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The American College of St Maurice at Münster in Westphalia was founded in 1867 to train priests for the Catholic missions in the United States. This paper outlines the history of this short-lived educational institutions (1867-1879), with particular focus on the 68 seminarians, who attended this theological seminary for their pastoral formation, accompanied by scholarly studies in theology and philosophy at the Academy of Münster. This educational concept and history of the American College is considered against the background of the scholarly dispute about the dogma of papal infallibility and the Prussian "Kulturkampf," that eventually led to the closure of the American College in 1879. Finally, attention is paid to the pastoral ministry of the alumni and the situation of the German Catholics in the United States. The alumni of the American College became a particularly sought-after group of priests, not only due to their religio-cultural background, but also with regards to their broader pastoral and academic formation that helped to meet the challenges ahead.

The "Gülen Movement," a global network and religious community revolving the Turkish Islamic preacher Fethullah Gülen, has become a topic of political discourses in worldwide media since the coup attempt in Turkey in 2016. Earlier, it was particularly known for its worldwide education activities. The article discusses first results of a reconstructive analysis of practices and biographies in a context of a weekly religious sohbet (conversation circle) for male university students within the DFG-financed project "Pedagogy of the 'Gülen Movement'" (2016-2019). The Islamic culture of education inside the sohbet can be understood in the context of ongoing educational inequalities of Turkish-Muslim students in the German migration-society. Against this background, in Germany, "Gülen Movement's" idea of education "hizmet" comes along with certain religious practices and subjectifications, which aim to enable young Turkish Muslims taking a recognised standing in society.

Power over education and the upcoming generations has always been an important instrument in shaping religious and secular values. As a consequence, control over schools, pupils and teachers was, particularly in periods of war, an important means for bringing about acceptance of the new regime. The aim of this paper is to discuss priest-teachers' wartime memories of German interference in Belgian education during Second World War, on the basis of a survey conducted in the 1970s. By looking at teachers' memories, this paper contributes to a neglected field of study in the history of education and the historiography of Second World War. The analysis of the questionnaires illuminate how certain aspects of German educational policy were remembered by teachers and how they positioned themselves in the landscape of Second World War memory. As a result, this paper demonstrates that the survey not only offers an interesting source for investigating the war itself, but also sheds light on the changing post-war relationship between education, society and the state. (Contains 38 footnotes.)

In the Kingdom of Bavaria, the capital city, Munich, created in 1873 positions as "Oberlehrer"--a head teacher in primary schools ("Volksschulen") responsible for one school for boys and one school for girls. The mere existence of these male "Oberlehrer" challenged for the first time the exclusive power of Catholic and Lutheran clerics in the supervision of elementary schools. The article follows the establishment and transformations of this group of educational administrators until the final replacement of clerics in the government of primary schools in 1919. The increasing authority and influence of this group can be interpreted from the perspective of the inherent ambivalences of "liberal governance" in education. This concept meant to govern education "from within"--through the specialised knowledge on methods and pedagogy--and not "from outside"--like the clerics did. Whereas expert knowledge on methods suggested a kind of direct linking to the teachers, the same expert knowledge helped the "Oberlehrer" to build up new hierarchies in the government of primary education. (Contains 1 table and 69 footnotes.)

