lutherans received recognition in 1780, part of the community chose to uphold their faith in secret. The survival of Lutheranism in the Cape Colony was due to the efforts of a group of Cape Lutheran activists and the support network they established with ministers of the Danish-Halle Mission, the Francke Foundations, the Moravian Church and the Lutheran Church in Amsterdam.

Three Orthodox Temples of Lappeenranta — Art Through the Prism of History

The article discusses the history of the creation of three Russian military churches in the Finnish city of Lappeenranta (Villmanstrand), representing vivid examples of stone and wooden architecture: churches of the Protection of the Virgin (The Intercession church) (1785), St. Nicholas the Thaumaturge (1904) and the Nativity of Christ (1914). A comprehensive analysis of the history of construction, architectural features and preserved decoration of the mentioned churches, which are significant for Russian Orthodox church construction abroad, is presented for the first time ever in the article. The Intercession Church in the Villmanstrand Fortress is the first brick freestanding Russian church built in Western Europe. The dynamics of changes of the temple as a result of reconstruction and renovation of the decoration is considered. For the first time, the church works of academician Nikanor Tiutriumov (1821–1877) for the Intercession Church are described and late painting interventions in unsigned images, which may also belong to Tiutriumov, are analyzed. The history of the construction of the wooden camp church of St. Nicholas the Thaumaturge is outlined, the uniqueness of which was expressed in the rich carved decor that distinguished the church from other Russian wooden churches in Finland. However, in the early 1920s the church was dismantled and only a few archival photographs make it possible to recreate its appearance. For the dragoon regiment stationed in Villmanstrand, a regiment church in the neo-Russian style was built according to Georgy Kosyakov’s design — the only example of this kind in Finland and one of the few examples of this style in Western Europe. After 1918, the church building was transferred to the Lutheran community and modified by the removal of domes and a radical redevelopment. The degree of embodiment of the architect’s original plan based on the author’s drawings and preserved photographs is analyzed.

Cast Down, But Not Forsaken

This study seeks to reassess the notion that German-Canadians in Ontario were “silent victims” during the Second World War by exploring the wartime experience and memory of German-Canadian Lutheran congregations in Oxford and Waterloo Counties. Far from silent, Lutheran pastors initiated several strategies to ensure their congregants did not face discrimination and internment as they had during the First World War. These strategies encompassed several reforms, including eliminating German language church services and embracing English-Canadian symbols and forms of post-war commemoration. However, these reforms were often met with resistance and ambivalence by their congregations, thereby creating a conversation within the German-Canadian Lutheran community on how to reconcile its Germanic and Lutheran heritage with waging a patriotic war. While previous studies have primarily focused on identity loss, this study suggests that the debates that occurred within these Lutheran churches were representative of the community’s German-Canadian hyphenated identity.

The Cranach Workshop and the Prophets of Baal: The Jewish Foil of Early Lutheran Community Building

The Cranach Workshop and the Prophets of Baal: The Jewish Foil of Early Lutheran Community Building

The North American 400th Anniversary

The North American 400th Anniversary Mark Granquist For anyone connected with Martin Luther and the Lutheran tradition, 2017 was the kind of year that comes around only once every five hundred years. But this is just the beginning of the celebrations that we can observe in the coming years, such as Luther at the Imperial Diet at Worms in 2021, or similarly the Augsburg Confession in 2030, along with all the important dates in between. Yet we should not miss another important anniversary coming up in 2019, namely, the four-hundredth anniversary of Lutherans in North America. 1619 was the first verifiable presence of Lutherans in the New World, specifically, a party of Danish explorers seeking the fabled "Northwest Passage" to Asia. There are sketchy references earlier to "Lutheranos" in Spanish America, but in all likelihood these were mistaken identifications, based on the fact that the Spanish called all Protestants "Lutherans" even though these particular ones were actually French Huguenots. In the early seventeenth century many of the territories in Europe were sending out explorers and colonizers not only to settle the western hemisphere, but also to find and develop trade routes and trading stations in Asia. Not to be left behind, King Christian IV of Denmark ordered an expedition of two ships under the command of Jens Munk (or Munck) to sail westward in order to find a passage to Asia by going northwest between Greenland and Canada. This expedition of sixty-four men left Copenhagen on May 9, 1619, and among their number was a Lutheran pastor, the Reverend Rasmus Jensen. Probing around the islands and bays of Arctic Canada, the expedition was harassed by bad weather conditions and sea ice, until they finally found refuge [End Page 205] in Hudson's Bay near the site of present-day Churchill, Manitoba. Here the short arctic summer quickly evaporated, and the expedition was trapped in ice for the long winter of 1619–20. Things quickly took a disastrous turn, as malnutrition, scurvy, dysentery, and other misfortunes took a heavy toll. Pastor Jensen attempted to maintain regular religious life among them, and conducted funerals for the many who died (although the services had to be abbreviated due to the cold weather). To keep up their spirits, Captain Munk and Pastor Jensen provided the crew with a special Christmas Eve celebration. But the weather worsened and the health of the crew deteriorated after the New Year, with Pastor Jensen himself dying on February 20, 1620. The rapidly-dwindling crew continued to maintain a semblance of religious life by singing hymns and reading Luther's sermons among themselves through Lent and Easter. With just a handful of the crew left alive, Captain Munk was able to sail out of the bay in July, 1620, and he arrived in Norway in September, with only two other crew members left alive. Rasmus Jensen, the first Lutheran pastor to lead worship in North America, was also the first Lutheran pastor to die there. The Danes themselves later went on to found colonies in North America, namely, in the Virgin Islands in the 1670s and on Greenland in 1721, establishing Lutheran congregations in both places. The Munk expedition to North America was not a particularly auspicious start to the Lutheran presence on this continent. But a century later there were thriving Lutheran populations in the British colonies in North America, and even some scattered settlements in the Caribbean. It is impressive that these Lutheran immigrants to North America were able, in the intervening centuries, to establish a thriving Lutheran community in this area, and almost all of it without the support of Lutheran states and state churches in Europe. The few state-supported Lutheran colonies in North America were hardly a success, and the Lutheran immigrants were generally on their own, especially beyond the colonial period. But more than this, Lutherans in North America had to develop a very new kind of Lutheranism, one that was adapted to a new and different culture. These Lutherans had to build their religious tradition without any state support from the colonies, and with precious little from back [End Page 206] home. They had to figure out how and why...

