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The Socialist Devout: Religious Orders and the Making of an East German Catholic Community

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dc.contributor.advisorJon Olsen
dc.contributor.advisorAndrew Donson
dc.contributor.advisorJennifer Heuer
dc.contributor.advisorSigrid Schmalzer
dc.contributor.authorJulian, Kathryn
dc.contributor.departmentUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst
dc.date2024-03-27T17:04:18.000
dc.date.accessioned2024-04-26T15:11:47Z
dc.date.available2024-04-26T15:11:47Z
dc.date.submittedSeptember
dc.date.submitted2017
dc.description.abstractMy dissertation explores the central role of Roman Catholic orders in the creation of a resilient and stable Catholic community in post-1945 East German society. The persistence of these highly visible religious figures as well as their work in charities, retirement homes, schools, and hospitals not only threatened the socialist state’s mission to create a secularized society, but also bolstered and unified the dispersed East German Catholic population. Though the German Democratic Republic (GDR) ostensibly embraced scientific atheism, religious orders remained important in the postwar era, particularly in their performance of social functions. Catholic institutes upheld the integrity of their congregations and repudiated aspects of state policy by maintaining close ties to their Western counterparts and by preserving traditional rites and sacred spaces within the confines of a socialist state. Sisters, in particular, were significant in cultivating a Catholic subculture in East Germany. Religious women provided physical spaces in the form of convents, confessional hospitals, and chapels, where the devout could practice their beliefs and have open discourse away from the political constraints of the state. By examining state archival sources, the records of specific orders, property contracts, and the private records of the Catholic Church, this study looks beyond oppositional history to see how religious communities adapted to socio-political changes and how both the state and the Church often blended religion and socialist ideas. As a result, monastic and religious orders continued to act in vital roles in socialist society and influenced even secular communities. The space of the convent helped maintain traditional ministry and nurtured a semi-public sphere that kept Catholics connected to a global community of religious guests from West Germany, the Eastern Bloc, and the developing world. In this way, the lay leadership of the Church in East Germany created a Catholic culture that was pluralistic and dynamic. By 1989, religious institutes had helped create a distinct East German Catholic identity by adapting to ever-changing geopolitics, ensuring the survival of spaces for devotion, and by promoting a positive image of the Roman Catholic Church. This analysis of the influence of numerous religious communities in socialism adds to the relatively small body of literature on the agency of Catholic orders in twentieth-century Germany and highlights the importance of lay leadership, especially from sisters, in preserving Catholic tradition and devotion.
dc.description.degreeDoctor of Philosophy (PhD)
dc.description.departmentHistory
dc.identifier.doihttps://doi.org/10.7275/10686408.0
dc.identifier.orcidN/A
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14394/17224
dc.relation.urlhttps://scholarworks.umass.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2167&context=dissertations_2&unstamped=1
dc.source.statuspublished
dc.subjectRoman Catholic orders
dc.subjectEast Germany
dc.subjectGerman Democratic Republic
dc.subjectCatholic Church in socialism
dc.subjectmonasticism
dc.subjectGerman Caritas Association
dc.subjectCatholic Studies
dc.subjectCultural History
dc.subjectEuropean History
dc.subjectHistory of Christianity
dc.subjectHistory of Gender
dc.subjectHistory of Religion
dc.titleThe Socialist Devout: Religious Orders and the Making of an East German Catholic Community
dc.typeopenaccess
dc.typearticle
dc.typedissertation
digcom.contributor.authorisAuthorOfPublication|email:kjulian@history.umass.edu|institution:University of Massachusetts Amherst|Julian, Kathryn
digcom.identifierdissertations_2/1048
digcom.identifier.contextkey10686408
digcom.identifier.submissionpathdissertations_2/1048
dspace.entity.typePublication
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