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John Bergius: Irenicism and the Beginning of Official Religious Toleration in Brandenburg-Prussia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Bodo Nischan
Bodo Nischan
Affiliation:
Mr.Nischan is associate professor of history in East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina.
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Extract

Europe in the early seventeenth century was a continent divided along confessional lines. Nowhere was this more apparent than in the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. Not only had the gulf between Protestants and Catholics widened there, in addition the animosity between Lutherans and Calvinists had grown to the point where members of the two Protestant churches often resented each other more than their common Catholic foe.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 51 , Issue 4 , December 1982 , pp. 389 - 404
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1982

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References

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36. See Ritschl, 4:106–156; Leube, pp. 107–110; and Weber, 2:98–175. German Calvinists themselves had to overcome some problems in this area; see Moltmann, Jürgen, Christoph Pezel (1539–1604) und der Calvinismus in Bremen (Bremen, 1958), epecially pp. 89–105.Google Scholar

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41. For the following see Nischan, Bodo, “Reformed Irenicism and the Leipzig Colloquy of 1631,” Central European History 9 (1976): 3–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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43. The protocol of the colloquy is found in Bergius, Johannes, Abermaliger Abdruck der Relation von der Privat-Conferentz … im Jahr 1631 (Berlin, 1644);Google Scholar and Böckel, pp. 441–456.

44. For Bergius's assessment of the colloquy, see his foreword to Abdruck, Abermaliger, and his Churfüstliche Leich-Predigi… Herren Georg Wilhelmen/Markgraffen zu Brandenburg (n.p., 1642), pp. 82–85.Google Scholar

45. For details see Nischan, Bodo, “Brandenburg's Reformed Räte and the Leipzig Manifesto of 1631,” Journal of Religious History 10 (1979): 365–380.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

46. They were the ones who first proposed and drafted the Leipzig Manifesto; see draft proposal in Rep. 21.127.p.I, pp. 27–30, Deutsches Zentralarchiv, Merseberg, German Democratic Republic.

47. See Bergius, Vier Trostpredigten… Knesebeck, foreword; and idem, Trost und Pflicht … Sigmundt von Götzen (Berlin, [1651]), pp. 56–57.

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53. Bergius to George Calixt, Königsberg, 14 June 1645, Cod. Guelf. Extr. 84.9 (179r), Herzog August Bibliothek. Calixt's reply, dated 15 July 1645, is found in Jaeger, Johann W., Historia Ecclesiastica, 2 vols. (Hamburg, 1709–1717), vol.1, pt. 2, pp. 700–701.Google Scholar

54. For the acts of the colloquy, see Calov, Abraham, Historia syncretistica (Wittenberg, 1685), pp. 229–560.Google Scholar See also Hartknoch, pp. 934–957.

55. Hartknoch, pp. 947–948.

56. Calixt, Georg, Wiederlegung der unchristlichen und unbilligen Verleumbdungen (Helmstedt, 1651);Google ScholarSchüssler, Hermann, Georg Calixt (Wiesbaden, 1961), pp. 122–133.Google Scholar

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