This article investigates the function served by embarking on a teaching career in the Latin school system for recruitment to the clergy in early modern Sweden. The study is restricted to the eighty-nine teachers serving at Pitea Grammar School in Northern Sweden in the period from 1650 to 1849. The investigation pays considerable attention to the impact of the system of double evaluation of teaching merits that was introduced by the School Act of 1724. When applying for low-and medium-rank pastorates, teachers' experience counted twice as much as ministers' did. The study examines how this system influenced the social recruitment of teachers to the Latin school, as well as the recruitment of teachers to clerical positions. The hypothesis is that the double evaluation system opened a career for candidates without a clerical background. Aimed at compensating for low salaries and providing a secure old age, the double evaluation system should have encouraged the teachers to seek clerical promotion. By analysing the teachers' participation in synodal meetings, the study sheds some light on the question as to whether the teachers actually prepared their clerical careers when serving in school. However, the Latin school offered different opportunities for different categories of teachers. The principal and assistant principal were better paid than the ordinary teachers, and consequently the article pays special attention to differences in social background, study merits and career opportunities between the two categories. Furthermore, the status of the different teacher categories is related to the status of the ministry in order to explain why teachers stayed in school or changed careers. The conceptual tools of this study were developed by Ralph H. Turner in 1960, when he discussed the differences between British and American educational systems. Contest mobility signifies an open and inclusive system, where elite status is granted to the most qualified contenders. Sponsored mobility refers to an exclusive system of controlled selection by which young recruits are inducted into the elite. In 1988, Anthony J. La Vopa showed that sponsored mobility dominated the clergy in eighteenth-century Germany. This study investigates the recruitment policy of the Swedish clergy, with special reference to the role of the Latin school. The Swedish clergy comprised one of the four estates of the national Parliament and, in order to maintain the status of the clerical estate, the clergy developed certain strategies. One strategy is manifested in clergymen's preference for taking ministers' daughters as their wives. Another strategy is indicated by a high rate of self-recruitment, meaning that many clergymen were sons of ministers. From the perspective of the clerical estate's recruitment policy, the self-recruitment rate is of vital importance. Ministers could promote their sons' clerical careers by tutoring them and employing them as curates and assistants. Sponsored by their fathers, the sons of the clergy most frequently managed to take a Master's degree, which was a formal requirement for receiving a pastorate. Previous research has shown that the self-recruitment rate was very high among the Swedish clergy. This is also the case with the Harnosand Diocese, where the city of Pitea was situated. In this huge diocese, covering the entire northern half of present-day Sweden, the self-recruitment rate was 40%, while 30% of the clergy came from the peasantry, and 25% from the "middle classes". In comparison with Germany, the self-recruitment rate was not conspicuously high, and taking into consideration the great contribution from the peasantry, the recruitment policy of the clergy in Northern Sweden qualifies for the designation contest mobility. Consequently, the Latin school system, through which all future ministers were prepared for their clerical careers, served as an open and inclusive instrument of recruitment. There were huge variations in income between the two teacher categories, the principal earning between two and four times as much as his lower-ranked colleagues. The difference in status is also indicated by the differentiated insurance contributions to the clergy's poor relief funds. An analysis of three different revisions of the size of the contributions from 1787 to 1806 shows that the teachers in grammar schools were usually divided into two different categories. The principal and assistant principal used to be placed among the higher clergy, while the regular teaching staff always belonged to the lower clergy. The distinction between two categories of teachers is not founded only upon financial status; there was also a significant difference in study merits. Before 1724, nine of thirteen deputies and principals had taken their Master's degree, while only two of twenty-two ordinary teachers held the same merit. After 1724, the difference is less remarkable. Obviously, the favourable system of merit evaluation increased the recruitment of teachers with Master's degrees. The teachers of Pitea Grammar School did not have a clerical background as often as the clergy of Harnosand Diocese (27% and 39%, respectively). The teachers came more frequently from the "middle classes", while the peasantry was more weakly represented. Consequently, the teachers' social backgrounds were more diverse and secular, especially after 1724. This leads to the conclusion that the grammar school served as an alternative career for those of a secular background. The present study does not verify the hypothesis concerning an increasing transition from teaching to clerical positions after 1724. On the contrary, of a total of forty career changes, twenty-two took place before 1724 and only eighteen after, a difference even more marked when related to the increasing number of teachers serving in Pitea Grammar School. Before 1724, three out of five teachers left school for a clerical position, while only one out of three shifted careers in the later period. No principals or assistant principals accepted lower clerical positions, and even most of the career-changing staff were promoted to a vicarage, almost exclusively after 1724. Consequently, the double evaluation system seems to have offered staff teachers greater opportunities for receiving a vicarage. Many teachers prepared their clerical careers when serving at school. They used to fill in temporarily for the clergy in Pitea parish, and in some cases they were on leave to serve as acting vicars in distant parishes. This means that ordination could be offered during teaching service, but many teachers were already ordained ministers before starting their teaching careers. The synod served as a meeting place for the teaching and preaching branches of the clerical estate. Well trained in theology and classical languages, the teachers often gave the Latin oration and served as opponents at the disputation over the synodal dissertation. During the nineteenth century their participation gradually declined, a development indicating the gradual separation of the clerical and teaching professions. The year of 1849 represented a milestone, when the double evaluation system was abandoned. At the same time teachers' salaries and retirement conditions were regulated. Secondary schools no longer served as waiting rooms for clerical promotion, and teaching was recognized as a profession in its own right.

