Abstract
The paper examines the approach of a German religious scholar Joachim Wach to the history of religions. Following Wilhelm Dilthey, Wach developed a concept of the History of Religions (Religionswissenschaft) as an autonomous discipline of human sciences (Geisteswissenschaften), conditioning its existence by reflection of possibilities and limits of understanding.
Focusing on Wach's hermeneutics, the author critically evaluates the concept of the history of religions centered on understanding and illustrates tensions between theory and research practice - as Wach was unfaithful to the principles he himself had laid down, which is, according to the author, an inevitable consequence of grounding the hermeneutics on the concept of "understanding".