Union Church Research Articles

Lutsk Fire in 1617: An Attempt to Reconstruct the Event and its Role in the Development of Religious Relations in the City (1620s — 1630s)

The article deals with the fire in Lutsk, which occurred on the night of March 21–22, 1617. The author established the time and probable cause of the fire, determined the scale of the natural disaster and outlined the limits of its spread. It is noted that part of the city blocks and streets above the Styr River were destroyed or seriously damaged by the fire, along with the Market Square, two Union churches, the «Russian» hospital, the Armenian Church and the Catholic Church. It is assumed that the fire was stopped by the walls of the Okolny Castle, which, together with the Upper Castle, was not significantly affected by the fire.It was established that the residents of Lutsk, in the conditions of the spread of the fire, made efforts to save private and church property. In particular, their efforts saved the bells, icons, church utensils and other property of the Intercession and St. Nicholas Churches. At the same time, the documents attest to the facts of looting committed by army squires and individual residents of Lutsk on the Market Square and in other areas of the city in the conditions of chaos caused by the fire.It was noted that the fire caused great damage to the city economy; to overcome the consequences of the natural disaster, King Sigismund III granted a number of economic benefits. The author of the article also claims that the fire in 1617 disorganized the weakened Union Church, which had limited influence on the city residents (both burghers and nobility) and was unable to quickly restore the destroyed infrastructure under its jurisdiction. This situation created the prerequisites for the gradual transfer of land plots with objects destroyed by the fire to the hands of Orthodox and Roman Catholics. As a result, the Church of the Ascension of the Cross was built on the site of the burnt hospital, where the Orthodox brotherhood was organized, the influence of which spread far beyond the borders of Lutsk. The area where the St. Nicholas Church, destroyed by the fire, stood over time became the property of the Roman Catholics, who built a monastery on the site of the Union Church of Fatebenefratelli, which became widely known for its charity

Wielding the Sword of the Spirit. Volume One: The Doctrine & Practice of Church Fellowship in the Missouri Synod (1838–1867) by Peter M. Prange

Reviewed by: Wielding the Sword of the Spirit. Volume One: The Doctrine & Practice of Church Fellowship in the Missouri Synod (1838–1867) by Peter M. Prange Mark Mattes Wielding the Sword of the Spirit. Volume One: The Doctrine & Practice of Church Fellowship in the Missouri Synod (1838–1867). By Peter M. Prange. Wauwatosa, Wisconsin: Joh. Ph. Koehler Press, 2021. 425 pp. Numerous books and articles have examined the early history of the Missouri Synod in relation to the Buffalo, Iowa, and Norwegian Synods. The strength of this book is the thoroughness and judiciousness of its assessment of C.F.W. Walther and his interlocutors, as well as its tendency to draw out explicitly the pastoral dimension in Walther's reasoning about church fellowship. If you are at all interested in the relationships between upper Midwest Lutheran immigrant synods in the nineteenth century, this is a satisfying book. It appreciates Walther without denigrating those with whom he disagreed. "Wielding the Sword of the Spirit" is a metaphor for discerning the conditions in which to say no to unionistic tendencies. The Prussian Union, which sought to unite the Lutheran and Reformed traditions in the kingdom of Prussia in the early nineteenth century, was opposed by Pastor Martin Stephan, J. J. Grabau, and others. Prange, a Wisconsin Synod pastor, begins his narrative with a description of the Stephanite movement, centered around Martin Stephan's ministry in Dresden; he opposed government intrusion into confessional matters, and saw those clergy who aligned with the Union church as invalidly administering sacraments. Emigrating with hundreds of parishioners and sympathizers, including Walther, Stephan was discredited soon after arriving in Missouri for alleged sexual improprieties and administrative heavy-handedness. In response to the exposure of Stephan, Walther resigned his pastoral call since he had been a devoted disciple of Stephan, now viewed as a false prophet. Even so, his congregation declined to suspend him (44). In response to Stephanism, Walther [End Page 338] proposed that the true church was "invisible" (52) and should be organized congregationally, not organically constituted by means of a ministerium independent of congregations. Even though Stephan himself proved to be "heterodox," the pastoral calls and administration of the sacraments in the Saxon communities in Missouri were still valid (53). Developing a congregationalist form of governance, Walther would soon butt heads with Grabau, whose anti-Prussian Union emigration had settled in Buffalo, New York, and Milwaukee. Walther consented that the preaching office was a divine institution. But Grabau would not concede that a pastor haphazardly called by a congregation could genuinely absolve or give communion (101). For the Missourians, Grabau represented an attempt to impose the old European order upon the new world. Similar to this conflict with Grabau, the Missourians were soon in conflict with the Bavarian missional pastor Wilhelm Loehe who had been financially supportive of the infant Missouri Synod. Walther even met with Loehe in Germany, but he would not be able to endorse Loehe's conviction that there were "open questions." For example, could faithful Lutherans disagree over how ministry is legitimated, whether through an established ministerium which calls its own or instead via congregational acknowledgement of those set aside for ordination? For Walther, such a question had been settled for good in the Lutheran confessions. Loehe's followers in the United States became the nucleus of the Iowa Synod and, with Loehe, did not believe that confessional truth remained "frozen" from the sixteenth century (297) but instead that it allowed fresh readings of the scriptures to help achieve greater clarity about truth. By bringing up numerous exchanges between Walther and his parishioners, Prange shows Walther to be not a fanatic in matters dealing with fellowship, but instead a man of wisdom and compassion. All in all, Prange provides a delightful read that explains the differences between the various synods and does so in a fair and winsome way. This is must reading for those interested in North American Lutheran history. [End Page 339] Mark Mattes Grand View University Des Moines, Iowa Copyright © 2022 Johns Hopkins University Press and Lutheran Quarterly, Inc.

