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The Catholic Historical Review 90.1 (2004) 131-133



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Christóbal de Gentil de Rojas y Spinola O.F.M. und der lutherische Abt Gerardus Wolterius Molanus: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Unionsbestrebungen der katholischen und evangelischen Kirche im 17. Jahrhundert. By Karin Masser. [Reformationsgeschichtliche Studien und Texte, 145.] (Münster: Aschendorff Verlag. 2002. Pp. 528. £64.)

As students of Early Modern Europe are aware, efforts to reunite the various portions of shattered Western Christendom began almost as early as the division and have continued with greater or lesser intensity to the present day. After the great colloquies of the sixteenth century (Marburg 1529, Regensburg 1541, Poissy 1561), the effort continued on a less official level. The horrors of the wars of religion led some to abandon religion as the glue binding together the peoples of the West, resulting in secularization with the Enlightenment. Those same horrors led others to intensify their efforts to discover the key to union. Perhaps best known among the latter efforts is the correspondence between Bossuet and Leibniz. At the same time as that better-known effort, another pair of representatives eagerly sought to find grounds of agreement. These are the figures brought to life in Karin Masser's work, based on her 2000 dissertation for the Catholic Theological Faculty of the University of Innsbruck.

Christóbal de Gentil de Rojas y Spinola (1626-1695), despite his Spanish background and name, entered the Cologne friary of the Observant Franciscans in 1636 as a student, then as a friar, priest, lecturer in theology, and Visitor General [End Page 131] of the Thuringian Province. From 1661 on, he took part in efforts to co-ordinate the defense of Christendom against the incursions of the Turks, and in this capacity came to believe that the Protestant princes of the Holy Roman Empire, no less than the Catholic Emperor, deplored the division into competing confessions. Over the next several decades, he continued his efforts to achieve understanding, supported by Emperor Leopold I and Pope Innocent XI, in particular, as part of their efforts to unite the West against the continuing threat from the Turks. Along the way, Rojas became Bishop of Knin in Bosnia (1668), but was unable to take up residence as that area was under Turkish rule, and then, in 1685, Bishop of Wiener-Neustadt, where he died ten years later.

One of the most fruitful contacts made by Rojas in his efforts to find union was with the Lutheran Abbot of Loccum, Gerardus Wolterius Molanus (1633-1722), born to a professional family of Netherlandish origin in the town of Hameln. Molanus studied at the University of Helmstedt, where he came under the influence of Georg Calixt (1586-1656), who had already made extensive efforts to heal the divisions of Christendom. Despite opposition to these efforts by orthodox Lutheran theologians, this influence never left him, even though Molanus remained a devout Lutheran. After a time on the theological faculty at Rinteln, in 1673 Molanus accepted appointment as erster geistlicher Konsistorialrat und Generalsuperintendent des Konsistoriums of the established Church in the Principality of Calenberg at the hands of the Catholic Duke Johann Friedrich in his capacity as Summus Episcopus de jure, and in the following year became Abbot of Loccum. Although accepting the Augsburg Confession, the Cistercian monastery of Loccum continued its monastic existence under the Welf Dukes of Calenberg. In 1679 the Catholic Summus Episcopus de jure of the Lutheran Church in Calenberg was succeeded by his brother, Ernst August, who since 1661 had been the Lutheran Prince-Administrator of the Bishopric of Osnabrück. Under these circumstances, supported by these two union-minded scions of the House of Welf, Molanus continued in his offices as Superintendent and Abbot and continued the contacts established, as Rojas traversed Germany seeking support for the Emperor's efforts against the Turks, with his Franciscan counterpart.

Masser presents the reader with well-documented information on...

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