Christianity and Modernity in Eastern Europe

Bruce R. Berglund, Brian Porter-Szűcs, Bruce R. Berglund, Brian Porter-Szűcs

• Publisher: Central European University Press
• Year: 2010
• Print ISBN:
  9789639776654
• eBook ISBN:
  9786155211829
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Eastern European History

Religious history more generally has experienced an exciting revival over the past few years, with new methodological and theoretical approaches invigorating the field. The time has definitely come for this "new religious history" to arrive in Eastern Europe. This book explores the influence of the Christian churches in Eastern Europe's social, cultural, and political history. Drawing upon archival sources, the work fills a vacuum as few scholars have systematically explored the history of Christianity in the region.The result of a three-year project, this collective work challenges readers with questions like: Is secularization a useful concept in understanding the long-term dynamics of religiosity in Eastern Europe? Is the picture of oppression and resistance an accurate way to characterize religious life under communism, or did Christians and communists find ways to co-exist on the local level prior to 1989? And what role did Christians actually play in dissident movements under communism? Perhaps most important is the question: what does the study of Eastern Europe contribute to the broader study of modern Christian history, and what can we learn from the interpretative problems that arise, uniquely, from this region?

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Maps
• List of Tables
• Foreword
• Preface
• Introduction: Christianity, Christians, and the Story of Modernity in Eastern Europe
• Religion in Urban Everyday Life: Shaping Modernity in Łódź and Manchester, 1820-1914
• Christianity, Nation, State: The Case of Christian Hungary
• Searching for a “Fourth Path”: Czech Catholicism between Liberalism, Communism, and Nazism
• The Roman Catholic Church Navigates the New Slovakia, 1945–1948
• Bulwark or Patchwork? Religious Exceptionalism and Regional Diversity in Postwar Poland
• Competing Concepts of “Reunification” behind the Liquidation of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church
• From Bottom to the Top and Back: On How to Build a Church in Communist Romania
• Human Rights as a Theological and Political Controversy among East German and Czech Protestants
• state Management of the Seer Vanga Power, Medicine, and the “Remaking” of Religion in Socialist Bulgaria
• Constructing Peace in the GDR Conscientious Objection and Compromise among East German Christians, 1962–1989*
• Drafting a Historical Geography of East European Christianity
• List of Contributors
• Index
• back cover