Передумови здійснення московського проєкту "Відродження православної церкви" в Русі-Україні (кінець XVI - перші десятиліття XVII століття)

The new conceptual key, based on historical and dogmatic-canonical sources, examines the preconditions of the event, which is known in historiography as the "revival of the Orthodox Church" or "Orthodox hierarchy" in Ruthenia in 1620 within three components – the interest of the Moscow state in restoring / creating an alternative to the legitimate Ruthenian Union Church ununited Orthodox Church, the attitude of Polish authorities to the union process in Ruthenia and the peculiarities of the opposition of the ununited Orthodox Church supporters in Ruthenia itself to the unifying church movement. The Union (Unija) of the Ruthenian Church with the Catholic Church, laid down unique conditions for the іnternal strengthening of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (Rzeczpospolita) and significantly complicated the possibility of Moscow's expansion into Europe. This was all the more significant because Moscow's military defeats lasted from the 1580s (Livonian War) to the 1630s. The situation of military-political isolation and humiliation of international status threatened Moscow to be supplemented by ideological and confessional isolation. Under these circumstances, the Moscow state relied on the possibility of internal weakening of the Commonwealth by maintaining and developing relations with the Ruthenian clergy and church fraternities that opposed the union with Rome and sought to restore the legitimacy of the ununited Orthodox Church in Ruthenia. Also in the first decades of the XVII century the ununited Orthodox clergy, representing the ancient Eastern patriarchates in the Ottoman Empire, became more active. With the loss of the schism of the church hierarchy, foreign clergy, especially the Patriarchates of Constantinople and Jerusalem, were able to influence the situation and interfere in the church life of Ruthenia. In particular, the efforts of the Metropolitan of Sofia Neophyte in 1612 in the Holy Dormition Kiev-Pechersk Monastery created an alternative center of church life and administration, which was at the local level in opposition to the legitimate Metropolitan of Kiev Ruthenian Union Church (Hypatius Potius, 1541–1613). As the foreign non-aligned Orthodox clergy of the Eastern Patriarchates were closely linked to Moscow in receiving financial assistance and mutual political cooperation, Muscovy gained an additional tool to influence Ruthenia and, indirectly, the Commonwealth. It was the foreign Orthodox hierarchs – Patriarch Theophanes III of Jerusalem, Metropolitan Neophyte of Sofia, Bishop Avrahamii of Stragon in 1620 who ordained new hierarchs for the ununited Orthodox Church in Ruthenia. Led by the secretly ordained Kyiv Metropolitan Yov Boretsky, the new hierarchy was already entirely focused on cooperation with Moscow, financially dependent on Moscow and dependent on ideological and political cooperation with schismatic Moscow.

