Issue from 2025

Volume 119 (2025)

TOPIC: Material Culture of Religion

• Vera Henkelmann | Messengers of Light – Angel Candlesticks and Candlestick Bearing Angels and their Light and the Liturgy in the Medieval Sacred Space

  Messengers of Light – Angel Candlesticks and Candlestick Bearing Angels and their Light and the Liturgy in the Medieval Sacred Space

  Using the example of medieval angel-candlesticks or candlestick bearing angels, the article explores the relationship between liturgy and worshippers on the one hand and those objects on the other, in which device and image merged into one. It explores the question of how these figurative candlesticks and their light were used in medieval sacred spaces to both visualise liturgical practice and make it comprehensible, as well as to move the viewer emotionally in their innermost being, thus moving their soul to convey the content of faith. Ultimately, this created a veritable illusionistic resonance space in which ritual, performers, and observers, sacred space and furnishings, as well as the angel-candlesticks, entered into a mutually reinforcing interplay.

  Angels – angel-candlesticks – candlestick bearing angels – altar-candlesticks – portable candle-poles – candlestick bearing columns – liturgy – light – church interior.

• Petro Antonio Viola | Resurrection – A Production between Comforting Announcement and Display of Power

  Resurrection – A Production between Comforting Announcement and Display of Power

  If the 14^th and 15^th centuries can be considered the years of the Passion, the 16^th and 17^th centuries are certainly the years of the Resurrection. Representations of the Resurrection increase dramatically, and traditional iconography undergoes major transformations. What is the origin of these changes between the 15^th and 16^th centuries, especially in the emblematic context of Venetian painting? How were they interpreted by the population? How did the Catholic Church encourage their diffusion? Initially, the body of the Risen Christ, especially in a devotional key, often becomes a nostalgic trait that recalls the sadness of having to abandon the earth rather than a proposal towards something to aspire to beyond death. In the same years, however, the theme returns to being central also in the liturgical context, where it will ultimately undergo a torsion dictated by political needs, becoming the manifesto of the ecclesiastical power of the Church that seeks to impose itself over its earthly enemies.

  Resurrection – devotion – relationship – liturgy – eucharist – earth – heaven – power.

• Luisa A. Richter | ‹Embodying Christ› – On the Presence and Effect of Writing as a Haptic Material Gift by Catharina Regina von Greiffenberg (1633–1694)

  ‹Embodying Christ› – On the Presence and Effect of Writing as a Haptic Material Gift by Catharina Regina von Greiffenberg (1633–1694)

  The ‹material dimension› is not only reflected in objects or artefacts of material culture but also finds its expression in the presence of religious writings or scriptures. These phenomena of presence are crucial for having a profound effect on writing actors. In the self-testimonies, particularly the correspondences of the famous Protestant Baroque poet Catharina Regina von Greiffenberg (1633–1694), forms of a lived and imagined ‹God’s or Christ's presence› can be seen, which the poet intended to present not only through a visible but also often invisible presence in her writings. Through (re-) presentation of a staged and religiously charged scriptural imagery, Greiffenberg also deliberately aimed to make the transcendent experience material in the form of scripture and thus to grant it an almost ‹actual› presence for herself and her readers.

  Counter-Reformation – Protestantism – Baroque – Austria – self-testimonies – writing – understanding of scriptural imagery – material manifestations – imitatioChristi.

• Aydın Süer | The Materiality of the Islamic – Art as a Place of Islamic Religious Production of Meaning

  The Materiality of the Islamic – Art as a Place of Islamic Religious Production of Meaning

  This contribution is based on an empirical-qualitative study of contemporary Muslim artists conducted in Germany, Austria, and the United States. Based on practice-theoretical considerations, it focuses on the performativity of Islam, thereby materialising Islamic practices in bodies and things. Employing examples from various artistic genres – including literature, music, painting, photography, dance, and others – the article demonstrates how the use of objects in the execution of artistic practices generates Islamic Religious meanings. Spatial-material ensembles of bodies and things, as well as sensory perceptions such as touching, hearing, and seeing, thus become constitutive components of the Islamic.

  Islam – materiality – physicality – Sociology of Religion – theory of practice – art.

