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.

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.

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.

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.

The social gospel was one of the most productive intellectual movements to originate from American Protestantism. Essentially, the new religious ideology of the late nineteenth century brought the ethical element of Christianity to bear upon the unprecedented problems of social adjustment caused by the rise of an industrial society. It inspired an outpouring of social criticism and reform activity unequalled in the nation's religious experience. The urban-centered problems of slums, crime, political corruption and industrial strife turned progressive-minded churchmen to the mission of social uplift.