A Forgotten Bishop: Lutsk Bishop Ostafy (Eugene) Yelo-Malynsky in the Shadow of His Outstanding Contemporaries

The article deals with the activity of the Union Bishop Ostafy (Eugene) Yelo-Malynsky, who headed the Lutsk Episcopal Chair in 1607–1620. The questions of the origin of the Yelo-Malynsky family, their formation in the status of large landowners in Volhynia; the peculiarities of the secular period of the future bishop’s life are also analyzed. It is noted that Ostafy Yelo-Malynsky was, figuratively speaking, a member of the “club of Volhynian magnates”, owned numerous estates and distinguished himself as a successful businessman. At the same time, from a young age he proved to be an extremely controversial person. On the one hand, Yelo-Malynsky was a recognized lawyer and city judge in Volhynia, while on the other hand, he was involved in a crime including at least two high-profile murders. That circumstance had a great impact on the formation of his reputation and created serious problems in his further activity as a bishop. The issue of national and religious values of Ostafy Yelo-Malynsky is considered separately. It is mentioned that he belonged to the wealthy elite, who followed the Eastern rite at the turn of the 16th–17th centuries. Having opted for the union, he took part in the Lublin Declaration of 1603, which aimed to provide political support to the Union Church and members of the church. Since then, Ostafy Yelo-Malynsky had become one of the few large landowners in Volhynia who professed the Union and had real opportunities to support it.It is noted that granting the privilege to Ostafy Yelo-Malynsky at the Lutsk Diocese met with mass protests of the Volhynian nobility. The aristocratic community mainly did not perceive him as a pastor due to the ambiguous past of the new bishop. This, in turn, was the main reason for the local spread of the Union in the Lutsk-Ostroh diocese.The author made the conclusion that Ostafy (Eugene) Yelo-Malynsky combined in his person contradictory features of his time (aristocratic arbitrariness and the connection with crime, as well as the education, talent of a businessman and the practice of a lawyer). Becoming a bishop, he showed the abilities of an administrator, but did not realize his material potential in the field of philanthropy, and thus remained in the shadow of his prominent contemporaries.

THE MAIN CONCEPTS OF "RUS CULTURAL AND RELIGIOUS REVIVAL" OF THE LAST THIRD OF THE SEVENTEENTH – EARLY EIGHTEENTH CENTURY AS A PRECONDITION FOR "THE UNION TRIUMPHALISM" IN THE SCIENTIFIC WORKS OF ANDRZEJ GIL AND IGOR SKOCHILIAS

Summary. The purpose of the article is to analyze the contribution of Andrzej Gil and Ihor Skochylias to the study of the preconditions for the "triumph" of the union confession in the western dioceses of the Kyiv metropolis in the context of development of new concepts and ideas by these scientists. The research methodology is based on the use of historical-comparative method and methods of analysis, synthesis and generalization. The scientific novelty of the article lies in an attempt to study the innovative concepts of modern scholars on the topic of the history of the union church of the late XVII ‒ early XVIII centuries. Conclusions. The significant source material is the authors’ concept that at the turn of the XVII‒XVIII centuries there was a cultural and religious revival and large-scale modernization reforms in the Kyiv metropolis leading to the formation of an innovative religious model "Slavia Unita". The scholars state that the main initiators and promoters of the Reformation innovations were the uniate metropolitans of Kyiv, representatives of the Basilian order and the local church hierarchy. Implementation and control over the innovations were carried out during regular episcopal and archimandrite visits and episcopal courts. Everything was codified at local diocesan councils. According to historians, this religious model contributed to the formation of a clear union identity and a closer union with European religious culture. At the same time, it contributed to the preservation of the important principles of the Kyivan Christian tradition. There are at least two objective conclusions made by the authors. One of them is that a direct result of this model was "the union triumphalism" and the "golden age of union" in the Kyiv metropolis, and the second one is that the political consequence of "Slavia Unita" is unification around the union denomination of the Rus nation. The Union Church in the Kyiv metropolis became the most widespread confession and an effective representative of the interests of the Rus people.

