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[German Version] The so-called Colloquium Charitativum, which convened at the invitation of the Polish king Wladyslav IV (1632–1648) and was opened on Aug 28, 1645 by the Polish chancellor Georg of Teschen in the town hall of the Royal Prussian city of Thorn, was officially meant to promote the interconfessional dialogue between the (also) politically opposed confessional parties in the Kingdom of Poland; in actual fact, however, the conference was part of a Counter-Reformation policy of recatholi…

[German Version] 1. Johann, the Elder (Aug 18, 1587, Rostock – May 2, 1648, Doberan), son of a Rostock tawer and founder of a Mecklenburg scholarly dynasty whose influence lasted into the second half of the 18th century. After schooling in Rostock (Nathan Chytraeus; P. Tarnow) and Berlin, he began his studies in 1603 in Frankfurt an der Oder but returned to Rostock in 1604 (M.A. 1613). In 1615 he took over one of the municipal chairs of theology at the University of Rostock; in 1616 he was also app…

[German Version] (Guy de Brès/de Bray; 1522, Bergen/Mons – May 31, 1567, Valenciennes) was the definitive reformer of the southern Low Countries. Under unknown circumstances, the learned glass painter was won to the Reformation cause in the 1540s. In 1548 he fled into exile in London for religious reasons; he returned in 1552 to preach in Rijssel/Lille. He use…

[German Version] (1531/1532, Cassel near Hazebrouck, Flanders (now France) – Mar 17, 1588, Elbląg [Elbing], Poland) joined the Reformation as a young Carmelite monk (Ypres) and fled to England in 1550. In 1555, he became the leader of the Dutch exile community in Frankfurt am Main. After the eucharistic controversy between Calvin and J. Westphal, Dathenus and some 60 families took refuge in the monastery of ¶ Frankenthal. He moved to the Netherlands in 1566, but fled once again to the Electoral Palatinate (Kurpfalz) in 1567 …

[German Version] is the name that was once given to those persons who originated from or were active in the areas dominated by the Lutheran confession and who, according to the judgment of confessionally Lutheran theologians of the late 16th century, advocated doctrinal views or practical approaches that were intented to undermine the status of the Lutheran denomination by secretly bringing it closer to Reformed or Calvinist positions. In scholarly publications, …

[German Version] 1. Theodorus à (Dirk Gerrits; 1608, Enkhuizen– Feb 14, 1669, Makkum), the mystic Reformed theologian involved in the “Nadere Reformatie,” who was more interested in contemplation than in pressing for church reform and was active as a parish pastor in the north of the Netherlands. In his writings Brakel developed a path for the ascension of the soul to complete communion with Christ based on his own mystical experience. Bibliography A. Ritschl, Geschichte des Pietismus, I, 1880 (repr. 1966), 268–276 W. Goeters, Die Vorbereitung des Pietismus …

[German Version] (Jun 16, 1877, Leipzig – Jan 25, 1961, Jena). Heussi studied theology, history and philosophy in Leipzig, Berlin and Marburg and received the Dr.phil. (Leipzig) in 1903, the Lic.theol. (Heidelberg) in 1911, and the Dr.theol. h.c. (Gießen) in 1919. Between 1904 and 1924 Heussi worked as headmaster and then professor at the Gymnasium in Leipzig; after 1924, he taught in Jena as professor of church history. Published in many revised editions since 1907, his Kompendium der Kirchengeschichte [Compendium of church history] (181991) which was originally conceived for…

[German Version] I. Background The Peace of Westphalia is the name given the treaty documents that ended the Thirty Years War on Oct 24, 1648, hoping to establish a pax universalis among the Christian states of Europe. It comprised two separate treaties: one, the Instrumentum Pacis Osnabrugense (IPO), between the emperor, Sweden, and the German estates, framed in Osnabrück, the other, the Instrumentum Pacis Monasteriense, between the emperor as imperial head of state and France, concluded in Münster. Both were the result of negotiations over the European fra…

[German Version] (Kochhaf[e]; Feb 26, 1530, Ingelfingen, Hohenlohe – Jun 25, 1600, Rostock). The son of Matthäus Kochhaf, a pastor from the entourage of J. Brenz, Chyträus was enrolled at the University of Tübingen before the age of 10. Receiving his M.A. in 1544, he then moved to Wittenberg. He was decisively influenced by both Melanchthon and Luther, whose lectures on Genesis he attended. The not entirely unproblematic bonds to his two Wittenberg teachers remai…

