Protestant Reformation The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and in ...

history, confessionalization is the parallel processes of "confession-building" taking place in Europe between the Peace of Augsburg (1555) and the

Thirty Years' War The Thirty Years' War was one of the longest and most destructive conflicts in European history The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (80 ...

(1618-1648). During this time prior to the Thirty Years' War, there was a nominal peace between the

Protestant Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...

and

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

confessions as both competed to establish their faith more firmly with the population of their respective area. This confession-building occurred through "social-disciplining," as there was a stricter enforcement by the churches of their particular rules for all aspects of life in both Protestant and Catholic areas. This had the consequence of creating distinctive confessional identities that influenced church dogma, faith formation, liturgy, and the development of universities. The German historian

Ernst Walter Zeeden Ernst Walter Zeeden (born 14 May 1916 in Berlin; died 5 September 2011) was a German medievalist and a scholar of modern history. Life Ernst Walter Zeeden was born in Berlin as the son of regional court director Konrad Zeeden (1879–1925) a ...

first described the phenomenon of 'confession building' (''Konfessionsbildung'') in the 1950s. In the 1970s,

Wolfgang Reinhard Wolfgang is a German male given name traditionally popular in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The name is a combination of the Old High German words ''wolf'', meaning "wolf", and ''gang'', meaning "path", "journey", "travel". Besides the regula ...

and

Heinz Schilling Heinz Schilling (born 23 May 1942) is a German historian. Life Heinz Schilling was born in Bergneustadt in Berg and grew up in Cologne. After studying history, German, philosophy and sociology at the University of Cologne and completing a sta ...

further developed these ideas in parallel, applying their ideas to church-state formation in Roman Catholic and Lutheran contexts in the Holy Roman Empire. Calvin's Geneva is also a model case for the confessional era because of its high degree of social control, unity and homogeneity under one expression of a reformed Christian faith. The Genevan model was informed by an interpretation of Erasmus' humanism. The reformation had shown the independent character of northern Europe to resist acceptance to Catholic orthodoxy and thus called for an end to the

Corpus Christianum Christendom historically refers to the Christian states, Christian-majority countries and the countries in which Christianity dominates, prevails,SeMerriam-Webster.com : dictionary, "Christendom"/ref> or is culturally or historically intertwine ...

. The new model sought to establish a decentralized Christian community, rooted in the belief that one's own interpretative

theology Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing the ...

was correct and sufficient. Confessionalization was supported by monarchs and rulers in general, because after the Reformation had brought control over their territories' churches into their hands, they could exercise more power over their subjects by enforcing strict religious obedience. The main tool for the enforcement of these rules were "police-regulations". These were behavior codes for religious, social and economic life to which the common citizen had to oblige under threat of severe punishment. Increasingly, the secular governments (sometimes in cooperation or conflict with the churches they controlled) provided material relief for the poor and needy, and in return the state demanded obedience and increased taxes from its subjects. Thus, confessionalization is often described as a development stage towards both the absolutist state of the 18th century and the modern welfare state.

Nancy Shields Kollmann Nancy Kollmann (born 1950) is an American historian and William H. Bonsall Professor in History at Stanford University. She is known for her works on the history of Russia. Books * ''The Russian Empire 1450-1801'' (2017) * ''Crime and Punishment ...

used the term "confessionalization" to refer to the religious arbitration and control used in the Russian Empire to manage the activity of non-Orthodox religions such as Catholicism, Lutheranism, Islam, Judaism, and Buddhism. Tsarist Russia, a multi-confessional empire with one state religion, banned the proselytization of other faiths to Orthodox Christians. However, the tsarist administration supported centralizing institutions within other religions (such as the Orenburg Assembly) insofar as they would aid in local administration and were allied with the state.

References

{{Authority control 16th-century Protestantism

Further reading

References