Ukrainian churches in defence of ‘traditional values’: two case studies and some methodological considerations

ABSTRACT Following the post-Maidan political urge to align Ukrainian legislation to European Union standards, churches and religious organisations strongly oppose the legal introduction of terminology relating to gender and sexual orientation. This contribution discusses two cases: the contested bill on the Labour Code and the difficult process of ratification of the Istanbul Convention. It presents an analysis of the position and strategy of the Ukrainian churches in view of their relation to the state leadership, wider society, Europe, and transnational alliances on ‘traditional values’. Using the concept of ‘multiple modernities’, the churches’ traditionalist stance is interpreted as deeply paradoxical: while their social (and political) capital draws on their support for the Euromaidan’s modernising thrust, they now try to reinforce it by a politics of traditional morality. Finally, by way of evaluation, methodological questions of normativity and the interdisciplinarity of theology, social science, and the humanities are addressed.

Conflict of Bishops Inokentii Vynnytskyi and Yan Malakhovskyi Around the Union Church

Conflict of Bishops Inokentii Vynnytskyi and Yan Malakhovskyi Around the Union Church

Kim Lynn‘s Life and Pro-Japanese Activities as an Assistant Administrator of Japanese Union Church

Kim Lynn‘s Life and Pro-Japanese Activities as an Assistant Administrator of Japanese Union Church

분단상황하 균형자로서의 교회의 역할 : 독일 “연합교회”(EKU)의 역할과 실천 연구

분단상황하 균형자로서의 교회의 역할 : 독일 “연합교회”(EKU)의 역할과 실천 연구

City Girls: The Nisei Social World in Los Angeles, 1920–1950 by Valerie J. Matsumoto

Reviewed by: City Girls: The Nisei Social World in Los Angeles, 1920–1950 by Valerie J. Matsumoto Shiho Imai City Girls: The Nisei Social World in Los Angeles, 1920–1950. By Valerie J. Matsumoto. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014. 312 pp. Hardcover $36.95. In her long-awaited book, Valerie Matsumoto explores the ethnocultural networks of young Japanese American women in California that served as a bulwark against the harsh racial climate characterizing the decades before and after World War II. Drawing on oral history interviews and the English language pages of the ethnic press, Matsumoto brings to life the ways in which the American-born Nisei, or second generation, honed their social skills and leadership potential through a variety of youth organizations at a time when they were mostly excluded from high school clubs and college fraternities and sororities. By 1940, there were nearly four hundred active Nisei organizations, including the likes of the Tartanettes, a Girl Reserve affiliated with Little Tokyo’s Union Church. Set against the backdrop of nativist restrictions and tense US-Japanese diplomatic relations, the book makes visible how these women’s social lives were at once similar and yet distinct from those of other racial groups. What is more, their stories help uncover and reconstruct a once-vibrant ethnic community that was lost to wartime uprooting and incarceration. Matsumoto is careful to place the Nisei experience in the context of larger conversations about “adolescence as a stage in life” in the early twentieth century (5). Focusing on what historian Vicki Ruiz calls “cultural coalescence,” we see the dynamics of cultural adaptation and maintenance paralleling the social world of Mexican American women. The process of navigating between their newfound American femininity and parental expectations of courtship, marriage, and work was “messy, exuberant, and variable,” as Matsumoto poignantly describes (83). As mainstream advice columns became an accepted means of self-improvement and advancement, Nisei women writers came to [End Page 513] lend their own literary voice to a generation coming of age. Mary Oyama, a key member of the Nisei Writers Group, was a popular advice columnist writing under the pseudonym “Deirdre” for the San Francisco Shin Sekai-Asahi. On the opposite side of the Pacific, the “modern girl,” or the Japanese equivalent of the American flapper, captured the hearts and minds of urban Japanese youth, as parents and critics alike tried to make sense of the powerful appeal of Western consumer culture. While some Nisei women enjoyed being cultural ambassadors, others questioned the community’s ethnic performances and their culturally prescribed gender roles. On one occasion, a hundred Nisei girls dressed in kimonos served as interpreters for the Japanese Naval Training Squadron while Nisei men were noticeably absent. Female club members were the face of Little Tokyo’s Nisei Week festival since its beginning in 1934, but the women’s traditional Japanese garb could also reinforce their exotic and foreign image. As US-Japan tensions increased, Nisei-only clubs came under fire, with little regard to their history of camaraderie and support. Following their forced relocation during World War II, Nisei women turned to their prewar successes to recreate their social life in an otherwise dreary, cheerless environment. Some provided a valuable link to the national war effort, where they exchanged thousands of letters with Nisei soldiers overseas. Nisei girls’ clubs continued to thrive during the postwar resettlement period, as they negotiated the expectations of the War Relocation Authority with their own hopes and trepidations about life beyond barbed wire. City Girls raises a number of important questions about community mobilization and empowerment that resonate with current affairs and concerns. As Matsumoto notes, some of these Nisei women would later play a pivotal role in the campaign for wartime redress and reparations in the 1970s and 1980s. Combining their organizational skills with political militancy, Nisei women were instrumental in the passage of the Civil Liberties Act in 1988. Yet their history also illustrates how the community could be at odds over strategies to bring about social change. Some unwittingly adopted mainstream stereotypes towards other minorities in their quest for racial inclusion, while others called for integrated membership for fear of appearing too “clannish” (206...

