This volume brings together nineteen articles published by Dorothea Wendebourg, mainly during the period from 2002 until 2017 when she held the Chair of Reformation History at the Humboldt University of Berlin. The majority of these articles focus on Reformation history or the reception of Luther. However, Wendebourg’s ecumenical engagement is also represented by important reflections on the ecclesiology and history of the Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland (EKD) and on the shaping of Eastern Orthodoxy. This collection complements and extends Wendebourg’s earlier volume, Die eine Christenheit auf Erden: Aufsätze zur Kirchen- und Ökumenegeschichte (Tübingen 2000).

The book opens with a consideration of whether the Hellenism of the Early Church is ‘a fundamental category of Christian existence’ as some Orthodox theologians argue (p. 2). Drawing on a tradition of scholarship present also in modern Orthodox theology, Wendebourg affirms Christian Hellenism as ‘a paradigmatic exemplary era, but not the fulfillment and end of history’ (p. 16).

Ten articles exploring aspects of the Reformation follow. The first, originally published in 1995 in Reformationstheorien, considers the unity of the Reformation. Wendebourg argues that this was constituted by the Counter-Reformation, although she maintains that it is legitimate to refer to the Reformation rather than speaking of Reformations. Her exploration of the relationship between Luther and Henry viii, ‘Die Deutschen Reformatoren und England’ (article 10 in this collection) offers a reminder of the way that Reforming and humanist networks linked the Reformation in different countries independently of the influence of the Counter Reformation. Wendebourg’s ecumenical interests are reflected in three articles on ministry: ‘Das Amt und die Ämter’ (article 3, originally published in 2000) explores the plethora of models of ministry which emerged in the Lutheran Reformation, and the legitimation of ordinations which were not conducted by bishops; ‘Martin Luthers frühe Ordination’ (article 5) considers Luther’s own ordination practice; and ‘Der Schriftgebrauch in der Amsttheologie und der reformatorischen Bekenntnisschriften’ (article 6) compares the biblical theology of ordination as developed by Luther in Wittenberg, Zwingli in Zürich and Calvin in Geneva. Two articles assess Reformation shifts in worship and their impact on church life: ‘Reformation und Gottesdienst’ (article 8) considers the new emphasis on preaching and hymns in church services in Wittenberg and Saxony, with a comparative study of Zürich and Geneva; ‘Der Gottesdienst: von Vision und Kritik zur neuen Gestalt’ (article 9), focuses on developments in the celebration of communion, comparing Luther’s approach to that taken by Cranmer in the English Book of Common Prayer; both emphasised the importance of the congregation’s understanding of and participating in worship, but the latter led to uniformity of practice in a way that the former did not. These articles touch also on the question of continuity and change from medieval practice, considered in greater depth in ‘Cultboom: die Wittenberger Schloßkirche vor der Reformation’ (article 7), a study of the role of Wittenberg’s castle church before the Reformation, when it housed an extensive relic collection, almost without compare north of the alps, and afterwards, when it survived as the university church. The final two Reformation articles focus on Luther: ‘Der gewesener Mönch Martin Luther: Mönchtum und Reformation’ (article 4) considers his experiences as a monk and the influence of those experiences on the Reformation; it also outlines the modern German Protestant rediscovery of religious communities. More might be said here about the continued existence of women’s communities, also in Protestant territories, from the sixteenth century. Finally, in ‘Ein Lehrer, der Unterscheidung verlangt: Martin Luthers Haltung zu den Juden in Zusammenhang seiner Theologie’ (article 11), Wendebourg addresses the vexed question of Luther’s attitude towards Jews. She concludes that Luther’s polemic against the Jews draws on theological principles which he had elsewhere rejected, particularly ‘the theocratic model of the Old Testament’ (p. 320) and that it is necessary to distinguish the areas in which ‘Luther is our teacher’ from those in which he is not (p. 321).

Turning to the modern period, in ‘Die Bekanntheit von Luthers Judenschriften im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert’ (article 12), Wendebourg finds that Luther’s writings on the Jews were readily available for most of this period, although they were not standard knowledge amongst Protestant pastors. However, the relationship between ‘availability, distribution, reading and acknowledgment’ of texts was (and is) complex. For instance, Bonhoeffer alluded in a student essay to Luther’s outbursts against ‘the pope, the Turks, etc’ without mentioning the Jews (p. 353). An analysis of ‘Jüdisches Luthergedenken im 19. Jahrhundert’ (article 13) reveals that Jewish intellectuals were aware of Luther’s polemical antisemitic writings, but also valued him as a pioneer of freedom and of enlightenment. The final article returns to Luther, surveying his portrayal in plays from the sixteenth to the twentieth century. This, Wendebourg’s farewell lecture in Berlin in July 2017, reveals Luther largely as the nationalist German hero of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Wendebourg’s interest in the nineteenth- and twentieth-century confessional politics of the modern era emerges in ‘Die Gründung der evangelisch-theologischen Fakultät der Universität Breslau’ (article 14). The Protestant faculty, created alongside a Catholic faculty when the University of Breslau was founded in 1811, and was drawn into the debate about the Prussian Union in 1817. Born in Breslau, Dietrich Bonhoeffer studied and later taught in Berlin; Wendebourg traces his relationship to the Humboldt University in ‘Dietrich Bonhoeffer und die Berliner Universität’ (article 15). Three articles consider the shaping of the contempoary EKD: ‘Der lange Schatten des landesherrlichen Kirchenregiments: Aporien der kirchlichen Neuordnung nach 1945’ (article 16); ‘Sichtbare Einheit in der Evangelischen Kirch in Deutschland’ (article 17); and ‘Die Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland und die vertriebenen Ostdeutschen’ (article 18). Here Wendebourg highlights the tension between the territorial principle which underlies the individual and confessional or ecclesiastical identity, and asks to what extent the EKD can be said to be a united Church. These tensions are exemplified by the situation of those expelled from former German territories after 1945, who were expected to join the local Landeskirche where they (were forcibly) settled, rather than re-establishing their original churches, such as that of Silesia. The numbers are astonishing: over 2,500 pastors and hundreds of thousands of people were integrated into Germany’s Landeskirchen. However, not all displaced Germans were Protestants, and some consideration of the situation of Catholics would have provided an interesting comparison.

Overall this is a rich collection of meticulously researched articles, testifying to the breadth and depth of Wendebourg’s contribution, not only in the field of Reformation History but also to modern German church history and ecumenical relations.