• Sophia Abplanalp | The Luminosity of Ilkhanid Lustre Tiles – Reconstruction of the Lustre Tile Decoration of the Shrine of Imamzade Yahya Between Aesthetics and Spirituality

  The Luminosity of Ilkhanid Lustre Tiles – Reconstruction of the Lustre Tile Decoration of the Shrine of Imamzade Yahya Between Aesthetics and Spirituality

  In 13^th-century Iran, numerous mausoleums of prominent Shiite saints were adorned with highly valuable lustre tiles. However, in the 19^th century, most of these tiles were removed from these buildings and transported to Western museums. A newly created 3D reconstruction of one of these historical tile decorations – that of the Shrine of Imamzade Yahya – allows for an exploration of the original significance of the decorative program in relation to the religious functions of the structure as a tomb, place of prayer, and pilgrimage site. How do the tiles, through their distinct aesthetics, contribute to the shrine as an experiential space? How do they influence ritual practices and the emotional experience of the believers’ present? This study particularly seeks to investigate the interplay between the sensory perception of the tiles and spiritual experiences.

  Architectural decoration – architecture – aesthetics – spirituality – experiential space – lustre tiles – Islam – mausoleum.

• Marco Papasidero & Federico Ruozzi | Paths of the Gaze – An Interdisciplinary Approach to Religious Experiences in Catholic Sanctuaries

  Paths of the Gaze – An Interdisciplinary Approach to Religious Experiences in Catholic Sanctuaries

  This paper aims to provide new insights into religious experiences in Catholic sanctuaries through the gaze of different types of visitors (young students, priests, nuns, religious, art historians, historians of Christianity, etc.). Applying an innovative methodology based on eye trackers provided by Meta to the Universities of Modena and Reggio Emilia, we are pioneering the application of this technology to the field of religious studies. The collaboration between computer scientists specialising in Artificial Intelligence and gaze studies and historians of Christianity and of devotion characterises this research as strongly interdisciplinary. In particular, our research focuses on analysing gaze tracking and personal experiences of different user groups within the sacred spaces of medieval and early modern Italian sanctuaries. After providing a historical introduction to the selected locations, our paper will delve into our methodological approach, which combines religious studies with IT technologies. We will then analyse the data obtained from the eye trackers, focusing on aspects of ‹material religion›, such as:(i) practices conducted in the sacred space; (ii) behaviours in front of images and bodies of saints considered miraculous; (iii) movement through the space and its perception; (iv) devotional practices, including prayers and gestures. This paper is part of the ITSERR (Italian Strengthening of the ESFRI RI RESILIENCE) PNRR project, which aims to apply new technologies to the study of religion.

  Eye trackers – cult of saints – relics – Marian devotion – Marian images – history of devotion – religious studies – AI and religious studies – history of Christianity – sanctuaries.

• Tobias Meier & Mehmet T. Kalender | Materiality of Religious Diversity – A Methodological Contribution

  Materiality of Religious Diversity – A Methodological Contribution

  Neighbourhood walks have proven to be an effective dialogical method for exploring social spaces, as they facilitate subjective perceptions and collective reflection, making processes of appropriation and interpretation tangible. Religiously reflective neighbourhood walks expand this approach by incorporating the material culture of religion, fostering dialogues on spiritual and religious dimensions. Through a sequence of localisation, mirroring, expansion, and reflection, these walks promote diverse perspectives and perceptions, thereby forging new connections between sociological and religious studies discourses on space and religion.

  Social space – religion – neighbourhood walk – participation – spatial exploration – materiality.

• Agnieszka Balcerzak | «Imperishable existences, silent witnesses of the city’s history» – A Hermeneutic Approach to the Warsaw Madonnas

  «Imperishable existences, silent witnesses of the city’s history» – A Hermeneutic Approach to the Warsaw Madonnas

  The Warsaw Madonna chapels, examples of so-called small sacred architecture, vividly embody the connection between religious symbolism, urban history, and collective memory. Primarily created during World War II, these modest backyard chapels provided sanctuaries for spiritual practices and served as spaces for community-building. The article examines their role as material sites of memory, religious objects, and affective spaces. Using ethnographic and hermeneutic approaches, it demonstrates how these chapels mediate between sacred and profane spaces, preserve their religious function, and are simultaneously shaped by secular and pop-cultural transformations. The study explores the dynamics through which past and present, spirituality and everyday life, tradition and modernity intersect and influence one another in an urban context.

  Warsaw Madonnas – small sacred architecture – material culture – ritual practices – pop-cultural transformation.