Yu Il-seon’s Life and Pro-Japanese Activities as an Itinerant Teacher of Japanese Union Church

Yu Il-seon’s Life and Pro-Japanese Activities as an Itinerant Teacher of Japanese Union Church

An Interview with Renate Rose

An Interview with Renate Rose Kelsi Morrison-Atkins (bio) Describing Renate Rose in one sentence, or even a series of sentences, is no small undertaking. She is a United Church of Christ (UCC) minister and a Harvard alumna. She has lived in six countries and speaks many languages. She is a feminist interfaith peace activist and an outspoken opponent of nuclear weapons. Born in Berlin, she witnessed firsthand the horrors of Nazi Germany and has devoted her life to the project of peace and reconciliation. Yet, all of these identifiers do not begin to describe the dynamic woman who welcomed me into her home and taught me much about the important role of feminist scholars and practitioners of all religions in envisioning and enacting a world free of the “genocidal mentality” that sustains the production of nuclear weapons and other death-dealing machinery. In preparation for our interview, Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza sent me Dr. Rose’s biographical essay entitled “A Faith Journey in the Shadow of Auschwitz,” which she prepared for her eightieth birthday celebration.1 In this essay, Dr. Rose gives an account of the destruction of her home in an Allied bombing, her pathbreaking journey to a doctorate in economics and political science, her work in the European Communities and at the Council of Europe, and her pastoral work in Hawaii and the Philippines. This narrative forms the basis of many of my questions and demonstrates the haunting influence of Renate’s war experiences as a child. As such, I will summarize it briefly here. Growing up next to the concentration camp of Sachsenhausen, north of Berlin, the atrocities of Auschwitz have framed Dr. Rose’s faith journey from the beginning of her life to this day. Influenced by her father, an outspoken critic of Hitler, Renate was shocked by the overwhelming silence of the church in response to the inconceivable inhumanity of genocide. She repeatedly proclaims “the personal is political!” and brings this motto to bear on her studies of [End Page 143] political science and economics as well as her work in international peace organizations. After graduating from Harvard Divinity School, her focus on peace and justice work were carried into her ordination and service for the United Church of Christ in Hawaii, her teaching of New Testament and Worship at Silliman University Divinity School and Union Theological Seminary in the Philippines, and her interfaith work in “retirement.” After her first career in postwar Europe (Brussels and Strasbourg), Re-nate moved in 1973 to the United States after her marriage to David Rose, a professor of physics and nuclear engineering at MIT and a strong voice against nuclear weapons. In 1981, the Roses moved to Hawaii because of David’s illness, where he unfortunately died shortly thereafter. In 1983, Renate was ordained and began to pastor Central Union Church in Honolulu. Time as a pastor and association minister of the UCC in the diversity of the Hawaiian culture, experiences in the Philippines teaching New Testament and feminist theology, and many interfaith retreats at Auschwitz (while translating a book from German into English about the commander of the camp) have all fostered her passion for peace and her vision of reconciliation. Auschwitz and its aftermath has remained the central impetus for her work on nuclear disarmament and peacemaking. It is this peace activism that forms the basis of Dr. Rose’s vision of a nonkyriarchal, demilitarized, and peace-filled world. Influenced by the work of Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza and Mary Daly, Renate asks us to consider the ways in which our images of and language about God contribute to kyriarchal oppression and the murderous technologies of militarism. Thus, on many occasions, including the 1999 Parliament of World’s Religions meeting, Renate has argued for an “economics of care,” highlighting the resources that would be available for the poor if nuclearism (the production of nuclear weapons, their maintenance, and the willingness to use them in war) were no longer supported, and has argued fervently that feminists must join in this cause and provide a model for a radically egalitarian society. Until these and other feminist insights are made known and acted upon, she concludes, “I will...

