Regional features of state-church relations in the Soviet period in the South of Russia

The article is devoted to the policy in the sphere of state-religious relations in the 20-30s of the XX century. It is shown that the policy of creating a mass atheist movement, declared by the Bolsheviks as large-scale, in practice in the period under study turned out to be much more modest in its results. Real politics sometimes took place outside the activities of the "Union of Militant Atheists". It is shown that the relations of state and party bodies with religious organizations at the regional level in the 1920s carried characteristic features inherent in "church politics" in the whole country.

The Puritan Experiment

This chapter describes the social and political background of English Puritanism and New England’s colonization, 1590–1645, through the lens of Hutchinson’s life and experience. It begins with Puritan politics in England (partly through the problematic career of Hutchinson’s father Francis Marbury), rising political and religious discontent, and the decision of many to emigrate. The chapter then explores the first fifteen years of Massachusetts’s history, emphasizing Winthrop’s personal political battles, church politics, and the colony's social divisions. The chapter analyzes this socio/economic/political world as a world of men, acknowledging that much of the Hutchinsonian crisis can be seen as a power battle among men. However, in this world Hutchinson played a dominant “male” role, faction leader, and while many have argued that she was treated like any male disrupter, in fact she was not. The chapter ends with the attacks upon her usurpation.

Cross Mountain and Apparition Hill

This article examines and interprets the phenomenon of Medjugorje as a new religious phenomenon. The name of this Bosnian-Herzegovinian village not only refers to a long series of Marian apparitions, but it is also used as a metaphor for the religious and political developments that occur in relation to those visions. The argument is that in the context of interaction with nationalist agendas and church politics, Medjugorje must be seen as a contested apparitional site that has reinvented itself into a highly successful grassroots religious movement. Medjugorje devotees and the faithful, inspired by tradition, are creating an idiosyncratic devotional expression of Catholicism, in which the individual endures the hardships of pilgrimage for a personalized experience of charismatic gifts and the miraculous. The article contends that this distinguishes this devotional movement from mainstream Catholic pilgrimage culture.

Monastic Commitment and Church Politics, 1124–1129

This chapter details how, until he left for Italy in the early 1130s and became involved in resolving the papal schism, Saint Bernard spent most of his time at his monastery of Clairvaux. The years before he dedicated himself to defending the papacy might at first seem rather tame by comparison with what came afterwards. But a closer look especially at the letters composed at this time shows that Bernard was already committing himself to causes that had nothing to do with Clairvaux or even with Cistercian monasticism. In 1127 or 1128, Bernard drew up a statement about how bishops should behave. It is possible to see the beginning of the polemic against abuse of office in the Church. What is remarkable here, however, is not Bernard's concern with the state of the Church. It is his public statement about what was happening in his own Cistercian Order.

Johann Baptist Franzelin (1816–86): A Jesuit Cardinal Shaping the Official Teaching of the Church at the Time of the First Vatican Council

Johann Baptist Franzelin (1816–86), a Jesuit from South Tyrol, was an important systematic theologian at the Collegio Romano. Against emerging neo-Scholasticism, he supported the growing awareness of the need for historical context and to see theological doctrines in their development over time. He was an influential theologian at the First Vatican Council. Created cardinal by Pope Pius ix in 1876, he engaged in the work of the Roman Curia, for example against the German Kulturkampf and for the Third Plenary Council of the Catholic Church in the usa (Baltimore, 1884). This article provides an overview of Franzelin’s biography and analyzes his contributions to theology and church politics.