• Beate Weinhold | Genizot – On the Afterlife of Things

  Genizot – On the Afterlife of Things

  The Jewish religion has a special approach to dealing with its ‹holy› or sacred objects. This applies to objects used for liturgical purposes and to things that have become unusable for the rite. Discarded objects are placed in a ‹geniza›. ‹Genizot› are primarily used to analyse the potential shift in relevance of the objects. Not all objects may have been of particular importance during their first use. What factors make them worthy of investigation: storage, salvage, inventory, archiving/musealisation, the loss of other material evidence? Are deposited sacred objects subject to transformation processes (changes in status between ‹holy›/‹secular›)?

  Jewish religion – geniza – holy – ritual object – transformation – representation and museum incorporation.

• Marcello Grifò | «Μὴ θεωρηθεῖσα, μὴ πιστευθεῖσα» – The Construction of the ‹Spectacle› of the Divine Economy in the Byzantine Eucharistic Rite

  «Μὴ θεωρηθεῖσα, μὴ πιστευθεῖσα» – The Construction of the ‹Spectacle› of the Divine Economy in the Byzantine Eucharistic Rite

  The following pages aim to demonstrate how, despite its new meaning and with all the necessary distinctions, the Christian Eucharistic Rite of the Byzantine Rite has been categorically integrated into the bedrock carved out by ancient drama. To do so, we will refer to Byzantine liturgical evidence and investigate the symbolic, categorical and lexical affinities between Greek tragedy and Christian Synaxis. The former embodied the profound involvement of Greek men in the passionate search for a truth that could never be actually attained and definitively possessed but only pursued and glimpsed. For Christians, the event of the Incarnation conceptually constituted the longed-for fulfilment of man’s need for unambiguous and supreme knowledge, obtained this time through an unprecedented catabatic and kenotic deus ex machina: the assumption of human flesh by the mysterious ἄγνωστος Θεὸς not only to reveal himself to man in his Trinitarian existence, but also to mystically introduce him into the depths of the perichoretic relationship of the One-Trinity. The Divine Liturgy is the Theo-drama of this reestablishment of history.

  Greek tragedy – divine liturgy – rite of the Prothesis – divine economy – liturgical history.

• Dana Shishmanian | The ‹Shamanic› Trance of Romanian Healers and Soothsayers – Testimonies from the Seventeenth to the Twentieth Century

  The ‹Shamanic› Trance of Romanian Healers and Soothsayers – Testimonies from the Seventeenth to the Twentieth Century

  We explore here the testimony of the papal missionary Marcus Bandinus on the incantatores and incantatrices in Moldavia (1646–1648), as well as several accounts of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries concerning ‹the fall of the Rosalies›, for their revealing value of a religious phenomenon caught on the spot: beyond the abstract framework of a ritual or a belief, these testimonies de visu highlight the experience of practitioners, in this case, enchanters, healers and soothsayers (descântători), well known in all Romanian territories and reputed to be part of ‹white magic›. Otherwise, from the point of view of the history of religions, the phenomenon described is most akin to a Daco-Thracian ‹shamanism›, of which ancient attestations can be found, distinct from Asian shamanism by the absence of ritual tools but sharing with it the mental and psycho-physiological experiences, in particular the cataleptic trance. We reject the position of Mircea Eliade, who attributes the phenomena described by Marcus Bandinus to Hungarian shamans (táltos).

  Codex Bandinus – shamanism – healers – soothsayers – rosalies – trance.

• Christian Antonio Rosso | Catholic Missionaries in Somalia and the ‹Politics of Form› – The Role of Material Culture in the Construction of the Fascist Colonial Order

  Catholic Missionaries in Somalia and the ‹Politics of Form› – The Role of Material Culture in the Construction of the Fascist Colonial Order

  The article aims to analyse the role of material culture in the construction of the colonial order in Somalia. Under the fascist regime, the policy of the Italian governments had further consolidated its instruments of domination over the Somali population compared to the time of the liberal governments, also making use of the support of Catholic missionaries. With the advent of fascism and the arrival of Cesare Maria De Vecchi in Mogadishu, the long collaboration between the clergy and government officials was increasingly strengthened. Catholic missionaries, encouraged by the words of Pius XI, had made extensive use of public ceremonies and majestic rites of Catholic worship to demonstrate the ‹superiority› of the Italian faith over Islam, thus promoting the ‹civilization› of the Somalis. The study of material culture in the colony, through its objects, helps understand the legitimisation strategies of both colonial exploitation policies and the Italian presence in the decade of trusteeship. Despite expectations, the ‹policy of form› had not achieved any of the goals assigned to it. Both the ‹catholicization› and the ‹civilization› of the Somalis had failed, albeit at different times, and the mission of the religious had been rejected because of the missionaries’ past collaboration with colonial and postcolonial governments.