Rarely do political scandal and academe collide so publicly as they have now, in Europe. In February, Germany's education minister stepped down after Heinrich Heine University, in Dusseldorf, revoked her doctorate because her thesis lifted passages from other sources without proper attribution. Her departure came after scandals over plagiarized work took down a German defense minister, the president of Hungary, and a Romanian education minister. But it is the storied German university system, not politics, that has suffered the real body blows. The front-page news has shaken higher education in Germany, where, in addition to the two former federal ministers, several other national and local political figures have been accused of academic fraud. The incidents have left many wondering: Is there something rotten at the heart of German academe, the esteemed heir of Humboldt and Hegel? For two centuries, the German university as envisioned by the 19th-century philosopher Wilhelm von Humboldt has been the model for research institutions in Europe, the United States, and beyond. Humboldt's notions of academic freedom, the autonomy of the university, and placing scientific pursuit at the heart of higher education continue to carry weight today. But his legacy in Germany may be growing somewhat tarnished. In Germany academic titles play a role in politics far greater than they do in the United States. Doctoral and other titles, sometimes as many as three or four, are prominently displayed on the business cards, door plaques, and letterheads of politicians. Some call it posturing--a modern-day "nobleman's title"--while others defend it as a meaningful distinction based on merit. Whether one is impressed by the degree or not, the Ph.D. has become a facet of the German resume that lures ambitious politicians and professionals who have no intention of entering academe. That has led to a proliferation of Ph.D.'s--roughly 25,000 a year awarded since 2000, more per capita than any other country in the world, according to the Federal Statistical Office of Germany. By comparison, American universities award 50,000 doctorates a year, but in a country with a population four times as large as Germany's. Germany's output of Ph.D. recipients probably won't slow down, but the plagiarism cases have shined a spotlight on academe's time-honored methods for supervising and awarding doctorates, especially to candidates who are not full-time academics.

