Evangelikų dvasininkų savišvietos ir savarankiško tobulėjimo galimybės: bažnyčių bibliotekos Prūsijoje XVI-XVIII a.

ENIn his chronicle the Mühlhausen pastor Gottfried Pechüle offers many authentic details about the daily life of the clergy in Prussia during the first half of the eighteenth century. His text also illustrates their great workload. The image we derive from this of clerical life is of quite a sedentary and closed existence tied to the parish and/ or its church. Most of the time a pastor would be busy with parish affairs, and his time away from church matters was devoted to domestic duties. This image encourages us to ask how rural clergy could remain intellectually active under such conditions and not remain beyond the bounds of contemporary theological innovations and so forth. In other words, what were the opportunities and prospects for rural clergy to improve their learning after their years of university study came to an end? In general we should pay attention to developments in clerical quality as a whole, as this affected clergy during the early modern period. First and foremost the process of confessionalisation which apparendy began with the Reformation is regarded as a phenomenon of social change which inculcated new spiritual and moral norms, changed thought and behaviour and transformed radically the public and private lives of people of all classes. Even so, these changes primarily affected the most important agent in the process of confessionalisation and its prime accelerator, namely the Church. A category of new-quality clergy formed which was markedly different in its origin, concepts and social status from their medieval predecessors. The pre-reforma-tion clergy were comparatively poorly educated. Their functions apparendy were restricted to sacramental activity - carrying out religious ceremonies. This required only technical, practical skills. Meanwhile during the age of confessionalisation particular stress was laid on a pastor's preaching ability and catechetical activity, which required intellectual and didactic skills.This led to demands that clergy be educated suitably. Thus it became the norm for ordinands to be trained systematically and examined, and for their activities to be inspected. As a result of requirements for a particular level of education and other criteria clerical status exhibited clear tendencies towards professionalisation. Thus often it is said that confessionalisation was a process which led considerably to the professionalisation and disciplining of the clergy. General and specific studies (of German territories) reveal clear tendencies for a rise in both Protestant and Catholic clerical education from the second half of the sixteenth century. The process of change among the clergy that took place in Prussia during the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries does not differ from general European developments. The Prussian case may even be regarded as exemplary. Here the view was confirmed swifdy with many repeated instructions that only and educated candidate who had been examined by a bishop and later a consistory could be ordained. From the end of the seventeenth century the mechanism for checking up on the clergy and weeding out bad pastors was made even more severe and many safeguards were put in place to ensure that no unqualified candidate be appointed to pastoral service. The care taken by the Prussian authorities for the improvement of clergy and their suitable moral image is shown not only by the formal requirement that pastors be educated. Considerable efforts were expended to ensure opportunities for clergy to improve their knowledge. We come across requirements in various government instructions issued to the Prussian Lutheran Church from the 1520s that clergy and parish churches obtain compulsory and recommended literature. Often such requirements were accompanied by encouragement to read such texts zealously and study them individually.Church inventories from various periods with lists of books survive and these together with a few studies of Lutheran church libraries in Prussia allow us to speak of deliberately organised libraries. It is not difficult to discern their purpose, namely to provide pastors with basic and relevant modern literature which was intended to provide clear guidelines so as to prevent deviation from officially accepted teaching and preserve doctrinal purity. Collections of books in church libraries were also intended to be an important instrument for helping the pastor to carry out his duties - first of all, to train his preaching skills and deepen his theological knowledge. It was hoped too that these libraries would assist clergy working in peripheral areas that they might avoid professional and intellectual block and provincialisation, while providing opportunities for professionalisation and personal improvement. On the other hand, study of various parish inventories shows that there was only a small number of libraries with a limited number of books. Thus we must be cautious in speaking of their influence on clerical improvement. Most of the publications held by these libraries were official required reading. This allows us to assert that such libraries mosdy met only the minimal needs of the clergy. For this reason we may doubt whether in this case the good intentions and policy of the Prussian authorities were actually a scarcely effective formality. [From the publication p. 322-323]