Millennial Expectations in the Grail Movement

Abstract

Although millennialism has recently been the subject of much scholarly discussion, no research has been done on the millennial expectations of the Grail Movement, which has been influential in Europe. This article describes the beginnings of this millennial group in central Europe before the Second World War and sums up the basics of the Grail Message. After the death of the founder and the restoration of religious freedom in postwar Europe, the Movement overcame disappointment by replacing the emphasis on the imminent millennial kingdom with an emphasis on individual spiritual evolution. The millennial expectations of the Grail Movement, however, are still alive, especially in offshoots. They were reintroduced in a dramatic way in the early 1990s by a Czech, Jan Dvorsky. The rise and the fall of his group, the Imanuelites, are described to show how millennial ideas can be renewed.