Looking for Traces of the Ecumenical Question in the relationes ad limina of the German Bishops (1948-58)

A historiographical hypothesis ascribed the Holy See’s first post-war pronouncement on ecumenism (5 June 1948) to information gathered during ad limina visits of German bishops that year. This article aims to verify it. ‘Case studies’ have therefore been chosen from among the dioceses most involved in the ‘Una-Sancta-Arbeit’. What emerges, in particular, is the urgency of the refugee problem and the practice of the simultaneum, i.e., the sharing of churches between denominations. This analysis will also help to verify whether and how the ‘literary genre’ of relationes can be used as a source in the field of the history of Catholic ecumenism.