Sacred Song and the Pennsylvania Dutch. By Daniel Jay Grimminger. Rochester, N.Y.: University of Rochester Press, 2012. xxi + 213 pp. $85.00 cloth.

(ProQuest: ... denotes non-US-ASCII text omitted.)Sacred Song and the . By Daniel Jay Grimminger . Rochester, N.Y. : University of Rochester Press , 2012. xxi + 213 pp. $85.00 cloth.Book Reviews and NotesThis is study of the and books the produced between 1786 and 1883. By chorale Daniel Grimminger means any book that contains German chorales solely, and by tune he means a printed score that may contain genres outside of the German repertoire (9). He provides complete list of the books under consideration in the introduction (Table 1, pp. 4-5).While Dutch has often been applied to Amish and Mennonite separatists, Grimminger applies it here to the whole group of ethnic Americans who spoke Dutch which he defines as a peculiar form of Low German, resembling the dialects of the Palatinate region from whence many immigrants came in the colonial and early republic eras of American history (10). Not to be confused with the Netherlands Dutch is used here to refer to all the Germanic people of Pennsylvania (9). This includes Kirchenleute , Lutherans, and Reformed who sometimes worshiped in union churches, Sektenleute , the Plain People--Amish, Mennonites, Brethren, and Ephrata Cloister folks who came from the sixteenth century Swiss and German Anabaptists (12), and Brudergemein, the 'Unitas Fratrum' or 'Moravian Brethren' who were somewhere between the Kirchenleute and Sektenleute theologically and socially (14) and who receive less attention here. George Fenwick Jones chose the analogous term Dutch for the Salzburgers who came to Georgia in the eighteenth century (George Fenwick Jones, The Georgia [Athens: The University of Atlanta Press, 1992]).Keying off the categories Stephanie Grauman Wolf used for the assimilation process of the Dutch, Grimminger runs the and books he is studying through the grid of retention, adaptation, acculturation, and amalgamation (3). These central categories form the core of the book. They are preceded by foreword by Don Yoder--an expert on this material--a preface that introduces the topic with thanks to those who helped in the research, and an overview of culture. They are followed by the Choral Harmony as summation of the whole spectrum and some concluding implications.This book is the result of scouring archives and libraries and building collection of and books. Grimminger donated his collection to the Lutheran Music Foundation's Samuel Putnam House in Paris, Ohio. He has lifelong connection to Paris and has written about it (Paris [Charleston, S.C.: Arcadia, 2010]). His interest therefore is personal as well as scholarly, and he terms his approach emic (xix). He includes the study of furniture and artifacts (in chapter 1) to give holistic view of the culture.Though there are studies where many of these and books are referenced and analyzed, there is no other study where they are brought together in one cluster like this. …

Organization communication regarding ISO 26000 practices in South Korea: focusing on the enlarged scope