  Colonialism – Fascism – Somalia ‒ material culture – Catholic missions – Corpus Domini.

• Assia Maria Harwazinski | The Theologian Ibn Taimiyya and his Rejection of the Practice of samā´

  The Theologian Ibn Taimiyya and his Rejection of the Practice of samā´

  The Islamic scholar Ibn Taimiyya, a lawyer, philosopher, and theologian, is the focus of research interest among scholars of the Study of History and Cultures of Islam, with a significant impact on his legal positions and arguments. His remarks and explanations on music and dance have so far caused less interest, even though they are precisely described in a French translation of his tractate by Jean Michot, a former Catholic priest who later converted to Islam, in his publication Musique et Danse selon Ibn Taimiyya. Michot compared two Arabic manuscripts of a treatise being assigned to this scholar. Michot’s translation is the basis of the present contribution and is complemented by contemporary remarks.

  Ecstasy – Islamic Law – intoxication – ritual – samā´ – dance.

• Claudia Luthiger | Immaterial Actors as Revolutionary Shaping Forces of the 9th Thermidor – Religious Cults, Transcendent Authorities, and Political Power Struggles

  Immaterial Actors as Revolutionary Shaping Forces of the 9^th Thermidor – Religious Cults, Transcendent Authorities, and Political Power Struggles

  The article examines the connection between religious cult elements, political symbolism, materiality and network constellations in the coup against Maximilien Robespierre on 9/10 Thermidor an II. The starting point is Robespierre’s concept of ‹Être suprême› and the ‹âme immortelle› as central pillars of a morally legitimised republic. The cult was intended to overcome radical dechristianisation and establish a spiritual order. However, the close intertwining of virtue, ‹terreur› and transcendence made Robespierre’s network susceptible to symbolic reinterpretations by his opponents. Using Bruno Latour’s Actor-Network Theory (ANT), Michel Callon’s concept of ‹translation› and Annemarie Mol’s enactments, the article analyses how immaterial and material actors shaped political realities. While Robespierre’s rigid network was based on moral coherence, the flexible, opportunistic network of his opponents proved to be superior. The article argues that the Thermidor coup was less the result of individual decisions than the collapse of an irreversible symbolic system.

  Robespierre – Thermidor – Être suprême – âme immortelle – immaterial actors – cult and transcendence – virtue and terror – enactment – political cult – network constellations.

• Luzius Heil | The Stained Glass Windows of the Church of St. Stephan – Their Journey from Obersimmental to Paris

  The Stained Glass Windows of the Church of St. Stephan – Their Journey from Obersimmental to Paris

  The article is an abridged version of a Bachelor's thesis. It examines the circumstances under which six glass paintings from the church of St. Stephan in the rear Simmental valley disappeared in the mid-19^th century and how they came into the possession of the Musée national de la Renaissance in the castle of Écouen near Paris. Three hypotheses are examined: looting by French troops during their invasion of the Old Swiss Confederacy in 1797, theft and sale. Looting and theft can be ruled out based on the historical context and the lack of corresponding evidence. However, there is circumstantial evidence and one piece of proof that the glass panels were sold and legally acquired by the French Republic. Yet, the route the glass paintings took to Paris remains unclear.

  St. Stephan Church – stained glass windows – culture of remembrance – St. Stephen’s parish council – Musée national de la Renaissance – French invasions – art trade.

• Chrisina Clever-Kümper & Hiram Kümper | Exhibiting Faith in Secular Times – The Challenges of a Contemporary Museology of Religion

  Exhibiting Faith in Secular Times – The Challenges of a Contemporary Museology of Religion

  From the very beginning, museums in Europe have cultivated a close relationship with religious heritage – a relationship that has naturally, perhaps even too naturally, persisted for a long time. Since the turn of the millennium, discussing faith and religion in museum contexts has increased by leaps and bounds, inspired on the one hand by an increasing sensitivity towards the not merely cultural, but often also religious treasures of non-European religious communities, and on the other hand by a rapidly increasing secularisation of European societies, which questions established visual patterns, ways of seeing and knowledge contexts and thus poses new challenges for museum mediation, especially of pre-modern art. The approaches and new paths that are being attempted in exhibitions and museums are correspondingly diverse. The article undertakes a mapping of the models and approaches, which at first glance seem almost impossible to grasp, summarises the theoretical and methodological discussion and leads to future perspectives for a museology of the religious in the 21^st century.

  Museology – secularisation – religiosity – postcolonialism – participation.

