Robert Kolb professor emeritus, Concordia seminary in St. Louis (Seminary Place, 801, Saint Louis, USA, MO 63105)
kolbr@csl.edu
Kolb R. The Hour of Death in Lutheran Pastoral Practice in the Early Modern Period, Religiya. Tserkov’. Obshchestvo. Issledovaniya i publikatsii po teologii i religii [Religion. Church. Society: Research and publications in the field of theology and religious studies], pp. 86–101.
doi: 10.24412/2308-0698-2025-14-86-97
Language: Russian
The horrors of the Black Death, which swept across the lands from northern Italy to England in the mid-14th century, influenced the emergence of the tradition of «pious death» (ars moriendi), closely linked to penitential practices and the doctrine of purgatory. The beginning of the Reformation, in turn, led to a rethinking of what plays a decisive role in the posthumous fate of the believer. The article analyzes several sources that shed light on the evangelical understanding of death. First, there are the notes of Andreas Poach, a close friend of Luther, on how another pious friend of his prepared for the transition to eternity. This is one of the first examples reflecting the pastoral practice of Lutheran consolation. Second, there is a source related to the Pietist movement describing the spiritual experience of Margaret Rittmeyer before her death, from a collection of instructive texts by Erdmann Heinrich Henkel von Donnersmarck (1733). It appears that in the Lutheran tradition, death and the memory of the deceased were no less important than in the Middle Ages, but the mechanisms of commemoration changed.
Key words: art of dying, death, piety, Luther, consolation, Law and Gospel
URL: https://rcs-almanac.ru/kolb2025-en/