ISO 26000, issued on November 1, 2010, has enlarged the scope of social responsibility (SR) from corporations to all types of organizations. This article examines how organizations that traditionally have not been concerned with this term, such as public or governmental institutions and nonprofit organizations, interpret this new standard and the notion of SR, especially in the South Korean context. For this research, we observed the SR-related reports and media activity of seven Korean organizations: Korean Standards Association (KSA), the Ministry of Knowledge Economy (MKE), Gangdong-gu Office (GDG), Christian Ethics Movement of Korea (CEMK), LG Electronics Union (LGEU), Collective Action (CA), and Working Together Corporation (WTCO). We also carried out interviews with experts in these organizations, who largely work on the subject. Using the organizing theory frame (enactment–selection–retention) of Karl E. Weick, we analyzed three elements of the organizational communication of these institutions: strategy, ISO 26000 messaging, and receivers of the information. ISO 26000 was first actively used in public organizations (e.g., KSA, MKE, and GDG) as a policy tool to expand the concept to all aspects of Korean society, and was later used in certain nonprofit organizations (e.g., LGEU and CEMK) as a new paradigm, creating new concepts such as union SR and churches’ SR that partially accept the international standard in different contexts. Some civil societies, such as CA and WTCO, observe the phenomenon in a passive way to see if it could promote the social values of their organizations. Lastly, in spite of the scope enlargement, we note that SR is still in the range of corporate SR, and the application process in South Korea shows that the social aspect is more easily ignored than the economic and environmental aspects.

Contested Heritage: The “Yanghwajin Controversy” and Korean Protestantism

In 2007, the Yanghwajin cemetery in Seoul, Korea became the site of a controversy between the mostly foreign Seoul Union Church and the Hundredth Anniversary Memorial Church, formed by the Committee for the Celebration of the Hundredth Anniversary of the Korean Church. The controversy, ostensibly over the care of the foreigners’ cemetery and possession of a chapel built to commemorate a century of Protestant Christianity in Korea, is also a conflict over the heritage represented by the missionaries buried in the cemetery. Though missionary graves make up less than a quarter of the graves at Yanghwajin, the cemetery has become a site of heritage for the Korean Protestant Church. As such, the narratives told there hold enormous sway. In this essay I examine the narratives emerging from the controversy, to determine what they say about the role of missionaries in Korean history, the legacy of those missionaries today, and the relationship of the church to Korea’s modernization. I argue that these narratives selectively craft the story of early missionaries in response to Korean nationalist historiography in an effort to assert the relevance of the Korean Protestant Church to Korean modernization and historical memory.

Problem rejestracji kościołów i związków wyznaniowych w polskim systemie prawnym

Once Poland regained independence after WWI, it retained the validity of legal provisions from the period of the partitions, which resulted in incongruous administrative systems. The principle of citizens’ obligatory membership of any of the recognized religious associations was also tacitly acknowledged. The law of interwar Poland distinguished between recognized religious associations, enjoying the status of legal entities acknowledged by the State, whose relations to the State, as well as organizational status, were stipulated by law, and unrecognized religious associations, enjoying the right to freely practice faith and rituals. At that time there was also an attempt to regulate legal relations between the State and the Evangelical Union Churches, the Evangelical Augsburg and Helvetian Church with superindenture in Stanisławów, the Vilnius Evangelical Reformed Church (Vilnius Unity), and the Evangelical Reformed Church with the Consistory in Warsaw. However, for numerous reasons, no normative acts were passed. The fact that in the interwar period there were no laws to constitutionally regulate the legal relations of churches and religious associations recognized by the former partitioning states, hindered the process of unifying of religious law in the Second Republic of Poland. This was further influenced by administrative practices and the antagonistic attitude of the Catholic Church to religious minorities. For their own purposes, administrative authorities divided the existing churches and religious associations, distinguishing religious associations recognized by law, unrecognized religious associations operating by virtue of the laws of former partitioning states, and religious associations not recognized by law, but tolerated by virtue of Articles 111 and 112 of the March Constitution. After WWII ended, three churches were recognized by virtue of an administrative decision, and state authorities decided to change the procedure for legal regulation of newly emerging churches and religious associations in a way different from that provided by the legislature of the Second Republic. The aim of these changes was to simplify the procedures related to the establishment of new churches and religious associations. The Decree on Associations attempted to encompass churches and religious associations. The matter was later resolved by the Decree of 5 August 1949 on the protection of free conscience and religion. Later on matters were handled by the Office for Religious Denominations. Since 1989 the register of churches and religious associations has been conducted by the Minister of Internal Affairs and Administration.

