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In this research, I have attempted to show how the Seventh-day Adventist Church originated in America during the 19th century, following a spiritual revival centered on the eschatology propounded by the Millerite Movement, which proclaimed the return of Christ in 1844. After the disappointment and the defection of its members, the remainder formed the nucleus of Adventists. They believed in the mission to proclaim the Second Coming of Jesus to the world, without fixing the dates. The Adventists reached Europe and from there Rwanda in the persons of two missionaries during 1919. In spite of various difficulties, they founded three mission stations to be used as a base for their growth. They integrated faith in education and medical work while, in particular, involving laity in evangelism, which was the key to their success. / Christian Spirituality, Church History and Missiology / M. Th. (Church History)

Protestant church orders were a key tool for shaping belief and practice during the sixteenth century. These declarations of official religious policy were composed by both secular and ecclesiastical leaders, and reflected the shared interests of the church and state in managing evangelical reforms. Their constitutional nature and their role in articulating doctrine made them the most effective means for church building during the period. John a Lasco's Forma ac ratio was one of the most significant of these works. His text, which was published in 1555, provided a comprehensive blueprint for Protestant congregations. It also marked a pivotal point in the development of orders. Although the earlier documents varied widely in their form and scope, by the end of the century they had developed a common format and standard range of topics. The Forma ac ratio is one of the first to exhibit this trend, marking this crucial shift in the development of such works and setting the standard for the ordinances that followed. Although this text had much in common with other orders, it was distinguished by the reformer's unique vision for church organisation and ceremonies. The content reveals the various forces that shaped his ideas. For example, he modelled his ecclesiastical administration after the episcopacies found in the German lands. He added to this Zwingli's Eucharistic rite and Calvin's ecclesiastical discipline. This work also contained a Lasco's own innovative contributions including his emphasis on congregational authority. In addition, the ordinance included extensive commentary to explain, justify and defend the prescribed practices. This comprehensive nature set the Forma ac ratio apart from other orders. A Lasco's tome had a significant impact on Protestant congregations throughout Europe. Originally, he had written the work for the London Strangers' Church, which was comprised of religious refugees in England's capital city. These exiles played a key role in transmitting his ecclesiastical model, when they returned to the continent in the 1550s, they established new refugee congregations following the reformer's example. They later carried his innovative order to their native lands when they returned home in the subsequent decades. The Forma ac ratio's widespread impact across Europe makes it one of the key ordinances from the Reformation period. In addition, as this thesis demonstrates, it was these qualities - its function in church building, the innovative form, and the refugees' role in transmitting his model - that ensured its influence and significance in sixteenth-century Europe.

This thesis identifies in the Relations des Jésuites de la Nouvelle-France (Relations), written between 1632 and 1650, a comprehensive rhetoric of total selfoffering to Jesus Christ, a rhetoric of martyrdom, rooted in their authors' particular experience of the Christian tradition, their praying with the Spiritual Exercises (1548) of Ignatius Loyola (1491-1556), their encounters with the spirituality of the French Jesuit Louis Lallemant (1578-1635), and their exposure to various forms of Jesuit mission literature from around the world. Published annually, these Relations were the only consistent account of the unfolding French colonial project in Nouvelle- France, and a popular read among the noblesse, ecclesiastics, and pious Christians of the kingdom. Today they form an essential collection of primary sources that continue to provide a doorway into the earliest days of Canada's history. Identifying this rhetoric throughout the narratives, this study endeavours to provide a deeper historical understanding of these Relations by contextualising their content within the particular all-encompassing religious worldview of the authors who wrote them. The religious imaginations of these Jesuit authors, Paul Le Jeune (1591-1664), Jean de Brébeuf (1593-1649), Françoise-Joseph Le Mercier (1604-90), Barthélemy Vimont (1594-1667), Jérôme Lalemant (1593-1673), Isaac Jogues (1607-1673) and Paul Ragueneau (1608-1680), thus gives birth to a rhetoric in the Relations that presents Nouvelle-France as a land filled with Amerindian peoples who would only truly embrace Christianity if all of the missionaries lovingly offer their lives to Jesus Christ; just as He had done for the salvation of the entire world from sin and evil. They do so by placing their efforts on a metaphysical plane. There, the missionaries are presented as having been invited by God to join Christ crucified on a mission into a land filled with suffering and death. Where the Amerindians they evangelise must choose between a barbarous life of selfish material interest that is thought to imbue their traditions and a more human life of self-offering modelled on the Christian God. At the same time Satan, the devil, labours hard not to lose his grip on a part of the world that was as yet unaware of its true divine origins. The 'divine', the 'missionary', 'Satan', and the 'Amerindians', locked in this cosmic battle for souls that can only be won through a self-sacrificing union with Jesus Christ, combine to form the rhetoric of martyrdom in the narratives that reaches its summit as the authors describe the murders of eight of their fallen comrades, tortured and killed by some of the very people they had come to evangelise. This rhetoric, present throughout the narratives, has yet to be acknowledged, analysed, and interpreted by historians. In doing so, it is hoped that this study will deepen any reading of the Relations, advancing our understanding of their full import for both the early modern and the present-day reader.

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Text in English / Christian Spirituality, Church History and Missiology / M. Th. (Church History)

Text in English / Much of the history of the Roman Catholic Church in Swaziland is conjoined with the history of the Order of the Servants of Mary. Explanations for the historiographical emphasis of this study are plentiful: the Order of the Servants of Mary was the first Catholic missionary group that worked amongst the people of Swaziland and most of the missionaries who had worked in Swaziland, both female and male, belonged to the Order of the Servants of Mary. Although Swaziland was explored by Europeans as early as the nineteenth century, the country's geographical configuration and the fact that it was a British Protectorate have kept Swaziland in the isolated back room of African studies. Consequently, the work done by the first Catholic missionaries has attracted little academic interest. This is why very little is known about the pre-Christian Swaziland. The first Christian missionaries in Swaziland were Methodists who arrived in the country in 1844. When Catholics arrived in the country sixty six years later they understood the Church as Mater et magistra (mother and teacher) forty years before the encyclical, Mater et Magistrd. Their understanding can be deduced from the way they carried out the work of evangelization. The concept of Mater et Magistra caused them to have a paternalistic mentality which kindled in them an exaggerated zeal for souls. The lack of educational institutions in the country made them feel obliged to provide education to the local people. Those educative institutions later became vehicles for propagating Catholicism, which was mingled with European cultures, largely Italian and German. Religious and cultural pluralism, which had been condemned in principle by the homogeneous structure of the Swazi society, became popular in Swaziland under the auspices of the educative institutions established by the Church. / Christian Spirituality, Church History and Missiology / D.Th. (Church History)

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Doctorat en philosophie et lettres / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished