A Cloud of Witnesses

From 11 to 16 August 2003, the nineteenth international congress of the
Societas Liturgica was held in Veldhoven (the Netherlands), with as its
theme <<A cloud of witnesses. Saints and role models in Christian liturgy>>.
The present publication contains a collection of nineteen case studies
reflecting the versatility of the congress in its variations and themes,
its scope in time (from early Christian times to the present day), and the
fact that many churches and religious communities as well as the Jewish
tradition are represented. The collection contains a number of articles
that reflect on subjects like the phenomenon of saintliness, heortology,
the dimensions of time and space in ritual-liturgical practice, and saints
and canonizations in the present-day Roman Catholic and Protestant church.
The last section consists of contributions on saints and forms of saint's
cult by a number of authors, based on their own religious communities,
such as the Old Catholic Church, Anglican Church, Dissenting Free Church,
Reformed Church and ecumenical movement. The editors of this collection
have by way of an introduction compiled a historiographic-bibliographic
overview relating to saints and their cults in various research domains,
specifically within liturgical studies, also touching upon certain
specific, and for this collection interesting, themes such as the position
of the (cult of) saints in cultural and historical studies, Protestant
traditions, and the Feminist Liturgical Movement.