[German Version] The General Synod of the Reformed Congregations of the Netherlands, meeting between Nov 1618 and May 1619 in Dort (Dordrecht) for the first time since 1586 (The Hague) ended theological and church-political disputes that had erupted in the 1580s. These disputes were centered on the doctrine of predestination, the binding force of the doctrinal confessions, and th…

[German Version] (Dec 22, 1610, Stettin – Aug 3, 1688, Königsberg) studied in Jena, Wittenberg, Rostock, and Copenhagen. From 1638, he taught in the faculty of philosophy at the University of Königsberg; in 1644, Dreier, who enjoyed the special favor of the Prince Elector of Brandenburg, Frederick William I, was called, despite the objection of professors of theology Johannes Behm and C. …

[German Version] (Dorsch, Dorsch[a]eus; Nov 13, 1597, Straßburg – Dec 25, 1659, Rostock) received the M.A. in 1617 after attending the Gymnasium illustre in his home city; he studied theology (1619–1621) in Rinteln and Tübingen. In 1622, Dorsche assumed a pastorate in Ensisheim near Straßburg. After receiving his doctorate from Straßburg, he assumed a dual office as cathedral pre…

[German Version] In its original usage by E. Troeltsch the term “confessional age” designated the 16th and 17th-century period of European history, distinct from the Middle Ages and the modern era, in which the “power of ecclesial culture,” in principle broken by Protestantism or the Reformation, continued to shape culture and society in the form of three “mutually exclusive and restrictive infallible churchdoms” ( HZ 1906, 29; 1911, 46); in the process of the “relative pulverization” ( ibid.) of the three confessions, the “modern world” arose. The concept of the …

[German Version] (Jacob Hermansz/Harmensen/ Hermanszoon; Oct 10, 1560, Oudewater aan de IJssel, Holland – Oct 19, 1609, Leiden). The significance of Arminius lies especially in his denial of the doctrine of supralapsarian predestination (Infralapsarianism) of nascent orthodox Calvinism, which had become systematized as a specific point of doctrine in confessio…

[German Version] (1576, Uplewert, East Frisia– Sep 11, 1637, Franeker). The son of a pastor, Bogerman was a vigorous exponent of Reformed orthodoxy in the Netherlands. After studying at major centers with important teachers of orthodox Reformed theology (Franeker [1591], Heidelberg [1596: D. Pareus, D. Toussain], Geneva [T. Beza…

[German Version] (Dec 19, 1594, Stockholm – Oct 16 [Old Style Oct 6], 1632, battlefield near Lützen), king of Sweden (1611; coronation 1617), was the son of the imperial administrator (1593) and the king of Sweden (Karl IX, 1587 and 611), Duke Karl of Södermannland and Princess Christine of Holstein-Gottorp. Sweden's rise over the course of a century to become one of Europe's leading Protestant powers is linked to the reign of the brilliant military leader and political strategist, Gustav II Adolf…

[German Version] (Oct 16, 1619, Dresden – Sep 15, 1664, Rostock). After studying philosophy and theology in Leipzig (M.A.,1639) and Wittenberg (1644; adjunct to the faculty of philosophy), König entered Swedish service in 1649 as the court chaplain of Count Magnus Gabriel de la Gardie. König was appointed assistant professor of theology in Greifswald in 1651. In 1656, he accepted a call from the duke of Mecklenburg, Adolf Friedrich, to be superintendent of Mecklenburg and Ratzeburg. In 1663, he al…

[German Version] I. Terminology – II. Political and Legal Aspects; Spread – III. Characteristics I. Terminology The term was originally used mostly in the plural to denote individual legal and political measures taken against the Protestants by Roman Catholic rulers on the basis of the ius reformandi . In the singular, as Gegenreformation (cf. Fr. contreréforme, Ital. controriforma) in L. v. Ranke's Deutsche Geschichte im Zeitalter der Reformation (1839–1847), it underwent a major historiographical transformation, becoming the designation of the perio…

[German Version] (Amesius, Guilelmus; 1576, Ipswich, Suffolk – 1633, Rotterdam), the most important single theological figure for the early connection of English Puritanism and the Dutch “Nadere Reformatie”. In Cambridge Ames became familiar, through W. Perkins, with deeply puritanical appropriation of the theology of Calvin. After a …

[German Version] I. Origins and Spread – II. Great Britain – III. North America I. Origins and Dissemination The public criticism of the Calvinist doctrine of predestination by J. Arminius was increasingly associated after his death (1609) with church-political and general political motives and opened up a dynamic which created a deep split in the Reformed churches of the Dutch General States for ar…