On Food, Faith, and Psychoanalysis: Isak Dinesen's Babette's Feast

Isak Dinesen's novella Babette's Feast tells the story of how a small, quarrelsome Lutheran community in Norway comes to be transformed by the arrival of a stranger, the French cook Babette. In her deceptively simple tale, Dinesen adopts explicitly Eucharistic language and imagery to convey the connection between eating and faith, exploring via rich use of metaphor the way in which we come to be inhabited and nourished by the other. In this paper, I follow Dinesen's sacramental perspective by offering the Catholic notion of transubstantiation as a model for furthering psychoanalytic theorizing about the presence of the other within. Following an outline of Dinesen's story, I draw on work by Freud, Abraham and Torok, and Kristeva to explore differing notions of unconscious identification, incorporation and the metaphorical basis of subjectivity. I develop these ideas through a discussion of the central celebratory dinner given by Babette and conclude by considering some of the implications of the story for psychoanalytic practice.

The Astronomer and the Witch: Johannes Kepler's Fight for his Mother by Ulinka Rublack

Reviewed by: The Astronomer and the Witch: Johannes Kepler's Fight for his Mother by Ulinka Rublack Alinda Damsma Keywords Ulinka Rublack, Alinda Damsma, witchcraft, Johannes Kepler, witch trial, early modern witchcraft, early modern magic, magic and science ulinka rublack, The Astronomer and the Witch: Johannes Kepler's Fight for his Mother. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015. Pp. xxxii + 359, 42 ill. The Jesuit Friedrich Spee, a fierce opponent of the witch persecutions, wrote in his Cautio Criminalis (1631) that "the only way trials are conducted [End Page 122] is so that in the end the truth does not shine brightly throughout Germany, but bonfires."1 However, Ulinka Rublack's monograph describes a remarkable witch trial in which the truth ultimately did cast its brilliant shine, thanks to the accused woman's stout defendant: the astronomer Johannes Kepler, famed for his discovery of the three laws of planetary motion. As a man of science, Kepler was skilled in defending his astronomical insights and refuting his academic opponents, but upon learning that his aged, illiterate mother, Katharina Kepler, had been accused of witchcraft, he put his telescope aside and used his brilliant analytical and rhetorical skills to conduct her defense, which eventually led to her release. In this thoroughly researched and beautifully written study, Rublack offers the reader a welcome balanced treatment of the Kepler case, one of the best documented witchcraft trials in Germany, which lasted from 1615 until 1621. Having dusted off the rich archival sources, Rublack atmospherically and vividly paints a picture of Katharina's world and beliefs. Adopting the microhistorical approach, Rublack not only gives voice to Katharina, but also to the rest of her family and the community she lived in, at a time when the witch craze was ravaging early modern Germany. Rublack reconstructs a haunted world in which bad events were explained as the work of the Devil and his band of witches. No one was safe from the Devil's temptation, and paranoia reigned. The reader thus gains an in-depth understanding of how the witch craze impacted ordinary people in a small Lutheran community in the Duchy of Württemberg. Most originally, Rublack presents Katharina's trial as the hitherto untold story of how witchcraft accusations transformed family dynamics. Subsequently, her monograph does not just focus on Kepler, his mother, and their relationship, but also on the witch trial as a family tragedy. Rublack sets the scene by guiding the reader through early modern Leonberg, Katharina's hometown. She explains in rich detail how communal life was governed by daily patterns and seasonal rhythms. Thanks to Rublack's engaging and vivid writing style, the reader gets a real sense of what life must have been like for Katharina in this bustling market town. Despite her middling wealth, Katharina faced much hardship because her husband—unwilling to settle down—had left her to raise their four children, and was never heard of again. Katharina nevertheless managed to fend for herself, thereby showing great resilience and resourcefulness. At the beginning of the seventeenth century, she finally seemed to have entered calm water. [End Page 123] However, Katharina's life took a dramatic turn in August 1615 when, at the age of 68, she was accused of being a witch. She had allegedly given the local glazier's wife a poisonous brew which had made her ill. All of a sudden, the illiterate aged widow was caught up in the machinations of the witch persecutions, instigated by an overzealous ducal governor. What follows is a gripping account of a six-year legal battle in which Katharina narrowly escapes physical torture, which most likely would have resulted in a confession, and consequently, the death sentence. In great detail and with painstaking effort, Rublack reconstructs the six-year-long case and the anxiety it causes among Katharina and her children. Throughout those years Johannes tirelessly confronts the judicial system, exposing some of the causes of the German witch craze in the process, such as the deeply embedded cultural fear of old women. However, although the trial unfolds against the backdrop of the scientific revolution with Kepler himself being a man of science, Rublack rightly does not describe...

