Christianisation and cura animarum in the First Christian Communities in Livonia and Prussia during the Period of the Crusades

The paper deals with the relationship between Christianisation and the Church’s ministry in the first Christian Balt communities on the east Baltic coast during the period of the Crusades. It has to be noted that at the turn of and throughout the 13th century, Christian missions were influenced by the attitudes of the new religious movements of the 12th and 13th centuries proclaiming the ‘humanisation’ of the idea of God, and the efforts of the human soul to seek the ‘individualisation’ of salvation. Given these ideas, the paper analyses the forms in which Christianity spread in the Baltic communities, and the impact the inception of the Crusades had on these communities. The research proves that the spread of Christianity took place not only in a ‘theologised’ and therefore ‘difficult’ to understand form, but also in common, knightly (during the Crusades), and other forms of piety. These forms unfolded through the Christian missions and the Church’s ministry that were carried out in parallel, so that they functioned in the first Christian Balt communities in the 13th century.Key words: Christianisation, Christian communities, cura animarum, militia Christi, Crusade