This is the first scholarly treatment of nineteenth-century Christianity to discuss the subject in a global context. Part I analyses the responses of Catholic and Protestant Christianity to the intellectual and social challenges presented by European modernity. It gives attention to the explosion of new voluntary forms of Christianity and the expanding role of women in religious life. Part II surveys the diverse and complex relationships between the churches and nationalism, resulting in fundamental changes to the connections between church and state. Part III examines the varied fortunes of Christianity as it expanded its historic bases in Asia and Africa, established itself for the first time in Australasia, and responded to the challenges and opportunities of the European colonial era. Each chapter has a full bibliography providing guidance on further reading.

This book addresses the shifting identity of Ruthenians on both sides of Orthodox/Uniate divide. The dissolution of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the late 18th century and the incorporation of the majority of the Ruthenians - ethnic Ukrainians and Belarusians - into the Russian Empire from the backdrop for confessional history critical to modern Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Russian identities. In a region long shaped by religious and cultural tensions between the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches, the creation in 1596 of the Uniate church, which retained the Eastern rite but accepted Catholic doctrine, cut a new religious fault line through Ruthenian communities that set the stage for religious and political conflict. Drawing on archival sources from Russia, Poland, and Ukraine, "The Western Front of the Eastern Church" addresses the shifting identity and fate of Ruthenians on both sides of the Orthodox/Uniate divide during the politically charged era of the partitions of Poland. Skinner investigates diverging components of these faith communities in the 18th century, the changing political landscape as the Russian Empire expanded its borders, and the religious tensions and violence that occurred as a result. She reveals cultural influences that shaped Ukrainian and Belarusian identities and sheds light on aspects of Russian imperial identity and mythology as it laid claim to its western borderlands. The confessional focus critiques the nationalist perspective that has dominated the presentation of Ukrainian and Belarusian history, and Skinner's treatment brings the region into the broader discussion of confessional development in Europe as a whole. The narrative culminates in the Uniate conversions under Catherine II, providing new insight into the limits of religious toleration in Catherinian Russia. This book is essential reading for Russian and East European historians and those interested in the history of relations between the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches, as well as those studying the tensions between Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus today.

In the second edition of this major work, Dominican theologian Aidan Nichols provides a systematic account of the origins, development and recent history—now updated—of the relations between Rome and all separated Eastern Christians. By the end of the twentieth century, events in Eastern Europe, notably the conflict between the Orthodox and Uniate Churches in the Ukraine and Rumania, the tension between Rome and the Moscow patriarchate over the re-establishment of a Catholic hierarchy in the Russian Federation, and the civil war in the then federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia, brought attention to the fragile relations between Catholicism and Orthodoxy, which once had been two parts of a single Communion. At the start of the twenty-first century, in the pontificate of Benedict XVI, a papal visit to Russia—at the symbolic level, a major step forward in the ‘healing of memories’— appears at last a realistic hope. In addition, the schisms separating Rome from the two lesser, but no less interesting, Christian families, the Assyrian (Nestorian) and Oriental Orthodox (Monophysite) Churches, are examined. The book also contains an account of the origins and present condition of the Eastern Catholic Churches—a deeper knowledge of which, by their Western brethren, was called for at the Second Vatican Council as well as by subsequent synods and popes. Providing both historical and theological explanations of these divisions, this illuminating and thought-provoking book chronicles the recent steps taken to mend them in the Ecumenical Movement and offers a realistic assessment of the difficulties (theological and political) which any reunion would experience.

Between 1772 and 1795, Russia, Prussia, and Austria concluded agreements to annex and eradicate the Commonwealth of Poland-Lithuania. With the partitioning of Poland, the dioceses of the Uniate Church (later known as the Greek Catholic Church) were fractured by the borders of three regional hegemons. Larry Wolff's deeply engaging account of these events delves into the politics of the Episcopal elite, the Vatican, and the three rulers behind the partitions: Catherine II of Russia, Frederick II of Prussia, and Joseph II of Austria. Wolff uses correspondence with bishops in the Uniate Church and ministerial communiquŽs to reveal the nature of state policy as it unfolded. Disunion within the Union adopts methodologies from the history of popular culture pioneered by Natalie Zemon Davis (The Return of Martin Guerre) and Carlo Ginzburg (The Cheese and the Worms) to explore religious experience on a popular level, especially questions of confessional identity and practices of piety. This detailed study of the responses of common Uniate parishioners, as well as of their bishops and hierarchs, to the pressure of the partitions paints a vivid portrait of conflict, accommodation, and survival in a church subject to the grand designs of the late eighteenth century's premier absolutist powers.

Throughout their shared history, Orthodox and Eastern Catholic Churches have lived through a very complex and sometimes tense relationship – not only theologically, but also politically. In most cases such relationships remain to this day; indeed, in some cases the tension has increased. In July 2019, scholars of both traditions gathered in Stuttgart, Germany, for an unprecedented conference devoted to exploring and overcoming the division between these churches. This book, the first in a two-volume set of the essays presented at the conference, explores historical and theological themes with the goal of healing memories and inspiring a direct dialogue between Orthodox and Eastern Catholic Churches. Like the conference, the volume brings together representatives of these Churches, as well as theologians from different geographical contexts where tensions are the greatest. The published essays represent the great achievements of the conference: willingness to engage in dialogue, general openness to new ideas, and opportunities to address difficult questions and heal inherited wounds.

An insider’s account of the Eastern Orthodox Church, from its beginning in the era of Jesus and the Apostles to the modern age In this short, accessible account of the Eastern Orthodox Church, John McGuckin begins by tackling the question “What is the Church?” His answer is a clear, historically and theologically rooted portrait of what the Church is for Orthodox Christianity and how it differs from Western Christians’ expectations. McGuckin explores the lived faith of generations, including sketches of some of the most important theological themes and individual personalities of the ancient and modern Church. He interweaves a personal approach throughout, offering to readers the experience of what it is like to enter an Orthodox church and witness its liturgy. In this astute and insightful book, he grapples with the reasons why many Western historians and societies have overlooked Orthodox Christianity and provides an important introduction to the Orthodox Church and the Eastern Christian World.