Although frequently overlooked by Western scholars of Church history, theology and ecumenism, Aleksei S. Khomyakov (1804–1860), one of Russia's most original thinkers and most prolific and diverse writers of the nineteenth century, merits attention as one whose religious writings not only occupy a prestigious place in the history of Orthodox thought but greatly influence Orthodox thinkers today. If the nineteenth century can be regarded as the Renaissance of the Russian Empire, Khomyakov is an example of its Renaissance men. A poet of no little talent, historian, essayist, dramatist, inventor, philosopher, theologian and founder of the Slavophile school that undertook to discover and define Russia's cultural and historical significance, Khomyakov was indeed a man of many parts. But his pioneering efforts to delineate the essence of Russian Orthodox Christianity from that of its Western counterparts remain perhaps most noteworthy in the eyes of his countrymen. His theological accomplishments have led some modern Orthodox writers to regard him as the most important figure in Orthdox thought since the Patristic age; some of his ardent admirers have, in fact, named him a Father of the Russian Orthodox Church. His work to divine the natural strengths of the Russian people by exploring the special character of their national faith not only elicited Russian national self-consciousness but helped to foster the sentiment of religious exclusiveness that did much to prepare the way for a comprehensive system of Russian nationalism. These achievements prompt one of his biographers to rank him with Peter the Great, Lomonosov and Pushkin as one of the four most important men in all Russian history.

During the past forty years Canadian historians have viewed the relationship between religion and the development of Canadian society from three perspectives. None of these perspectives have risen out of the Canadian context; they have been imported and adapted with various degrees of success to the Canadian scene. The assistance they have given Canadian historians in perceiving and highlighting various aspects of the role of religion in their national life has been valuable. Like all perspectives, however, they have often concealed as much as they have revealed. Canadian church historians, of course, have been aware of the limitations which these perspectives have placed upon the story of the religious development of Canadian society. Their comments and criticisms, however, have never been systematically studied nor viewed in the wider context of the development of these perspectives elsewhere. This neglect needs to be remedied for such a study throws light not only on an aspect of the intellectual history of Canada but also on a number of points of emphasis in the use of these perspectives which appear to be distinctively Canadian. In what follows, therefore, an attempt has been made first of all to trace the development and continuing influence of these perspectives on the interpretation of religion in Canadian society; secondly, to assess the adequacy and limitations of these perspectives as interpretive frameworks in the Canadian context; and finally, to point out some of the factors in the present situation which need to be taken into consideration in the development of a new perspective.

Numerous competent studies have appeared on Christian apologetics—both Byzantine and Western Medieval—against Islam. A significant gap, however, remains. The Byzantines, of course, first encountered Islam because of the Arab conquest in the second and third quarters of the seventh century. Yet the earliest known Byzantine apologist against Islam is Saint John Damascene in the eighth century. But what initial impression did the Arab conquest and Islam make upon seventh-century Byzantine contemporaries? The seventh-century Byzantine sources on Byzantine reactions to the Arab conquest are scarce, inconveniently located, and insufficiently studied. There is no known individual Byzantine tract of the seventh century devoted specifically to the problem of Islam and/or the Arab conquest. But even though seventh-century sources are relatively rare—on any subject—by a close reading of those which are available one can glean some interesting and, in my opinion, important indications concerning Byzantine reactions to the Arab conquest. Obviously such a major historical event as the loss of Egypt, Palestine and Syria would greatly have impressed the Byzantines and would have caused them to ponder its significance.

In the history of the pontificate of Gregory VII, the figure of archbishop Gebiun of Lyons is mysterious, and his very presence shadow-like, while his position as primate seems at first glance anomalous. The policy of the pope, from the start of his rule, had been dominated by motives of ecclesiastical centralization and by the notion of a hierarchy ruled directly on all levels by the pope himself or by administrators in constant contact with the papacy. Thus, he had regularized and extended the scope of the Roman Council, and had asserted the privileged position of the papal legate throughout the western church.

