Indulgences

This history of indulgences and purgatory has established itself as a standard summary of the history of the theological development in stages leading to the full orbed view of the 15th century and a praxis that led to split the church. The author follows the further history through the centuries through to the major changes made after the Second Vatican Council. Even though the last chapter of the book contains a detailed Protestant and Orthodox criticism of the dogmatic foundations of indulgences, the book is seen as a fair contribution by many reviewers and has earned the approval of Catholic theologians, who regret, that the planed abolition of indulgences by the Second Vatican Council did not take place finally.


Prof. Dr. theol. Dr. phil. Thomas Schirrmacher, PhD, DD, (born 1960) is speaker for human rights of the World Evangelical Alliance, speaking for appr. 600 million Christians, chair of its theological commission, and director of International Institute for Religious Freedom (Bonn, Cape Town, Colombo). He is also director of the Commission for Religious Freedom of the German and Austrian Evangelical Alliance. He is member of the board of the International Society for Human Rights.

Schirrmacher is professor of the sociology of religion at the State University of the West in Timisoara (Romania) and Distinguished Professor of Global Ethics and International Development at William Carey University in Shillong (Meghalaya, India). He is also president of ‘Martin Bucer European Theological Seminary and Research Institutes’ with campuses e.g. in Bonn, Berlin, Zurich, Innsbruck, Prague and Istanbul, where he teaches ethics and comparative religions.

Schirrmacher (*1960) earned four doctorates in Theology (Dr. theol., 1985, Netherlands), in Cultural Anthropology (PhD, 1989, USA), in Ethics (ThD, 1996, USA), and in Sociology of Religions (Dr. phil., 2007, Germany) and received two honorary doctorates in Theology (DD, 1997, USA) and International Development (DD, 2006, India).