Forschungen Zur Kirchen- Und Dogmengeschichte – serie

Lena Bottcher offers an overdue exploration of the early years of the deaconess community in Neuendettelsau from a gender perspective. Drawing on rich archival material, she focuses on the process of a distinctive collective identity. Central to this study is the assumption, drawn from the social sciences, that collective identity is a social construction which requires the participation of the whole group through identification and which is consolidated by developing specific rituals, symbols, codes and normative texts, which facilitate integration, and by constructing external boundaries, which separate from the world and the wider church. This approach highlights the fact that the women were not merely passive recipients but participated and contributed to the formation of a distinct Neuendettelsau deaconess culture. Thus, this study offers an explanation for the popularity such institutes enjoyed amongst single and widowed Protestant women in the latter half of the nineteenth century. In consequence, this study significantly widens the scope of historical research on the Institute which so far has tended to take into account solely the male perspective of the Rektoren.

Gregory of Nazianzus (329-390 AD), one of the most important and influential church writers from late antiquity, distinguishes in his work between the absolutely incomprehensible nature of God and the work of God that people can experience. Nadja Heimlicher shows how the theologian makes this distinction and what he gains from it for his talk about God. Heimlicher presents a consistent representation of the interplay of theoretical foundations and their practical development in Gregory of Nazianzus. While his interest in theological work is on the question of knowing God, in the context of lived faith it shifts to striving to experience God and ultimately to union with God. It is one of Gregory's core concerns that the practice of faith always precedes theology and forms the basis for it as a nurturing basis.