Nelson Minnich

Academic Areas

  • Church History
  • School

  • School of Theology and Religious Studies
  • Expertise

  • Renaissance
  • Reformation
  • Counter-Reformation
  • Biography

    A native of Cincinnati, Ohio, Nelson Hubert Minnich has taught Renaissance, Reformation, and Counter-Reformation history at the Catholic University of America since 1977, holding a joint-position as full professor in the Church History program of the School of Theology and Religious Studies and in the History Department.Since 2005 he has been editor of the Catholic Historical Review, having served for over a quarter-century as advisory and associate editor. He holds degrees in philosophy (BA 1965 Boston College), theology (STB 1970 Gregorian University), and History (MA 1966 Boston College, PhD 1977 Harvard University with a dissertation on "Episcopal Reform at the Fifth Lateran Council (1512-17)" directed by Myron P. Gilmore). He is the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities (1978), Villa I Tatti (1979), the American Academy in Rome (1979-80), American Council of Learned Societies (1979-80, 1986, 1990), the American Philosophical Society (1984), the Renaissance Society of America (2001), and the National Humanities Center (2004-05). Since 2007 he has been a member of the Pontificio Comitato di Scienze Storiche, and was reappointed in 2012. Among the books he has published or co-authored are a Festschrift honoring John Tracy Ellis (1985), three collections of studies that deal mostly with conciliar history from Pisa I to Trent (1993, 2007), a volume (Collected Works of Erasmus 84) on Erasmus' controversies with Alberto Pio (2005), collections of papers presented at international conferences commemorating the 500th anniversary of the Fifth Lateran Council (2019) and Luther’s posting of the Ninety-fve Theses (2021), and a companion to the Council of Trent (2023). He served as the associate editor for the eighty church history entries in the six-volume Encyclopedia of the Renaissance (1999). He is author of 33 chapters in books, 40 articles in scholarly journals, and over thirty entries in encyclopedias and reference works, and numerous book reviews. He is active in his local parish of St. Jerome's in Hyattsville, Maryland and is an avid contra and waltz dancer at the Glen Echo Park Ballroom, Maryland.

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    Publications

    • The Cambridge Companion to the Council of Trent

      The Cambridge Companion to the Council of Trent

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    • Nuova luce sul Concilio Lateranense V

      Nuova luce sul Concilio Lateranense V

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    • Martin Luther and the Shaping of the Catholic Tradition

      Martin Luther and the Shaping of the Catholic Tradition

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