Tribute to Don S. Browning (1934–2010)

This tribute adapts words originally written to honor Don S. Browning, one of the foremost pastoral and practical theologians and ethicists of his time, on the occasion of his death on June 3, 2010. The tribute appeared in the funeral worship bulletin on June 10, 2010 at Hyde Park Union Church in Chicago and was revised for a newsletter of a major educational institution with which he had many significant relationships and responsibilities (The Disciples Divinity House of the University of Chicago Bulletin 80, no. 1 (Spring/Summer 2010); used with permission). Although we embellished the tribute slightly, we did not change its main intent: It captures the remarkable depth and breath of Browning’s scholarly achievement, the mark he made on public and academic discussion, and the extent to which he is missed by his colleagues, friends, and family.

THE MODEL OF RELATIONS BETWEEN THE STATE AND RELIGIOUS ORGANIZATIONS AND ITS IMPLEMENTATION IN THE REPUBLIC OF LATVIA

THE MODEL OF RELATIONS BETWEEN THE STATE AND RELIGIOUS ORGANIZATIONS AND ITS IMPLEMENTATION IN THE REPUBLIC OF LATVIA

Rank-and-File Rebellions in the Coalfields, 1964-80

Rank-and-file rebellions began rumbling in the coalfields from Pittsburgh and down the Ohio River after 1964, when dissident miners first challenged incumbents in international and district United Mine Workers (UMW) elections. Concern and anger also seethed through the coalfields of southern West Virginia during those years, particularly over black lung, a painful and often-fatal occupational disease. Doctors Isadore E. Buff and Donald Rasmussen helped spark those rumblings with speeches in union halls, schools, and churches This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website , where most recent articles are published in full. Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

From Apostles to Bishops: The Development of the Episcopacy in the Early Church (review)

Ancient From Apostles to Bishops: The Development of the Episcopacy in the Early Church. By Francis A. Sullivan, SJ. (New York and Mahwali, New Jersey: The Newman Press. 2001. Pp. xi, 253. $28.95.) Father Sullivan's confessional allegiances are not unimportant in this book and neither, therefore, should mine be. I am an ordained minister of the Uniting Church in Australia (a union church of Congregational, Methodist, and Presbyterian churches formed in 1977); half my teachers during my foundational theological training in Melbourne in the late 1970's were Jesuits; I am Principal of the Uniting Church theological college in Brisbane, which is itself part of a highly integrated ecumenical consortium (the Brisbane College of Theology: Anglican, Roman Catholic, and Uniting), and with the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Brisbane (John Bathersby) I am Co-Chair of a National Dialogue between the Roman Catholic and Uniting Churches. The basic question which Father Sullivan explores in this very well written book is whether the historic episcopate, particularly as understood by the Anglican, Orthodox, and Roman Catholic traditions, is of divine institution, an issue he properly describes as truly church splitting. In his own words,[t]he question that divides Catholics and Protestants is not whether, or how rapidly, the development from the local leadership of a college of presbyters to that of a single bishop took place, but whether the result of that development is rightly judged an element of the divinely willed structure of the church(p.viii). He acknowledges that none of the Apostles could be described as in the historic sense, that until the early part of the second century no single bishop presided over any Christian community, and that even then, apart from inAntioch and the Roman province of Asia, probably nowhere did they do so until the middle of that century. By the end of the century, however, and this would be agreed across confessional divides, in a development which can only be described as rapid, the structure of single bishop-presbyters-deacons had become the norm everywhere. This fact leads to a number of observations: first, that the traditional Roman Catholic claim that there is, as an integral part of the structure of the Church, an apostolic succession represented by an unbroken line of episcopal ordination from Christ through the apostles down through the centuries to the bishops of today1 is unsustainable as our author himself acknowledges; and second, that while the historical record alone will not support such a claim, the rapid emergence of the threefold ordering of the Church as normative does require, at the very least, the exploration of potential theological arguments arising out of that record. …