• Anna Barbara Müller, Laetizia Christoffel & Gaby Weber | Cathedral Treasure and Images of Death in the Episcopal Castle in Chur – The Cathedral Treasure Museum as a Place of Religious Materiality and Centre of Competence for the Preservation of Living Ecclesiastical Cultural History on the Episcopal Court

  Cathedral Treasure and Images of Death in the Episcopal Castle in Chur – The Cathedral Treasure Museum as a Place of Religious Materiality and Centre of Competence for the Preservation of Living Ecclesiastical Cultural History on the Episcopal Court

  The Cathedral Treasure Museum comprises two groups of objects: the actual cathedral treasures and the cycle of murals from 1543 featuring images of death. The essential works of art of the Chur cathedral treasure originally belonged to the medieval furnishings of the cathedral and the monastery church St. Luzi in Chur. A cathedral treasure consists primarily of relics. These are the remains of a saint's body or objects associated with the saint. The importance of relics is evident in reliquaries, i.e., the precious vessels in which relics are kept. In addition to relics, a cathedral treasure also includes other treasures that have been gathered in a cathedral over the centuries, such as liturgical equipment used in worship. The cathedral treasure thus becomes an extended sacristy. In the basement, visitors are reminded of their own mortality as they walk along the cycle of images of death in the air-conditioned housing. In this way, both collections not only provide the viewer with historical, art-historical or art-technical insights, but also allow them to participate in their original purpose as part of the proclamation of faith.

  Cathedral Treasure Museum – images of death – death dances – Chur Cathedral – reliquaries – Hans Holbein – Albrecht Dürer – grisaille – goldsmith’s art – Christianisation – Late Antiquity – Renaissance.

DOSSIER

• Mariano Delgado | Doctors of the Church – A Catholic Approach

  Doctors of the Church – A Catholic Approach

  After 13 Doctors of the Church had already been appointed, the procedure was formalised by Benedict XIV in 1741. He laid down the three criteria that are essential for the title Doctor ecclesiae: «eminens scilicet doctrina; insignis vitae sanctitas, [...] summi Pontificis, aut Concillii Generalis legitime congregati declaratio.» The development in the history of the appointment of Church Doctors by the Catholic Church led from Doctor ecclesiae as a title for selected church fathers from the first millennium to theologians of the second millennium, such as Thomas Aquinas and Bonaventure, whereby less influential theologians were also considered in further appointments. With the appointment of Ephraim, the Syrian (1920), a deacon was honoured for the first time. Canisius, Antonius and Laurentius followed this as missionaries to the people. Finally, women represented a new development. This historical development raises several questions and tasks that will be addressed in the contribution. These include the question of whether the declaration of Doctors of the Church also represents a form of ecclesiastical domestication.

  Doctors of the Church – Doctor ecclesiae – Benedict XIV. – ecclesiastical domestication – Council of Trent – Vatican II.

• Volker Leppin | Doctors of the Church – A Protestant Approach

  Doctors of the Church – A Protestant Approach

  The concept of the Doctor of the Church seems counterintuitive to the ‹sola scriptura› principle. Nevertheless, the term was by no means completely rejected or eliminated in the Protestant world. Significant here was the notion of a chain of witnesses to church doctrine, which even characterised the Catalogus testimoniorum in the appendix to the Book of Concord. Thus, the concept of the church teacher can still be found in the liberal theology of the 19^th century, right up to Harnack, and even in Karl Barth’s theology, which focused so firmly on the Word of God. Accordingly, one can say that Church Fathers in the Protestant sense are those theologians who have decisively shaped the understanding of the Christian faith on a biblical basis in a way that remains relevant to Protestant understanding today.

  Doctors of the Church – Protestant – Martin Luther – Martin Chemnitz – Ferdinand Christian Bauer – Adolf von Harnack – Karl Barth.

• Gregor Emmenegger | «Follow my example!» (1Cor 4,16) – On the Establishment of the ‹Holy Fathers› as Guarantors of Orthodoxy and Tradition in the Early Church

  «Follow my example!» (1Cor 4,16) – On the Establishment of the ‹Holy Fathers› as Guarantors of Orthodoxy and Tradition in the Early Church

  This text examines the development and establishment of the term ‹father› for priests and bishops in early Christianity, despite the biblical prohibition in Mt 23, 9-10. It analyses how the idea of ‹church fathers› emerged as guarantors of orthodoxy and tradition and played a central role in dogmatic discourses. The text sheds light on the historical development from the early Christian communities, which were characterised by charismatic personalities, to an institutionalised church structure. It shows how apostolic succession and the ‹instruction-theoretical model of revelation› contributed to the safeguarding of tradition and the continuity of faith. The study concludes with the observation that the concept of the ‹holy fathers› contributed significantly to the stability and unity of the church in the first centuries. At the same time, the critical reflection of their teachings continues to be of importance in the present day.

