ABSTRACT
The liturgical movement must be accorded a very prominent place in any overview of the theological movements that set their mark on church life in the twentieth century. Almost all the great churches were influenced by the results of its scholarship and ideals when they revised their liturgy in the last forty years. Even more important than the liturgical changes that followed in the wake of the liturgical movement was however its influence on “theology itself.” This was due not least to the ability of the liturgical movement to free the old questions that had divided the churches from their closed positions in controversial theology and abstract dogmatics and to transpose these questions into a context where they could be understood in a way that was more ecumenically fruitful. It was above all in sacramental theology that this movement often contributed to fresh theological thinking and brought the churches closer together. Not only orders of service have drawn closer to one another in their form and content: the same is true of theologies. 1 The continuing validity of the ancient maxim lex orandi est lex credendi (“the law of praying is the law of believing”) has been demonstrated.
