The Church of the Revolutionary Age

<p>By Henri Daniel-Rops</p><p><strong>The Church of the Revolutionary Age: Christian Brotherhood </strong>the tenth installment in Henri Daniel-Rops' magnificent <em>History of the Church of Christ</em> explores the complex phenomenon of the separated brethren-all those who believe in and follow Jesus Christ but are not in communion with the one holy catholic and apostolic Church. This volume focuses on the non-Protestant Christian groups surveying (1) the Eastern Orthodox Church its Byzantine heritage its pilgrim identity and its liturgical monastic and mystical dimensions; (2) the incidence of division in the Church since its inception from the fifth-century schisms to the heresies of Arius and Nestorius and beyond (the effects and fruit of which are still evident in the present day); and (3) the emergence of ecumenism as the means toward achieving Christian unity its proponents and detractors and its prospects at the opening of the Second Vatican Council.</p><p>Christ prayed that his followers may be one. Yet the history of his Church bears witness to the dreadful words of the Prophet Zechariah: Strike the shepherd and the sheep shall be scattered. With justice to its formidable and sensitive subject Daniel-Rops' <em>The Church of the Revolutionary Age: Christian Brotherhood </em>is an absorbing account of the successes and failures of the sheep to be no longer separated but unified in faith.</p><blockquote><em>One cannot but be moved by this sentence written by Cardinal Mercier: To unite we must love one another; to love one another it is necessary to know one another; to know one another we must meet one another. </em>(Henri Daniel-Rops)</blockquote><p> </p><p><strong>Henri Daniel-Rops </strong>(1901-1965) the nom de plume of Henri Petiot was a French Catholic historian. His bibliography comprises seventy books-written over a span of just thirty years-and includes <em>Sacred History</em> <em>Jesus and His Times</em> and the monumental ten-volume <em>History of the Church of Christ</em>. He also served as editor for the <em>Twentieth Century Encyclopedia of Catholicism</em> which consisted of one hundred and fifty volumes. Phenomenally successful in his own time Daniel-Rops made religious history accessible and popular; in 1955 he was elected to the Acad��mie fran��aise and in 1956 he received the Order of St. Gregory from Pope Pius XII.</p>