  Title of Father – Church Father – institutionalisation phase – Apostolic tradition – argument of the Fathers – Patristic era.

• Bernhard Blankenhorn | Thomas Aquinas and Albertus Magnus as Doctors of the Church

  Thomas Aquinas and Albertus Magnus as Doctors of the Church

  Thomas Aquinas was only the fifth saint to be named a Doctor of the Church, whereas his teacher, Albert the Great, was not recognised as such until the 20^thcentury. This essay examines the various historical, theological, and political factors that contributed to the declaration of Thomas and Albert as Doctors of the Church. With the help of an analogy to the process of canonisation, and by considering the multiplication of Church Doctors from the 16^th century onward, the author offers a theological proposal on the broader theological consequences of the notion of ‹Doctor of the Church› from a Catholic perspective.

  Thomas Aquinas – Albert the Great – Scholasticism – Rhineland mysticism – Church Doctrine.

• Ingo Klitzsch | Doctor ecclesiae Martin Lutherus? – An Answer from a Protestant Church-Historical Perspective

  Doctor ecclesiae Martin Lutherus? – An Answer from a Protestant Church-Historical Perspective

  Drawing on the ecumenical impulses of the 20^th/21^st centuries, the extent to which Martin Luther can be regarded as a ‹Doctor ecclesiae› from a Protestant church-historical perspective is examined in a differentiated manner. The chronological endpoint is the magisterial definition of the concept of ‹Doctor of the Church› in the mid-18^th century. First, analogous Protestant concepts (‹doctorate› of Luther; concept of the ‹series doctorum›) are analysed. Based on this, the extent to which the criteria of ‹holiness of life› and ‹outstanding doctrine›, which are characteristic of the Roman Catholic concept of the ‹Doctor of the Church›, shaped the contemporary Luther memoria in the early Luther biographies, Apophthegmata Lutheri collections (‹Table Talk›) and in the ‹Confessional Age› will be traced. Ultimately, there is an outlook on the Age of Pietism and Enlightenment, associated with a new approach that involves a clear relativisation of earlier convergences between Luther's memoria and the concept of the ‹Doctor of the Church›.

  Luthermemoria – image of Luther – Table Talk – Apophthegmata Lutheri – Luther biographies – Doctors of the Curch – doctorate – holiness – doctrine.

VARIA

• Georg Modestin | Late Medieval Christian Society as a Reform Project – About a New Edition of a Work by Johannes Nider

  Late Medieval Christian Society as a Reform Project – About a New Edition of a Work by Johannes Nider

  The Dominican friar Johannes Nider († 1438) is well known as a proponent of the reform movement within his order as well as a prolific author. Among his writings, the
  Formicarius («anthill») has gained wide interest for its early description of the repression of witches and wizards in the Alpine region. However, the scope of this didactic treatise aiming at the education of young Dominican preachers is considerably larger. Nider propounds by means of 160 examples or anecdotes his vision of a Christian society that is reformed according to monastic ideals. The first critical edition of the treatise established by Catherine Chêne provides the reader with the opportunity to discover the Formicarius in its entirety.

  Johannes Nider – Formicarius – Dominican reform – reform of the Christian society – editorial work.

• Mark Edward Ruff | Reflections on Recent Writings on American Ecumenical Protestantism

  Reflections on Recent Writings on American Ecumenical Protestantism

  This article offers extensive commentary on three recent books that examine American Ecumenical Protestantism in the 20^th and 21^st centuries. Until recently, most scholarship on American Protestantism in the postwar era has focused on evangelicals and the rise of the religious right. It is impossible to understand their rise, however, without also examining the loss of influence and membership in the religious left and what is often termed liberal or ecumenical Protestantism. These liberal churches had been the culturally and socially dominant form of religion in the United States for more than a century. As they placed themselves at the forefront of politically liberal causes in the mid-20^th century, including the antiwar and the civil rights movements, their activism triggered a backlash. For conservative congregants, changes were too fast and far-reaching; for liberal activists, they were often not radical enough.

  Ecumenical Protestantism – Ecumenism – Religious right – American religion – Mainstream Protestantism – Civil Rights movement – Antiwar movement – Religious left.