The Sermon as A Multimedial Instrument of Communication in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth during the Reformation and Counter-Reformation

Author(s):  
Dalia Marija StančIene

Abstract At the end of the sixteenth century, during the Christianization of Lithuania, sermons became one of the most important means of communication. As a medium, the sermon functioned through systems of codified sounds and symbols, as well as representing the institution of the Church for which it served as a broadcaster. Increased attention to the sermon was prompted by the desire of the Catholic Church to resist the Reformation and to preserve its spiritual monopoly. Martin Luther and Erasmus of Rotterdam underlined the importance of preaching, claiming that preaching the Gospels could improve society. The Jesuits instructed preachers not to limit themselves to religious matters alone but also to pay attention to social and political problems. There were two kinds of sermon: one for churchmen, preached in Latin; the other for lay people, in the vernacular. The Jesuits trained priests to preach in Lithuanian.

Horizons ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 405-409
Author(s):  
Catherine E. Clifford

When the young Augustinian friar, Martin Luther, affixed his Ninety-Five Theses to the door of the Wittenberg Castle Church on October 31, 1517, calling for the reform of the church, he could hardly have anticipated the succession of events that would lead to the division of Western Christendom. Luther had no intention of creating a “Lutheran” Church, nor could he have foreseen that his initiative would give rise to an ecclesial divide that would persist for half a millennium. The Second Vatican Council's Decree on Ecumenism, which acknowledged the need for continual reform and renewal in the church, created the conditions for the Catholic Church to enter in earnest into a dialogue “on equal footing” with other Christian communities. The Lutheran-Catholic Commission on Unity, as it is known today, was established in 1967 and was the first commission for official bilateral dialogue. Thus, as we commemorate five hundred years since the Reformation, we also mark with gratitude fifty years of official dialogue and growth in communion.


Horizons ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 146-149
Author(s):  
Jason Steidl

This contribution to the roundtable will compare two forms of protest in the church—one that is radical and challenges the church from the outside, and the other that is institutional and challenges the church from the inside. For case studies, I will compare Católicos Por La Raza (CPLR), a group of Chicano students that employed dramatic demonstrations in its protest of the Catholic Church, and PADRES, an organization of Catholic priests that utilized the tools at its disposal to challenge racism from within the hierarchy. I will outline the ecclesiologies of CPLR and PADRES, the ways in which these visions led to differing means of dissent, and the successes and failures of each group.


2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 5-20
Author(s):  
Sayangi Laia ◽  
Harman Ziduhu Laia ◽  
Daniel Ari Wibowo

The practice of anointing with oil has been done in the church since the first century to the present. On the other hand, there are also churches which have refused to do this. The practice of anointing with oil has essentially lifted from James 5:14. This text has become one of one text in the New Testament which is quite difficult to understand and bring a variety of views. Not a few denominations of the church understand James 5:14 is wrong, even the Catholic church including in it. The increasingly incorrect practice of anointing in the church today, that can be believed can heal disease physically and a variety of other functions push back the author to check the text of James 5:14 in the exegesis. Studies the exegesis of the deep, which focuses on the contextual, grammatical-structural,


2021 ◽  
pp. 436-457
Author(s):  
Petr Kratochvíl

This chapter explores the complex relationship between the Catholic Church and Europe over many centuries. It argues that the Catholic Church and Europe played a mutually constitutive role in the early Middle Ages and one would not be conceivable without the other. However, the Church gradually disassociated itself from Europe and vice versa. Since the Reformation, but even more strongly in the last two centuries, the Church’s attitude to Europe has become markedly more ambivalent, due to the rise of the European state, the hostile attitude of the Church to modern European social and political thought, Europe’s ongoing secularization, and the increasingly global nature of the Catholic Church. While the tension between the Church and Europe persists, the process of European unification marked a watershed in the Church’s relationship to Europe, given that integration is a key area in which the Church strongly supports the political developments of the continent.


Author(s):  
Kenneth Austin

This chapter analyzes “Counter Reformation,” a terminology that implies the developments within the Catholic Church in the sixteenth century and beyond of reactions to the Protestant challenge. It explains how historians generally prefer the term “Catholic Reformation” over Counter Reformation as it is more neutral and better able to accommodate the range of initiatives witnessed in the period. It also points out reform efforts that predate the Protestant challenge, in which a new ethos developed within the Catholic Church in the middle of the sixteenth century. The chapter talks about the fathers of the Council of Trent, who sought to address a wide range of issues relating to belief and practice. It looks at the “Tridentine” decrees that were implemented alongside various papal initiatives and efforts at the local level.


2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Katlyn Kichko

This paper interacts specifically with two separate texts, that is Michel de Certeau’s The Possession at Loudun and Carlo Ginzburg’s The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth Century Miller. Both of these texts present a narrative of religious turmoil, demonic possessions and a heretical Inquisition, respectively, and the events which surround a single religious dissenter. Examining the two heretical men presented within these texts in comparison allows for an understanding of Catholic Church dogma during the age of the Counter Reformation, and how such an institution managed threats, both external and internal. Moreover, this paper also examines the methodologies behind the historical discourse, in order to understand the validity of the narratives presented, and the scope of historical depth sought. Addressing methodology is crucial when one narrows focus to two singular case studies by two separate historians. Thus, this paper intends to illustrate the threats to normative religious discourse which Urbain Grandier and Menocchio possessed in the face of the Catholic Church, while also demonstrating the methodologies by which the two men are presented within their respective histories.


