Leipzig article
After the victory of Emperor Charles V in the Schmalkaldic War over the Schmalkaldic Confederation , numerous recatholic measures were set in the Augsburg Interim . Although the Protestants were able to provisionally enforce the lay chalice and the marriage of priests , this was not approved by the Catholic representatives, so that this undertaking of the Augsburg interim failed.
As the former ally of Charles V, the new Elector Moritz of Saxony , was inclined to the Reformation , he entrusted Philipp Melanchthon and his electoral councilors with the task of working out a new church order. Moritz presented a combination of different formulas to the Leipzig state parliament for adoption. These so-called Leipzig articles mixed elements of Protestant theology and reform Catholic positions. In the newly worked out form, the maintenance of the Latin Mass, the Feast of Mary and the Feast of Corpus Christi were planned. However, on December 22, 1548, the estates only partially accepted the articles. The texts were not legally binding.
However, this “Leipzig Interim ”, as the articles were now polemically called, again met with resistance from the ranks of Protestants who wanted to preserve the original teaching of Martin Luther . This led to a deep split among Protestants into Gnesiolutherans and Philippists . A compromise then emerged in the Augsburg Religious Peace of 1555, but it was not until the agreement on the concord formula was reached in 1577 that the disputes were somewhat settled.
literature
- Felix Engel: The genesis of the Leipzig article of 1548/49 between political influence and Lutheran commitment to confession. In: New Archive for Saxon History 85 (2014), pp. 79–123.
- Günther Wartenberg : The Augsburger Interim and the Leipzig state parliament bill for the interim , in: Ders./ Irene Dingel (ed.): Politics and Confession. The reactions to the Interim of 1548 (= Leucorea studies on the history of the Reformation and Lutheran Orthodoxy, 8). Leipzig 2006, pp. 16–32, ISBN 978-3-374-02492-6 .