Book Editions of the Samara Germans of the second half of the 19th - beginning of the 20<sup>th</sup> centuries in the Collections of the Central Libraries of Russia

The research reveals the features of the development of the German-language book publishing in Samara in the second half of 19th - the beginning of the 20th centuries. There was analyzed the publishing activities of certain associations, enterprises and individuals, connected with the Evangelical Lutheran community of St. George. The author proves that the Samara German language book publishing used the printing houses of other regions. There is provided information on book production of Samara Germans, preserved in the holdings of the Russian State Library, National Library of Russia and Library of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

ANDREJ HLINKA IN THE COLLECTIVE MEMORY OF SLOVAK PROTESTANTS

The present paper maps the portrayal of Andrej Hlinka within the Protestant milieu during his lifetime. It also tries to answer the question of Hlinka’s position in the hierarchy of symbols which were and are relevant for the formation of the Slovak Protestants’ identity. Nowadays, ambivalent or expressly negative att itudes towards Hlinka prevail within the Lutheran community, however, similar att itudes prevailed also during the interwar and aft er-war periods. In 1902 at the regional forum, A. Hlinka did not support the rights of the Slovak language which represented a major att ribute of the national identity of Slovaks. Hlinka’s att itude was then reminded in the Lutheran milieu in the situations when an idealized and mythologized portrayal of Hlinka as an uncompromising fi ghter for the national rights spread in particular via offi cial propaganda. In fact, it served as a de-legitimizing instrument of Hlinka cult. During the existence of the Slovak State (1938/1939 – 1945) Slovak Protestants were massively confronted with the phenomenon of Hlinka and denied this historical fi gure in the position of the most signifi cant national symbol. At the religious celebration of the national hero General Milan Rastislav Stefanik in May 1939, General Bishop of the Protestant Church Vladimir Pavel Cobrda compared both personages – Hlinka and Stefanik – and refused the symbolic governmental policy and propaganda which tried to make believe the whole society including Lutherans that Hlinka was a positive social example. He called Stefanik the greatest Slovak who became the symbol of antifascist resistance.

Manas Buthelezi: the church leader, liberation activist and scholar in the South African context

This article celebrates and honours Manas Buthelezi’s life by examining his active contribution in the spiritual, political, social and socio-economic spheres. An analysis of his contribution is offered by firstly examining his academic career, church work and his contribution to the recent history of Christianity. Secondly, I provide an overview of his involvement in political affairs and with the Lutheran community. Finally, I focus on Buthelezi’s service in the South African Council of Churches (SACC).

Néhány megjegyzés Heltai imádságos könyvének utóéletéről

Although in recent years there has been an upsurge in the research of the history of early modern spirituality, this research has paid hardly any attention to the Unitarian denomination. The reasons for this lie beyond the scope of the present study: between the late 16th century and the late 18th century the denomination had to refrain from the use of printing, and thus, the manuscript versions of prayer texts were threatened by loss and destruction. It is a unique paradox, however, that the first edited protestant Hungarian prayer book of considerable length was published precisely by this denomination in 1570/1571. The first part of the paper explores the concept of the prayer book based on Johann Habermann’s famous Gebetbüchlein, and compares it to the greatest achievements of the same sort within this period, the Catholic Péter Pázmány’s and the Calvinist Albert Szenci Molnár’s works. This section is followed by a survey of the vivid reception of Heltai’s work, with particular focus on the way the Unitarian author’s work was used in the Lutheran community of Lőcse. The concluding part argues that building on the foundations of this tradition, as well as on the heritage of Calvinist prayer culture, an unparalleled Unitarian prayer literature developed in the 17th-18th centuries, which deserves the attention of comparative research.