1989 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 219-238 ◽  
Author(s):  
Greg Walker

On 8 December 1527 two scholars, Thomas Bilney and Thomas Arthur, carried penitential faggots at St Paul's Cross as a token of abjuration of heresy. With this act both men formally cleansed their souls and brought about their reconciliation with the Church. Far from being the end of a story, however, this ceremony proved to be the beginning of a controversy which has survived until the present day. For Thomas Bilney subsequently renounced his abjuration and became a significant figure in the early Reformation in England, eventually dying at the stake as a relapsed heretic in 1531. And yet, despite the importance attributed to him as a reformer, Bilney is now, as he was then, an ambiguous figure whose relationship with the Catholic Church and precise beliefs have never been conclusively determined. Many writers have claimed Bilney as a champion of their particular causes or have sought to identify his place in the wider movements of the Reformation. For the Protestant John Foxe he was a martyr, albeit a flawed one, for the reformed faith, who refused to the last to be intimidated into a second abjuration. For Sir Thomas More, in somewhat mischievous mood, he was a Catholic saint brought to realise the error of his ways at the stake and reconciled to the Church with almost his last breath.


2018 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
pp. 119-127
Author(s):  
Grzegorz Wodziński

One of the main postulates of the reformation movement, apart from the theological questions, was a proposal of the internal reform of the church institution. The Father of the Reformation,as Rev. Martin Luther is called in the source literature, raised the questions concerning the mission of the Church, its role in the magisterium, and also and  perhaps above all its hierarchical structure and about the role of the clergy in the process of the eternal salvation. As a result of his reflections and probably his observations and his own experiences Luther undermined in succession different dogmatic, theological questions as well as those regarding the organization of the Roman Catholic Church. Slogans of renewal and reforms of the church structure spread very rapidly through the territory of German Reich, gaining numerous supporters among European nations. One of those for whom the Reformation ideas became the main field of activity was French man John Calvin. That well-rounded, well educated and well-read lawyer, knowing the main works of the German monk, acquired his principal theses postulating the changes in the functioning of the Church. Additionally, Calvin made a division of the Church between the earthly – the visible and the heavenly – the invisible one, and the person who bonds it, guarantees its unity and permanency, the  indivisibility is the only and the highest Priest – Jesus Christ. In the work of his life Institucio Religionis Christianae Calvin embodied a full picture of the Christian Church as, in his opinion, it should be. Analysing particular issues regarding the function of the clergymen, the pope, celebrating the sacraments, penance and conversion, and also the eternal salvation, we are given the basic compendium of knowledge concerning the ecclesiology by John Calvin. His teaching about the Church, although in some points different in from the  preaching of Rev. Martin Luther, however oscillates within the principal slogans of Reformation: Sola Fides –the man is saved solely by faith, Sola Gratia – God’s grace is necessary for salvation, Sola Scriptura – the only source of faith is the Holy Bible. He also added the idea: Solus Christus – only Christ saves, He is in the centre of The Church, we can observe Calvin’s Christ centred attitude in his preaching and in building ideological basics of the reformed denomination.


1993 ◽  
Vol 30 ◽  
pp. 185-207 ◽  
Author(s):  
Euan Cameron

Two themes which figure repeatedly in the history of the Western Church are the contrasting ones of tradition and renewal. To emphasize tradition, or continuity, is to stress the divine element in the continuous collective teaching and witness of the Church. To call periodically for renewal and reform is to acknowledge that any institution composed of people will, with time, lose its pristine vigour or deviate from its original purpose. At certain periods in church history the tension between these two themes has broken out into open conflict, as happened with such dramatic results in the Reformation of the sixteenth century. The Protestant Reformers seem to present one of the most extreme cases where the desire for renewal triumphed over the instinct to preserve continuity of witness. A fundamentally novel analysis of the process by which human souls were saved was formulated by Martin Luther in the course of debate, and soon adopted or reinvented by others. This analysis was then used as a touchstone against which to test and to attack the most prominent features of contemporary teaching, worship, and church polity. In so far as any appeal was made to Christian antiquity, it was to the scriptural texts and to the early Fathers; though even the latter could be selected and criticized if they deviated from the primary articles of faith. There was, then, no reason why any of the Reformers should have sought to justify their actions by reference to any forbears or ‘forerunners’ in the Middle Ages, whether real or spurious. On the contrary, Martin Luther’s instinctive response towards those condemned by the medieval Church as heretics was to echo the conventional and prejudiced hostility felt by the religious intelligentsia towards those outside their pale.


Author(s):  
David W. Kling

By the early sixteenth century, the call to conversion had moved in other and more radical directions, resulting initially in renewed personal spiritual commitment at odds with the Catholic Church and then moving to outright schism and a change of institutional commitment. Reformers such as Martin Luther and John Calvin experienced new and profound reorientations through their focus on the Bible and its teaching of salvation by faith alone, by grace alone, and through Christ alone. Anabaptists such as Menno Simons embraced these basic teachings but also placed emphasis on conversion (the “new birth”) as a life of discipleship. The reformers’ success in transmitting a thoroughgoing change of heart and mind to the populace, however, had mixed results. Political resistance, spiritual indifference, theological polemics, Catholic intransigence, and the persistence of ancient magic lore and occult practices ensured that the wholesale reformation of Europe, even in Protestant-controlled areas, would never become a reality.


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