A complex process of transformation creating the breakthrough into the modern age, with effects that are still formative today, took place in the history of the Western church in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The most important semantic elements in it, which gradually separate out into the Age of Denominations, Pietism and the Enlightenment, describe three forms of Christian life and thought that overlap in many ways and only produce a sufficiently nuanced overall picture of early modern church history when they are viewedas forming a complete whole. This second sub-volume introduces the Enlightenment and Pietism, currents that had a lasting influence on intellectual and religious history in Europe, and also examines the development of the Orthodox churches in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Prof. Hans-Martin Kirn, Theological University of Kampen, Netherlands;Prof. Adolf Martin Ritter, University of Heidelberg.