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During the 1970s and 1980s, the pastors of the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren regularly received cars as gifts from their partners in the Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland. This was a form of aid that Protestants in Czechoslovakia received from their West German partners. However, the transfers had to be approved by representatives of the Secretariat for Church Affairs. Through analyzing the selection of the pastors who received the cars and the process of approving of the foreign donations, we can show how the disciplination by the state authorities was carried out. It can also shed a light on how the pastors themselves were disciplined by their ecclesiastical superiors. The research further shows that the car deliveries during the Cold War were made possible by the long-standing relationship between Protestants from Czech and German countries that goes back well into the 19th century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent revelations of the extent of sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church in Germany and the United States have once more triggered the debate about sexual abuse. Those inquiries identify cases that are known to authorities or have been recorded in these institutions. However, to assess the full magnitude of the problem, data beyond recorded or known cases are needed, as it can be assumed that a vast number of cases are not reported and are hence not included in such file reviews. Therefore, representative surveys are needed. The aim of the present study was to examine the prevalence of sexual abuse by priests and in different contexts in the German population based on a representative sample. A total of 2,510 participants (54.3% female, M = 48 years) were retrospectively asked about different experiences, offenders, contexts, and so on, of child sexual abuse using questions that were used to assess child sexual abuse in prior surveys and the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ). In sum, 0.21% (n = 7) of the participants reported child sexual abuse by a priest or pastor. 0.16% reported child sexual abuse in an institution of the Roman Catholic Church. Results also indicated that victims of sexual abuse by priests and pastors reported rather severe types of sexual abuse based on the CTQ in comparison with other contexts, such as schools. Extrapolating the data for the population, it can be assumed that the estimated number of victims is much higher than those identified by research based on recorded cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Italian historiography seems to have had little interest until the mid-20th century in the study of canons, especially those who were not regular, in contrast to what happened especially in Germany. Since the last century, the situation has changed, both due to the research of foreign scholars and the growing interest of Italians, starting with the I Settimana della Mendola, which also valued the reform phase of the clergy's common life. A negative prejudice continues to weigh on secular canonries, reinforced by the institution's recurrent crises in the final centuries of the Middle Ages, which has slowed down a geographically broad study of the composition, religious functions and political role of the countless secular chapters covering the Italian territory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Background: Palliative Care also encompasses the dimension of spiritual pain. Pastoral care workers and chaplains are specialists in the provision of spiritual care. Decreasing religious affiliation and increasing spiritual diversification in modern societies raise the question of the function of pastoral care., Aim: The goal of this study is to answer the question of what pastoral care workers can offer to dying residents in hospices and palliative care units., Design: A qualitative interview study was designed to explore the specific perspective of pastoral care workers in a multidisciplinary environment. The study is based on differentiation theory which is particularly well adjusted to reveal differences in perspectives in so called 'holistic' care settings. The reporting follows the COREQ guidelines., Setting: Problem centered interviews were conducted at five hospices and two palliative care units., Results: Eight pastoral care workers were interviewed (5 Catholic, 3 Protestant, mean age of 58 years). The analysis of the interviews revealed three major themes: (A) Self-positioning in relation to the organization, (B) Offering conversations to patients and relatives, (C) Performing religious rituals. Minor themes were: mediating conflicts between patients, relatives and staff, sensing moods in silence with patients and organizing workshops for staff., Conclusion: In modern hospice care, pastoral care workers routinely address the problem of making death more tangible and of answering the unanswerable question of what comes afterwards. Through this, they support dying residents in hospices and palliative care units in dealing with the inexplicability of death., Competing Interests: Declaration of Conflicting InterestsThe author(s) declare no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Copyright of Ching Feng: A Journal on Christianity & Chinese Religion & Culture is the property of Christian Study Centre on Chinese Religion & Culture and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Teología y Vida is the property of Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile, Facultad de Teologia and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Recent studies of the "ius reformandi" examine the right of reformation's theoretical development while overlooking the process of conflict and negotiation that led to a practical right of reformation prior to the 1555 Peace of Augsburg. In October 1544, the imperial city of Augsburg installed an evangelical preacher in Mindelaltheim, a village in the Habsburg margravate of Burgau. The German king Ferdinand, who controlled high justice in the village, opposed Augsburg, arguing the city's actions violated the king's prerogative to regulate his territory's religious exclusivity. Augsburg's allies in the Protestant Schmalkaldic League agreed, and the city was forced to remove its preacher. In the process, both Ferdinand and the Protestant estates tied the "ius reformandi" to ownership of high justice. This represented an interim arrangement of necessity based on late medieval legal formulas that could facilitate coexistence until resolution of the religious question. The Reformation's expansion often depended on constellations of legal rights that had their roots in the Middle Ages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigated strategies of 763 Catholic priests (response rate 36%) to deal with phases of spiritual dryness, specifically their reactions toward these feelings, and which strategies were used. Most priests have found strategies to cope with feelings of spiritual dryness. Those who have managed to overcome these phases were stimulated 'all the more to help others' and experienced 'deeper spiritual clarity and depth.' Whatever strategy was chosen (we differentiated eight strategies in various combinations), there were no significant differences for priests' self-efficacy expectation, transcendence perception or life satisfaction. Instead, we found significant differences for social support ( F = 6.5; p < 0.0001) and somatization ( F = 3.4; p = 0.002). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines how German monk Martin Luther openly challenged the practice of indulgence-peddling with the posting of his "Ninety-Five Theses," and its role in the Protestant Reformation. Topics covered include the origins of Reformation history, the incorporation of the theses-posting into the Reformation narrative, and the process of reinterpretation that occurred during the period of late Lutheran Orthodoxy and the early Enlightenment.

The paper reports the results of an exploratory online survey among German, Austrian, and Swiss hospital chaplains (n = 158, response rate 17%) to identify the ethical conflicts they encounter in their work. Respondents indicated that questions surrounding end-of-life care are predominant among the conflicts faced. Chaplains get involved with these conflicts most often through the patients themselves or through nursing staff. Most encounters occur during pastoral care visits rather than in structured forms of ethics consultation such as clinical ethics committees. The results add to the ongoing discussion of chaplains as agents in ethics consultation within healthcare systems as well as their specific role and contribution., (© 2022. The Author(s).)

We aimed to analyse stress perception, psychosomatic health and life satisfaction in pastoral professionals, paying particular attention to their individual and shared resources. Enrolling 8574 German pastoral professionals (48 % priests, 22 % parish expert workers, 18 % pastoral assistants, 12 % deacons), we found that pastoral professionals' stress perception is associated with psychosomatic health impairment. General self-efficacy was a beneficial resource to protect against stress perceptions, while perception of the transcendent had a further yet weakly positive influence for stress-related impairment of health. External stressors (i.e. team size, duration of work per week and size of pastoral unit) were only of marginal independent relevance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a report from a July 6-7, 2015 conference on Protestantism in divided Germany in Göttingen, Germany hosted by the "Der Protestantismus in den ethischen Debatten der Bundesrepublik Deutschland 1949–1989" Protestantism research group. Topics of presentations delivered included the departure of West German theology students and clergy to East Germany, regionalization of the Evangelische Kirche der Union Protestant church, and the role of the Protestant church in the conscientious objection of East Germans.

