Walking the first mile of the Nevsky Prospekt in St. Petersburg, the visitor is struck by the sight of the Dutch, Finnish, Swedish, German, Armenian Orthodox, Russian Orthodox, and Roman Catholic churches. These buildings reflect the religious, cultural, and social diversity that has been characteristic of the city since Tsar Peter the Great invited thousands of foreigners from all over Western Europe to build this settlement at the estuary of the Neva River. On the occasion of the third centenary of St. Petersburg (2003), historians and archivists from Russia as well as other European countries convened to study the history of the city’s foreign churches in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The resulting studies, published here, offer fascinating insights into the almost forgotten history of those churches and show how substantially they contributed to the religious, cultural, social, and economic history of St. Petersburg. Contributors include: Archpriest V. Fedorov, M. Fundaminski, P.N. Holtrop, B. Jangfeldt, E.E. Knyazeva, N.S. Krylov, T. Mägi, A. Must, E. Norberg, P.M. Peucker, K. Rundell, V.M. Shishkin, C.H. Slechte, A.R. Sokolov, Th.J.S. van Staalduine, T.I. Tatsenko, J.W. Veluwenkamp, and M.V. Shkarovskii.

This book offers studies on the history of foreign churches in St. Petersburg since the founding of the city in 1703 till the Revolution in 1917. Moreover, archivists give detailed overviews and insights in the archives concerned in question.

In the light of the centennial of the World Mission Conference in Edinburgh (1910-2010), Dutch missiologists reflect on issues on the borderline between missiology and intercultural theology, with some international guests joining the choir. Organized in four parts, their contributions open up new perspectives on the future of the discipline in terms of foundational theology, contextuality, gender, and methodology. (Series: ContactZone. Explorations in Intercultural Theology - Vol. 10)

Until recently the impact of the Lutheran Reformation has been largely regarded in political and socio-economic terms, yet for most people it was not the abstract theological debates that had the greatest impact upon their lives, but what they saw in their parish churches every Sunday. This collection of essays provides a coherent and interdisciplinary investigation of the impact that the Lutheran Reformation had on the appearance, architecture and arrangement of early modern churches. Drawing upon recent research being undertaken by leading art historians and historians on Lutheran places of worship, the volume emphasises often surprising levels of continuity, reflecting the survival of Catholic fixtures, fittings and altarpieces, and exploring how these could be remodelled in order to conform with the tenets of Lutheran belief. The volume not only addresses Lutheran art but also the way in which the architecture of their churches reflected the importance of preaching and the administration of the sacraments. Furthermore the collection is committed to extending these discussions beyond a purely German context, and to look at churches not only within the Holy Roman Empire, but also in Scandinavia, the Baltic States as well as towns dominated by Saxon communities in areas such as in Hungary and Transylvania. By focusing on ecclesiastical 'material culture' the collection helps to place the art and architecture of Lutheran places of worship into the historical, political and theological context of early modern Europe.

Mennonites in the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union is the first history of Mennonite life from its origins in the Dutch Reformation of the sixteenth century, through migration to Poland and Prussia, and on to more than two centuries of settlement in the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union. Leonard G. Friesen sheds light on religious, economic, social, and political changes within Mennonite communities as they confronted the many faces of modernity. He shows how the Mennonite minority remained engaged with the wider empire that surrounded them, and how they reconstructed and reconfigured their identity after the Bolsheviks seized power and formed a Soviet regime committed to atheism. Integrating Mennonite history into developments in the Russian Empire and the USSR, Friesen provides a history of an ethno-religious people that illuminates the larger canvas of Imperial Russian, Ukrainian, and Soviet history.

In their acclaimed, much-used Church History, James Bradley and Richard Muller lay out guidelines, methods, and basic reference tools for research and writing in the fields of church history and historical theology. Over the years, this book has helped countless students define their topics, locate relevant source materials, and write quality papers. This revised, expanded, and updated second edition includes discussion of Internet-based research, digitized texts, and the electronic forms of research tools. The greatly enlarged bibliography of study aids now includes many significant new resources that have become available since the first edition’s publication in 1995. Accessible and clear, this introduction will continue to benefit both students and experienced scholars in the field.

A Companion to German Pietism offers an introduction to recent Pietism scholarship on both sides of the Atlantic, in German, Dutch, and English. The focus is upon early modern German Pietism, a movement that arose in the late 17th century German Empire within both Reformed and Lutheran traditions. It introduced a new paradigm to German Protestantism that included personal renewal, new birth, women-dominated conventicles, and millennialism. The “Introduction” offers a concise overview of modern research into German Pietism. The Companion is then organized according to the different worlds of Pietist existence—intellectual, devotional, literary-cultural, and social-political.