Confession
In the Reformation churches, a confessional document is a written summary of the bases of faith ( creed , catechism , church order, etc.) of a church community ( denomination , church or confederation ); the plural mostly refers to a collection or a canon of such and similar basic texts - often binding under canon law .
Creation impulse in the Reformation period
The central confession of the Lutheran Reformation movement in Germany, the Augsburg Confession of 1530, was created with the aim of achieving state recognition or tolerance for the supporters of the church reform movement in the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation . To do this, it was necessary to demonstrate compliance with the essential beliefs of the first centuries as well as compatibility with the goals of public order and state rule. It therefore contains statements of faith as well as approaches for a church order. On the problem of their textual integrity, see Confessio Augustana Variata .
Both the Augsburg Confession and the orders based on it were, for example, 1555 ( Augsburg Religious Peace ), 1580 ( Concord Book ) or 1648 ( Westphalian Peace ) the basis of legal protection for personal or communal religious practice.
While some texts (above all the ecumenical symbols , i.e. the early church confessions) still have a religious service significance, most of them are exclusively canonically significant substantive basis of the denominations.
Formation of denominational collections
After it was foreseeable that the church reform movement of the 16th century would not grow together into a single unit, the confessional text collections, which are still fundamental today, were created:
- the Lutheran confessional writings (initially fixed in the Concord Book of 1580, later added),
- those of the Anglican Church ( Book of Common Prayer 1549/52 with the so-called thirty-nine articles )
- the rather loosely connected Reformed confessional documents (First Geneva Catechism 1536 and Church Ordinance 1541/61, Confessio Gallicana (Confession de Foy) 1559, Confessio Scotica 1560, Dutch Confession / Confessio belgica 1561, Heidelberg Catechism and Church Ordinance 1562 for the Electoral Palatinate, Helvetic Confession 1536 and 1566, Westminster Confession 1647, which in the meantime have gained in importance many times beyond their then scope).
- Within the nonconformist radical Reformation , Anabaptist confessional writings emerged such as the Schleitheim Articles (1527) and the Dordrecht Confession (1632) and the Unitarian Rakau Catechism (1605).
- there were such writings in the cath. Church and they were still called Symbolic Books in the 19th century . ( [1] )
Web links
- ekd.de: various Protestant creeds
- Augsburg Confession, Heidelberg Catechism, Barmer Theological Declaration and Leuenberg Agreement
literature
- Wolfgang Beinert : Confession Papers. I. Catholic Church . In: Walter Kasper (Ed.): Lexicon for Theology and Church . 3. Edition. tape 2 . Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau 1994, Sp. 179-180 .
- Peter Hauptmann : Confession Papers. II. Orthodox Church . In: Walter Kasper (Ed.): Lexicon for Theology and Church . 3. Edition. tape 2 . Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau 1994, Sp. 180 .
- Harding Meyer : Confession Papers. III. Church of the Reformation . In: Walter Kasper (Ed.): Lexicon for Theology and Church . 3. Edition. tape 2 . Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau 1994, Sp. 180-183 .
- Horst Georg Pöhlmann (ed.): Our faith. The confessional writings of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. 7th edition. Gütersloh publishing house, Gütersloh 2004.
- Edmund Schlink : Theology of the Lutheran Confessions. 3. Edition. Kaiser, Munich 1948.
- Gunther Wenz : Theology of the confessional writings of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. A historical and systematic introduction to the Concord Book. 2 volumes. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1996/1998.