The article discusses the relationship between diaconic services and the Catholic church in Germany, the social conditions of German Christians, and the legal affiliation and tax status of diaconic organizations. Topics include the importance of diaconic organizations after the development of social insurance and laws, the professional standards of the organization, and the connection between diaconic work and Christian faith.

The article reports on rural structures and their impact on work satisfaction of the female pastor and country priests in Germany. It presents the findings of a survey of physical and psychological stress amid the complex situation of the country's parishioners. It informs that church in rural areas suffers particularly due to demographic change and secularization.

This article analyses the impact exerted by the evacuation of civilians on the pastoral structures of Catholic dioceses in the Rhineland and Westphalia during the later years of the Second World War. It examines the religious lives of Catholic evacuees from these regions in other parts of Germany, such as Saxony and Thuringia, and also assesses how effectively their clergy were able to minister to them in these new surroundings. In so doing, this article contributes to historiographical debates concerning the role of religion in German society during the Second World War. Many excellent works claim that the later phases of the conflict witnessed a widespread return to religious faith on the home front. This article aims to challenge this historiographical assumption, by revealing the manifold ways in which Catholic life was profoundly disrupted by the evacuation of civilians during the last years of the war. Large numbers of evacuees from the Rhineland and Westphalia went for extensive periods without supervision by their clergy, and frequently displayed indifference towards religious matters. Rather than viewing the Catholic Church’s prominence in western Germany after 1945 as grounded in social developments under way during the war years, this article contends that it must be seen as the product of changed political circumstances in the later 1940s. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article presents a table of contents for the March 2015 issue of the Austrian history periodical "Mitteilungen des Instituts fuer Österreichische Geschichtsforschung" on topics including the Congress of Vienna, the historical discipline of clergy in Germany, and the history curriculum at the Universität Innsbruck university in the late 1700s.

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The following essay has as point of departure the changes which, by the introduction of all-day schooling, are imposed on schools themselves and on parishes. Against the background of the discussion on religious education in all-day environments and the debate on conceptions for the pedagogy of religion, one suspects to find reciprocal transformation processes in both the school system and religion when clerical actors are taken into account on the conceptual level of all-day schooling. Up to the present, there are hardly any investigations on the involvement of clerical actors, the services they render, and the way in which they are integrated into the conception of school programmes. The current essay fulfils this need by presenting the results of an empirical investigation into religious and church-related services rendered in various types of schools with all-day programmes in Germany/North Rhine-Westphalia, taking into account curricular and extra-curricular activities in the schools. Among other things, it shows a wide range of religious programmes in the curricular as well as extra-curricular activities, and also a wide variety of different religious and clerical collaborative partners. In addition, the programmes show up differences pertaining to school types. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Studia Universitatis Babes-Bolyai, Historia is the property of Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In 1460 Karl von Seckendorf sent the following note along with a manuscript that included a biblical commentary, the Postilla super epistulas dominicales by Matthias de Liegnitz, to an acquaintance. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

An essay is presented on pastor and activist Hermann Maas, with a particular focus on his efforts to facilitate peace and reconciliation between Germans and Jews in the aftermath of the Jewish Holocaust of 1939-45. Details on Maas's statement of Christian and German guilt in the Holocaust and on his travels to Israel are presented. Other topics include Holocaust reparations and Maas's relationships with Jews in his home community of Heidelberg, Germany.

