Confessionalization on the Frontier

The Balkan Catholics between Roman Reform and Ottoman Reality

by Antal Molnar

Book cover: Confessionalization on the Frontier

Extent: 268 pages

Publisher: Viella – libreria editrice

Subjects: Early Modern & Renaissance Studies, Religious Studies

Series: Interadria. Culture dell'Adriatico

Series volume number: 22

Language: English

Paperback (Published)

(June 2019)

ISBN: 9788833130804

Price: $46.00

In stock

This book presents a lesser-known chapter of the cultural history of the Ottoman Balkans, the world of its Catholic communities and institutions. Alongside Orthodox Christians, Muslims and Jews, Catholics lived in nearly every area of the Balkan Peninsula in the 16th and 17th centuries. The great religious revolution of the early modern age, confessionalization, did not leave the Balkan Catholics untouched. Unlike the Christian confessional states of Europe, the Ottoman Empire, with Islam as its state religion, neither assisted nor impeded the formation of denominations, but put many obstacles in the way of their institutional growth. The confessionalization of Catholics in the European frontier regions of the Ottoman Empire thus resulted in a peripheral and unestablished Catholicism. This book explores the peculiarities of this local Catholic confessionalization in the Balkans through a micro-analytical approach. The prime objective of the book is to contribute – through an exploration of the history of the Balkan Catholics – to the renewal of research into the early modern Mediterranean world.

  • By (author) Antal Molnar