Jamie Page. Prostitution and Subjectivity in Late Medieval Germany Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021. Pp. 176.

Abstract

need to strengthen Uniate identity in the context of Orthodox pressure resulted in a more persuasive rejection of the perspective of Latinization, which in fact meant the extinction of the Union, as much as if it had resulted from open persecution. As Wolff rightly points out, “the ‘transit’ to Roman Catholicism” and the “ongoing ‘apostasy’ to Orthodoxy” (85–86) were the two analogous threats to the Union in the post-1772 period in Russia. In the context of the Roman Catholic court of Vienna, the politics of absolute equality between rites contributed to the flourishing of the Uniate Church, renamed the Greek Catholic Church in 1774, which nevertheless felt the impact of the reforming politics of Joseph II. Wolff pays attention to both external and internal tensions surrounding the Uniate Church. The administrative regulations concerning the Uniates were different but analogous in the case of Russia and Austria. However, they were not the only factors determining the fate of the ecclesiastical body created in the political context of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which since 1772 was slowly ceasing to exist. The example of the Basilian monastic order, a stronghold of Latin influences within the Union, led to questions of education, episcopal authority, and relations between the elite and the masses of the faithful. The uneducated parish clergy had the advantage of being close to the people and their popular customs, which surprisingly proved to be the foundation of the post-partitions Uniate identity and perseverance. Wolff’s narrative brings together all these various perspectives and provides a thought-provoking synthesis of the history of the Uniate Church during the critical period of the transformation of its status. The changes occurring in Russia, Austria, and Poland had particular institutional contexts, which in some cases threatened the very existence of the Uniate Church. However, the confirmation of the Uniate identity originated from within the Uniate societies and had long-lasting effects.