Paul Tillich (1886-1965) was one of the leading theologians of the twentieth century. Tillich was born in Germany and received his education and first academic appointments there. Tillich left Germany in 1933 to teach at Union Theological Seminary after having been dismissed from his university position by the National Socialist government for his radical views and political associations. In the United States, he became a highly successful lecturer, preacher, and public intellectual who reached numbers of persons who had departed or who had doubts regarding traditional religious belief and practice. Tillich underwent a series of traumatic losses in the early decades of his life that powerfully shaped his subsequent contributions to religious and cultural discourse. This essay outlines this pattern of loss and speculates about its impact upon his theological work. It lifts up Tillich's perspective of living and working 'on the boundary' of disciplines, eras, and cultures, most particularly where psychoanalytic ideas contributed to his 'theology of culture.' It also stresses Tillich's role in initiating the ongoing dialogue between religion and psychiatry and psychoanalysis. The essay concludes with a summary critique of Tillich's work along with an affirmation of his considerable legacy. This essay was originally a presentation for the Richardson Research Seminar in the History of Psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Denominational differences in the number of scientists produced in Germany during the period 1550 to 1900 are linked to the historical impact of Catholic celibate and Protestant noncelibate clergy households. Protestant leadership in science is largely attributable to the development of a new social mobility pattern among descendants of their clergy that enhanced the pastorate's ability to convey cultural and social capital to their marrying offspring, something denied to Catholic clergy. By reference to German historical developments, I show that the contributions of clerical households, far from being limited to the natural sciences, were equally in evidence across most other areas of scholarly endeavor. A discussion of the theoretical implications of these findings provides a comparative analysis of Protestant to Catholic scholarly achievements in general, and of scientific achievements in particular, as well as a critical assessment of Robert K. Merton's theorizing on the subject. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We evaluated the differences in mental and physical health, work-related behavior and experience patterns, and the spiritual resources of Seventh-day Adventist pastors compared to theology students in Friedensau Adventist University in Germany. Compared to norm samples, the physical health scores of theology students and pastors were significantly higher, whereas the mental health scores were significantly lower. Only 13.9% ofpastors but 31.7% of theology students showed a healthy behavior and experience pattern, while 28.3% ofpastors (14.6% of theology students) revealed a pattern that indicated they were at risk for burnout. Professional ambition and resistance to stress were higher in theology students than in pastors. Pastors and theology students with the healthy pattern scored higher in physical and mental health, as well as in selected scales of religiosity and spirituality, than those with the pattern indicating risk for burnout. The results emphasize the need to teach theology students health promotion and effective coping strategies while at university, and also to integrate these issues in the professional training of pastors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses American Unitarians' pacifist responses to the actions of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler and the Nazi German government from 1933 to 1941, emphasizing a shift to a realistic pacifism and acceptance of the unavoidable nature of war leading up to World War II. The author notes an emphasis on peace and absolute pacifism following World War I by the American Unitarian Association (AUA), Unitarian ministers, and Unitarian periodicals, and the historical ambivalence of Unitarian leaders toward pacifism is highlighted. The role of war in drawing out potential conflicts between Unitarian Universalist (UU) affirmations of Jesus' teachings on peace and a commitment to freedom, justice, and democracy is discussed.

An article on the design and construction of Southern German and Austrian monasteries in the 17th and 18th centuries is presented. The author discusses the roles played by the clergy and monks themselves in the design and construction of their monasteries and churches, examines the theological aspects of monastery and church construction, and examines the influence of the Council of Trent on the construction of churches and monasteries. The effects of the Reformation on the construction and maintenance of monasterial buildings is also examined.

The article focuses on the removal of preachers from urban churches and their transfer outside Augsburg, Germany in order to reform rural parishes during the Schmalkaldic War. This initiative resulted to German churches being understaffed, but was solved by importing preachers from other cities. There were six Swiss Confederation preachers imported from Zurich between 1545 and 1547.

Copyright of Communicatio Socialis is the property of Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Over the last 20 years, researchers and practitioners have become increasingly interested in the transactional–transformational leadership paradigm. However, only a few studies have tested the validity of this approach to leadership concerning Christian pastors. Thus, two studies were conducted in Germany that explored the effect of transactional and transformational leadership of pastors on several outcome criteria. The results revealed that transformational leadership was positively associated with followers’ satisfaction with their pastor, their extra effort, their effectiveness, and their job satisfaction. In addition to this effect on followers, transformational leadership showed positive effects on worshipers’ satisfaction with the worship service. Implications of these results for theory and practice are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

English Congregationalists in the later nineteenth century had increased opportunity to travel. There were many reasons to go to the United States. There were equally opportunities to visit continental Europe. This paper considers the travels undertaken by a number of prominent ministers of the period, sometimes west, sometimes east, sometimes both. It records their reactions to what they saw and heard. Behind this record of travel, however, were deeper questions about where English Congregationalism 'placed' itself. The long connection with Puritan America received fresh emphasis and there was a strong sense of sharing in an Atlantic world. On the other hand, German theology, quite often studied at first hand in various German universities meant, that German scholarship, in all its variety, was influential - if controversial. There was, therefore, something of a contest between the contrasting attractions of the United States and Germany. The paper notes that the ability to keep these 'foreign encounters' in harmony came to an end in 1914. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]