The attack on the orthodoxy of Jacques Lefè d'Etaples, taken as a whole, may be divided into three stages. The first centered about his handling of the Vulgate; the second may be called the “controversy of the three's;” the third stage began when he was first charged with Lutheranism. The first two of these stages involved a number of widely separated individuals, whose varying degrees of repugnance have every appearance of being genuine and spontaneous reactions to Lefèvre's innovations. The third stage lies beyond our boundaries, so we shall not undertake its consideration in this paper. We shall only say of it, by the way of comparing it with the first two, that the attack was then consolidated under the leadership of the Sorbonne, and its Syndic Beda; it became institutionalized or professionalized, and sprang from all sorts of motives, self-regarding and political as well as religious. Of course the Sorbonne as one of the pillars of the old order had a hand in it from the beginning, and in general each of what I have called “stages” gathered up into itself much of those that went before, and they are to be distinguished from each other by emphases rather than by clear-cut divisions, either logical or chronological.

That the seventh century Byzantine theologian Maximos the Confessor had an influence on the development of Western as well as Eastern theology is well known through the work of such scholars as Sherwood, Cappuyns, Dräseke, Gilson, and Altaner, for example, for the West, and of von Balthasar, von Ivanka, Grümel, Beck, Brilliantoff, Epifanovic, Hausherr, and Dalmais for the East. But although Maximos' works were apparently known throughout the entire period of Byzantine history, there remains a surprisingly great deal of research to be done to delineate the extent of his influence on specific Byzantine scholars and theologians such as Anastasius of the ninth century, Euthemius Zigabenos and Symeon the “New Theologian” of the eleventh, Nicetas Choniates in the twelfth, Patriarch Gregory of Cyprus and Pachymeres in the thirteenth, the Hesychasts Gregory Palamas and Nicholas Kabasilas and their opponents Nicephorus Gregoras and the Byzantine “Scholastic” John Cyparissiotes of the fourteenth, and, last of all, on the sixteenth century, post-Byzantine Bishop who lived in Venice, Maximos Margounios.

The prominence of American and European clergymen in recent demonstrations in favor of international peace has been a source of encouragement to those who believe that war contradicts the most fundamental tenets of Christianity. However, it is a well known fact that Christian institutions have historically found it possible not only to tolerate the use of violence to settle international disputes, but even to advocate it with enthusiasm. The tendency of clergymen to view war as a necessary or desirable component of international relations was particularly pronounced in the decades immediately preceding the outbreak of the first world war, when churchmen found themselves caught up in the nationalistic frenzy that poisoned relations among the major European powers. The religious community in Germany was especially susceptible to this kind of belligerent nationalism and indeed ranked as one of the most patriotic sectors of Wilhelmine society. Perhaps nowhere was this orientation more evident than in the relations between the religious community and the organized peace movement in Germany.

“What do they know of Luther, who only Luther know?” This question posed by Professor Gordon Rupp is apposite as one commemorates the 450th Anniversary year of Martin Luther's Ninety-Five Theses. The discovery of Luther's biblical lectures has led to a renaissance in Luther studies. Would not careful attention to Catholic commentaries in the period between Luther and Trent provide that perspective suggested in Rupp's more than rhetorical question? In a recent study attention is drawn to humanistic influences on the decree of April 8, 1546 at Trent.8 I should like to draw attention to the Catholic biblical study of Marino Grimani (1486–1546), Clemens Aranis (1482–1559), and Ambrosius Catharinus (1484–1553) which is necessary to an understanding of the context of that April 8, 1546 decree on scripture and tradition at Trent. By thus observing part of the Catholic reaction to Luther one understands in a different way the importance for the people of God of Luther's study of the word of God. That difference relates to the definition of authority which is beyond the scope of this descriptive essay.

The juxtaposition of “justification” and “eschatology” in Luther's thought seems at first strikingly inappropriate. Justification is undoubtedly the central concern in Luther's theological effort. It was to Luther “the master and prince, the lord, the ruler and the judge over all kinds of doctrines; it preserves and governs all church doctrine and raises up our conscience before God. Without this article the world is utter death and darkness. No error is so insignificant, so clumsy, so outworn as not to be supremely pleasing to human reason and to seduce us if we are without the knowledge and the contemplation of this article.” Earlier he had written, “This article is the head and the cornerstone, which alone begets, nourishes, builds, serves and defends the church of God.

The twentieth-century migration of Orthodox peoples from Eastern to Western Europe and to North and South America thrust the heirs of that ancient faith into the role of persisting minorities, and imposed upon them the necessity of rapid and complex adjustments to urban conditions of life. To be sure, territorial expansion, involving both the migration of the faithful and the conversion of the heathen, had been a central theme in Orthodox history for a thousand years or more. One fruit for the loyalty of bishops and congregations, a rivalry that magnified the tension between the desire of nascent nationalities for an “autocephalic” church (that is, one having its own head as well as the power of self-government) and the preference of the patriarchs for “autonomous” bodies dependent upon a supreme hierarch elsewhere. Another result was the Orthodox confrontation with Protestantism and Roman Catholicism in Central Europe. Saxons who settled in the highlands of Transylvania in the thirteenth century became Lutherans at the time of the Reformation, and a majority of Hungarians occupying the broad plains lying east of Budapest became Calvinists. From the seventeenth century onward the Papacy accepted the submission of numerous Orthodox dioceses in Romania, Poland, Hungary, Croatia and the western parts of Russia, under agreements that allowed congregations to retain their Eastern ritual and dogma.

On July 1, 1867, the colonies of Canada, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick were united by an act of the imperial parliament—The British North America Act—to form a federal state known as Canada. The centennial of this Confederation was celebrated by Canadians in 1967. In this paper I want to discuss its influence on the Protestant churches of Canada.

Religious division has determined Germany's destiny. In the Middle Ages, it was the struggle between Emperor and Pope which doomed the Holy Roman Empire. During the Reformation, and the Thirty Years' War, it was Protestantism as well as the anti-Imperial diplomacy of the Pope and the French cardinals, which prevented the emergence of a national state and a centralized government. “From the split of the church dates all our misfortune,” complained in 1846 the Lutheran historian Johann Friedrich Böhmer, editor of a major medieval source collection.

In 1660 not only did the institution of monarchy return to England but also the “Image of the King” was restored. The monarchy had to be defined again, but the image persisted and entered the mythology of English history. By decapitating Charles I, Parliament and the army created a myth which covered all the flaws in the king and revealed only the virtuous martyr. The Cult of the Royal Martyr was formed around this myth of the sanctified personality of Charles. Charles the Good was martyred to the factious spirit of the Puritans. He was a martyr for the church; and as such, instead of being a dead king, he became a living defender of the church and the monarchy. He was the patron saint of all who wished to criticize puritanism or to support the monarchy.

Charles Grandison Finney appeared on the American religious scene in the early 1820's, and following a rather dramatic conversion experience he determined to enter the ministry. With some tutoring from his pastor, the Reverend George W. Gale, but no formal theological training, he began to preach in the “burned-over district” of upper New York State. His early successes in attaining conversions led him to adopt a pragmatic approach to the problems of theology and thus to be quite impatient with the Calvinistic theological system.

Springing from English Puritanism, Congregationalism became the established religion of New England outside Rhode Island and at the time of the American Revolution stood pre-eminent in membership and prestige in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Hampshire. Congregationalism's position in New England was not, however, indicative of its national appeal. When the Revolutionary War commenced various of the other American religious groups began to organize themselves into national churches. By the early part of the nineteenth century it was apparent that these national churches forged in the midst of a pluralistic society were denominations, i.e., they were voluntary associations of like-minded individuals united to accomplish certain defined objectives. Thus, religious groups in America came to be defined in terms of a common purpose rather than in terms of a special relationship to civil government or even in terms of a precise theological standard.

On a December day in 1676, Thomas Shepard, minister of the Church of Christ in Charlestown, passionately “discoursed of Reformation,” bemoaning the inability of the ministers and magistrates to unite against the disorderly mob of Quakers and Anabaptists. If the Quakers were suppressed, he argued, maybe the recalcitrant magistrates would “see reason to handle” the troublesome Anabaptists. His sympathic audience, Mr. Rowlandson, the Lancaster minister, Mr. Willard, pastor of the Old South Church, and Mr. Sewall, their host, listened quietly. It had not always been like this. Magistrates had once been reliable champions of the “Congregational Way.”